Greetings from the Galactic Federation

While rooting around for a topic for today's post, I checked out one of my favorite woo-woo sites, AboveTopSecret.  One of the headline posts said, "Is the Galactic Federation Real?"  I clicked the link, and it turned out not to be an article, as I'd hoped, but to be a post from a member of the site, and simply reiterated the question in the title of the post.

So I went to the "responses" section.  The first two responses were, and I quote:

"Short answer: No."

"Long answer:  NOOOOOOOOOOO."

So I thought: "Wow, this topic is too wacky even for the readers of AboveTopSecret.  This has got to be good."  So first, I continued to scroll down the responses, and I found that most of them were scornful, and a few said that because this topic had been discussed ad nauseam before, the thread would likely be removed by moderators.  Then someone said, "Of course it will  be removed.  They don't want you to know the truth."  *cue sinister laughter*

At that point, I decided I had to check this out.  So I found the site Galactic Federation of Light.  (Please be forewarned that this site is very slow to load, and in fact resulted in my having to restart my browser twice -- perhaps because the Galactic Federation Overlords were aware that I was accessing their site in order to poke fun at them.)  Be that as it may, this site explains everything you might want to know about the Galactic Federation.

Okay, that's only a true statement if by "explain" you mean "make stuff up."  The site is largely composed of a series of dated posts, each stating who said it and some including which Galactic Federation Master (s)he was channeling at the time.  Here is a sampling:

Your planet is literally surrounded with craft from all corners of the universe as all beings vie for ringside seats to the greatest show in the galaxy. Your world has long been highly regarded as one of the finest spiritual schools in the universe and entry into this University has been highly sought after. Now, you are on the precipice of a school-wide graduation, and you are center stage for the family that has come from all parts of the universe to attend the graduation ceremonies.  (Galactic Federation through Wanderer From The Skies, July 14, 2011)

All I can say is, I hope the speeches are better than the ones at most of the graduation ceremonies I've been to.  And if someone decides to read the names of all seven billion graduates, I'm leaving.

The next three or four months are destined to be eye opening, and you will know for sure that the big changes are on the way. After all the year speeds by and before you know it, it will be the magical year of 2012. So get ready to button up your safety belts and enjoy the ride. It can be seen as good or bad as you want it to be, so see the goal that is being aimed for and not the manner in which it is to be reached. All you need know is that it results in all you have been promised. It will be an unbelievable time with one surprise after another, and celebrations will be taking place.

I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and tell you that our ships are gathering for the grand announcement that will allow us to land on your Earth by invitation.  (SaLuSa / through Mike Quinsey, 20th July 2011)

Well, given that this was posted last summer, and I don't remember Autumn 2011 as being all that eye-opening, I guess SaLuSa from Sirius might have gotten his wires crossed somehow.

Since the posts were in chronological order, I decided that like the Brothers of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, I needed to skip a bit, so I scrolled down to more current posts.  From April of 2012 I found the following:

Dratzo! We return! The great shift that your world is undergoing was first predicted by the Ancients over 13,000 years ago. It is part of what they called 'the great galactic year.' Heaven is to honor this time by establishing a great Light, which will wash away the dark and all its minions. We were asked, over 20 of your years ago, to come here and be ready at an appointed time to carry out a mass landing of our personnel on your precious shores. And so we came, and then saw that Heaven's dates for this undertaking were somewhat unclear. So we adapted, and proceeded to use these moments to get to know you better. Since our arrival here, we have become part of a sacred movement to prepare Gaia's surface humans for the requirements of the divine decrees for this planet. One of them specifies the need to resolve the issue of the dark minions' labyrinth of control on your planet through sacred cleansing. In the main this will start with a formal, immense change in the way your societies operate and in the way you perceive the nature of your reality.  (Washta, Sirius Star-Nation, Galactic Federation of Light & Ascended Masters, 17th April 2012)

"Dratzo?"  Is this some kind of greeting from Sirius, or something?  I think we should all begin to greet each other in this fashion from now on, so that "Washta" and his buddies feel at home when they arrive.

"Washta" had a further missive that he delivered last Tuesday:

Dratzo! We return! We have been informed that several major banks worldwide are nearly ready to transfer ownership and management. This is part of the massive shift of financial power out of the hands of the dark into those of the Light, and is the result of recent maneuvers by the Ascended Masters.

Furthermore, the time has come to consolidate the funds that were first posited by Saint Germaine in the early 18th century, and by Quan Yin in the 7th century. These large reserves of gold and silver are the basis for shifting wealth on your world away from a select few over to those who are fully committed to the creation of universal prosperity for the planet. Accompanying this transfer is the new banking system which will be completely transparent in its varied transactions. The new banking is rooted in the unprecedented injunction that banks be the divine instruments of the Light. They are to be used to manage various corporations (special partnerships) charged with specific and temporary mandates: to distribute technologies and related services to benefit the health and well being of your global populations.  (Washta, Sirius Star-Nation, Galactic Federation of Light & Ascended Masters, 24th April 2012)

Well, that sounds hopeful enough.  I wouldn't mind it if the banks started being more concerned with the health and well-being of global populations, not to mention getting my share of the universal property.  But at this point, I stopped reading, because I was afraid my browser would crash again, and also because my prefrontal cortex was beginning to make alarming little whimpering noises.

What strikes me about this is that the people who believe this stuff (and there seem to be quite a few, judging from the posts and the comments that followed) go way beyond wishful thinking into that more rarefied air of delusion.  I mean, it'd be nice if there were some Galactic Good Guys who were ready to Storm The Beaches and reorganize world governments so that they Played Nice, but there's just this teensy little problem, which is that there's no evidence whatsoever that any of it is true.  And this brings up a troubling question, to wit:  what is it that makes someone swallow something like this?  I mean, beyond the rather sad answer that the person in question is mentally ill.  And I just can't believe that mental illness accounts for all of the believers in conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, cults, superstitions... and Galactic Federations.

I actually know people who are seemingly quite rational, who hold down jobs and raise families and interact socially, and yet who have some pretty bizarre beliefs on a single topic -- astrology, homeopathy, HAARP, the Illuminati, psychic contact with animals.  What in the human brain can become so unhinged, in an otherwise intact mind, that a person loses the ability in that instance (and that instance only) to decide if something is real, has supporting evidence, makes sense?

I don't know the answer, but I do think the whole thing is a little scary.  So I'll end on that note.  Well, I do have one more thing to say:  Dratzo!

Walking on sunshine

At what point, when someone believes something that is counterfactual, unscientific, and (to put not too fine a point on it) ridiculous, does it become the person's fault for not knowing better?

We live in a culture which, to a large extent, has an expectation that people should be protected from the effects of their own stupidity.  This extends to the availability of insurance, and claims for government aid, when people build their houses in areas that are known to be targets for natural disasters.  When a five million dollar house is built onto a canyon wall in earthquake-prone, mudslide-prone, wildfire-prone California, and it (to borrow a phrase) burns down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp, and the owner acts all mystified that it happened, how sympathetic should we be?

This question isn't just relevant to matters of property loss; it also is appropriate to ask in a great many issues of personal safety.  Take motorcycle helmet laws.  Take smoking cigarettes.  Who, at this point, doesn't know the dangers of these behaviors?  At some point, it is not the government's responsibility to prevent us from doing stupid stuff; it is ours.

The matter becomes a little fuzzier with medical issues, because (1) people are trained from birth to listen to white-coat-wearing individuals with stethoscopes, (2) there's a huge profit motive to the whole quack-cures industry, inducing charlatans to spend a lot more time and effort pushing their claims, and (3) human physiology is a great deal more complicated than "if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, and get in an accident, you will be turned into a giant splat mark on the asphalt."  Still, I can't help but think that there is a point at which it is the consumer's personal responsibility to be well enough informed that (s)he won't do anything egregiously idiotic, such as trying to treat an illness by taking pills that have had every last potentially useful molecule removed by serial dilution.

But homeopathy isn't my topic today; the genesis of this post is something even stupider.  Something that makes homeopaths seem worthy of the Nobel Prize in Medicine.  Something so monumentally idiotic that I felt obliged to dig around and see if it could possibly be a hoax.

Tragically, it is not.  It really seems to be true that a Swiss woman died last year -- after a guru convinced her that she could live on sunlight alone.  (Source)

Apparently the woman, whose name was not released by the press but who was a resident of the town of Wolfhalden, had had some health problems, and after being unsatisfied with the medical care she was receiving from actual doctors, she decided to ask a guru's advice.  The guru said he was 70 years old and was still in prime health, and had done it by giving up food and water entirely decades ago.  He said all you had to do was to sit in the sun with large sectors of your skin exposed, absorbing the sun's "life-giving rays," and that if you had reached a high enough plane of spiritual consciousness, that'd be all you'd need not only to survive, but to thrive.

The article didn't say, but I'd bet hard cold cash that the guru also used the words "resonance," "frequency," and "vibration."

Anyhow, the woman didn't do what I'd like to think most of us would do in that situation, which is to burst into guffaws and say, "What the hell?  Do I look like a house plant to you?"  And walk away.  No, she apparently said, "Wow!  I never thought of that!" and proceeded to stop eating and drinking.  She spent a great deal of time sitting, scantily-clad, in the sun.  And amazingly enough, she succeeded not in curing her illnesses -- but in starving to death.

An unanswered question I had is how on earth her friends and relatives let this happen.  If I saw some nimrod I knew stop eating anything and spending large quantities of time sitting outside naked, I think I would probably question whether he'd lost his marbles, and try to intervene.  But either she didn't have enough close friends, or hid it from them well enough, that by the time she was admitted to medical care, it was too late to save her.

This, of course, has elicited calls to prosecute the guru.  My general thought is that this is probably justified, because victimizing stupid people is a pretty terrible thing to do, but there's a part of me that can't get all that worked up about this.  Shouldn't we have an expectation, as a presumably educated society, that people will at least understand biology to the extent that they know that humans cannot conduct photosynthesis?  If there really is someone who is that dumb, or that gullible, should the authorities step in to protect them from the consequences of their foolishness?

I think that at some point, personal responsibility has to kick in.  If we fail to educate ourselves on issues of vital importance to our health and happiness, and then become victims of natural disasters, preventable accidents, hucksters, and frauds, it is no one's fault but our own.  And as far as the Swiss woman who thought she was a plant; this, to me, is just a case of natural selection in action, improving the gene pool for the rest of us.

Prophecy pages and prayer rugs

Apparently a new strategy amongst the severely religious is to send out broadside literature through the mail.  I know this because a friend of mine got one.  However, given that (1) my friend didn't request the letter, and (2) it was warmly and personally addressed to "Occupant," you have to wonder how successful this strategy is going to be.

It's not like junk mail is as lucrative a business as it used to be, given that you can send out ten thousand emails for less than the cost of a single snail-mail letter.  But evidently this hasn't dissuaded some of these folks from trying the old fashioned way.

Anyway, how this all came up is that a couple of days ago, my friend came up to me, grinning, with some papers in his hand, and said, "When I got this, I immediately thought that you should have it."  I've found that since I'm mostly known for my interest in woo-woo crackpots, this is seldom a good sign.  And sure enough, this letter was way off to the "Wingnut" end of the spectrum.

The first thing I opened was a large, garishly-colored piece of textured paper that has a pattern around it in magenta and gold that looks a little like a Persian rug.  After unfolding it, I said, and I quote, "Aaaaugh!"  Because facing me was a nearly life-sized image of Jesus' face, eyes closed, wearing a crown of thorns.  One disconcerting thing is that the face looks to my eyes more like Willie Nelson than it does like my concept of The Lord And Savior, but that may just be me.  Be that as it may, the instructions on the bottom read:

Look into Jesus' eyes you will see they are closed.  But as you continue to look you will see His eyes opening and looking back into your eyes.  Then go and be alone and kneel on this Rug of Faith or touch it to both knees.  Then please check your needs on our letter to you.  Please return this Prayer Rug.  Do not keep it.

My first thought was that if I was staring at this picture and its eyes opened, I would probably want to be alone for an entirely different reason, namely that I would think that I'd lost my marbles.  But then I thought: maybe there's some reason why people see this happen.  I know that staring fixedly at something does mess around with your visual integrative system, creating afterimages and all sorts of odd effects.  So I looked closely at the drawing, and I noticed that in the center of each eye was a faint dot, with a lighter spot up and to the left -- like a ghostly image of a pupil and a point of light reflected from the surface of a human eye.  Stare at the picture long enough, I'd guess, and those features might make the eyes begin to look as if they were open.

So, I folded up and put away the "Prayer Rug," because that picture is freakin' creepy, and picked up the next one, which said, "Please don't open this prophecy until after you have placed your prayer page (page two of our letter to you) and the Prayer Rug back in the mail before sunset tomorrow or the next day.  God will help you to do this.  You will see."

Now, you have to wonder why anyone would need god's help to put something in the mail, but I may be reading this wrong.  In any case, I threw caution to the wind and opened the secret prophecy.  The prophecy turned out to be a page of fine print, and I frankly do not feel like copying the entire thing, but the gist of it is that god knows I'm not happy with my life, and that in fact he has the impression that I'm kind of a sorry so-and-so.  (I paraphrase slightly.)  But in order to have ENDLESS JOY all I have to do is allow god's spirit to work through me by praying a lot and sending a donation to the church that sent this letter.

The remaining pieces of paper were the checklist of what I'd like them to pray for on my behalf (after I saw Jesus' eyes open on the "Prayer Rug"), and some testimonials from folks about what they'd gotten.  Some of these included:

• strength
• spiritual blessing
• a money blessing
• happy family life
• miracle healing
• a good loving companion
• a secure future
• protection from evil
• salvation
• true love

All of which sound pretty awesome, but honestly, I think I'll spare them the trouble.  Given my rampant atheism, I think god (if he actually exists) would not have a particularly strong motivation to shower me with gifts even if these people prayed for me because I'd sent them a checklist and returned their "Prayer Rug."

Honestly, how do the groups who send this stuff out think this could possibly work?  I guess that since they seem pretty sincere about wanting to do good stuff for total strangers, I can't argue with their motives.  There was none of the "Oh, and if you don't believe what we're saying, you will BURN IN AGONY FOR ALL ETERNITY HA HA HA HA" business you usually see with missives of this sort.  So, as these things go, it was pretty friendly, as long as you discount the scary drawing of Jesus.

But I still must ask the question -- if they think that god knows everything and has a plan for everyone, and will always make sure everything works out for the best (for all of which there was ample evidence on the "prophecy page"), isn't it contradictory to believe that they could change someone's destiny by praying, using the person's wish list of stuff (s)he'd like to have?  Do they think that god is sort of like Santa Claus, reading a kid's Christmas list and going, "I didn't know little Billy wanted a Lego set!  Well, we'll just have to have the elves make him one!  Ho ho ho!"  If there is a god, I somehow can't imagine that he works that way.

So, the open question is what to do with the letter, "Prayer Rug," and the lot.  I think I'm going to give it back to my friend.  After all, it was addressed to him ("Occupant"), so if anyone should get all of the bad luck from not returning the "Prayer Rug" to the church, I think it's only fair that it should be him.  Okay, I opened the Prophecy before I was supposed to, but if I seal it back up with a little piece of scotch tape, maybe god won't notice.

Burning down the house

I try to be kind, I really do.  I listened patiently to the student in my Critical Thinking class who told me with great enthusiasm how well astrology worked, and how it has "recently become much more scientific" in the way astrologers construct their charts and predictions.  I refrained from guffawing in the face of the woman who, while visiting my home, informed me that my dad's rock collection had "very powerful crystal energies."  I didn't even give so much as a snort when an acquaintance told me she had been in psychic communication with her pets.

I know that if I'm working toward my stated goal -- to foster skepticism and rationalism -- then from a methodological standpoint, it works better to argue from a logical, scientific perspective than it does simply to bellow laughter at one's opponent.

Still, it's hard sometimes.  Take the case of the naked Wiccan arsonists.  (Source)

Aftab Mughal, of Nottingham, England, had been feeling as if his life was becoming increasingly negative -- he was under stress, and things just "weren't going right" for him.  So he went to visit his friend, Terence Williams, to ask for advice.  Williams, a Wiccan, said that Mughal needed to participate in a ceremony to cleanse him of "negative vibrations," so they set up the ritual in Williams' apartment.

First, they walked around burning white sage sticks.  But this didn't seem to do enough to remove the negativity, in Williams' opinion.  So the two took the obvious next step, which was to set fire first to some pieces of paper, and then to a wooden broom.  Amazingly enough, this also had no effect on Mughal's mood, so Williams came up with an innovative solution: both men needed to strip naked and burn their clothes.

Have I mentioned that all of this was taking place inside Williams' apartment?

Firefighters were summoned by neighbors when they saw smoke billowing out of Williams' window, and one fireman banged on the window to get the two men's attention, because they seemed not to care that the apartment was basically on fire and the room they were in was filling up with smoke.  Firefighters broke in the door and tried to get Williams and Mughal to leave, but the two nude Wiccans ran upstairs to get away.  The firemen followed them, and finally forcibly removed both men from the burning apartment.

Once outside, the firefighters tried to get Mughal and Williams to cover up with blankets, but they threw the blankets on the ground and basically capered about in the all-together, apparently not caring about the negative vibrations they were inducing in passersby.

The end result was that the pair was charged with arson, and the case went to court last week.

The prosecuting attorney, Siward James-Moore, said, "Aftab Mughal, as far as he was concerned, he didn't think the ritual was one that made him fear for his safety and he was bemused when the fire brigade arrived." James-Moore himself seemed more than a little bemused by the whole thing, and added that when a fireman tried to get the two Wiccans to leave the apartment, "The flames were licking around Mr. Williams' ankles at that stage.  He was staring right through him."

Ultimately, Mughal and Williams pleaded guilty to arson, but because the judge considered that the fire was caused by "stupidity, not by malice," they received no jail time, and were sentenced to 120 hours of unpaid community service.

Okay, now while I was reading this, I tried to maintain my sense of decorum, I really did.  I attempted to hold firm to the attitude that these men were only acting out of their seriously-held religious beliefs, and as such, I should be tolerant and understanding.  But when I got to the part about the firemen attempting to get them to cover themselves up, and their tossing the blankets to the ground and running around outside naked while the firemen chased them, I have to admit that my reaction was, and I quote:  BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *falls off chair*

I mean, really.  You can argue the benefits of religious beliefs from a number of angles -- that religion has incited people to perform acts of great altruism, that it has inspired beautiful art and transcendent music, that it has given people hope in the face of desperate times.  Unfortunately, though, religion has also fostered some pretty bizarre behavior.  And I maintain: whatever your criticisms of the scientific view of the world, rationalism has never incited anyone to dance around naked in his apartment while it was on fire.

News from Loch Ness

Fans of the claim that a plesiosaur left over from the Cretaceous Period lives in Scotland's Loch Ness just got a shot in the arm from recent sonar images.

Tour boat skipper Marcus Atkinson was out in Loch Ness' Urquhart Bay when he saw a sensor blip show up on his sonar fish finder.  The object, which was five feet wide and about thirty feet long, was down at a depth of about 75 feet, and seemed to be following the boat.  Here's the image in question:

"I was dropping customers at Urquhart Castle and then got my boat out of the way of the other tour companies," Atkinson told reporters.  "I moved out into the water and looked at the sonar and saw this image had appeared.  The device takes a reading of the depth and what is below the boat every quarter of a second and gradually builds up a picture, so it covered a time of about five minutes.  The object got bigger and bigger and I thought 'bloody hell' and took a picture with my mobile phone.  There is nothing that big in the Loch. I was in shock as it looked like a big serpent, it’s amazing. You can’t fake a sonar image.  I have never seen anything returned like this on the fish finder.  It is a bizarre shape to me. I have shown it to other experienced skippers and none of us know what it was.  I have seen a lot of pictures in 21 years of being here but this is the clearest image yet. Undoubtedly, there is something in the loch."

The image was the winner of the Best Nessie Sighting of the Year Award.

Okay, now what's a skeptic to think about this?

First, I've always put Nessie down a bit on the plausibility list -- below, for example, Sasquatch -- because there's a good scientific argument against its existence, to wit: the claim that a plesiosaur survived in Scotland for the last 65 million years ignores the fact that between then and now, Scotland has more than once been underneath a great big glacier.  The last one receded only 10,000 years ago, and is thought to be the origin of the lake itself.  If you think that an enormous aquatic dinosaur made it through the various Ice Ages, you have to be able to explain how it either (1) somehow escaped being turned into a Plesiosaur Popsicle despite being buried under hundreds of feet of ice, or (2) got into Loch Ness after the ice receded, at a time when the sea level was a great deal lower than it is now and it was an even longer trip over land from the nearest large body of water.  Additionally, Loch Ness is what is called an oligotrophic lake -- it is very low in dissolved nutrients, and therefore is largely devoid of life.  There are simply not enough fish in Loch Ness to support a breeding population of thirty-foot-long aquatic dinosaurs.  None of these objections is usually addressed by Nessie aficionados.

But presupposing that there is some explanation for all of this that I'm missing, what did Marcus Atkinson see on his fish finder?  I have to admit that if I'd been in his shoes, "bloody hell" would probably have been only the first, and mildest, exclamation I would have said, and I would have gotten my boat out of the water so fast that it probably would still be embedded in the nearest beach.  Be that as it may, the image does deserve an explanation.

The unfortunate thing, of course, is that Atkinson was alone on his boat when it happened.  I'm trying to be open-minded here and refrain from commenting on (1) the fact that this is pretty convenient, given the controversial nature of his claim, not to mention (2) the fact that the fame he's now getting for having taken this image are now significantly higher than he could have expected to get as a humble tour boat operator, and (3) the fact that it's the beginning of tourist season in the Scottish Highlands, and (4) the fact that there's a new tourist attraction opening this year called "Cruise Loch Ness," designed as monster-hunting trips, run by... none other than Marcus Atkinson.

Okay, so maybe I didn't try all that hard to refrain from commenting upon those things.

And, of course, there's the problem that there's another plausible explanation of the image.  Dr. Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanographic Centre at Southampton, told reporters that it is incorrect to think of sonar images as analogous to a standard photograph:  "The picture is built up slowly as the boat moves," Boxall explained.  "So it’s not a snapshot, and thus the image is not an image of a single object unless it is very still."

So is Atkinson's image a fake?  No, Boxall says, but it also isn't a plesiosaur.

"The image shows a bloom of algae and zooplankton that would exist on what would be a thermocline.  Zooplankton live off this algae and reflect sound signals from echo sounders and fish finders very well.  They will appear as a linear 'blob' on the screen, just like this.  This is a monster made of millions of tiny animals and plants and represents the bulk of life in the Loch."

So sorry, Nessie fans, but it looks like if this is the Best Nessie Sighting of the Year, it's pretty lame.

Now, understand that if it did turn out that there was a plesiosaur in Scotland, I would be thrilled.  I was one of those kids who loved prehistoric animals, and I've never really gotten over it.  But I just think that the evidence, sadly, is mostly in the "nope" column.  Too bad, because even if you're a microbiologist, you have to admit that it is a proven scientific fact that dinosaurs are cooler than zooplankton.

Wonder of wonders

Nine-year-old Preston Stevens of Boston claims he's alive because of a miracle.  (Source)

Last Tuesday afternoon, Stevens and his mother, Sharon Jackson, heard some popping noises, and Preston felt a "push."  He was narrowly missed by a bullet that had come right through the wall - in fact, it left a smoking hole in the Boston Celtics jersey he was wearing.  Preston was quoted as saying that "it was like God pushed me."

Well, first and foremost I want to express my happiness that Preston is safe and sound, and nothing I'm about to say should be construed as diminishing that.  The fundamental thing here is that a child could have been injured or killed, and any amount of philosophical meandering should take back seat to that consideration.

That said, however, the whole thing does bring up a troubling question; how could you tell the difference between a miracle and simple good luck?

I have had times when I've had near misses from disaster -- like the time that my car hit a patch of black ice, went into a spin, and I slid right off the road -- onto a twenty-by-twenty patch of flat gravel that is the only place along that road that I could have landed without flipping my car, slamming into a tree, or landing in a creek.  After a moment to restart my heart, I slowly pulled back out onto the road, and drove the rest of the way to work without incident, and without so much as a scratch or dent on my car.

But was it a miracle?  Even if I believed in a deity, I think I'd be distinctly uneasy calling it that, because that implies that something different happened in that circumstance (there was direct intervention by god) than if it had just been dumb luck.  Does the fact that I saw no giant translucent hand shoving me in the direction of the gravel patch mean that I was simply fortunate?  (I have to admit that if god does exist, he missed a good opportunity to get rid of me that day -- and given how much time I've spent disbelieving in his existence, I couldn't have argued with his motives.)

I think the whole thing hinges on an unknowable; something is classifiable as a miracle only if it would have happened otherwise without direct intervention by a higher power.  And how could we possibly know that?  C. S. Lewis makes as strong a case for the occurrence of the miraculous as any I've ever read (in his book, appropriately titled Miracles).   He claims that the "naturalist" position is self-contradictory:

What the Naturalist believes is the ultimate Fact, the thing you can't go behind, is a vast process in space and time which is going on of its own accord. Inside that total system every particular event (such as your sitting reading this book) happens because some other event has happened. All things and events are so completely interlocked that no one of them can claim can claim the slightest independence from 'the whole show.'

He goes on to state that since a "naturalist" claims that we are all created, and driven, by random motions of molecules and so on, that there's no reason to believe that the conclusions reached by our brains are correct; how, he argues, could a brain made of randomly-moving particles ever be more than a generator of random statements, which may or may not be true?  If there is no external truth (i.e. god), we have no touchstone by which to determine the truth of naturalism itself, and the whole thing swallows its own tail.

I don't intend to analyze Lewis' whole argument -- perhaps that is the topic for another post -- but I think part of what Lewis misses is that supernaturalism has its own fundamental self-contradiction, which is in its claim that there are events that are "super-natural" -- that would not have happened, or would have happened differently, without a divine hand driving the action.  Lewis himself has Aslan say (in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), "My child, no one is ever told what might have been."  So the declaration of an event as being a miracle presupposes a knowledge of what would have happened without the divine intervention occurring -- something that even Lewis says is impossible!

Of course, that's not the only problem with the assumption of the miraculous.  It also brings up the far more troubling question of why some people deserve miracles and others don't -- if god intervened to save Preston Stevens' life (I'm assuming that we're accepting that a miracle was unlikely in the case of my near-miss automobile accident), why doesn't he intervene to save the lives of the thousands of other children who die tragically every day?  To me, stating that it was "god's plan" that Preston survived leads you into the distinctly awkward suggestion that it was also god's plan that other children (and other adults) die, sometimes in agony, many because of senseless violence.  I suppose that if you believe in an afterlife you could quibble that the victims of such tragedies got their rewards after death -- but considering that the majority of the world (and therefore the majority of these unfortunate individuals) are not Christian, this isn't a very satisfying answer, either.

Of course, since I don't believe in a deity, my answer is that bad stuff happens, people die, sometimes people escape unscathed in amazing ways, and that's just the way of things.  But I have to admit to some curiosity about how the religious deal with this issue, because it seems to me on the one hand presumptuous ("we know the intentions of god"), or on the other hand to open up more questions than it answers.

In any case, I'll end by reiterating that I'm glad that Preston Stevens was unhurt, be it a miracle or not.  And I have to note, in the interest of honesty, that despite the fact that his mother fully supports Preston's claims that his survival was a miracle, she did move his bed to the other side of the room.

You're my type

A few days ago I posted an article about a claim that Rh negative individuals are descended from aliens, or possibly Jesus, and this allows them to have a variety of superpowers.  The outcome of writing this is that my blog has been bombarded by a slew of advertisements revolving around blood types (not to mention aliens and Jesus),and this included one that claimed that before dating, you should always check your potential romantic interest's blood type.

Intrigued, I clicked the link, and after about a half-hour's rooting around online (during which thousands of innocent cells in my prefrontal cortex were subjected to unmentionable agony) I found this site, which seems to have the most detail about the whole thing.  It turns out that for some years now, woo-woos in Japan have claimed that your blood type (just the A/B/O group, not the Rh group; almost no one in Japan is Rh negative) influences your personality.  And of course, there's no way that Americans are going to read about any damnfool unscientific idea without a significant number of them going, "Wow, I never thought of that!"  Especially if the idea originated in Japan, which always seems to add a nice cachet of credibility.  So this has led to a whole new branch of personality-analysis pseudoscience, as if astrology wasn't enough.

According to Natalie Josef, the writer on the above website, not only does your blood type tell you your personality and who you should try to hook up with, it also predicts what career you should pursue:

Type O
You are the social butterflies. Often popular and self-confident, you are very creative and always seem to be the center of attention. You make a good impression on people and you’re often quite attractive. Organized and determined, your stubbornness will help you reach your goals. You make good leaders. Lovewise, O is most compatible with O and AB. Common career choices: banker, politician, gambler, minister, investment broker, and pro athlete.
Type A
Type As may seem calm on the outside, but inside, you’re filled with anxiety and worry. You’re perfectionists and often shy and sensitive. Usually introverted, you’re stable and thoughtful. You make good listeners and are sensitive to color and your surroundings. You like to be fashionable and are up on the latest trends, but never flashy or gaudy. You like romantic settings and often shun reality for fantasy worlds. A is most compatible with A and AB in the love department. Common career choices: accountant, librarian, economist, writer, computer programmer, and gossip columnist.
Type B
You can be very goal-oriented and often complete the ambitious tasks set before you. Outgoing and very charming, you’re good at reading people and providing support. Though critical of appearance (but not your own), you aren’t picky and are unlikely to dwell over the little things. Type Bs are impulsive individualists who often create their own path in life. You are very strong and optimistic. B is most compatible with B and AB lovers. Common career choices: cook, hairdresser, military leader, talk show host, and journalist.
Type AB
Not surprisingly, ABs can be quite dualistic, possessing both A and B traits. You may be shy and outgoing, and hesitant and confident. You often stand out from others, don’t like labels, and are nice and easy going. You are logical and determined to do things correctly. Usually trustworthy, you like to help others. You often speak in a serious manner. Your patience, concentration, and intelligence are admirable. AB can find a soul mate with any other blood type. Common career choices: bartender, lawyer, teacher, sales representative, and social worker.

Well, I'm a type A, and I have to admit that I am a bit of a border collie, personality-wise; but as far as being "fashionable," all I can say is that usually I go to work looking like I've been put through a dryer without "Cling-Free."  I probably own an iron, but I have no idea where it is, and my idea of color matching usually revolves around the concept of "everything goes well with khaki."  And in the career department, "writer" is an obvious hit, but the other ones ("Gossip columnist?" "Accountant?" What the hell?) are, shall we say, not very accurate.

What strikes me about all of this is the usual dart-thrower's bias phenomenon; we tend to notice the hits and ignore the misses.  But really, come on.  Are you really claiming that there are only four basic personality types?  Even the astrologers divide all of humanity twelve ways; the best you can do is four?

Then, after reading the article, I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments.  This is, as I have mentioned before, usually a mistake.  My favorite one was the second comment, which revolved around the fact that the article had made a point that in Japan, believers in the whole blood-type-is-destiny don't like ABs very much.  This reader was upset by that:

Kudos on your article Natalie. I love learning something new all the time. I'm an AB+ as well, plus Asian astrology sign of Fire Horse. Not only did they abort as many unborn fire horses back in 1966 as they were able, (fire was considered an undesirable element with horse sign) but now I find out they also wouldn't want me due to my blood type! However, I have to say I love Asian food!

Okay.  Sure.  "Fire horses."  "Fire horse" + AB = "really bad."  But at least I like shrimp fried rice!  Yay!

I have to admit to deep mystification as to why an obviously absurd idea could possibly convince anyone, and I'm forced to the conclusion that the main problem is that a large fraction of humanity has no real understanding of the principles of scientific induction.  We are so immersed in a world of advertising claims, political sound-bites, and media glitz that "well, that sounds right!" has become the gold standard for belief.  Remarkably few people, upon reading a claim, seem even to take the next step, which is to ask the question, "how do I know that claim is true?", much less go on to asking, "if it is true, how could that possibly work?"  All in all, it makes me realize that as a science teacher, I have my work cut out for me.