Today’s planned post is being pre-empted because of what happened yesterday.
Yesterday, you may recall, I wrote about some folks who are offering ghosthunting classes in England. Toward the end of the post, in what I hoped was the spirit of goodwill, I mentioned what it would take to convince me (concrete evidence, with witnesses present), and actually recommended that people sign up for the workshops.
Well. You’d have thought I had written a post advocating kicking puppies, or something.
I have gotten, at last count, twelve emails, most of which suggest in no uncertain terms that I’m a moron. I have had only three people post publicly – two were, I have to say, measured and thoughtful responses, but the third was written by someone whose opinion was that I wasn’t really a skeptic, had no credentials, and generally should just shut the hell up.
I paraphrase, but that’s the spirit of the thing.
Several of the emails asked (or demanded) what my own credentials were – why on earth I thought I had the right to write what I did – and after momentarily bristling, I thought, Okay, fair enough. That’s a legitimate question.
My credentials: I hold a bachelor’s degree in physics, a second major in biology (focus on population genetics and evolutionary biology), and a master’s degree in linguistics. I’ve been a high school teacher for 25 years, and I teach various levels of biological science, from introductory to advanced, and also teach an introduction to logic course called Critical Thinking. I’m not a researcher, and have never published in a peer-reviewed journal, but I’m well and widely read and consider myself a fairly smart guy. I’m happy to say that the majority of the people who know me concur.
That said, I’m well aware that I don’t know everything. In fact, to quote Socrates, “The more I know, the more I realize how little I know.” Faced with greater knowledge than my own, I happily defer to those who know better (and print a retraction, if I’ve said something that was incorrect).
However… and it’s a big however…
I’m not going to accept something simply because you believe it. I teach an intro to neurology course, and I know enough to realize how flawed the human perceptive systems are. We are, unfortunately, easily fooled, and even with the best intentions we see things that aren’t there, don’t see things that are there, and (sometimes) see what we wanted or expected to see. My skepticism is borne in part from a knowledge of how sketchy our own sensory apparatus is. So, I’m sorry if it seems closed-minded, but I’m not just going to turn your story of lights in the sky into alien spacecraft, or your tale of seeing moving shadows in an empty house at night into ghosts. I want more than that.
Hard evidence is the gold standard, of course; but even in the absence of hard evidence, a good, solid logical argument is at least sterling silver. And, for crying out loud, learn the science before you start trying to sound scientific. Don’t talk about energies and fields and forces, and expect me not to think you’re applying those words in the way a physicist would. If something is an energy or field or force, it should be measurable. If you want me to believe it, show me.
So, the bottom line; I’m convincible. I’m not going to stand here and say that your favorite example of paranormality – be it Bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, telepathy, or whatever – doesn’t exist. But I do believe that if you think those things are true, the burden of the proof is on you. It comes back to the ECREE principle – Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence. It may not be a hard and fast scientific law, but as a general rule of thumb, it works pretty damn well.
So, I may be all of the things I’m being accused of – of being an “armchair skeptic” (whatever that is – other than The Amazing Randi, I don’t think there’s any other kind), of being a broad-brush non-specialist, of lacking publications and research credentials and whatnot, of being a bit of an arrogant ass at times. Okay, guilty as charged. But your pointing out any or all of those things doesn’t mean that your claims are true. For that, it might be time for you to get up out of your own armchair and show me evidence that meets some kind of minimum scientific standard. Until you can do that, I stand unmoved.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Ghost hunting season
So now, a couple of guys in England are offering workshops in how to hunt ghosts.
I'm not making this up. Here's the advertisement:
1) Ghosts & Gadgets: equipment for the ghosthunter, including how to use devices for measuring temperature, electromagnetic fields, and "psychophysiology."
2) Paracoustics: using acoustical equipment to gather data on ghosts.
3) Paravision: using cameras (including UV and infrared) to take pictures and video footage of ghosts.
And, my favorite:
4) Ghostology: what is a ghost, and why should we investigate them?
I wonder how on earth you run a training session in how to do something, when you never get any results. Of course, I'm discounting the possibility of Parsons and O'Keeffe being outright charlatans -- i.e., I am assuming that they don't fake evidence themselves to hoodwink their students. Let's start from the charitable assumption that they're sincere and honest, and whatever evidence they garner from their gadgets and cameras and all is fairly obtained.
How, then, to explain to the students that they just spent twelve hours in a house at night running a digital recorder, and picked up... nothing?
I mean, consider if someone was a deer hunter, and was running a workshop on how to hunt deer. Wouldn't their students begin to get a little suspicious if the people who ran the workshop went out week after week, and never once saw, much less shot, any deer?
Of course, by that time Parsons and O'Keeffe would have your £30 each, so it's likely they'd just say, "That's the breaks, dude. Sometimes you see a ghost, sometimes you don't." But you have to wonder how they could continue to pitch the workshops, which they sound awfully excited about.
Obviously, I'm starting from the perspective here that there isn't anything there to study, as I've never seen any evidence of ghosts that's convinced me personally. All of the photographs, videos, and anecdotes I've come across have struck me as either (1) fakes, or (2) the recollections of someone who was misinterpreting what happened. As I've mentioned before, the human brain and perceptual apparatus is simply too easily fooled for me to believe what someone thinks they saw or heard. And all of the claims of ghostly presences registering on mechanical devices -- you can actually buy ghosthunting apps for your iPhone -- are too easily explained by said devices picking up interference from entirely natural, earthly sources.
What would convince me? Hard to say. Being a skeptic, I strive to keep an open mind. A direct personal experience would probably go a long way in that direction, although I know that my own brain is just as easily tricked as the next guy's. A personal experience, while accompanied by other unbiased observers, and a simultaneous measurement of something -- an EM signal, auditory signal, disturbance in The Force, whatever -- would do it, I think. But that seems pretty unlikely, given that people have been hunting ghosts for ages, and no one's come up with much.
In any case, if you will be in England this fall, I encourage you to sign up. Anyone who reads Skeptophilia would be an excellent choice for participating in this class. You can consider yourself appointed to the position of Official Skeptophilia Field Reporter. After all, Parsons and O'Keeffe need a few skeptics in their flock, just to keep them honest. So if you're there and have the £30 to shell out, give it a shot -- and make sure and report back here to tell us what happened.
I'm not making this up. Here's the advertisement:
SO YOU WANT TO BE A GHOSTHUNTER?The two "parapsychology experts" in charge of this training opportunity are Steve Parsons and Ciaran O'Keeffe of the School of Parapsychology, and their contact information (should you wish to rush right over and take part in this) can be found on their Facebook page, here. Amongst the unique workshops offered are:
Unique study days for all those who have an interest in Ghost Hunting; whether seasoned veteran, beginner or sceptic. Run by two of the country's leading ghosthunter and parapsychology experts. Study days take place throughout the year at some of the most exciting haunted UK (and European) locations.
LIMITED PERIOD ONLY - BOOK 2 PLACES ON ANY SINGLE STUDY DAY AND GET A 3rd PLACE FOR FREE!
1) Ghosts & Gadgets: equipment for the ghosthunter, including how to use devices for measuring temperature, electromagnetic fields, and "psychophysiology."
2) Paracoustics: using acoustical equipment to gather data on ghosts.
3) Paravision: using cameras (including UV and infrared) to take pictures and video footage of ghosts.
And, my favorite:
4) Ghostology: what is a ghost, and why should we investigate them?
I wonder how on earth you run a training session in how to do something, when you never get any results. Of course, I'm discounting the possibility of Parsons and O'Keeffe being outright charlatans -- i.e., I am assuming that they don't fake evidence themselves to hoodwink their students. Let's start from the charitable assumption that they're sincere and honest, and whatever evidence they garner from their gadgets and cameras and all is fairly obtained.
How, then, to explain to the students that they just spent twelve hours in a house at night running a digital recorder, and picked up... nothing?
I mean, consider if someone was a deer hunter, and was running a workshop on how to hunt deer. Wouldn't their students begin to get a little suspicious if the people who ran the workshop went out week after week, and never once saw, much less shot, any deer?
Of course, by that time Parsons and O'Keeffe would have your £30 each, so it's likely they'd just say, "That's the breaks, dude. Sometimes you see a ghost, sometimes you don't." But you have to wonder how they could continue to pitch the workshops, which they sound awfully excited about.
Obviously, I'm starting from the perspective here that there isn't anything there to study, as I've never seen any evidence of ghosts that's convinced me personally. All of the photographs, videos, and anecdotes I've come across have struck me as either (1) fakes, or (2) the recollections of someone who was misinterpreting what happened. As I've mentioned before, the human brain and perceptual apparatus is simply too easily fooled for me to believe what someone thinks they saw or heard. And all of the claims of ghostly presences registering on mechanical devices -- you can actually buy ghosthunting apps for your iPhone -- are too easily explained by said devices picking up interference from entirely natural, earthly sources.
What would convince me? Hard to say. Being a skeptic, I strive to keep an open mind. A direct personal experience would probably go a long way in that direction, although I know that my own brain is just as easily tricked as the next guy's. A personal experience, while accompanied by other unbiased observers, and a simultaneous measurement of something -- an EM signal, auditory signal, disturbance in The Force, whatever -- would do it, I think. But that seems pretty unlikely, given that people have been hunting ghosts for ages, and no one's come up with much.
In any case, if you will be in England this fall, I encourage you to sign up. Anyone who reads Skeptophilia would be an excellent choice for participating in this class. You can consider yourself appointed to the position of Official Skeptophilia Field Reporter. After all, Parsons and O'Keeffe need a few skeptics in their flock, just to keep them honest. So if you're there and have the £30 to shell out, give it a shot -- and make sure and report back here to tell us what happened.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Elegy
Ten years ago at this time, I was getting ready for school. Another ordinary day of teaching high school biology class. Get notes together, prepare for a lab I was running that day. My personal life had recently changed for the better -- after two years as a divorced single dad, I had a girlfriend, Carol, whom my kids loved, and I was spending every moment I could with her. On that day ten years ago, however, I was thinking about the fact that I wouldn't be seeing her for a week, because she was at the airport, getting ready to board a plane for a business trip for her job at Cornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology.
It was during my second period class that I went back into my office to get something I'd forgotten, to see the other biology teacher, Susan, staring at her computer. I'd often heard people say that someone was "white with shock," but I'd never actually seen it until that day. I thought Susan was going to faint, or throw up.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"A plane just hit the World Trade Center," she said, in a thin voice.
I immediately pictured a small plane, something carrying six people or so.
"That's terrible," I said. "Some amateur pilot lost control, or something?"
Susan turned toward me, wide-eyed. "No," she said, and her usual eloquence failed her. "A plane. A jet. A great big jet, full of people."
And then it happened again. And again. And again. The other Tower was hit. Reports came in from the Pentagon, from the field in Pennsylvania. Four planes had been, apparently deliberately, turned into weapons. For a time, no one knew which planes they were, nor where they had started from.
And my girlfriend was flying that day.
It is the one and only time that I completely came unraveled in front of a class. The principal came in, ran the rest of my second period class for me. I had third period off (fortunately), and sat in my office, looking at the news as it unfolded online, and sobbing.
It was almost 11 o'clock when Carol called school to say she was safe. Her plane, due to take off right around the time the first Tower was hit, had sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour, and finally turned around and everyone deplaned back into the airport -- and that was when she saw, on the televisions in the airport, what had happened.
The rest of the day went by in a surreal blur. Crying students, crying teachers. Finding out that one of our elementary school teachers had a brother who worked in the World Trade Center. (It wasn't until several days passed that she learned that her brother had, indeed, died in the attack.) My girlfriend coming over that night, and spending the evening just holding each other, feeling sick and dazed and still not really believing.
Ten years have passed, and that day still stands, along with the Challenger explosion, as one of those "where were you when...?" moments that I will never forget so long as I live. Much has been made of 9/11 as a turning point -- how Americans will never see themselves the same way, that it was a moment of national unity, that it destroyed our complacency and our perception of being safe, that it brought the best out of the heroes who helped to save lives during the catastrophe (a sizable number of whom lost their lives themselves).
I agree with all of those things, but I wonder about what we've actually learned in those ten years. Partisan rancor still is the order of the day. We continue, as a nation, to meddle in foreign affairs, drawing away billions of dollars that could be spent on our domestic needs of health care and education for our citizens. We've become warier, but in a general, broad-brush fashion -- who among us hasn't boarded a plane, and seen a dark-skinned man traveling with a woman wearing a head scarf, and thought, "Could they be terrorists?" We hear the warnings announced when we travel, and many of us laugh -- because there's a sense that if we get hit again, it will be once more in a way we never could have anticipated, for all of the TSA pornographic body scans and orange alerts and chemical swipes to detect explosives. Deep down, we all know that we aren't safe, we never were safe, and you take a chance every time you step out of your front door.
Our lives changed forever ten years ago, but in some ways, we haven't changed much. We still fly, we still go to the tops of skyscrapers, we still go about our lives without thinking about it much, except when anniversaries like this come along. And tomorrow, once the anniversary is over, we'll once again lull our anxieties to sleep.
It's how humans are. We can't live in perpetual fear; we're not built that way. You think about it, you look at the photographs, you relive what you went through. Then life picks up again, and we move on, doing what we do, repeating the same mistakes we've always made, being humans -- including the best and worst of what that word means. And perhaps this is the best possible outcome, really, that when tragedy strikes; it doesn't, it can't really change the core of humanity. Our resilience is perhaps our most remarkable trait.
So mark this day in whatever way seems appropriate -- a moment of silence, a church service, a gathering with friends, or (like me) a written elegy for that awful day of devastation ten years ago. And then, tomorrow, we move forward, not because we've forgotten, but because even though catastrophes like this one leave their mark on us, they cannot destroy the fundamental center of who we are.
It was during my second period class that I went back into my office to get something I'd forgotten, to see the other biology teacher, Susan, staring at her computer. I'd often heard people say that someone was "white with shock," but I'd never actually seen it until that day. I thought Susan was going to faint, or throw up.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"A plane just hit the World Trade Center," she said, in a thin voice.
I immediately pictured a small plane, something carrying six people or so.
"That's terrible," I said. "Some amateur pilot lost control, or something?"
Susan turned toward me, wide-eyed. "No," she said, and her usual eloquence failed her. "A plane. A jet. A great big jet, full of people."
And then it happened again. And again. And again. The other Tower was hit. Reports came in from the Pentagon, from the field in Pennsylvania. Four planes had been, apparently deliberately, turned into weapons. For a time, no one knew which planes they were, nor where they had started from.
And my girlfriend was flying that day.
It is the one and only time that I completely came unraveled in front of a class. The principal came in, ran the rest of my second period class for me. I had third period off (fortunately), and sat in my office, looking at the news as it unfolded online, and sobbing.
It was almost 11 o'clock when Carol called school to say she was safe. Her plane, due to take off right around the time the first Tower was hit, had sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour, and finally turned around and everyone deplaned back into the airport -- and that was when she saw, on the televisions in the airport, what had happened.
The rest of the day went by in a surreal blur. Crying students, crying teachers. Finding out that one of our elementary school teachers had a brother who worked in the World Trade Center. (It wasn't until several days passed that she learned that her brother had, indeed, died in the attack.) My girlfriend coming over that night, and spending the evening just holding each other, feeling sick and dazed and still not really believing.
Ten years have passed, and that day still stands, along with the Challenger explosion, as one of those "where were you when...?" moments that I will never forget so long as I live. Much has been made of 9/11 as a turning point -- how Americans will never see themselves the same way, that it was a moment of national unity, that it destroyed our complacency and our perception of being safe, that it brought the best out of the heroes who helped to save lives during the catastrophe (a sizable number of whom lost their lives themselves).
I agree with all of those things, but I wonder about what we've actually learned in those ten years. Partisan rancor still is the order of the day. We continue, as a nation, to meddle in foreign affairs, drawing away billions of dollars that could be spent on our domestic needs of health care and education for our citizens. We've become warier, but in a general, broad-brush fashion -- who among us hasn't boarded a plane, and seen a dark-skinned man traveling with a woman wearing a head scarf, and thought, "Could they be terrorists?" We hear the warnings announced when we travel, and many of us laugh -- because there's a sense that if we get hit again, it will be once more in a way we never could have anticipated, for all of the TSA pornographic body scans and orange alerts and chemical swipes to detect explosives. Deep down, we all know that we aren't safe, we never were safe, and you take a chance every time you step out of your front door.
Our lives changed forever ten years ago, but in some ways, we haven't changed much. We still fly, we still go to the tops of skyscrapers, we still go about our lives without thinking about it much, except when anniversaries like this come along. And tomorrow, once the anniversary is over, we'll once again lull our anxieties to sleep.
It's how humans are. We can't live in perpetual fear; we're not built that way. You think about it, you look at the photographs, you relive what you went through. Then life picks up again, and we move on, doing what we do, repeating the same mistakes we've always made, being humans -- including the best and worst of what that word means. And perhaps this is the best possible outcome, really, that when tragedy strikes; it doesn't, it can't really change the core of humanity. Our resilience is perhaps our most remarkable trait.
So mark this day in whatever way seems appropriate -- a moment of silence, a church service, a gathering with friends, or (like me) a written elegy for that awful day of devastation ten years ago. And then, tomorrow, we move forward, not because we've forgotten, but because even though catastrophes like this one leave their mark on us, they cannot destroy the fundamental center of who we are.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Funny you should say that.
Do coincidences mean anything?
This was the subject of one of my favorite movies -- "I 'Heart' Huckabee's." If there is a coincidence -- maybe even what seems to be a wildly improbable, weird, eye-opening one -- does it have any meaning, in the Cosmic Sense? Or is it, to quote one of my favorite songs -- Laurie Anderson's "The Monkey's Paw" -- "a twist of fate, a shot in the dark, a roll of the die, the big wheel, the big ride?"
One of my students has been paying more attention to the little coincidences lately, and his claim is that they happen way more than is attributable to chance. The whole thing came up yesterday because in my AP Biology class we were talking about the low caloric content of celery -- giving rise to the claim that you use more calories chewing celery than you get from eating it. He then told me that only two periods earlier, the same topic came up in a different class... and then went on to tell me, excitedly, how "that sort of thing is always happening to me!"
Of course, if he thought that I was going to be willing to attribute coincidences to some sort of Larger Purpose At Work, he was barking up the wrong tree. My opinion is such things are simply the dart-thrower's bias -- we tend to notice the hits (in this case, the times when the same topic comes up twice) and ignore misses (all of the millions of things that don't get mentioned twice). As a result, we tend to overestimate wildly how common such coincidences are.
That's not to say that there aren't some peculiar ones; I have had the experience myself of thinking about a song, turning on the radio, and the song is playing. Take that minor mystery, and turn up the gain, and you get people whose dreams have come true, who have had premonitions of disaster and not taken the plane (or train or boat or whatever), and whose lives have been saved. Is this true ESP, or the hand of god, or something more prosaic?
I'd opt for the latter, and I suspect that you knew I'd say that. In my opinion, for there really to be something "going on" here, there'd have to be some cause for it, some discernible mechanism at work. I'm willing to entertain the idea -- momentarily, anyway -- that some supreme being who honestly cares about us might wish to intervene on our part, and save us from calamity via a vision, premonition, or dream. But that opens up the troubling question about why said deity didn't bother to let the 235 other people who died in the plane crash know, so that they, too, could escape death. That a deity exists who selectively warns some folks about impending doom while allowing others to perish is a pretty scary idea, and such a deity would have to be capricious to the point of evil.
How about the more benign explanation, that some of us are simply more "in touch" with the sixth sense than others, and therefore all those folks who died simply weren't wired to be aware of the coming catastrophe? Again, there's that pesky lack of a mechanism. Not one experiment designed to detect ESP of various sorts has succeeded, which is (to say the least) a bit troublesome to those who believe in such things. Some of those true believers respond that lab conditions, run (presumably) by skeptical scientists, are not conducive to the psychic energy field, and it's the lack of belief by the researchers that is interfering with the outcome. I respond; that's mighty convenient. Sounds like special pleading to me.
So, we're left with the conclusion that coincidences happen just because -- they happen. Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World (which should be required reading in every public school science program in America), deals with such things -- he states that given that we dream every night, and daydream every day, and listen to radios and read newspapers and such pretty much constantly, coincidences are bound to happen, just by the statistics of large numbers. It doesn't make them feel any less weird when they do occur; but sooner or later, you're going to dream something, and a few days or weeks later, it will more or less "come true." There are only so many things we dream about, and only so many kinds of things that happen in our lives, and given a large enough time axis, eventually those two will coincide.
I hope -- honestly, I do -- that I haven't just taken the magic out of your perception of the world's weirdness. My own view is that I'd much rather know the truth than to believe a pretty falsehood; and really, the idea of a god who selectively dabbles in the affairs of humans isn't even that pretty, when you think about it. So if I've made the world seem a little more prosaic and dull, I sincerely apologize. And if I get into my car in a half-hour or so, and turn on the radio, and hear Laurie Anderson's "The Monkey's Paw," it will serve me right.
This was the subject of one of my favorite movies -- "I 'Heart' Huckabee's." If there is a coincidence -- maybe even what seems to be a wildly improbable, weird, eye-opening one -- does it have any meaning, in the Cosmic Sense? Or is it, to quote one of my favorite songs -- Laurie Anderson's "The Monkey's Paw" -- "a twist of fate, a shot in the dark, a roll of the die, the big wheel, the big ride?"
One of my students has been paying more attention to the little coincidences lately, and his claim is that they happen way more than is attributable to chance. The whole thing came up yesterday because in my AP Biology class we were talking about the low caloric content of celery -- giving rise to the claim that you use more calories chewing celery than you get from eating it. He then told me that only two periods earlier, the same topic came up in a different class... and then went on to tell me, excitedly, how "that sort of thing is always happening to me!"
Of course, if he thought that I was going to be willing to attribute coincidences to some sort of Larger Purpose At Work, he was barking up the wrong tree. My opinion is such things are simply the dart-thrower's bias -- we tend to notice the hits (in this case, the times when the same topic comes up twice) and ignore misses (all of the millions of things that don't get mentioned twice). As a result, we tend to overestimate wildly how common such coincidences are.
That's not to say that there aren't some peculiar ones; I have had the experience myself of thinking about a song, turning on the radio, and the song is playing. Take that minor mystery, and turn up the gain, and you get people whose dreams have come true, who have had premonitions of disaster and not taken the plane (or train or boat or whatever), and whose lives have been saved. Is this true ESP, or the hand of god, or something more prosaic?
I'd opt for the latter, and I suspect that you knew I'd say that. In my opinion, for there really to be something "going on" here, there'd have to be some cause for it, some discernible mechanism at work. I'm willing to entertain the idea -- momentarily, anyway -- that some supreme being who honestly cares about us might wish to intervene on our part, and save us from calamity via a vision, premonition, or dream. But that opens up the troubling question about why said deity didn't bother to let the 235 other people who died in the plane crash know, so that they, too, could escape death. That a deity exists who selectively warns some folks about impending doom while allowing others to perish is a pretty scary idea, and such a deity would have to be capricious to the point of evil.
How about the more benign explanation, that some of us are simply more "in touch" with the sixth sense than others, and therefore all those folks who died simply weren't wired to be aware of the coming catastrophe? Again, there's that pesky lack of a mechanism. Not one experiment designed to detect ESP of various sorts has succeeded, which is (to say the least) a bit troublesome to those who believe in such things. Some of those true believers respond that lab conditions, run (presumably) by skeptical scientists, are not conducive to the psychic energy field, and it's the lack of belief by the researchers that is interfering with the outcome. I respond; that's mighty convenient. Sounds like special pleading to me.
So, we're left with the conclusion that coincidences happen just because -- they happen. Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World (which should be required reading in every public school science program in America), deals with such things -- he states that given that we dream every night, and daydream every day, and listen to radios and read newspapers and such pretty much constantly, coincidences are bound to happen, just by the statistics of large numbers. It doesn't make them feel any less weird when they do occur; but sooner or later, you're going to dream something, and a few days or weeks later, it will more or less "come true." There are only so many things we dream about, and only so many kinds of things that happen in our lives, and given a large enough time axis, eventually those two will coincide.
I hope -- honestly, I do -- that I haven't just taken the magic out of your perception of the world's weirdness. My own view is that I'd much rather know the truth than to believe a pretty falsehood; and really, the idea of a god who selectively dabbles in the affairs of humans isn't even that pretty, when you think about it. So if I've made the world seem a little more prosaic and dull, I sincerely apologize. And if I get into my car in a half-hour or so, and turn on the radio, and hear Laurie Anderson's "The Monkey's Paw," it will serve me right.
Friday, September 9, 2011
We have met the aliens, and they are us
In all of the time I've thought about, read about, talked about, and written about the possibility of aliens having come to Earth, I have always looked at it from the prosaic standpoint of a technologically superior race visiting us, usually in some sort of spacecraft. Controversy about this possibility usually revolves around the feasibility of anyone (however advanced) crossing the distances required, and that sticky little point called "hard evidence."
Little did I know that I might be asking the wrong question. Maybe the aliens are already here. Maybe they're...
... us.
This is the contention of those who believe in the bizarre idea of exogenesis. Humans, they say -- and some of them believe that all living things -- are actually descended from alien life that colonized the Earth ages ago. Exogenesis is kind of an elaboration of astronomer Fred Hoyle's idea of panspermia - that the earliest life, single-celled bacteria-like organisms, were brought to Earth in cosmic dust. Exogenesis takes it one step further. The colonization was done deliberately, by a superintelligent alien race, and we are the descendants of those alien-created life-forms.
*cue music from Star Trek: The Next Generation*
Yes, those of you who, like myself, are TNG geeks will recall that one of the best episodes ever ("The Chase") revolved around the idea of a highly advanced race seeding a multitude of planets with gene sequences that would then somehow guide the course of evolution to create species that resembled the original parent race. It was a neat, if questionably scientific, way to explain why humans, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and the rest all were basically bipedal, bilaterally symmetric primates, without having to admit that it was because having all the aliens shaped like humans made makeup and costumes way cheaper.
The problem, of course, is that Star Trek is fiction, while the people who believe in exogenesis are dead serious. Check out this website. Once you get past the fact that the layout looks like someone ate a Marvel comic book and then threw up on the screen, you will find that the author, one Andre Heath, claims that "scientific studies have proven that 97% of the human genome is extraterrestrial in origin."
Heath quotes a "prominent geneticist," Sam Chang, as saying that "... junk human DNA was created by an extraterrestrial 'programmer.'"
Chang goes on to say a great many other things, which I will leave you to read on your own, because when I got to the part about our DNA containing a "big code" and a "basic code" and that the "big code" was done in a "rush to create human life on Earth," and that this rush meant the job got done in a half-assed way and that's why we get cancer, my brain cells were crying for mercy.
As you would expect, while I was reading this stuff, I kept gesturing toward the photographs of Sam Chang and Andre Heath and screaming, "Where is your evidence?" This accomplished nothing except for waking up my border collie and inducing her to slink around, looking extremely guilty. Because of course, they don't have any evidence - we're simply supposed to believe them because Chang is "a prominent geneticist."
Well, I'm not buying it. Our DNA is made of the same stuff, read the same way, as the DNA of every other life form on Earth, and the changes we see in it - including the so-called "junk DNA" - show a smooth continuum of evolutionary change, just as you would expect if we, and all the other species around us, evolved from common ancestry. There is no evidence that we were any kind of "special creation," rush job or not.
So, as appealing as it would be to have a universe in which something like "The Chase" could happen, I'm afraid that it'll have to remain in the realm of fiction. And I'm calling bullshit on Chang and Heath.
And Andre, as one blogger to another, you really need to do something about your blog layout. That would include getting rid of that drawing of what appears to be a radioactive President Obama. Thanks.
Little did I know that I might be asking the wrong question. Maybe the aliens are already here. Maybe they're...
... us.
This is the contention of those who believe in the bizarre idea of exogenesis. Humans, they say -- and some of them believe that all living things -- are actually descended from alien life that colonized the Earth ages ago. Exogenesis is kind of an elaboration of astronomer Fred Hoyle's idea of panspermia - that the earliest life, single-celled bacteria-like organisms, were brought to Earth in cosmic dust. Exogenesis takes it one step further. The colonization was done deliberately, by a superintelligent alien race, and we are the descendants of those alien-created life-forms.
*cue music from Star Trek: The Next Generation*
Yes, those of you who, like myself, are TNG geeks will recall that one of the best episodes ever ("The Chase") revolved around the idea of a highly advanced race seeding a multitude of planets with gene sequences that would then somehow guide the course of evolution to create species that resembled the original parent race. It was a neat, if questionably scientific, way to explain why humans, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and the rest all were basically bipedal, bilaterally symmetric primates, without having to admit that it was because having all the aliens shaped like humans made makeup and costumes way cheaper.
The problem, of course, is that Star Trek is fiction, while the people who believe in exogenesis are dead serious. Check out this website. Once you get past the fact that the layout looks like someone ate a Marvel comic book and then threw up on the screen, you will find that the author, one Andre Heath, claims that "scientific studies have proven that 97% of the human genome is extraterrestrial in origin."
Heath quotes a "prominent geneticist," Sam Chang, as saying that "... junk human DNA was created by an extraterrestrial 'programmer.'"
Chang goes on to say a great many other things, which I will leave you to read on your own, because when I got to the part about our DNA containing a "big code" and a "basic code" and that the "big code" was done in a "rush to create human life on Earth," and that this rush meant the job got done in a half-assed way and that's why we get cancer, my brain cells were crying for mercy.
As you would expect, while I was reading this stuff, I kept gesturing toward the photographs of Sam Chang and Andre Heath and screaming, "Where is your evidence?" This accomplished nothing except for waking up my border collie and inducing her to slink around, looking extremely guilty. Because of course, they don't have any evidence - we're simply supposed to believe them because Chang is "a prominent geneticist."
Well, I'm not buying it. Our DNA is made of the same stuff, read the same way, as the DNA of every other life form on Earth, and the changes we see in it - including the so-called "junk DNA" - show a smooth continuum of evolutionary change, just as you would expect if we, and all the other species around us, evolved from common ancestry. There is no evidence that we were any kind of "special creation," rush job or not.
So, as appealing as it would be to have a universe in which something like "The Chase" could happen, I'm afraid that it'll have to remain in the realm of fiction. And I'm calling bullshit on Chang and Heath.
And Andre, as one blogger to another, you really need to do something about your blog layout. That would include getting rid of that drawing of what appears to be a radioactive President Obama. Thanks.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The news in brief
Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're alternately working hard finding breaking news stories about the activity of the world's wingnuts and bringing them to your doorstep, and looking nervously out of the window, because it's still raining. Yesterday alone we got over five inches of rain. All of this precipitation is thanks to the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. Lee seems to have looked down at the Finger Lakes, and thought, "Wow. This would be a nice place to retire." If it doesn't stop soon, I'm going to begin to think that the people in Kentucky who are building a scale model of Noah's Ark may have been right after all. And I hope you appreciate what it took out of me to write that sentence.
Be that as it may, we do have a few interesting bits of news to share with you, so we'll take a break from barricading our offices with sandbags to tell you about them.
First, we have a story from Wales, where an Anglican vicar has declared Wales to be "the most haunted place in the world." Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe, who is not only a clergyman but is a black belt in judo and rides a motorcycle, moved to Wales some years ago and began to investigate its alleged hauntings. He found lots, according to a recent interview in WalesOnline (here).
“I would say Wales has a disproportionate amount of incidents,” Rev. Fanthorpe said. “Welsh friends and Welsh mediums seem to have this highly-developed spiritual sense, a high intelligence and sensitivity – it’s a perceptiveness and degree of awareness that you don’t find in other parts of the UK. It may well be something inherent, something in the genes of Welsh people that carries this extra power and extra awareness with so many spiritual phenomena.”
He stopped just short of saying that there were genes in Irish people that allowed them to see leprechauns and genes in French people that made them obnoxious to tourists.
In any case, Rev. Fanthorpe has visited a variety of sites, including Roch Castle (supposedly haunted by King Charles II's mistress), Pembroke (where a Nessie-like creature has been seen offshore), and Skirrid Mountain (haunted by notorious Nazi Rudolf Hess).
Rev. Fanthorpe is not just doing all of this traveling about for his own entertainment; he's doing it for yours. Yes, he will be featured in a television show, the latest in the fine old tradition of Ghost Hunters, in which they make a lot of stir, strike dramatic poses, and then find nothing, week after week. This one, however, will be unique in that the principal investigator will be a man of the cloth. They did not mention the title for the proposed show, but I suggest "Holy Spirits."
Next, we have a report from Russia that one of their scientists has built a working time machine.
Pravda reports that Vadim Alexandrovitch Chernobrov, of the research institution Kosmopoisk, released a statement last week that he had successfully built a time machine using a "capsule surrounded by intense magnetic fields." The magnetic fields, Chernobrov said, "warped time," and two synchronized chronometers, one inside the capsule and one at some distance from the experimental site, went out of sync during the duration of the experiment.
Chernobrov stated that animals put inside the capsule "experienced serious to deadly effects," but this didn't stop him from conducting experiments on humans, who had no detrimental results other than "seeing colored circles, and experiencing some moderate arrhythmia."
Chernobrov is still exploring his results, and their potential applications. Physicists in other countries, however, are skeptical, and are currently trying to replicate the phenomenon, thus far unsuccessfully.
Chernobrov stated that he is willing to act in an advisory capacity to his colleagues in other labs. "If you can somehow harness the lightning," he said, "and channel it into the flux capacitor, it might just work!"
Next, we have an announcement that will be of great interest to Skeptophiliacs in Oklahoma: McGee Creek State Park, in Atoka, will be the host of the Great Oklahoma Cryptid Fest this Saturday. It will start at 1 PM and go until either they find Bigfoot or all get discouraged and go home, whichever happens first.
Featured guests will be Nick Redfern, of UFO conspiracy theory fame, and a host of "professionals" from the cast of the ThisIsNotHistory Channel's MonsterQuest. A good time is certain to be had by all, and please take note that I am in no way suggesting that it might be a great idea for someone to hide somewhere in McGee Creek State Park on Saturday, wearing a gorilla suit. This would in fact be a really bad idea and if anyone does it, then shame on them and they certainly didn't hear me coming up with such a plan.
Lastly, we have the disappointing news that Comet Elenin appears to be breaking up as it approaches the sun.
Elenin, you may recall, is the comet that was discovered late last year, and then became the subject of a whole host of hysterical predictions - most of them centered around the destruction of humanity. Websites arose like weeds, connecting Elenin to the Planet Nibiru, Mayan prophecies, and the Book of Revelation. Woo-woos began to weep, wail, and gnash their teeth over the imminent cataclysm, which most agreed would occur at the moment of Elenin's closest approach to Earth, on October 21, 2011.
"But wait," the scientists said, "Elenin's tiny! And it will be 22 million miles away at closest approach! It won't have any effect on us at all!" But their voices were drowned out by howls of derision, because of course no one would listen to a bunch of dimwitted scientists when you have nonexistent Mayan prophecies to guide your understanding of the universe.
Unfortunately for the woo-woos, however, NASA announced last week that Elenin's "coma" (the glowing mantle of gas around the comet itself) appears to be dimming and elongating, an observation that frequently precedes a comet's disintegration.
That noise you just heard was the collective sighing of a bunch of disappointed woo-woos, who now are finding that they will actually have to plan on going to their day jobs on October 22.
So, that's the news for today from Worldwide Wacko Watch. I'll now return to my previous occupation, which is watching the rain. I just received a call from our school superintendent to announce that the rain is bad enough that they're delaying the opening of school for two hours, and may actually cancel school if it gets any worse -- a "rain closure," something that has never happened in my twenty-five year career as a teacher. Myself, I suspect that she's just wanting to make sure she has enough time to complete her Ark.
Be that as it may, we do have a few interesting bits of news to share with you, so we'll take a break from barricading our offices with sandbags to tell you about them.
First, we have a story from Wales, where an Anglican vicar has declared Wales to be "the most haunted place in the world." Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe, who is not only a clergyman but is a black belt in judo and rides a motorcycle, moved to Wales some years ago and began to investigate its alleged hauntings. He found lots, according to a recent interview in WalesOnline (here).
“I would say Wales has a disproportionate amount of incidents,” Rev. Fanthorpe said. “Welsh friends and Welsh mediums seem to have this highly-developed spiritual sense, a high intelligence and sensitivity – it’s a perceptiveness and degree of awareness that you don’t find in other parts of the UK. It may well be something inherent, something in the genes of Welsh people that carries this extra power and extra awareness with so many spiritual phenomena.”
He stopped just short of saying that there were genes in Irish people that allowed them to see leprechauns and genes in French people that made them obnoxious to tourists.
In any case, Rev. Fanthorpe has visited a variety of sites, including Roch Castle (supposedly haunted by King Charles II's mistress), Pembroke (where a Nessie-like creature has been seen offshore), and Skirrid Mountain (haunted by notorious Nazi Rudolf Hess).
Rev. Fanthorpe is not just doing all of this traveling about for his own entertainment; he's doing it for yours. Yes, he will be featured in a television show, the latest in the fine old tradition of Ghost Hunters, in which they make a lot of stir, strike dramatic poses, and then find nothing, week after week. This one, however, will be unique in that the principal investigator will be a man of the cloth. They did not mention the title for the proposed show, but I suggest "Holy Spirits."
Next, we have a report from Russia that one of their scientists has built a working time machine.
Pravda reports that Vadim Alexandrovitch Chernobrov, of the research institution Kosmopoisk, released a statement last week that he had successfully built a time machine using a "capsule surrounded by intense magnetic fields." The magnetic fields, Chernobrov said, "warped time," and two synchronized chronometers, one inside the capsule and one at some distance from the experimental site, went out of sync during the duration of the experiment.
Chernobrov stated that animals put inside the capsule "experienced serious to deadly effects," but this didn't stop him from conducting experiments on humans, who had no detrimental results other than "seeing colored circles, and experiencing some moderate arrhythmia."
Chernobrov is still exploring his results, and their potential applications. Physicists in other countries, however, are skeptical, and are currently trying to replicate the phenomenon, thus far unsuccessfully.
Chernobrov stated that he is willing to act in an advisory capacity to his colleagues in other labs. "If you can somehow harness the lightning," he said, "and channel it into the flux capacitor, it might just work!"
Next, we have an announcement that will be of great interest to Skeptophiliacs in Oklahoma: McGee Creek State Park, in Atoka, will be the host of the Great Oklahoma Cryptid Fest this Saturday. It will start at 1 PM and go until either they find Bigfoot or all get discouraged and go home, whichever happens first.
Featured guests will be Nick Redfern, of UFO conspiracy theory fame, and a host of "professionals" from the cast of the ThisIsNotHistory Channel's MonsterQuest. A good time is certain to be had by all, and please take note that I am in no way suggesting that it might be a great idea for someone to hide somewhere in McGee Creek State Park on Saturday, wearing a gorilla suit. This would in fact be a really bad idea and if anyone does it, then shame on them and they certainly didn't hear me coming up with such a plan.
Lastly, we have the disappointing news that Comet Elenin appears to be breaking up as it approaches the sun.
Elenin, you may recall, is the comet that was discovered late last year, and then became the subject of a whole host of hysterical predictions - most of them centered around the destruction of humanity. Websites arose like weeds, connecting Elenin to the Planet Nibiru, Mayan prophecies, and the Book of Revelation. Woo-woos began to weep, wail, and gnash their teeth over the imminent cataclysm, which most agreed would occur at the moment of Elenin's closest approach to Earth, on October 21, 2011.
"But wait," the scientists said, "Elenin's tiny! And it will be 22 million miles away at closest approach! It won't have any effect on us at all!" But their voices were drowned out by howls of derision, because of course no one would listen to a bunch of dimwitted scientists when you have nonexistent Mayan prophecies to guide your understanding of the universe.
Unfortunately for the woo-woos, however, NASA announced last week that Elenin's "coma" (the glowing mantle of gas around the comet itself) appears to be dimming and elongating, an observation that frequently precedes a comet's disintegration.
That noise you just heard was the collective sighing of a bunch of disappointed woo-woos, who now are finding that they will actually have to plan on going to their day jobs on October 22.
So, that's the news for today from Worldwide Wacko Watch. I'll now return to my previous occupation, which is watching the rain. I just received a call from our school superintendent to announce that the rain is bad enough that they're delaying the opening of school for two hours, and may actually cancel school if it gets any worse -- a "rain closure," something that has never happened in my twenty-five year career as a teacher. Myself, I suspect that she's just wanting to make sure she has enough time to complete her Ark.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Nostradamus and the missing urn
I have written daily on this blog for years now, and have steadfastly resisted mentioning the name "Nostradamus," noted 16th century wingnut and erstwhile prophet, who achieved fame for writing literally thousands of quatrains of bizarre predictions.
One of my reasons for so doing was that it was one of several things that seemed to attract the attention of Dennis Markuze, the Montreal resident better known as "Mabus." Mabus gained notoriety by harassing prominent skeptics and atheists, and was known to target people like P. Z. Myers, Rebecca Watson, Jennifer Ouellette, and Tim Farley, bombarding them with hundreds of emails a day, the content of which ranged from obnoxious to downright threatening.
Markuze is rabid not only in his anti-skeptic stance, he is also deeply into the whole Nostradamus thing, and peppered his screeds with quotes from the "prophecies." But Markuze was arrested recently after an online petition demanding action garnered more than ten thousand signatures, and the Montreal police had no choice but to act.
So, anyway, I've had this skeptical blog for four years, and thus far had avoided getting "Mabused." I figured that mentioning Nostradamus was probably pushing my luck in that regard, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and found other things to write about. But now that Markuze is out of commission...
Just this morning, I ran into an article which claimed that Hurricane Irene and the recent earthquake that hit Virginia and surrounding states were predicted by Nostradamus. Curious, I took a look at the passage. Here is the prophecy:
This is the problem with all of the "prophecies" that Nostradamus wrote - they're vague, and weird, and make obscure historical and mythical allusions. In that respect, they're a little like an extended version of the Sabian Symbols about which I wrote a couple of weeks ago, and like them, you can read into them anything you want. Here's one I picked at random (Century X, Quatrain 71):
What I find amazing is that there are literally thousands of websites, books, and films out there that claim to give the correct interpretation of Nostradamus' wacky poetry. Some of them take a religious bent, and try to tie them into scripture, especially the Book of Revelation; some try to link them to historical events, an especially popular one being World War II; others, even further off the deep end, try to use them to predict future catastrophes. These last at least put the writers on safer ground, because you can't accuse someone being wrong if they're using arcane poetry to make guesses about things that haven't happened yet.
In any case, I'm doubtful that Nostradamus knew anything about Hurricane Irene or the eastern earthquake, any more than he predicted World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the assassination of JFK, or any of the hundreds of other things he's alleged to have forecast. All we have here is once again, people taking vague language and jamming it into the mold of their own preconceived notions of what it means. About Nostradamus himself, I'm reminded of the words of the Roman writer Cicero, who said, "I don't know how two augurs can look each other in the face while passing in the street without laughing out loud."
One of my reasons for so doing was that it was one of several things that seemed to attract the attention of Dennis Markuze, the Montreal resident better known as "Mabus." Mabus gained notoriety by harassing prominent skeptics and atheists, and was known to target people like P. Z. Myers, Rebecca Watson, Jennifer Ouellette, and Tim Farley, bombarding them with hundreds of emails a day, the content of which ranged from obnoxious to downright threatening.
Markuze is rabid not only in his anti-skeptic stance, he is also deeply into the whole Nostradamus thing, and peppered his screeds with quotes from the "prophecies." But Markuze was arrested recently after an online petition demanding action garnered more than ten thousand signatures, and the Montreal police had no choice but to act.
So, anyway, I've had this skeptical blog for four years, and thus far had avoided getting "Mabused." I figured that mentioning Nostradamus was probably pushing my luck in that regard, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and found other things to write about. But now that Markuze is out of commission...
Just this morning, I ran into an article which claimed that Hurricane Irene and the recent earthquake that hit Virginia and surrounding states were predicted by Nostradamus. Curious, I took a look at the passage. Here is the prophecy:
Century 8, Quatrain 29:
At the fourth pillar which they dedicate to SaturnWell. My first thought was, "What?" But the serious, and very earnest, author of the article (which you can read in its entirety here) went on to explain how this was clearly referring to the recent hurricane and earthquake:
Split by earthquake and by flood;
Under Saturn’s building an urn is found
Gold carried off by Caepio and then restored.
The first line describes a fourth pillar dedicated to Saturn. In astrology Saturn ruled over matters of law, government and civilization. The monument’s cornerstone was laid with a ceremony sponsored by the Freemasons on the 4th of July. The Washington Monument could be this pillar dedicated to Saturn (law and governance).
The second line is “split by earthquake and by flood”. The Washington Monument was split, cracked by the August 23rd earthquake. It had to be closed indefinitely until repairs could be made. This line also mentions a flood. A few days later hurricane Irene arrived, flooding the area with rainwater.
The next two lines are an enigma. They have yet to happen but seem to follow the events of the first two lines. “Under Saturn’s building an urn is found.” This is not the pillar of the first line, but I suggest a government (Saturn’s) building. What is this urn, and what is its significance?
The last line speaks of Caepio, a general and statesman during the Roman Empire. Historically, Caepio was said to have plundered a fortune in gold and silver from ancient temples, so I assume this line refers to him. The stolen silver was sent to the Roman Empire, but the gold vanished (supposedly stolen by Caepio). Caepio had a disastrous military campaign and suffered greatly for his folly, being punished by the Empire. What does this mean in the modern day? As a metaphor it could represent many things, from monetary policy to the fate of politicians.So, they take the part that kind of fits, and twist it until it fits better; and decide that the part that doesn't fit simply "hasn't happened yet." Mighty convenient, don't you think? Me, I'm thinking that if they were really all that convinced that he was right, they'd be hard at work looking for the missing urn, which sounds like it could contain a significant amount of gold.
This is the problem with all of the "prophecies" that Nostradamus wrote - they're vague, and weird, and make obscure historical and mythical allusions. In that respect, they're a little like an extended version of the Sabian Symbols about which I wrote a couple of weeks ago, and like them, you can read into them anything you want. Here's one I picked at random (Century X, Quatrain 71):
The earth and air will freeze a very great sea,What does that mean? Beats the hell out of me. I'm guessing that you could apply it to a variety of situations, as long as you were willing to interpret it loosely and let the images stand for whatever you want them to. Me, I think it has something to do with 2012. Oh, and that global warming is a lie, because the sea is going to freeze. I'm sure that the Planet Nibiru and global conspiracies are somehow involved, too.
When they will come to venerate Thursday:
That which will be, never was it so fair,
From the four parts they will come to honor it.
What I find amazing is that there are literally thousands of websites, books, and films out there that claim to give the correct interpretation of Nostradamus' wacky poetry. Some of them take a religious bent, and try to tie them into scripture, especially the Book of Revelation; some try to link them to historical events, an especially popular one being World War II; others, even further off the deep end, try to use them to predict future catastrophes. These last at least put the writers on safer ground, because you can't accuse someone being wrong if they're using arcane poetry to make guesses about things that haven't happened yet.
In any case, I'm doubtful that Nostradamus knew anything about Hurricane Irene or the eastern earthquake, any more than he predicted World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the assassination of JFK, or any of the hundreds of other things he's alleged to have forecast. All we have here is once again, people taking vague language and jamming it into the mold of their own preconceived notions of what it means. About Nostradamus himself, I'm reminded of the words of the Roman writer Cicero, who said, "I don't know how two augurs can look each other in the face while passing in the street without laughing out loud."
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