Dear Ann: shut up.

So now Ann Coulter has taken time out from her busy schedule of claiming that everyone who doesn't agree with her has the IQ of library paste, and is weighing in on the idea of biological evolution.

For those of you who would prefer not to kill off massive quantities of brain cells by reading her absurd rant (here), allow me to present the main points in her column, none of which I am making up:

1)  The most detailed defense of evolution in a quarter-century in popular media occurred when a nine-year-old boy stood up at a Rick Perry rally and said "I believe in evolution."

2)  There are no transitional fossils.

3)  Evolutionists believe that bears turned into whales and squirrels turned into bats.

4)  There are no transitional fossils.

5)  During the Cambrian Explosion, the eye materialized, fully formed, presumably in some previously blind animal, who must have been surprised as hell when it happened.

6)  There are no transitional fossils.

7)  Dr. David Raup, geologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, believes that evolution is incorrect because the evolutionary tree of horses had to be significantly revised.

8)  Oh, and also: there are no transitional fossils.

Okay, let me address these one at a time.

There have been plenty of cogent arguments for evolution presented in the media in the last 25 years.  Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas, Eugenie Scott, P. Z. Myers, Barbara Forrest, Kenneth Miller -- the list goes on and on.  If Coulter could only find "a nine-year-old boy" as evolution's best exponent, she must not have been looking very hard.

No one, including evolutionists, thinks that bears turned into whales, nor squirrels into bats.  First, all four of those are modern animal groups; this would be like saying you are the great-grandparent of someone your own age.  Second, bears (Order Carnivora) and whales (Order Cetacea) are quite distantly related, as are squirrels (Order Rodentia) and bats (Order Chiroptera).  She basically picked pairs of relatively unrelated mammals, made the (false) statement that evolutionists claimed one was "turning into" the other, and used that to discredit the entire model.  I wonder if she's ever heard of the "Straw Man" fallacy?

The evolution of the eye, far from being a sudden appearance, shows a nice progression between a simple, light-sensing eyespot, to a cup-shaped parabolic light catcher, to a partly-enclosed sphere like a pinhole camera, to a fully-closed eye like our own.  The anti-evolutionists really need to find a new example of something the evolutionists haven't explained, because this one's getting old.

David Raup is a thoroughgoing evolutionist, and has written a number of papers on the subject of vertebrate paleontology and the role of extinctions in evolution.  His comment about the revision of the horse clade was taken out of context, another thing that Coulter seems to excel at.

Oh, and also: there are transitional fossils.  Tens of thousands of them.

The ignorance demonstrated in this article is only exceeded by the general nastiness Coulter exhibits.  I always come away from reading her columns feeling like I need to take a shower.  To wit, the last paragraph:

Intelligent design scientists look at the evidence and develop their theories; Darwinists start with a theory and then rearrange the evidence. These aren't scientists. They are religious fanatics for whom evolution must be true so that they can explain to themselves why they are here, without God.

I find it astonishing that there is any news outlet that is willing to print her obnoxious, fact-free screeds, much less why anyone would want to read them.  Of course, if she was turned down for publication, it wouldn't be because she'd written vitriolic garbage; it would be because the liberal media was trying to squelch her views.

So, a brief, personal note: Ann, do shut up.  You're out of your element, and frankly, you're embarrassing yourself.  Go back to subjects you're more comfortable with, such as how all liberals hate America, and leave the factual stuff to people who actually understand it.

The psychology of drink-holding

I've spent a lot of time on this blog pointing fingers at the media for their inept, sensationalized portrayal of science, and at the general public for their appallingly low understanding of how science works.  In the interest of honesty, however, I have to admit that sometimes the fault lies with the scientists themselves.

Take the recently-released study by Dr. Glenn Wilson, of King's College, London, which ties your personality to how you hold your drink in a bar.

Wilson, who apparently has done some reasonably good research in the psychology of personality, has now written a paper classifying people into eight basic personality types, based on observing them holding drinks (and then following it up with a short debriefing to determine their personality).  After observing people in a London pub, he came up with the following basic personality types: The Flirt, The Gossip, The Ice Queen, The Browbeater, Jack-the-Lad, The Funlover, The Wallflower, and The Playboy.  (For information on how each of them holds a drink, see a more complete description of the types here.)

My response: even the freakin' astrologers divide all of humanity up into twelve types (thirteen, if you count the new zodiac sign of Ophiucus).  You're saying there's only eight basic types of human?

Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that some psychological researcher or another has dramatically oversimplified human personality.  But there are two further problems with this "study;" it was written after observing only 500 people, without any sort of thought given to controls, even simple things like age, cultural background, and socioeconomic status.  And...

... Wilson was sponsored to do it by Walkabout Bars.

Yup.  We now have corporate sponsorship for writing science.  Next thing you know, Walt Disney is going to be demanding that we include a mention of "magic" in elementary science textbooks.

And despite all this, Wilson's "study" made the "science section" of a variety of news outlets, because it was Done By A Scientist.  Never mind that the whole "study" is methodologically flawed, and honestly, just kind of ridiculous.  And, because it was in the science section, people will probably believe it.  Folks will now be looking around them at bars, and thinking, "Wow, that woman is drinking wine with the glass held in front of her.  She is an Ice Queen, and will be Ready With A Castrating Put-Down.  I'd better not talk to her."  Which is still one step worse than astrology, because in order to find out what someone's sign is, at least you actually have to speak to them.

Of course, despite all this, I had to look at the "archetypes" and figure out what I am.  So I looked through the descriptions.  There was some mention in the media of people who do odd stuff -- one article I looked at specifically mentioned Hilary Clinton, who is right-handed but sometimes picks up her glass with her left hand, and this means she's "insincere."  And I thought: I do that all the time.  I mostly use my right hand, but I always put my drink on the left.  I just thought it was because I liked to be able to hold my beer and a slice of pizza at the same time, but no, apparently it means I can't be trusted.

As far as pub-drinking style, I clearly fall into the "Jack-the-Lad" category.  I often lean way back, but keep my hand on my beer bottle, unless I'm on a bar stool with no back, because then I'd fall over backwards, which would clearly classify me as "Jack-the-Dork."  Let's see the description of "Jack-the-Lad:"

The Jack the Lad: This "peacock" is conscious of his image and will drink a bottled beer, or cider. Inclined to be confident and arrogant, he can be territorial in his gestures, spreading himself over as much space as possible, for example, pushing the glass well away from himself and leaning back in his chair. If he's drinking with his mates, he would be unlikely to welcome approaches from outside the group, unless sycophantic and ego-enhancing.

Oh, yeah, that's me, all right.  If you're going to come up to a peacock like myself, you damn well better be sycophantic and ego-enhancing.  Hell yeah.  So you can just take your Wallflower self and go over there and talk to the Playboy over there.  Maybe he'll be more receptive to having you in his Territory.

UFO Phil, performance art, and insanity

Most people my age remember Andy Kaufman, the comedian and performance artist whose most famous role was the deadpan, heavily-accented foreigner Latka Gravas on the sitcom Taxi.  Kaufman was famous for publicity stunts that left people uncertain as to whether he was (1) the most brilliant comedian ever, (2) doing outrageous things just to prove that he could, or (3) insane.  An example is when, during a performance at Carnegie Hall,  he invited the entire audience out for milk and cookies - and called out for twenty buses, which duly arrived, bringing as many people as wished to a local bakery.  Afterwards, he said he was done for the evening, but would continue the performance the next morning on the Staten Island Ferry -- which he did.  On another occasion, he told an audience that he wasn't going to do any standup that night, he was going to read to them from The Great Gatsby.  After twenty minutes of reading, when people started to leave, he asked the audience if they'd prefer to hear a record -- when someone shouted "yes," he put on a record.  Which was a recording of him reading The Great Gatsby.

His blurring of the line between performance and reality was so complete that some of his fans believe he faked his own death (of a rare form of cancer, in 1984 at the age of 35), even claiming that he lost weight in order to make his illness look real.  And while I don't actually think this is true, it's not that far out of the realm of possibility, considering some of the other stuff he did.

In writing this blog, I often have to try to discern whether people are "for real" -- if they really, honestly, think that they have evidence for whatever damnfool thing they're claiming, or whether they're just trying to get attention... or if they're just insane.  Because, honestly, I'm only interested in the first one.  I don't want to play into something that's just a premeditated publicity stunt, nor put myself in the position of ridiculing someone who actually needs psychiatric help.  But just as in Kaufman's case, it's hard to tell, sometimes.

Enter "UFO Phil."

UFO Phil has spent the last fifteen years organizing events designed to create awareness about the aliens who, he claims, are visiting us all the time.  He is planning a "Live Concert for Extraterrestrials" on July 21, 2012, the day that the aliens will arrive "as predicted by the Mayans."  These will be the "good aliens" -- they're blue, he says, and bad aliens are red.  And far from heralding the end of the world, the blue aliens will bring "the secrets of advanced medicine, new technology, and a new calendar."

Thank heaven for the latter.  Because I hate it when your old calendar runs out and you don't have a replacement.

UFO Phil's latest stunt is that he wants to build a pyramid on Alcatraz Island as a refueling station for aliens.  Pyramids, he says, generate beams of energy, especially ones built using the "secret blueprints and schematics" he has, which were given to him by incredibly advanced beings from another galaxy.  He says that the pyramid has to be 755 feet across at the base, which will cause him to run into problems right from the get-go because Alcatraz Island is only 600 feet across.  No problem, says Phil; he's going to support the base of the pyramid with underwater pylons until he can "make the island bigger."

And given that you never know when you're gonna run out of gas, he wants to build another, smaller pyramid near the "Hollywood" sign in the hills above Los Angeles.

Government land management agencies who maintain the land around the sign say they know nothing about any such plans.  And the National Park Service, which oversees Alcatraz, didn't even bother to comment when contacted by reporters.

So, which is it?  Is UFO Phil a publicity hound, a nut who needs some psychiatric evaluation, or a true believer?  See what I mean about it being hard to tell?  It's especially hard with the latter two -- at what point does a belief in something bizarre cross the line into an actual psychological condition?

The cynical part of me tends to think that Phil is just a guy who likes to be in the spotlight, and has found a way to get notoriety by proposing ridiculous stuff.  But there's something about him that seems awfully... earnest.  Take a look at his website (here) -- although you might want to wear noise-cancelling headphones, because his homepage now has an automatically launched song of his called "Gravity," which might well rival Rebecca Black's "Friday" as being the most annoying song ever recorded.  Check out his various pages and links, and let me know what you think.  Is he a brilliant performance artist, or a nut?  Or like Andy Kaufman, someone for whom the lines are so blurred that it's impossible to tell?

Putting Christ back in... Halloween?

In a recent post, I described how Pat Robertson and other evangelicals are stepping up the pressure on Christians to discourage them and their children from participating in Halloween, an event that they see as celebrating Satan.  Some of the devout even believe that demonic curses can be transmitted via Halloween candy.  This has made the candy manufacturers sit back, in the fashion of Jabba the Hutt, and say, "Your fundamentalist mind-tricks will not work on us.  Bo shuda."  And then they take a shot of insulin.

Most of the rest of us just seem to find the whole thing unintentionally hilarious.

All this hoopla has resulted in the evangelicals fighting back, and their response, which I am not making up, is called "JesusWeen."  At first I thought, especially given the, um, awkward-sounding name, that this was some sort of parody site meant to ridicule the fear-mongering, but it seems to be entirely serious.  Meant to encourage Christians to do something more than hiding inside and locking the doors on Halloween, JesusWeen suggests some bold and pro-active steps, to wit:

• handing out bibles, scripture verses, or Christian teaching CDs instead of candy;
• putting up signs in your town, encouraging people to give up participating in Halloween;
• having prayer circles with neighborhood children instead of joining in trick-or-treating;
• and going door-to-door on Halloween night, evangelizing and trying to get the demonic-candy purveyors to see the error of their ways.

All of which seems like a good way to have people lock their doors when they see you coming.

However medieval their beliefs seem to be, no one can accuse these folks of being in the Dark Ages with respect to electronic networking.  They have a JesusWeen chat, are on Twitter (@JesusWeen), have several videos on YouTube, and have a Facebook page (here).  They seem quite optimistic -- their Facebook message says, "Jesus Ween (Oct 31st) is expected to become the most effective Christian outreach day ever and that's why we also call it 'World Evangelism JesusWeen Venue: In Every Country, Every City, Every Street, Every Home.'"

I dunno.  That seems kind of like wishful thinking to me.  I'm doubting that Christian teaching CDs are ever going to be the draw for kids that candy is.  My guess is that no one who wasn't already a believer is going to have some kind of epiphany because of JesusWeen, and once you get a reputation for inviting trick-or-treating kids into your house for a prayer circle, you probably won't be getting many visitors on Halloween night, except maybe the police.

So, that's the news from the evangelical movement.  Like I said in my previous post, you gotta admire these people for their consistency -- once they decide something, they follow through.  I almost hope that we have some show up at our door on Halloween night, just for the amusement value.  Maybe I'll hand out Richard Dawkins books.

The troubles of Psychic Sally

In what is certain to draw the attention of both skeptics and paranormal enthusiasts worldwide, "Psychic Sally" Morgan has announced that she is suing the journalist who released that story that she had cheated in a Dublin "reading" by having an earpiece through which she was being fed information by accomplices.

This, to me, seems like thin ice for Morgan.  A libel suit, as far as I understand it, can only succeed if it can be established that a false claim was made in print, which was intended to make the victim look bad.  For example, if someone wrote, "Gordon Bonnet is a complete moron about mechanical devices.  It is surprising he knows which end of the key to stick into the ignition of his car," I would be unlikely to win a libel suit, because I am in fact a moron with respect to machines.  I'm the one who called in our Technical Support guy at school to fix my document projector, because the lights mysteriously wouldn't turn on, and the mystery was cleared up when the Technical Support guy pointed out that this is typical when the switch that says "Lights" is set to the "Off" position.

Be that as it may, it would seem to me that in order for Psychic Sally to win, she would have to establish that she is actually capable of doing a "psychic reading" without assistance, and that could make for some interesting court proceedings.  Since the word that was bandied about in this case was "fraud," it looks like she might be called upon to prove that she's not one.  I wonder how that would work?

Attorney for the journalists:  "Ms. Morgan, can you answer the question that I'm thinking right now?"

Psychic Sally's attorney:  "Objection, your honor."

Judge:  "On what grounds?"

Psychic Sally's attorney:  "The hostile atmosphere in this courtroom is interfering with the psychic energy fields, and preventing my client from achieving interconnectedness in the spirit world.  I request that all further questions be asked aloud."

Judge:  "Sustained."

In any case, it should be interesting to watch.  I think, however, that the one who has the most to lose by this move is Psychic Sally herself; it's not like most people who go to psychic readings are all that concerned about hard evidence anyhow, because if they were they wouldn't be there in the first place.  If she'd just ignored the accusations of fraud, I bet that after a short downswing, Psychic Sally would be right back in business, drawing in the crowds, and the whole thing would have blown over.

Now, though, she's drawing more attention to the claims, and you have to wonder if it might not backfire on her.  She might want to recall the tragic example of Oscar Wilde, who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for defamation after Queensberry claimed that Wilde was gay.  The resulting trial unearthed conclusive evidence that Wilde was, in fact, gay, and this resulted in Wilde himself being arrested for "gross indecency." 

So Morgan might want to tread lightly, here.  In her position, I think that I'd probably lay low, given the public ridicule that could follow an unsuccessful libel suit.  But that's just me.  Maybe "Psychic Sally" already knows that she'll win, or something, or is planning on using telepathy to influence the judge.  In any case, it should be interesting, and I plan on keeping you updated on further developments as they occur.

The attack of the sky jellyfish

After recent posts about the state of education in the United States, the role of religion in politics, and the validity of non-Western approaches to medicine, it's high time we turn our eyes to more serious and pressing topics, namely:  giant invisible sky monsters terrorizing Japan.

Enter Brent Swancer, writer for the site Cryptomundo.  Cryptomundo is not only one of the world's leading sources for breaking news regarding creatures that probably don't exist, it is also one of the only places where you can buy a Sasqwatch, which is a wristwatch with a band shaped like a huge, hairy foot, and has a Bigfoot on the dial whose arms move to tell you the time.  I must point out at this juncture that my birthday is coming up soon, and I don't currently own a Sasqwatch.  So if you're looking for ideas, you might want to take that into consideration.

Be that as it may, Swancer has written an exposé regarding recent events in Japan, and it makes quite a story.  His article (which you can read in its entirety here) describes the upswing in weird events following the Japanese tsunami.  These include "strange flying anomalies" of various shapes.  Swancer looks first at the idea that these might be alien spacecraft, but then dismisses that notion; just because you see something odd in the sky, he says, you shouldn't jump to the conclusion that they're aliens.  No, you should jump to an entirely different conclusion: that they're giant flying monsters.

Wait, you may be saying; why, if there are giant flying monsters up there in the air, don't we see them more often?  Well, first, they fly so high that they usually can't be seen from the ground.  Second, they can "adjust their density from almost immaterial and invisible to more solid, depending on as yet unknown factors."  As proof, he then shows a series of photographs, some of which are oddly-shaped clouds, and the rest of which even I, with my limited technical expertise, could create from a photograph of the sky given five minutes of playing around with the "Distort" function on PhotoShop.  Here is an example:

He says this is, quote, "Some sort of sky jellyfish."

Swancer then speculates that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami caused a "release of highly-charged particles" that may have disrupted the navigation systems used by the giant atmospheric creatures, causing them to become confused and making them fly at lower altitudes, or possibly making them forget to turn on their cloaking devices.

You might be asking yourself, how do we know these creatures exist?  Well, Swancer says, we don't.  This is "all speculation," he states, but goes on to say that there are lots of other things that biologists have discovered that are so strange that we wouldn't have believed them without evidence, so if this is so strange that we don't believe it, it must be true, as well.  As further proof, he concludes with a final image:

Which, after a small amount of research, I was able to identify as a "Dogora Cloud Beast" from a Pokémon card (see the original card design here).

So, in any case, I think we can conclude from this that we are reasonably safe, for the time being, from having our hometowns attacked by giant flying squid.  Watch out for the enormous sky jellyfish, however.  I hear those things pack a nasty sting.

Getting the point

In a move that may well cost me my Skeptic's Card, I've made an appointment to see an acupuncturist.

No, wait, let me 'splain!

For about two years, I have shown many of the symptoms of early rheumatoid arthritis.  I have joint pain (particularly my neck, knees, hips, and occasionally fingers and shoulders), and prior to a bad episode I get a tingly, sensitive feeling in the skin over the joint that's about to get hit.  Often during those pre-pain periods, I'm unusually tired.  Plus, I have a family history of it - my mother and a great aunt both had rheumatoid arthritis, and I recall my mom describing exactly those symptoms, and at about the same age as I am now.

Despite this, my doctor doesn't believe that I'm developing RA, because a blood test came up negative for the antibodies.  (Never mind that I found out that many RA cases are negative for the antibodies in the first five years.)  Despite my symptoms and my family history, she wouldn't give me a referral to the only rheumatologist in the area, and my last two checkups have come with questions about how my joints are doing, followed with a patronizing, "Yeah, it sucks getting old, doesn't it?" when I tell her they hurt like hell sometimes.

Anyhow, given that my doctor has been less than sympathetic, I'm fishing around for other options.  Up till now, mainly what I did is limp around, act irritable, and swear a lot, which caused more than one of my students to compare me with Dr. House.  But I figured that this isn't a long-term solution, so I've begun to think of alternate approaches.

I've had five different people recommend acupuncture to me.  Now, allow me to point out that we're not talking about credulous woo-woos here -- they include three teachers (two of them science teachers) and a friend of mine who is one of the smartest people I know.  All of them prefaced their recommendations with, "I know this sounds crazy, but..." and went on to describe their own experiences with acupuncture, which were overwhelmingly positive.

I know, I know.  I don't believe in qi, energy meridians, chakras, or all the rest.  No, I have no idea how it could possibly work.  In researching the topic, both for this post and for more personal reasons, I found that most of the peer-reviewed studies on acupuncture have generated results that are described as "equivocal" -- which at least is better than nonsense like homeopathy, which has never generated anything but negative results, every time it's been researched.  I was actively looking for confirmation bias in the papers I read -- and it seemed like the researchers did everything right.  Even "equivocal" results for something as weird as acupuncture is pretty amazing.

So, anyhow, I decided to try it.  There's a well-recommended acupuncturist in Ithaca, and I thought, "what do I have to lose?"  Other than some money, that is, and possibly the respect of my readers.  But then, I thought, "Hey, I'm a skeptic, and that means an open mind.  Let's approach this in an experimental fashion.  Go in with no expectations one way or the other, and see what happens.  I could even report the results in Skeptophilia.  It could be interesting."

After all, what's the worst that could happen?  Besides the fact that my skin will be full of holes, that is.  I doubt that it could make my arthritis any worse, and there's a chance I may have a less-equivocal positive result -- and wouldn't that be nice?  I would sure like not to hobble around any more, and to do something about my neck, which often sounds like Rice Krispies when I turn my head.  I'd have to reconsider my Halloween costume -- I was simply going to stop shaving for a few days, mess my hair up, wear my lab coat with a pill bottle in the front pocket, and hang a stethoscope around my neck.  Then I was going to be obnoxiously sarcastic to everyone.  It won't be quite as awesome if I don't have the game leg, but I might still be able to make it work.