I find it baffling how many of the extremely religious can believe (on the one hand) that god is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni-most-everything-else, and (on the other) that mild criticism will be enough to cause god's kingdom to topple like a house of cards.
Our most recent example of this bizarre self-contradiction comes from Saudi Arabia, where a young writer is facing probable execution for criticizing Muhammad.
Last week was the anniversary of Muhammad's birth, and a 23-year-old writer, Hamza Kashgari, was reflecting on Muhammad's role in Islam, and sent out a few posts on Twitter that could not possibly be construed as anything but gentle questioning. "On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you," he wrote in one tweet.
"On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more," he wrote in another, and in a third, "On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”
Well. You'd have thought he'd recommended setting off a nuclear weapon in Mecca, or something, from the outcry that ensued. Within a day, he had more than 30,000 responses, many of them calling for his death. Alarmed, Kashgari posted a long apology, but it was too late; someone had posted his address online, with a recommendation to go and kill him, and he fled for his life. He got as far as Malaysia, but in a stunning overreach of their authority, he was arrested by agents from Interpol and returned to Saudi Arabia, where the king himself is recommending that he be tried for apostasy -- which is punishable by death by beheading. (Sources: here and here)
Okay, come on now. Either your god is powerful, or else he isn't. If he isn't, why do you worship him? And if he is, surely he can withstand a few pointed questions. You should take a look at the video in the first source, wherein Sheikh Nasser al-Omar openly weeps while describing the blasphemy Kashgari has committed -- a spectacle that would be funny if it weren't so deadly serious. Apparently this guy really, honestly believes that a 23-year-old writing that he won't pray for Muhammad on his birthday is worthy of death because he has "annoyed Allah." Oh, and after the guy's dead, Allah has "prepared a humiliating punishment" for him.
I guess Allah has a remarkably low tolerance for annoyance, then. You have to wonder how any of us escape "humiliating punishments."
My conclusion -- besides the fact that Sheikh Nasser al-Omar is a bloodthirsty old geezer -- is that if a belief system is that fragile, and its god that subject to "annoyance," there must not be much to recommend it. You'd think that it would take more than three posts on Twitter to accomplish all that, wouldn't you?
You'd be wrong. "I fear that Allah will send a swift punishment upon us," al-Omar said, in between bouts of sniffling into his beard, "for our complacency in regards to the rights of Allah and his prophet."
Please. If your religion was all you claim it is, there should be people flocking to it, converting to Islam because of the sheer force of its appeal. Instead, you have to behead people for asking questions -- which surely identifies it for what it is, which is a morally bankrupt system whose rules only exist to maintain the current power structure, and prevent any scrap of free thought. It is a belief system whose prime weapon is compulsion through fear.
And I can only hope that the news of Kashgari's arrest will trigger people across the Middle East to ask a lot more questions -- if they have not already been terrified, and brainwashed, into forever keeping silence.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Holy lands
It is a nearly universal tendency amongst human cultures to consider certain places holy. Christians, Jews, and Muslims are well-known for declaring particular places sacred, and there have been wars fought over guardianship (witness the Crusades -- and note that Palestine was always referred to by Crusaders as "the Holy Land," a designation sometimes still used). Even today, skirmishes erupt over who has control, or even access, to certain sacred sites. For several years, there has been an ongoing feud over which sect of Christians -- Ethiopian or Coptic -- has the ownership of the Deir-al-Sultan Monastery in Jerusalem, a site which is next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and has connections to the life and death of Jesus. This particular incident might be funny if it weren't a microcosm of a tendency which has cost millions of lives, and if the monks in question weren't so deadly serious themselves.
However, such perceptions are not by any means limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Even the Buddhists, whose philosophy emphasizes "non-attachment" to the physical world as the cardinal virtue, have holy sites. These are mostly connected with the life or death of Siddhartha Buddha and are the objects of pilgrimages from Buddhists around the world. The Australian Aborigines have Ayers Rock (Uluru in the language of the Natives), which is central to their creation stories. The Devil's Tower in Wyoming is sacred to the Sioux (and apparently also was of some significance to the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
I find this tendency fascinating. Sacred sites seem usually to fall into one of two categories -- they are either places of historical significance (a friend of mine is working on a novel that has as its central theme the contention that the Vietnam War Memorial is a holy place), or places that have some natural oddness that makes them stand out, that begs an explanation. These latter ones I find the most interesting. There is a universal need in the human brain to explain our environment, and apparently if no natural explanation makes itself known, then we almost always respond by simply making one up and telling it convincingly enough that it is remembered.
I can't say that I'm immune to this. I self-identify as a rationalist, but a friend of mine claims (with probable justification) that I doth protest too much. She once stated that if I had the balls for it, I'd be a mystic, and that in a previous age I'd have been a monk. That rather curious claim notwithstanding, I have to admit that I have been in places which strongly affected me, which (had I the balls to be a mystic) I might consider sacred. One of them is Ahlstrom's Prairie, a highly peculiar place in Washington State that I used to pass through while hiking to the ocean on the Olympic Peninsula. There's a boardwalk trail on the hike to the mouth of the Ozette River, and most of the way you are in dense Douglas fir forest, dripping and silent, with nothing but the clunk of your hiking boots on the wood planks to break the quiet. Then, without warning, you are in an open meadow, a strip of land with not a tree, perhaps a quarter of a mile across and maybe two miles wide (although I never explored it well enough to know for sure). It is an odd enough spot that I wouldn't be surprised if the Quiliute and Makah Natives who lived in the area considered it sacred. For my part, I thought it was a little creepy, and was always glad to cross it and get back under the cover of the dark trees.
Another spot in Washington, not nearly so remote, is the Mima Mounds. Near Littlerock, Washington, and right off of Interstate 5, is a wide prairie dotted with relatively circular grass-covered mounds, the largest of them about thirty feet across and maybe eight feet high. Originally thought to be Native burial sites, they are now thought to be the result of some unknown geologic process, possibly glacial. All I know is that they're spooky and mysterious. I can easily see why someone might consider this a holy place.
Lastly, I would be remiss in not mentioning a place I visited on a hiking trip in the north of England. I have always been interested in medieval history, and I made a point of visiting a number of abbey ruins, monasteries which were abandoned when Henry VIII decided that Catholicism wasn't his cup of tea, but Anne Boleyn was. Most of them were of solely intellectual interest, but one of them -- Rievaulx Abbey -- strikes me as one of those places which did not become sacred because it was the site of a monastery, but became the site of a monastery because it was sacred. It sits in a little, cup-shaped valley, with a narrow river running through it, and as I sat on a rock under the branches of an oak tree, dangling my bare feet in the cold stream water, I could almost become convinced that there was something to the idea of a place being holy.
Almost. And so I don't have my Skeptic's License revoked, allow me to state for the record that I realize that in all of the above cases, it was just the oddity, remoteness, and beauty of the site acting on my emotions and my imagination. I don't really believe that there's anything peculiar about any of these places, above and beyond the purely natural and aesthetic.
Be that as it may, there is a part of me that wishes it were true. It's not scientific, it's not rational - but it would be awfully cool.
However, such perceptions are not by any means limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Even the Buddhists, whose philosophy emphasizes "non-attachment" to the physical world as the cardinal virtue, have holy sites. These are mostly connected with the life or death of Siddhartha Buddha and are the objects of pilgrimages from Buddhists around the world. The Australian Aborigines have Ayers Rock (Uluru in the language of the Natives), which is central to their creation stories. The Devil's Tower in Wyoming is sacred to the Sioux (and apparently also was of some significance to the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
I find this tendency fascinating. Sacred sites seem usually to fall into one of two categories -- they are either places of historical significance (a friend of mine is working on a novel that has as its central theme the contention that the Vietnam War Memorial is a holy place), or places that have some natural oddness that makes them stand out, that begs an explanation. These latter ones I find the most interesting. There is a universal need in the human brain to explain our environment, and apparently if no natural explanation makes itself known, then we almost always respond by simply making one up and telling it convincingly enough that it is remembered.
I can't say that I'm immune to this. I self-identify as a rationalist, but a friend of mine claims (with probable justification) that I doth protest too much. She once stated that if I had the balls for it, I'd be a mystic, and that in a previous age I'd have been a monk. That rather curious claim notwithstanding, I have to admit that I have been in places which strongly affected me, which (had I the balls to be a mystic) I might consider sacred. One of them is Ahlstrom's Prairie, a highly peculiar place in Washington State that I used to pass through while hiking to the ocean on the Olympic Peninsula. There's a boardwalk trail on the hike to the mouth of the Ozette River, and most of the way you are in dense Douglas fir forest, dripping and silent, with nothing but the clunk of your hiking boots on the wood planks to break the quiet. Then, without warning, you are in an open meadow, a strip of land with not a tree, perhaps a quarter of a mile across and maybe two miles wide (although I never explored it well enough to know for sure). It is an odd enough spot that I wouldn't be surprised if the Quiliute and Makah Natives who lived in the area considered it sacred. For my part, I thought it was a little creepy, and was always glad to cross it and get back under the cover of the dark trees.
Another spot in Washington, not nearly so remote, is the Mima Mounds. Near Littlerock, Washington, and right off of Interstate 5, is a wide prairie dotted with relatively circular grass-covered mounds, the largest of them about thirty feet across and maybe eight feet high. Originally thought to be Native burial sites, they are now thought to be the result of some unknown geologic process, possibly glacial. All I know is that they're spooky and mysterious. I can easily see why someone might consider this a holy place.
Lastly, I would be remiss in not mentioning a place I visited on a hiking trip in the north of England. I have always been interested in medieval history, and I made a point of visiting a number of abbey ruins, monasteries which were abandoned when Henry VIII decided that Catholicism wasn't his cup of tea, but Anne Boleyn was. Most of them were of solely intellectual interest, but one of them -- Rievaulx Abbey -- strikes me as one of those places which did not become sacred because it was the site of a monastery, but became the site of a monastery because it was sacred. It sits in a little, cup-shaped valley, with a narrow river running through it, and as I sat on a rock under the branches of an oak tree, dangling my bare feet in the cold stream water, I could almost become convinced that there was something to the idea of a place being holy.
Almost. And so I don't have my Skeptic's License revoked, allow me to state for the record that I realize that in all of the above cases, it was just the oddity, remoteness, and beauty of the site acting on my emotions and my imagination. I don't really believe that there's anything peculiar about any of these places, above and beyond the purely natural and aesthetic.
Be that as it may, there is a part of me that wishes it were true. It's not scientific, it's not rational - but it would be awfully cool.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Baby supervillains, faces in the clouds, and a non-mammoth
Today here at Worldwide Wacko Watch we're keeping our eyes on three stories that are showing great promise. We're not quite sure what they're promising, but we're keeping our eyes on them nonetheless, rather in the way you'd watch someone whose behavior is erratic and potentially threatening.
First, we have the strange case of the woman whose sonogram indicated that she is soon to give birth to Venom, one of the villains from Spiderman.
Perhaps even more unortunately, however, her husband is the Redditor who goes by the name of OzLebowski, so the first thing he did was to post it on the internet. Here we have a side-by-side comparison of the Bundle o' Joy, and the evil, brain-eating supervillain:
Myself, I suspect that when his wife finds out about this, OzLebowski may have more to worry about than the upcoming birth of a fanged alien. But that's just judging by how my wife would have reacted had it been me who posted the side-by-side pics.
Speaking of wacky examples of pareidolia, we next have the case of Brisbane (New South Wales, Australia) resident Gerry Wells appearing in the clouds to bid a fond farewell to his family. Fortunately for all concerned, a photographer was able to snap a photograph of Mr. Wells' parting shot.
Mr. Wells died of a heart attack on January 24, and I have to admit that the cloud photograph does resemble him a bit. Let's take a look:
The only problem is, the cloud photograph was taken on January 9, fifteen days before Mr. Wells' death. But Mr. Wells' sister, Marion Dawson, is undaunted. Her brother, she says, was flying home to Brisbane from Sydney when the photograph was taken, and therefore it can't have been a coincidence. "Someone greater than us knew what was about to happen," she said. She also said that when she saw the photograph of the clouds, which was published in a local newspaper, she got "goosebumps."
The family used the photo in leaflets handed out at the funeral.
Well, I have to admit that some cases of pareidolia can be pretty freaky, and this one certainly would have given me the shivers, had I been one of Mr. Wells' friends or relatives. Be that as it may, I don't think we have any before-the-event appearance of Mr. Wells' ghost in the clouds -- it's a chance resemblance, however much it might appeal to think otherwise.
Which is more than we can probably say for our last story, which is the alleged appearance of a woolly mammoth in Siberia.
If you haven't already seen this video, you can go here to take a look.
At first, I have to say that I was intrigued. There's nothing scientifically impossible about a large mammal going undetected in the vast, trackless birch and spruce forests of southern Siberia; and there have been other claims of sightings of mammoths before. The video, which was allegedly taken by a Russian engineer surveying for a road, is undeniably blurry, but it was supposedly shot "from a long way away." Some viewers noted the possibility that the animal was simply a bear carrying a large fish, but there's something about its outline that strikes me as unbearlike.
So anyway, I was at least prepared to admit it into evidence. Until, that is, I began to look into who had publicized it. Turns out the video was brought to light by one Michael Cohen. You might not recognize his name, but he's the one who was behind the photograph of the alien in the Brazilian rainforest taking a piss behind a tree (you can see my post about the claim, and the photograph of the pissing alien, here).
He also bills his website as the "world's only intergalactic news network."
So to say that his credibility is nil is putting it mildly, and I'm officially retracting my support from the woolly mammoth hypothesis. It's kind of a shame, really, because it'd be pretty cool to have those guys back. As long as they didn't take to stomping around in my vegetable garden.
So anyway, that's it for today -- a woman pregnant with an alien supervillain, a face in the clouds, and what is probably not a woolly mammoth. More news from the world of the weird, just to prove to you that there's still work to do out there in the critical thinking department. Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're doing our best to ferret out the stories, so you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that no matter how odd people you know, there are some folks out there who are odder still.
First, we have the strange case of the woman whose sonogram indicated that she is soon to give birth to Venom, one of the villains from Spiderman.
Perhaps even more unortunately, however, her husband is the Redditor who goes by the name of OzLebowski, so the first thing he did was to post it on the internet. Here we have a side-by-side comparison of the Bundle o' Joy, and the evil, brain-eating supervillain:
Myself, I suspect that when his wife finds out about this, OzLebowski may have more to worry about than the upcoming birth of a fanged alien. But that's just judging by how my wife would have reacted had it been me who posted the side-by-side pics.
Speaking of wacky examples of pareidolia, we next have the case of Brisbane (New South Wales, Australia) resident Gerry Wells appearing in the clouds to bid a fond farewell to his family. Fortunately for all concerned, a photographer was able to snap a photograph of Mr. Wells' parting shot.
Mr. Wells died of a heart attack on January 24, and I have to admit that the cloud photograph does resemble him a bit. Let's take a look:
The only problem is, the cloud photograph was taken on January 9, fifteen days before Mr. Wells' death. But Mr. Wells' sister, Marion Dawson, is undaunted. Her brother, she says, was flying home to Brisbane from Sydney when the photograph was taken, and therefore it can't have been a coincidence. "Someone greater than us knew what was about to happen," she said. She also said that when she saw the photograph of the clouds, which was published in a local newspaper, she got "goosebumps."
The family used the photo in leaflets handed out at the funeral.
Well, I have to admit that some cases of pareidolia can be pretty freaky, and this one certainly would have given me the shivers, had I been one of Mr. Wells' friends or relatives. Be that as it may, I don't think we have any before-the-event appearance of Mr. Wells' ghost in the clouds -- it's a chance resemblance, however much it might appeal to think otherwise.
Which is more than we can probably say for our last story, which is the alleged appearance of a woolly mammoth in Siberia.
If you haven't already seen this video, you can go here to take a look.
At first, I have to say that I was intrigued. There's nothing scientifically impossible about a large mammal going undetected in the vast, trackless birch and spruce forests of southern Siberia; and there have been other claims of sightings of mammoths before. The video, which was allegedly taken by a Russian engineer surveying for a road, is undeniably blurry, but it was supposedly shot "from a long way away." Some viewers noted the possibility that the animal was simply a bear carrying a large fish, but there's something about its outline that strikes me as unbearlike.
So anyway, I was at least prepared to admit it into evidence. Until, that is, I began to look into who had publicized it. Turns out the video was brought to light by one Michael Cohen. You might not recognize his name, but he's the one who was behind the photograph of the alien in the Brazilian rainforest taking a piss behind a tree (you can see my post about the claim, and the photograph of the pissing alien, here).
He also bills his website as the "world's only intergalactic news network."
So to say that his credibility is nil is putting it mildly, and I'm officially retracting my support from the woolly mammoth hypothesis. It's kind of a shame, really, because it'd be pretty cool to have those guys back. As long as they didn't take to stomping around in my vegetable garden.
So anyway, that's it for today -- a woman pregnant with an alien supervillain, a face in the clouds, and what is probably not a woolly mammoth. More news from the world of the weird, just to prove to you that there's still work to do out there in the critical thinking department. Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're doing our best to ferret out the stories, so you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that no matter how odd people you know, there are some folks out there who are odder still.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Grass, gulls, mosquitoes, and mice
A couple of days ago, I got a rather nice email from a creationist. Not, I got the feeling, a young-earth creationist, but someone who believes that a deity directed the creation of the Earth (whenever that happened), and that species can't change because they're the work of divine hands.
"I just can't believe in evolution," the writer said. "It's impossible that species can change. They go extinct sometimes, like the dinosaurs, but how could one thing change into another, like apes into humans? It makes no sense."
Again, this was light years from the snide, spittle-flecked screeds that I've sometimes received regarding this subject; I very much had the impression that the writer was simply curious as to why I find the idea of evolution persuasive. And as such, it deserves an answer.
I'm going to approach the idea of supporting evolution a little differently than most folks do. It seems like the majority of evolutionary biologists, when confronted with questions about the plausibility of the evolutionary model, usually discuss the tried-and-true body of evidence (genetic homology between related species, homologous structures, vestigial organs, the fossil record, and so on). These are well known, and in my opinion either you buy them or you don't. Those folks who don't also usually fall back on a few tried-and-true arguments against them (vestigial organs actually have a use which we just don't happen to know, the fossil record lacks transitional forms, radiometric dating is inaccurate, and so on).
More to the point, one of the usual anti-evolutionist arguments often centers around the question, "if evolution happens, why don't we see new species?" and the ordinary answer is, "because evolution occurs so slowly."
Well, sometimes. Maybe usually. But my contention is that rapid, observable evolution has happened many times, and if you don't buy the evolutionary model, there are a few real-world situations that really allow no other explanation.
So, to quote my dad, let's run them up the flagpole and see who salutes.
First, though, a definition. My understanding of creationism is that, at its basis, it states that new species cannot form. Species can become extinct, but god created the species that are here, and that's what we're stuck with. (If this statement is erroneous, I'd appreciate a correction.) So as an evolutionist, I have a twofold job; to define species (so that we all know what we're talking about), and to show that there have, in fact, been new species evolved on the Earth. If I can accomplish those two things, then I think I'll have made a pretty potent case that evolution happens.
The first task is relatively easy. While there is an increasing push to define the term "species" genetically, at present most of us (evolutionist and creationist alike) define "species" as meaning "a population of morphologically distinct individuals, all of whom are potentially capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring." By this definition, horses and donkeys aren't the same species because although they can mate and produce offspring, the offspring (a mule) is not usually fertile. All breeds of dog are theoretically a single species, because although there are morphologically distinct sub-populations (breeds), they are all more or less mutually interfertile, even though a mating between a male chihuahua and a female St. Bernard raises a mental image which is simultaneously a little disturbing and strangely hilarious.
Okay, now for the next part. Have there been any new species that have formed recently? If you buy the definition of species from the last paragraph, the answer is undeniably "yes." I know of three off the top of my head, which I'll describe below. The first two are simple, the third more complicated (but well worth the effort to try to understand, because it's way cool). And last, I'll describe a population phenomenon that I don't think is explainable unless you do accept evolution, although it's hard to classify exactly where it falls apropos of the definition of "species."
Number 1: The Faeroe Island House Mouse
About 250 years ago, mice were accidentally introduced onto the Faeroe Islands, an isolated island chain (way) north of Scotland. In the intervening years, the mice were isolated from their mainland kin, and the harsh climate was a powerful selection mechanism. Recent studies have shown that the Faeroe Island House Mouse is now no longer even potentially interfertile with mainland House Mice -- matings in the lab have resulted in no offspring or sterile ones, and the Faeroe Island mice are discernibly smaller and lighter in color than the mainland species. If you accept the definition of "species," the Faeroe Island House Mouse is a new species -- morphologically distinct, and unable to interbreed with other populations -- and it's arisen in only 250 years.
Number 2: The London Underground Mosquito
When the London Underground (subway) was built about a hundred years ago, a population of mosquitoes of the species Culex pipiens was trapped in the tunnels. Being that subways are warm and moist, the mosquitoes flourished. Culex pipiens, which mostly preys on birds, is reluctant to bite humans and will only do so if there is no other food available; in the 100 years since the isolating event took place, natural selection has favored the individuals underground who are more attracted to mammals (mostly rats and humans), and the result has been a rapid speciation event producing the aptly-named Culex molestus. C. pipiens and C. molestus will not interbreed -- in fact, in the lab they won't even mate. Genetic studies have shown that their genetic makeup has diverged rapidly (due to the heavy selection underground and the fact that mosquitoes breed quickly) -- so by any conventional definition of the word "species," they are different species.
Number 3: Cordgrass
This one is fascinating. Cordgrass (Spartina) is a genus of marine grass, with a number of morphologically distinct species. In England, Spartina maritima was the most common species, until the 19th century, when the American species S. alterniflora was accidentally introduced. The two occasionally hybridize, producing an infertile (although vigorous) hybrid, S. x townsendii.
Okay, so far, nothing amazing; it's just the botanical version of the horse and the mule. Normally these interspecies hybrids are infertile because they lack paired chromosomes, and during meiosis (sex cell formation) the process goes awry because it is impossible to evenly divide the genetic material without this pairing. But apparently at least once (possibly more), an individual of S. x townsendii underwent an odd transformation; in one of its flowers, the chromosomes spontaneously doubled. This phenomenon, called allopolyploidy, is rare in the wild but rather easy to induce in the lab (it's how the huge tetraploid and triploid daylilies you often see in gardens are created, for example). What this did was instantaneously produce an offspring with paired chromosomes, and a different number of chromosomes from either parent. It is completely fertile with others like it; is not back-fertile with either parent species; and is morphologically distinct. It's been accorded species status (as S. anglica), and for good reason, because if this is not a new species, I don't know what is. Furthermore, it's an amazing competitor, and is in many locations outcompeting both its exotic and its native parent.
And one more, just for lagniappe, as my mom used to say (lagniappe is Cajun French for "a little something extra"). If none of these convince you, then look into the concept of a ring species. A ring species is a set of morphologically distinct populations, which encircle a geographical barrier of some kind. Each sub-population can interbreed with the ones adjacent to it, except at one point in the ring. This has been observed at least three, possibly more times -- in Himalayan Greenish Warblers, in a group of salamanders (genus Ensatina) in California, and in a group of gull species (in this one, the ring goes all the way around the world!).
Let's just make it clear how weird this is; picture a group of populations (call them A through G) which go around some sort of geographical barrier (the Himalayas, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Arctic Ocean, respectively). A can breed with B, B with C, C with D, and so on. And you ring your way around the barrier, and find that A and G are right next to each other -- overlap, even -- but A and G can't interbreed!
So which are they -- one species, or many? If you say "one," then why can't A and G interbreed? Breaks the definition. If you say "several," where do you draw the line(s)? No matter where you draw the line(s), you will separate populations that can interbreed, and produce fertile offspring (and therefore should be part of the same species). So, once again: what is this? And if "species" are all divinely created, immutable little populations which don't change, how on earth did this come about?
Myself, I find it impossible to explain any of these without recourse to the evolutionary model. If anyone has a plausible alternative explanation, I'd love to hear it. Encouragement of all viewpoints, as always, is the watchword hereabouts.
"I just can't believe in evolution," the writer said. "It's impossible that species can change. They go extinct sometimes, like the dinosaurs, but how could one thing change into another, like apes into humans? It makes no sense."
Again, this was light years from the snide, spittle-flecked screeds that I've sometimes received regarding this subject; I very much had the impression that the writer was simply curious as to why I find the idea of evolution persuasive. And as such, it deserves an answer.
I'm going to approach the idea of supporting evolution a little differently than most folks do. It seems like the majority of evolutionary biologists, when confronted with questions about the plausibility of the evolutionary model, usually discuss the tried-and-true body of evidence (genetic homology between related species, homologous structures, vestigial organs, the fossil record, and so on). These are well known, and in my opinion either you buy them or you don't. Those folks who don't also usually fall back on a few tried-and-true arguments against them (vestigial organs actually have a use which we just don't happen to know, the fossil record lacks transitional forms, radiometric dating is inaccurate, and so on).
More to the point, one of the usual anti-evolutionist arguments often centers around the question, "if evolution happens, why don't we see new species?" and the ordinary answer is, "because evolution occurs so slowly."
Well, sometimes. Maybe usually. But my contention is that rapid, observable evolution has happened many times, and if you don't buy the evolutionary model, there are a few real-world situations that really allow no other explanation.
So, to quote my dad, let's run them up the flagpole and see who salutes.
First, though, a definition. My understanding of creationism is that, at its basis, it states that new species cannot form. Species can become extinct, but god created the species that are here, and that's what we're stuck with. (If this statement is erroneous, I'd appreciate a correction.) So as an evolutionist, I have a twofold job; to define species (so that we all know what we're talking about), and to show that there have, in fact, been new species evolved on the Earth. If I can accomplish those two things, then I think I'll have made a pretty potent case that evolution happens.
The first task is relatively easy. While there is an increasing push to define the term "species" genetically, at present most of us (evolutionist and creationist alike) define "species" as meaning "a population of morphologically distinct individuals, all of whom are potentially capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring." By this definition, horses and donkeys aren't the same species because although they can mate and produce offspring, the offspring (a mule) is not usually fertile. All breeds of dog are theoretically a single species, because although there are morphologically distinct sub-populations (breeds), they are all more or less mutually interfertile, even though a mating between a male chihuahua and a female St. Bernard raises a mental image which is simultaneously a little disturbing and strangely hilarious.
Okay, now for the next part. Have there been any new species that have formed recently? If you buy the definition of species from the last paragraph, the answer is undeniably "yes." I know of three off the top of my head, which I'll describe below. The first two are simple, the third more complicated (but well worth the effort to try to understand, because it's way cool). And last, I'll describe a population phenomenon that I don't think is explainable unless you do accept evolution, although it's hard to classify exactly where it falls apropos of the definition of "species."
Number 1: The Faeroe Island House Mouse
About 250 years ago, mice were accidentally introduced onto the Faeroe Islands, an isolated island chain (way) north of Scotland. In the intervening years, the mice were isolated from their mainland kin, and the harsh climate was a powerful selection mechanism. Recent studies have shown that the Faeroe Island House Mouse is now no longer even potentially interfertile with mainland House Mice -- matings in the lab have resulted in no offspring or sterile ones, and the Faeroe Island mice are discernibly smaller and lighter in color than the mainland species. If you accept the definition of "species," the Faeroe Island House Mouse is a new species -- morphologically distinct, and unable to interbreed with other populations -- and it's arisen in only 250 years.
Number 2: The London Underground Mosquito
When the London Underground (subway) was built about a hundred years ago, a population of mosquitoes of the species Culex pipiens was trapped in the tunnels. Being that subways are warm and moist, the mosquitoes flourished. Culex pipiens, which mostly preys on birds, is reluctant to bite humans and will only do so if there is no other food available; in the 100 years since the isolating event took place, natural selection has favored the individuals underground who are more attracted to mammals (mostly rats and humans), and the result has been a rapid speciation event producing the aptly-named Culex molestus. C. pipiens and C. molestus will not interbreed -- in fact, in the lab they won't even mate. Genetic studies have shown that their genetic makeup has diverged rapidly (due to the heavy selection underground and the fact that mosquitoes breed quickly) -- so by any conventional definition of the word "species," they are different species.
Number 3: Cordgrass
This one is fascinating. Cordgrass (Spartina) is a genus of marine grass, with a number of morphologically distinct species. In England, Spartina maritima was the most common species, until the 19th century, when the American species S. alterniflora was accidentally introduced. The two occasionally hybridize, producing an infertile (although vigorous) hybrid, S. x townsendii.
Okay, so far, nothing amazing; it's just the botanical version of the horse and the mule. Normally these interspecies hybrids are infertile because they lack paired chromosomes, and during meiosis (sex cell formation) the process goes awry because it is impossible to evenly divide the genetic material without this pairing. But apparently at least once (possibly more), an individual of S. x townsendii underwent an odd transformation; in one of its flowers, the chromosomes spontaneously doubled. This phenomenon, called allopolyploidy, is rare in the wild but rather easy to induce in the lab (it's how the huge tetraploid and triploid daylilies you often see in gardens are created, for example). What this did was instantaneously produce an offspring with paired chromosomes, and a different number of chromosomes from either parent. It is completely fertile with others like it; is not back-fertile with either parent species; and is morphologically distinct. It's been accorded species status (as S. anglica), and for good reason, because if this is not a new species, I don't know what is. Furthermore, it's an amazing competitor, and is in many locations outcompeting both its exotic and its native parent.
And one more, just for lagniappe, as my mom used to say (lagniappe is Cajun French for "a little something extra"). If none of these convince you, then look into the concept of a ring species. A ring species is a set of morphologically distinct populations, which encircle a geographical barrier of some kind. Each sub-population can interbreed with the ones adjacent to it, except at one point in the ring. This has been observed at least three, possibly more times -- in Himalayan Greenish Warblers, in a group of salamanders (genus Ensatina) in California, and in a group of gull species (in this one, the ring goes all the way around the world!).
Let's just make it clear how weird this is; picture a group of populations (call them A through G) which go around some sort of geographical barrier (the Himalayas, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Arctic Ocean, respectively). A can breed with B, B with C, C with D, and so on. And you ring your way around the barrier, and find that A and G are right next to each other -- overlap, even -- but A and G can't interbreed!
So which are they -- one species, or many? If you say "one," then why can't A and G interbreed? Breaks the definition. If you say "several," where do you draw the line(s)? No matter where you draw the line(s), you will separate populations that can interbreed, and produce fertile offspring (and therefore should be part of the same species). So, once again: what is this? And if "species" are all divinely created, immutable little populations which don't change, how on earth did this come about?
Myself, I find it impossible to explain any of these without recourse to the evolutionary model. If anyone has a plausible alternative explanation, I'd love to hear it. Encouragement of all viewpoints, as always, is the watchword hereabouts.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Google Earth Atlantis conspiracy
New from the "You Can't Win With These People" department, we have news that Google Earth did not, in fact, discover Atlantis in 2009.
Or, as the Atlanteans would have you believe, they are covering up the fact that they found Atlantis for their own nefarious reasons.
You may remember the news from two years ago, when the newly-launched Google Ocean began to add imaging data on the topography of the ocean floor. You could, if you wanted to, view the mysterious and inaccessible contours of the abyssal plains and mid-ocean ridges. It was all very cool, a real triumph of science and technology.
Until, that is, they posted the following, from off the coast of Africa:
After all the woo-woos stopped having multiple orgasms, and actually stopped to think about it, at least some of them realized that it couldn't be what it looked like, because the scale was all wrong. If this was the remnants of a sunken city, the streets of the city (presumably the apparent grooves in the photograph) would have had to be over a half a mile across. Google Earth, for their part, immediately recognized what was going on, and said that the "grid lines" didn't exist, that they were a sensor artifact produced by using overlapping data sets that didn't quite line up.
So, last week they released a new image, with the problem compensated for, and lo and behold, the "sunken city" disappears:
So you'd think that at that point, all of the Atlanteans would sort of go, "Oh. Okay. I see now. What a bunch of nimrods we were," and go home.
You'd be wrong.
Sites have started springing up all over that Google Earth is participating in a giant coverup, that they slipped up in letting the original image become public, and now they're trying to cover their tracks. (For one particularly funny example, watch this short YouTube video from one of the conspiracy-theory wingnuts.) The new image, they say, has deliberately erased evidence of the existence of Atlantis -- it was the original image that was correct.
What I find the funniest about all this is that none of them seem to stop to consider what possible motive Google Earth would have for eliminating the evidence of a ruined city on the sea floor. If the thing exists, it would only be of interest to archaeologists -- it's not like there's anything down there that is worthy of all of the effort. If anything, you'd think that the scientists working on Google Earth would be excited if it were true -- scientists tend to get that way when they come across new and unexpected findings, because that's how you make your name in the scientific world, and (more importantly) that's how you get grant money.
Not that any of this will convince the conspiracy theorists, because as I've commented before, you can't convince a conspiracy theorist. Mere logic and evidence don't do it, and in fact usually lead the conspiracy theorist to decide that the wielder of said logic and evidence is just part of the conspiracy. The whole thing is more than a little maddening.
So anyway, I'd like to end with a picture of what's really down there. You know, what Google Earth et al. are covering up.
Yes, I know that Google Earth didn't show any statues with spears. That's because they systematically removed all evidence of them from their maps. But they're down there, because Plato said so. And when it comes to evidence, who are we going to trust - a Greek philosopher from 2,500 years ago, or a bunch of silly old stick-in-the-mud Ph.D.s in science?
Yeah. I thought so.
Or, as the Atlanteans would have you believe, they are covering up the fact that they found Atlantis for their own nefarious reasons.
You may remember the news from two years ago, when the newly-launched Google Ocean began to add imaging data on the topography of the ocean floor. You could, if you wanted to, view the mysterious and inaccessible contours of the abyssal plains and mid-ocean ridges. It was all very cool, a real triumph of science and technology.
Until, that is, they posted the following, from off the coast of Africa:
After all the woo-woos stopped having multiple orgasms, and actually stopped to think about it, at least some of them realized that it couldn't be what it looked like, because the scale was all wrong. If this was the remnants of a sunken city, the streets of the city (presumably the apparent grooves in the photograph) would have had to be over a half a mile across. Google Earth, for their part, immediately recognized what was going on, and said that the "grid lines" didn't exist, that they were a sensor artifact produced by using overlapping data sets that didn't quite line up.
So, last week they released a new image, with the problem compensated for, and lo and behold, the "sunken city" disappears:
So you'd think that at that point, all of the Atlanteans would sort of go, "Oh. Okay. I see now. What a bunch of nimrods we were," and go home.
You'd be wrong.
Sites have started springing up all over that Google Earth is participating in a giant coverup, that they slipped up in letting the original image become public, and now they're trying to cover their tracks. (For one particularly funny example, watch this short YouTube video from one of the conspiracy-theory wingnuts.) The new image, they say, has deliberately erased evidence of the existence of Atlantis -- it was the original image that was correct.
What I find the funniest about all this is that none of them seem to stop to consider what possible motive Google Earth would have for eliminating the evidence of a ruined city on the sea floor. If the thing exists, it would only be of interest to archaeologists -- it's not like there's anything down there that is worthy of all of the effort. If anything, you'd think that the scientists working on Google Earth would be excited if it were true -- scientists tend to get that way when they come across new and unexpected findings, because that's how you make your name in the scientific world, and (more importantly) that's how you get grant money.
Not that any of this will convince the conspiracy theorists, because as I've commented before, you can't convince a conspiracy theorist. Mere logic and evidence don't do it, and in fact usually lead the conspiracy theorist to decide that the wielder of said logic and evidence is just part of the conspiracy. The whole thing is more than a little maddening.
So anyway, I'd like to end with a picture of what's really down there. You know, what Google Earth et al. are covering up.
Yes, I know that Google Earth didn't show any statues with spears. That's because they systematically removed all evidence of them from their maps. But they're down there, because Plato said so. And when it comes to evidence, who are we going to trust - a Greek philosopher from 2,500 years ago, or a bunch of silly old stick-in-the-mud Ph.D.s in science?
Yeah. I thought so.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Psychics, and zombies, and witches, oh my!
Well, it's shaping up to be a busy week here at Worldwide Wacko Watch. Here are a few of the stories that your tireless team of reporters (comprised of me and my two tireless dogs, Doolin and Grendel) are currently following.
First, we have news that some psychic astral projectors have discovered that the crew of Apollo 16 discovered alien life on the Moon.
A group called "Transception, Inc.", an Austin, Texas based "psychic research and development organization," has written a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, recommending that the landing crew of Apollo 16, John Young and Charles Duke, be given Congressional Medals of Honor -- but only if they are "released from their bond of secrecy" about what they really saw up there on the Moon. What, pray, did they see, then, and how do the good folks at Transception, Inc. know about it?
What they saw, of course, was a wrecked spaceship. And aliens. As for how they got this information, they did it by "remote viewing." For a video clip of their team in action, go here, if you can stand to see some folks, in all seriousness, combine astral projection and backmasking and still call it "research."
Apparently what Transception, Inc. thinks is a wrecked alien ship is actually a big rock, that the astronauts nicknamed "House Rock." The video includes some footage of Young and Duke walking around on the Moon, and they say something on the order of, "Geez, that's a big rock." You'd think that if they'd seen an alien spaceship, they'd have said something more along the lines of, "Holy shit, that's an alien spaceship." But maybe they already realized that they were under "bonds of secrecy."
Just think -- if NASA had known it was that easy, they could have saved all of that money, time, and effort, and just employed Transception, Inc. to investigate the Moon's surface. And why stop there? You'd think that if astral projection works, it'd be just as easy to go to Mars, Titan, and so on, without having to employ actual astronomers and engineers and so on.
At least the Transception, Inc. people had the sense to make a claim that isn't easily falsified; it's not like there's anyone up there on the Moon to check to see if their descriptions of wreckage are accurate. This is more than one can say for Lauren Rainbow, the Bedford, New Hampshire psychic who stated (here) three days ago that the New England Patriots would win the Superbowl.
"I feel a strong team connection," Rainbow said. "I feel they work well with each other. I've been feeling that they sense each other on the field. I feel probably after half time that we're really going to see a solid movement of the Patriots taking a lead then."
When questioned further by reporters, she heatedly told them that these were "not educated guesses," that she was actually seeing what would happen. She did, however, admit that she only watched the Superbowl for the commercials. Which, given the accuracy of her forecast, is probably just as well.
It's a mystery to me why these people don't give up, and that goes double for the folks who keep pinpointing the end of the world. If you're going to claim to be a psychic, at least do what the smart psychics do, which is to make vague, unverifiable claims, so you can maintain that you're right even in the face of scoffers.
Which is advice that someone should have given to the guy in our next story. Just yesterday, we have news from South Africa (sources here and here) that a popular singer has been arrested for returning from the dead.
Khulekani "Mgqumeni" Mseleku, a Zulu traditional singer, died in December of 2009, according to family and friends, and was buried in a local cemetery. Said family and friends were pretty shocked when, last week, a guy showed up in Mseleku's village in Kwa-Zulu Natal, claiming to be the late Mseleku himself.
He wasn't actually dead, the resurrected Mseleku said, which must have made the aforementioned family and friends feel pretty crummy about burying him. No, he was "kidnapped and held by zombies," and only recently escaped "through the help of his ancestors."
"I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies," Mseleku version 2.0 told reporters. "It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters." And indeed, the support has been pouring in, with fans coming from hundreds of miles away to see him.
Police, however, weren't quite so sanguine, and have taken the alleged Mseleku in for questioning and DNA testing.
Last, we have the sad news that Laurie Cabot, Salem, Massachusetts' "official witch," has closed up shop.
Cabot, who is 79 and who has been, um, witching for over forty years, has decided to shut down "Cabot's Official Witch Shoppe" at 63R Wharf Street and go into semi-retirement, citing decreasing tourism and increased costs as her reasons.
For enthusiasts, however, she hastens to state that she will still be doing business online, selling incense, potions, and books of spells. (You can check out her website here.) She also hopes to find a home for her coven, the "Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple."
It wasn't an easy road, Cabot told reporters, and she faced some serious harassment at first. "Jesus freaks would walk in yelling at me; irate mothers would come in because one of their kids came in the store and was interested,’" she said. "It was pretty bad; my two daughters and I would be walking down the street and good ol' boys would drive by and say, 'They ought to hang you again,'" a statement that makes me wonder about the intelligence level of the good ol' boys, given that hanging is generally fatal, and people who are dead tend to stay dead, unless they are prominent Zulu traditional musicians.
Be that as it may, she eventually found acceptance, and in 1977 then-governor Michael Dukakis appointed her the "Official Witch of Salem," a title that got her teaching engagements at Harvard and Wellesley, and an appearance on the Tonight Show.
So, anyway, we wish her all the best in the next phase of her life and hope that her online business continues to thrive, which given the number of gullible people out there, seems fairly likely.
So, there you have it. Psychics visiting the Moon, a missed Superbowl prediction, zombie musicians, and a retiring witch. As always, we here at Worldwide Wacko Watch burn the midnight oil to bring stories to your doorstep. Well, I do, anyway. The dogs have apparently given up on their hopes that I'll play fetch with them and are snoring on the couch. But fear not, if breaking news comes our way, they can be roused in seconds. Particularly if the news involves chasing squirrels.
First, we have news that some psychic astral projectors have discovered that the crew of Apollo 16 discovered alien life on the Moon.
A group called "Transception, Inc.", an Austin, Texas based "psychic research and development organization," has written a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, recommending that the landing crew of Apollo 16, John Young and Charles Duke, be given Congressional Medals of Honor -- but only if they are "released from their bond of secrecy" about what they really saw up there on the Moon. What, pray, did they see, then, and how do the good folks at Transception, Inc. know about it?
What they saw, of course, was a wrecked spaceship. And aliens. As for how they got this information, they did it by "remote viewing." For a video clip of their team in action, go here, if you can stand to see some folks, in all seriousness, combine astral projection and backmasking and still call it "research."
Apparently what Transception, Inc. thinks is a wrecked alien ship is actually a big rock, that the astronauts nicknamed "House Rock." The video includes some footage of Young and Duke walking around on the Moon, and they say something on the order of, "Geez, that's a big rock." You'd think that if they'd seen an alien spaceship, they'd have said something more along the lines of, "Holy shit, that's an alien spaceship." But maybe they already realized that they were under "bonds of secrecy."
Just think -- if NASA had known it was that easy, they could have saved all of that money, time, and effort, and just employed Transception, Inc. to investigate the Moon's surface. And why stop there? You'd think that if astral projection works, it'd be just as easy to go to Mars, Titan, and so on, without having to employ actual astronomers and engineers and so on.
At least the Transception, Inc. people had the sense to make a claim that isn't easily falsified; it's not like there's anyone up there on the Moon to check to see if their descriptions of wreckage are accurate. This is more than one can say for Lauren Rainbow, the Bedford, New Hampshire psychic who stated (here) three days ago that the New England Patriots would win the Superbowl.
"I feel a strong team connection," Rainbow said. "I feel they work well with each other. I've been feeling that they sense each other on the field. I feel probably after half time that we're really going to see a solid movement of the Patriots taking a lead then."
When questioned further by reporters, she heatedly told them that these were "not educated guesses," that she was actually seeing what would happen. She did, however, admit that she only watched the Superbowl for the commercials. Which, given the accuracy of her forecast, is probably just as well.
It's a mystery to me why these people don't give up, and that goes double for the folks who keep pinpointing the end of the world. If you're going to claim to be a psychic, at least do what the smart psychics do, which is to make vague, unverifiable claims, so you can maintain that you're right even in the face of scoffers.
Which is advice that someone should have given to the guy in our next story. Just yesterday, we have news from South Africa (sources here and here) that a popular singer has been arrested for returning from the dead.
Khulekani "Mgqumeni" Mseleku, a Zulu traditional singer, died in December of 2009, according to family and friends, and was buried in a local cemetery. Said family and friends were pretty shocked when, last week, a guy showed up in Mseleku's village in Kwa-Zulu Natal, claiming to be the late Mseleku himself.
He wasn't actually dead, the resurrected Mseleku said, which must have made the aforementioned family and friends feel pretty crummy about burying him. No, he was "kidnapped and held by zombies," and only recently escaped "through the help of his ancestors."
"I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies," Mseleku version 2.0 told reporters. "It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters." And indeed, the support has been pouring in, with fans coming from hundreds of miles away to see him.
Police, however, weren't quite so sanguine, and have taken the alleged Mseleku in for questioning and DNA testing.
Last, we have the sad news that Laurie Cabot, Salem, Massachusetts' "official witch," has closed up shop.
Cabot, who is 79 and who has been, um, witching for over forty years, has decided to shut down "Cabot's Official Witch Shoppe" at 63R Wharf Street and go into semi-retirement, citing decreasing tourism and increased costs as her reasons.
For enthusiasts, however, she hastens to state that she will still be doing business online, selling incense, potions, and books of spells. (You can check out her website here.) She also hopes to find a home for her coven, the "Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple."
It wasn't an easy road, Cabot told reporters, and she faced some serious harassment at first. "Jesus freaks would walk in yelling at me; irate mothers would come in because one of their kids came in the store and was interested,’" she said. "It was pretty bad; my two daughters and I would be walking down the street and good ol' boys would drive by and say, 'They ought to hang you again,'" a statement that makes me wonder about the intelligence level of the good ol' boys, given that hanging is generally fatal, and people who are dead tend to stay dead, unless they are prominent Zulu traditional musicians.
Be that as it may, she eventually found acceptance, and in 1977 then-governor Michael Dukakis appointed her the "Official Witch of Salem," a title that got her teaching engagements at Harvard and Wellesley, and an appearance on the Tonight Show.
So, anyway, we wish her all the best in the next phase of her life and hope that her online business continues to thrive, which given the number of gullible people out there, seems fairly likely.
So, there you have it. Psychics visiting the Moon, a missed Superbowl prediction, zombie musicians, and a retiring witch. As always, we here at Worldwide Wacko Watch burn the midnight oil to bring stories to your doorstep. Well, I do, anyway. The dogs have apparently given up on their hopes that I'll play fetch with them and are snoring on the couch. But fear not, if breaking news comes our way, they can be roused in seconds. Particularly if the news involves chasing squirrels.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Dowsing, SLIders, and Portuguese Water Dogs
I find that one of the most useful questions to ask someone who makes an outlandish claim is, "How could that possibly work?"
I bring this up in part because of a discussion I had with a student a couple of days ago over the practice of dowsing. For those of you who don't know what this is, dowsing (also known as "water-witching") is the use of a forked stick, generally by a "sensitive," to find underground water. Supposedly the stick will give a sharp downward pull if there's a source of water suitable for well-drilling underneath where you're standing. I have found that this is the one woo-woo claim that elicits the most support when it comes up in my Critical Thinking classes -- almost every one of my students knows at least one person who will vouch for its truth.
Of course, the fact is, in upstate New York there's almost nowhere you could drill around here and not hit water, sooner or later, and most of the groundwater is pretty clean. So dowsing would be a pretty safe proposition nearly everywhere. But so, of course, would claiming that your dog was a "sensitive," and leading him around on a leash until he gets bored and sits down, and then drilling there because a source of underground water exerts a magnetic attraction on your dog's butt.
I hear that Portuguese Water Dogs are an especially good choice for this.
Be that as it may, I said to my student, "How could this possibly work?" Of course, she had no ready answer for this, and neither does anyone else, but this hasn't stopped people from making one up -- that the Earth's "energies" interact with the "psychic fields" of the dowser's mind, causing the stick to move downwards. One person's website even claimed that because willow trees like to grow near water, willow wood works the best for dowsing rods. (And you laughed at my Portuguese Water Dog claim. Please explain to me how the "willow wood" claim is any different.)
The demand of "show me the mechanism" is a pretty good first-order test for a lot of these claims, such as the recent spate of stories about people called SLIders (and we're not referring to the 90s science fiction TV series here). SLIders are people who exhibit Street Light Interference -- street lights go off, or on, or flicker, when they walk past. (Lest you think I'm making this up, here's a link to a recent story.) Naysayers, of course, claim this is just Dart-Thrower's Bias -- the tendency of the human mind to notice and remember oddities (times that the street light went off as you passed) and ignore all of the background noise (times that the street lights stayed on). Believers aren't buying it, and claim that the "electrical output of the brain" is interfering with the electrical flow in the street light.
How the electrical activity of the brain -- which, according to The Physics Factbook, runs at a total energy consumption rate of 20 to 40 Watts, or slightly less than a single typical incandescent light bulb -- could affect the activity of a 200 Watt high-pressure sodium vapor lamp running on conventional electrical current forty feet away, is never explained. Any demand for a plausible mechanism quickly descends into the same kind of "sensitive psychic field" baloney that comes up with similar requests vis-Ã -vis dowsing.
This, of course, doesn't discourage die-hard SLIders from thinking they're doing something unusual, which makes you wonder why they don't constantly short out computers, televisions, cellphones, iPods, and so on. You'd think that if they can affect something as simple, and powerful, as a street light, frying a laptop would be a relative cinch. Yet even some of the pro-SLIder sites I looked at admitted that the effect had "proven difficult to replicate in a laboratory setting."
Yup, I'll just bet it is. In any case, here's another nice thing to add to your skeptical toolkit -- "show me the mechanism." If you think something weird is going on, you'd better have a plausible explanation for it that doesn't fly in the face of verified science. And that goes double for all of you Portuguese Water Dogs.
I bring this up in part because of a discussion I had with a student a couple of days ago over the practice of dowsing. For those of you who don't know what this is, dowsing (also known as "water-witching") is the use of a forked stick, generally by a "sensitive," to find underground water. Supposedly the stick will give a sharp downward pull if there's a source of water suitable for well-drilling underneath where you're standing. I have found that this is the one woo-woo claim that elicits the most support when it comes up in my Critical Thinking classes -- almost every one of my students knows at least one person who will vouch for its truth.
Of course, the fact is, in upstate New York there's almost nowhere you could drill around here and not hit water, sooner or later, and most of the groundwater is pretty clean. So dowsing would be a pretty safe proposition nearly everywhere. But so, of course, would claiming that your dog was a "sensitive," and leading him around on a leash until he gets bored and sits down, and then drilling there because a source of underground water exerts a magnetic attraction on your dog's butt.
I hear that Portuguese Water Dogs are an especially good choice for this.
Be that as it may, I said to my student, "How could this possibly work?" Of course, she had no ready answer for this, and neither does anyone else, but this hasn't stopped people from making one up -- that the Earth's "energies" interact with the "psychic fields" of the dowser's mind, causing the stick to move downwards. One person's website even claimed that because willow trees like to grow near water, willow wood works the best for dowsing rods. (And you laughed at my Portuguese Water Dog claim. Please explain to me how the "willow wood" claim is any different.)
The demand of "show me the mechanism" is a pretty good first-order test for a lot of these claims, such as the recent spate of stories about people called SLIders (and we're not referring to the 90s science fiction TV series here). SLIders are people who exhibit Street Light Interference -- street lights go off, or on, or flicker, when they walk past. (Lest you think I'm making this up, here's a link to a recent story.) Naysayers, of course, claim this is just Dart-Thrower's Bias -- the tendency of the human mind to notice and remember oddities (times that the street light went off as you passed) and ignore all of the background noise (times that the street lights stayed on). Believers aren't buying it, and claim that the "electrical output of the brain" is interfering with the electrical flow in the street light.
How the electrical activity of the brain -- which, according to The Physics Factbook, runs at a total energy consumption rate of 20 to 40 Watts, or slightly less than a single typical incandescent light bulb -- could affect the activity of a 200 Watt high-pressure sodium vapor lamp running on conventional electrical current forty feet away, is never explained. Any demand for a plausible mechanism quickly descends into the same kind of "sensitive psychic field" baloney that comes up with similar requests vis-Ã -vis dowsing.
This, of course, doesn't discourage die-hard SLIders from thinking they're doing something unusual, which makes you wonder why they don't constantly short out computers, televisions, cellphones, iPods, and so on. You'd think that if they can affect something as simple, and powerful, as a street light, frying a laptop would be a relative cinch. Yet even some of the pro-SLIder sites I looked at admitted that the effect had "proven difficult to replicate in a laboratory setting."
Yup, I'll just bet it is. In any case, here's another nice thing to add to your skeptical toolkit -- "show me the mechanism." If you think something weird is going on, you'd better have a plausible explanation for it that doesn't fly in the face of verified science. And that goes double for all of you Portuguese Water Dogs.
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