I should know better, by now. I shouldn't describe someone's woo-woo belief, and then exaggerate it for humorous effect, and say something to the effect of, "well, at least no one believes this." It always seems to backfire, somehow.
You may recall that in yesterday's post, we had the story of Arní Johnson, an Icelandic member of parliament who became convinced that he had been saved from dying in an automobile accident by a family of elves living in a rock. To express his gratitude, he had the rock moved to his front yard, and an "elf expert," Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, said that was fine as long as the rock was placed in grass (the elves wanted some sheep, apparently) and that it was moved in such a way that the elves were "comfortable" during the journey.
And hoping for a laugh, I quipped, "How do you become an elf expert? Do Icelandic universities offer a major in elfology?"
Well. Like I said before, such comments often come back to bite me on the ass. To wit: today in Iceland Review Online we have a response to Arní Johnson's actions in moving the elves' house, from a guy named Magnús Skarphéðinsson, saying that Johnson was acting foolishly in moving the elves, and in fact may have jeopardized his health in so doing. And who is Magnús Skarphéðinsson, you may ask?
He is principal of the "Icelandic Elf School." (Read about it here.)
Skarphéðinsson says that there are thirteen kinds of elves in Iceland, and that they aren't the same thing as the hidden folk; the hidden folk "are just the same size and look exactly like human beings, the only
difference is that they are invisible to most of us. Elves, on the other
hand, aren’t entirely human, they’re humanoid, starting at around eight
centimeters." His school offers certificate-earning programs on the subject of elves, but also "delves into the study of dwarves, gnomes, and trolls." Because heaven knows we don't want to be ignorant about trolls, or we might get eaten by one while carelessly trip-trapping across a bridge.
Skarphéðinsson also says that there are gay and lesbian elves. I'm probably indulging in unfounded speculation, here, but I bet that most of them are refugees from North Carolina.
I should mention at this point that Skarphéðinsson also offers courses in "auras and past-life regression."
Okay. My first question was, is Skarphéðinsson kidding? Or what? There's part of all of this that sounds like he's pulling our leg a little. But according to the article I read on Skarphéðinsson and his school, supposedly 54% of Icelanders believe in elves and the rest, and in fact public works projects are frequently altered, put on hold, or scrapped entirely if the proposed work looks like it's going to piss off the "invisible folk." Construction of a big stretch of the Ring Road -- Iceland's main highway -- had to be halted temporarily while workers moved a big rock that supposedly housed a family of dwarves.
And honestly, who am I to criticize? It's kind of a charming tradition, really. Given the number of Icelanders who claim to have had encounters with the "shadow people," maybe there's something more to it than I realize. I have a friend, also a writer, who swears she had some inexplicable experiences in a house that was reputed to be occupied by fairies -- and fictionalized the whole thing into a wonderful novel, called Away With the Fairies (which you can buy here). The author, Vivienne Tuffnell, is in other respects a thoroughgoing skeptic, so maybe there's more to this legend than I'm seeing.
In fact, I can say with some certainty that if I ever return to Iceland, I will definitely take a class at the Icelandic Elf School. It would be a proud day for me to hang up a certificate above my desk saying that I had successfully completed a course of study in elfology. And I have, finally, learned my lesson, namely never to suggest that a particular belief is so silly that no one could ever consider it.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Dead sheep, live elves, and a stuck willy
Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we've got our eyes on three stories from far afield.
Let's begin with a tragedy in Wales, and hope things get cheerier as we progress.
In our first story, we have reports that the Beast of Bont is at it again, so you might want to cancel that walking tour in the Cambrian Mountains. (Source)
Sheep farmers in Pontrhydfendigaid, a small town near Aberystwyth, discovered last week that twenty sheep had been "massacred" in a spot near Devil's Bridge. This immediately conjured up memories of past attacks, which reportedly have been going on since the 1970s, and have been attributed to a loathsome predator nicknamed "the Beast of Bont."
In this most recent attack, local resident Mark Davey and his partner Annette made the discovery. "The whole area just stank of dead animals and was quite sickening," Davey told reporters. "I could see that the inside of the animals had been ripped out and body parts were lying all around. I thought it could have been foxes or badgers but it was just the increasing number of dead sheep that started the alarm bells ringing in my head. As we walked further we saw several more sheep scattered closely together, again as though some large animal had attacked them. We were getting quite scared and wondered what the hell was doing this."
Myself, I would have wondered to the extent that I'd have gotten right the hell out of there.
"Each time we saw them we thought that something had quite clearly attacked them because they looked like they had been ripped apart," Davey said. "It was a very strange feeling when we saw the sheep because some of them were lambs with just half of their bodies, or just the rear or the back legs left on the field. I could also see a small lamb which looked to me as if it had been carefully placed in the corner of some building ruins. This one was untouched but it appeared that it had been put there for a reason - maybe to come back to it later."
Police say that the pattern of sheep-killings resembles others that have occurred in the area.
Despite periodic reports of "large, puma-like creatures" in the Cambrian Mountains, no one has been able to obtain any kind of reasonably reliable evidence to indicate what might be responsible for the killings. Thus far, only sheep and goats have been attacked, but police have instructed locals to "be vigilant when outdoors." That's putting it mildly. If this had happened in my neighborhood, I might become vigilant to the point of never leaving my house again. I'm just brave that way.
Of course, if you don't want to meet weird things away from home, you can always have the weird things brought to your doorstep. This is the philosophy of Arní Johnson, an Icelandic Member of Parliament who decided to bring a boulder housing "three generations of elves" to his front yard. (Source)
Johnson first ran into the boulder in a nearly literal sense, when he was involved in a serious car accident in January of 2010. His car flipped, landing forty meters away from the highway, damaging it beyond repair -- but leaving Johnson completely unharmed. Johnson decided that it couldn't just have been luck, so he started looking around for what could have saved him, and then he saw this great big rock.
Now, I've been to Iceland, and I can say with some authority that great big rocks are a dime a dozen. Iceland itself seems, in fact, to be one great big rock, with a little bit of ice and grass to break up the monotony. But this was no ordinary rock, Johnson said; no, it was the home of some elves, and the elves had saved his life.
"I had Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, a specialist in the affairs of elves from Álfagarðurinn in Hellisgerði, Hafnarfjörður, to come look at the boulder with me," Johnson said. "She said it was incredible, that she had never met three generations of elves in the same boulder before. She said an elderly couple lives on the upper floor but a young couple with three children on the lower floor."
My first question is: how do you become an elf specialist? Do Icelandic universities allow you to major in elfology? If so, how do you study them, being that even people who think they exist say that they don't exactly wait around for you to examine them closely? Be that as it may, Johnson was tickled with what Jónsdóttir told him, and decided to have the boulder moved to his home in Höfðaból in the Westman Islands. Jónsdóttir said that the elves were fine being moved, but that he had to do it right. "(The elves) asked whether the boulder could stand on grass. I said that was no problem but asked why they wanted grass. ‘It’s because they want to have sheep,’ Ragnhildur replied." So Johnson is having the boulder ferried across to his home, wrapped in sheepskin "so the elves are comfortable."
After the horrors caused by the Beast of Bont, you have to wonder exactly why the elves want to have sheep nearby. But we're hoping that the elves have no ill intent, and the whole story will end happily.
And a happy ending is more than we can say happened for an adulterous couple in Kenya, who discovered during an amorous encounter that a curse by the woman's husband had left them stuck together. (Source)
According to the story, the husband had gotten wind of his wife's cheating ways, and had hired a practitioner of black magic to cast a spell on the wife. The next time the wife and her paramour went at it, the unfortunate man found that he had basically been making love to one of those Chinese finger-traps.
Once the couple realized that their hook-up had left them unable to unhook, they panicked, and their shouts of alarm attracted the attention of the police and an increasingly large crowd. Finally the husband arrived, and after the adulterous man agreed to pay the husband twenty thousand shillings in reparations, a pastor was called in, who prayed over the couple, and the two were able to separate. It is probably just my sordid imagination that pictures this as being accompanied by a sound like a cork being pulled from a wine bottle.
I do have to ask, however; do Kenyan pastors have special prayers for this kind of thing? "O Lord, we beseech thee to call forth thy mighty powers, and help this sinner free his wang, that he might go forth and never more boink another guy's wife, for yea, I believeth that he hath learned his lesson."
So, those are our stories for today -- the sheep-eating Beast of Bont, transporting elf boulders, and adulterous men getting their willies stuck. Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we are constantly alert, bringing you only the finest quality journalism from the world of the weird. "Ever vigilant," that's our motto. That, and "Man, people believe some weird stuff, you have to wonder if we skeptics are justified in having any hope at all." But that's kind of depressing, so we'll stick with "Ever vigilant."
Let's begin with a tragedy in Wales, and hope things get cheerier as we progress.
In our first story, we have reports that the Beast of Bont is at it again, so you might want to cancel that walking tour in the Cambrian Mountains. (Source)
Sheep farmers in Pontrhydfendigaid, a small town near Aberystwyth, discovered last week that twenty sheep had been "massacred" in a spot near Devil's Bridge. This immediately conjured up memories of past attacks, which reportedly have been going on since the 1970s, and have been attributed to a loathsome predator nicknamed "the Beast of Bont."
In this most recent attack, local resident Mark Davey and his partner Annette made the discovery. "The whole area just stank of dead animals and was quite sickening," Davey told reporters. "I could see that the inside of the animals had been ripped out and body parts were lying all around. I thought it could have been foxes or badgers but it was just the increasing number of dead sheep that started the alarm bells ringing in my head. As we walked further we saw several more sheep scattered closely together, again as though some large animal had attacked them. We were getting quite scared and wondered what the hell was doing this."
Myself, I would have wondered to the extent that I'd have gotten right the hell out of there.
"Each time we saw them we thought that something had quite clearly attacked them because they looked like they had been ripped apart," Davey said. "It was a very strange feeling when we saw the sheep because some of them were lambs with just half of their bodies, or just the rear or the back legs left on the field. I could also see a small lamb which looked to me as if it had been carefully placed in the corner of some building ruins. This one was untouched but it appeared that it had been put there for a reason - maybe to come back to it later."
Police say that the pattern of sheep-killings resembles others that have occurred in the area.
Despite periodic reports of "large, puma-like creatures" in the Cambrian Mountains, no one has been able to obtain any kind of reasonably reliable evidence to indicate what might be responsible for the killings. Thus far, only sheep and goats have been attacked, but police have instructed locals to "be vigilant when outdoors." That's putting it mildly. If this had happened in my neighborhood, I might become vigilant to the point of never leaving my house again. I'm just brave that way.
Of course, if you don't want to meet weird things away from home, you can always have the weird things brought to your doorstep. This is the philosophy of Arní Johnson, an Icelandic Member of Parliament who decided to bring a boulder housing "three generations of elves" to his front yard. (Source)
Johnson first ran into the boulder in a nearly literal sense, when he was involved in a serious car accident in January of 2010. His car flipped, landing forty meters away from the highway, damaging it beyond repair -- but leaving Johnson completely unharmed. Johnson decided that it couldn't just have been luck, so he started looking around for what could have saved him, and then he saw this great big rock.
Now, I've been to Iceland, and I can say with some authority that great big rocks are a dime a dozen. Iceland itself seems, in fact, to be one great big rock, with a little bit of ice and grass to break up the monotony. But this was no ordinary rock, Johnson said; no, it was the home of some elves, and the elves had saved his life.
"I had Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, a specialist in the affairs of elves from Álfagarðurinn in Hellisgerði, Hafnarfjörður, to come look at the boulder with me," Johnson said. "She said it was incredible, that she had never met three generations of elves in the same boulder before. She said an elderly couple lives on the upper floor but a young couple with three children on the lower floor."
My first question is: how do you become an elf specialist? Do Icelandic universities allow you to major in elfology? If so, how do you study them, being that even people who think they exist say that they don't exactly wait around for you to examine them closely? Be that as it may, Johnson was tickled with what Jónsdóttir told him, and decided to have the boulder moved to his home in Höfðaból in the Westman Islands. Jónsdóttir said that the elves were fine being moved, but that he had to do it right. "(The elves) asked whether the boulder could stand on grass. I said that was no problem but asked why they wanted grass. ‘It’s because they want to have sheep,’ Ragnhildur replied." So Johnson is having the boulder ferried across to his home, wrapped in sheepskin "so the elves are comfortable."
After the horrors caused by the Beast of Bont, you have to wonder exactly why the elves want to have sheep nearby. But we're hoping that the elves have no ill intent, and the whole story will end happily.
And a happy ending is more than we can say happened for an adulterous couple in Kenya, who discovered during an amorous encounter that a curse by the woman's husband had left them stuck together. (Source)
According to the story, the husband had gotten wind of his wife's cheating ways, and had hired a practitioner of black magic to cast a spell on the wife. The next time the wife and her paramour went at it, the unfortunate man found that he had basically been making love to one of those Chinese finger-traps.
Once the couple realized that their hook-up had left them unable to unhook, they panicked, and their shouts of alarm attracted the attention of the police and an increasingly large crowd. Finally the husband arrived, and after the adulterous man agreed to pay the husband twenty thousand shillings in reparations, a pastor was called in, who prayed over the couple, and the two were able to separate. It is probably just my sordid imagination that pictures this as being accompanied by a sound like a cork being pulled from a wine bottle.
I do have to ask, however; do Kenyan pastors have special prayers for this kind of thing? "O Lord, we beseech thee to call forth thy mighty powers, and help this sinner free his wang, that he might go forth and never more boink another guy's wife, for yea, I believeth that he hath learned his lesson."
So, those are our stories for today -- the sheep-eating Beast of Bont, transporting elf boulders, and adulterous men getting their willies stuck. Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we are constantly alert, bringing you only the finest quality journalism from the world of the weird. "Ever vigilant," that's our motto. That, and "Man, people believe some weird stuff, you have to wonder if we skeptics are justified in having any hope at all." But that's kind of depressing, so we'll stick with "Ever vigilant."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
What the frack?
Diane Tessman is at it again. Yes, the woman who believes that clouds are camouflage for UFOs, who believes that organisms evolve, Pokémon-like, to obtain advanced powers, has now weighed in on another topic:
Hydrofracking.
If you're thinking, "Oh, this is gonna be good," you don't even know the half of it. (Source)
Because it isn't, she said, Diane Tessman speaking; it's a superpowerful alien entity named Tibus who is speaking through her. And boy, is Tibus annoyed with the way we've been treating Mother Earth. He starts out, though, with a news bulletin meant to put us at ease:
After assuring us that the UFOs we see are here on a peaceful scientific mission, and that their crews have no intention of strapping us to examining tables and implanting microchips in our skulls, Tibus/Diane goes on to the topic at hand: the natural gas industry.
The good news, though, is that we don't just have to rely on help from dead physicists in figuring all of this out: we also have the "God Cloud." What, you might ask, is the God Cloud?
So, anyway, that's today's hopeful message from the Land of Woo-Woo: we should stop hydrofracking because it pisses off Mother Earth, Nikola Tesla, and an alien named Tibus, but don't worry because free energy is just around the corner, not to mention an extraterrestrial super-intelligent cloud who is there to help us achieve a stable electromagnetic field of enlightened human consciousness. I'm so glad we have Tibus around to advise us, aren't you? Maybe next time he could weigh in on such Universal Mysteries as why so many people these days seem to believe absurd, counterfactual nonsense. I wonder what Tibus might have to say about that.
Hydrofracking.
If you're thinking, "Oh, this is gonna be good," you don't even know the half of it. (Source)
Because it isn't, she said, Diane Tessman speaking; it's a superpowerful alien entity named Tibus who is speaking through her. And boy, is Tibus annoyed with the way we've been treating Mother Earth. He starts out, though, with a news bulletin meant to put us at ease:
Star people, this is Tibus. I come to you in love and light.Oh, good. If they are operating within Space/Time Intelligence, I guess they're welcome to visit North Carolina. If the craft was populated by gay aliens attempting to find a nice place to get married, however, they might want to try a different venue.
I am smiling as I greet you, my star friends/co-workers! I am also smiling at a UFO report from North Carolina; a man was out looking for a good place to hunt (I hope we was sufficiently distracted by his UFO sighting and did not hunt), when he spotted a low flying rectangular craft with 4 amber lights. “Rectangular” is not aerodynamic but because of advanced propulsion (anti-gravity) methods, we can use rectangles, squares, tubes, and so forth. Usually, however, we like the grace and beauty of a saucer-shaped craft and have found we actually fly them more efficiently than the cumbersome-looking craft. I hasten to add that the craft this man saw belongs to a small group within Space/Time Intelligence, but not directly to any of those folk, nor their ethnic groups, who send messages to you through Diane.
After assuring us that the UFOs we see are here on a peaceful scientific mission, and that their crews have no intention of strapping us to examining tables and implanting microchips in our skulls, Tibus/Diane goes on to the topic at hand: the natural gas industry.
Hydraulic fracking, a process which extracts natural gas, has added to the danger from the New Madrid Fault, to a huge degree. Old fashioned fracking was hurtful to Earth but not potentially catastrophic. However, modern hydraulic fracking creates a real earthquake danger and also gobbles up the water table over a vast area, right when earth needs every drop of her fresh water supply. What fresh water is not gobbled up, is left toxic and hopelessly contaminated.So, Tibus, if we can't do natural gas extraction because hydrofracking is too dangerous, what do we do to find a source of energy?
Here is the answer: We offer Earth free energy, which was discovered by a human being, Nikola Tesla, so certainly humankind should benefit from it. Free energy was taken away from the human race very wrongly, by greedy (yes), humans who saw they could make lots of money through non-free forms of energy. We of Space/Time Intelligence now offer free energy again, freely.Isn't that nice? Free energy that's freely free! Wouldn't that be freeing? But how can we be sure that Tibus really knows what Tesla was up to, when he discovered free energy?
Tesla is with me and says that technically, alien races had discovered what he called free energy, eons before he did, but I respond to Tesla that he is being “too” conscientious, because we consider a new invention or creation to be brand new each time it is discovered by a different species on a different world. I remind him that there are wondrous ancient beings in the universe who have already discovered what we of Space/Time Intelligence have discovered, only eons before we did. Peel away the onion layers, and they are astoundingly endless. So, Tesla did discover free energy, which we use; it involves relatively simple anti-gravity techniques.Oh. Okay. Simple anti-gravity techniques. Since Tesla is right there with you, would you mind asking him how we're going to manage that? The law of gravity, so far as I've noticed, seems to be strictly enforced in most jurisdictions. But maybe that's just my perception because I'm stuck in the wrong layer of the Cosmic Onion.
The good news, though, is that we don't just have to rely on help from dead physicists in figuring all of this out: we also have the "God Cloud." What, you might ask, is the God Cloud?
Some of you have asked about the God Cloud: It is a being, ancient and advanced, who offers to help. It is more ancient and advanced than any of us in Space/Time Intelligence. It is, for all intents and purposes, pure intelligence.But how can the God Cloud, for all of its "advanced particles of consciousness," help us?
It traveled from a distant star cluster to help, and has “parked” near Earth. It is simply a stellar cloud of highly advanced particles of consciousness which/who function as ONE.
When the time is right (the micro-second when Earth reaches critical mass of enlightenment), it will throw its pure intelligence, pure enlightenment, into the electromagnetic field of Earth which will have just shifted (thus human minds will have just shifted upwards), and it will stabilize and enhance the new EM field on which human minds will function thereafter.Whew. I know I'm relieved. I already had my hand on the Space/Time Intelligence Suicide Hotline.
For those of you concerned if the God Cloud is committing “suicide” to do this, no it is not. It will remain a sovereign entity within the new EM field, and it will gather itself up as ONE, and leave when things settle down.
So, anyway, that's today's hopeful message from the Land of Woo-Woo: we should stop hydrofracking because it pisses off Mother Earth, Nikola Tesla, and an alien named Tibus, but don't worry because free energy is just around the corner, not to mention an extraterrestrial super-intelligent cloud who is there to help us achieve a stable electromagnetic field of enlightened human consciousness. I'm so glad we have Tibus around to advise us, aren't you? Maybe next time he could weigh in on such Universal Mysteries as why so many people these days seem to believe absurd, counterfactual nonsense. I wonder what Tibus might have to say about that.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The power of vicarious experience
I find it curious how certain most of us are of our beliefs. We all like to think of ourselves as basing our views of the world in reality; that we (and others who agree with us) are clear-headed, logical, perceiving the universe as it is -- and that because of that, our views won't change.
In reality, our attitudes are constantly shifting. That even the most stubbornly doctrinaire amongst us can be pulled around unconsciously was just dramatically demonstrated by a lovely little experiment performed at Ohio State University. (Source)
In this study, test subjects were given a passage to read, about a fictional character who was enduring adversity. In one passage, the main character had to fight for his opportunity to cast his vote in an election; in another, a person is presented in a favorable light, and then at the end of the story is revealed to be a different ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation from the reader. In each case, reading the story had a strong, and measurable, effect on the reader. In the first instance, the test subjects who read the story about a man who overcame obstacles to participate in an election had a "significantly higher" likelihood of voting in the next election themselves; in the second, assessments given after reading the story resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the group in question, and a lower likelihood of stereotyping, as compared to a control group.
The researchers called this phenomenon "experience-taking." We read a story, and in some way, we become the character about whom we are reading; we adopt his/her persona. As a result, it becomes more appealing to do what the character does, and more difficult to stigmatize the members of the group to which the character belongs.
"Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own lives with those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes," said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study while he was a graduate student at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College's Tiltfactor Laboratory.
In each case, the effect was strongest when the story was told in first person, and when the main character was of a demographic most like that of the reader; for example, when the man who endured adversity to cast his vote was, like the test subject, a young male university student. Third person stories, and ones where the demographic significantly differed from that of the reader, showed a lower -- but still measurable -- level of experience-taking.
"Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways," said Lisa Libby, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "(It is) powerful because people don't even realize it is happening to them. It's an unconscious process."
The findings of the study appear online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.
What I find most interesting about all of this is how fluid our perception of the world is. That memory is plastic, and highly unreliable, has been known for years; the rather alarming discovery that our senses are quite capable of overlooking the obvious followed suit soon after, with such classic experiments as the "Gorilla in the Room" video clip. But all through this, many of us have clung like grim death to the idea that at least our convictions stay the same; we believe what we believe until we choose, deliberately, to change it. Kaufman and Libby's experiment show that, in fact, our views of those around us are as mushy as the rest of our brain.
And all of this, of course, has significant bearing on the current kerfuffle over whether or not Mitt Romney bullied a kid in high school. I'm not going to address the truth or falsity of the claim; predictably, the Democrats say he did it, the Republicans claim it's a slanderous falsehood. Myself, I don't care. The idea that a 65 year old man somehow has gone for fifty years with his attitudes about gays, bullying, and fair treatment unchanged is absurd. We are all, all of the time, adjusting our beliefs based upon those around us, what we see, what we hear, and what we read. Far from being a sign of flip-flopping -- that dirtiest of the f-words in the political arena -- shifting our stance based upon circumstances is inevitable, and universal.
To be up front: I'm no fan of Romney's politics, for the most part, and anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I'm very far from being an Ann Coulter-style apologist for conservatives. But I much more care about what a political candidate says, does, and believes now than I do about an incident from five decades ago. Those who focus on such things are implying a patent falsehood -- that humans don't, or can't, change.
In reality, our attitudes are constantly shifting. That even the most stubbornly doctrinaire amongst us can be pulled around unconsciously was just dramatically demonstrated by a lovely little experiment performed at Ohio State University. (Source)
In this study, test subjects were given a passage to read, about a fictional character who was enduring adversity. In one passage, the main character had to fight for his opportunity to cast his vote in an election; in another, a person is presented in a favorable light, and then at the end of the story is revealed to be a different ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation from the reader. In each case, reading the story had a strong, and measurable, effect on the reader. In the first instance, the test subjects who read the story about a man who overcame obstacles to participate in an election had a "significantly higher" likelihood of voting in the next election themselves; in the second, assessments given after reading the story resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the group in question, and a lower likelihood of stereotyping, as compared to a control group.
The researchers called this phenomenon "experience-taking." We read a story, and in some way, we become the character about whom we are reading; we adopt his/her persona. As a result, it becomes more appealing to do what the character does, and more difficult to stigmatize the members of the group to which the character belongs.
"Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own lives with those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes," said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study while he was a graduate student at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College's Tiltfactor Laboratory.
In each case, the effect was strongest when the story was told in first person, and when the main character was of a demographic most like that of the reader; for example, when the man who endured adversity to cast his vote was, like the test subject, a young male university student. Third person stories, and ones where the demographic significantly differed from that of the reader, showed a lower -- but still measurable -- level of experience-taking.
"Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways," said Lisa Libby, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "(It is) powerful because people don't even realize it is happening to them. It's an unconscious process."
The findings of the study appear online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.
What I find most interesting about all of this is how fluid our perception of the world is. That memory is plastic, and highly unreliable, has been known for years; the rather alarming discovery that our senses are quite capable of overlooking the obvious followed suit soon after, with such classic experiments as the "Gorilla in the Room" video clip. But all through this, many of us have clung like grim death to the idea that at least our convictions stay the same; we believe what we believe until we choose, deliberately, to change it. Kaufman and Libby's experiment show that, in fact, our views of those around us are as mushy as the rest of our brain.
And all of this, of course, has significant bearing on the current kerfuffle over whether or not Mitt Romney bullied a kid in high school. I'm not going to address the truth or falsity of the claim; predictably, the Democrats say he did it, the Republicans claim it's a slanderous falsehood. Myself, I don't care. The idea that a 65 year old man somehow has gone for fifty years with his attitudes about gays, bullying, and fair treatment unchanged is absurd. We are all, all of the time, adjusting our beliefs based upon those around us, what we see, what we hear, and what we read. Far from being a sign of flip-flopping -- that dirtiest of the f-words in the political arena -- shifting our stance based upon circumstances is inevitable, and universal.
To be up front: I'm no fan of Romney's politics, for the most part, and anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I'm very far from being an Ann Coulter-style apologist for conservatives. But I much more care about what a political candidate says, does, and believes now than I do about an incident from five decades ago. Those who focus on such things are implying a patent falsehood -- that humans don't, or can't, change.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Remotely possible
Everyone has biases. I beat that point unto death in my Critical Thinking classes; there is no such thing as a completely objective viewpoint. We all have our implicit assumptions, preconceived notions, and unquestioned attitudes about how the world works -- or how it should work. The best thing, and perhaps the only thing if you want to think as clearly as possible, is to be aware of those biases and to try not to let them lead you by the nose.
Still, it's hard, sometimes. Witness my reaction to the article I just read, entitled "Remote Viewers Help Police Solve Murder."
I had hardly clicked on the link before I was already thinking, "Pfft. Bunch o' malarkey." That reaction only intensified as I read -- beginning with their definition of "remote viewing:" "Remote viewing calls for people to look at random numbers and letters and then let their mind wander, during which they will be able to conjure mental images of people, events and places." My thought was, "Oh, hey, I can do that! I just call it 'daydreaming.'"
But, of course, that's not what the article meant. The author goes on to tell the story of Robert Knight, a Las Vegas photographer, who alerted police to the disappearance of his friend, Stephen B. Williams, in 2006. Knight was unhappy with the progress made by the police in the case, so he enlisted a teacher of remote viewing, Angela Thompson Smith, for help:
Okay, here's my problem, and I will readily admit that my reaction to all this is based upon my biases that the world works a particular way. First, I am strongly disinclined to believe in remote viewing, and also telepathy, telekinesis, psychometry, and a variety of other kinds of ESP and action-at-a-distance, because I see no possible mechanism by which they could work. Despite the undoubtedly excellent credentials of Physicist Hal Puthoff, the mechanisms of energy storage and transfer, the behavior of fields, and so on, are exceedingly well understood by physicists, and if remote viewing et al. are real, they must involve some method of energy transfer that is not only outside of the realm of what we currently understand, but is undetectable by any of the instruments physicists use. And it's not for want of trying; people have been for years trying to develop some kind of "psi-meter," if for no other reason to win James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, but without success.
Second, I just can think of too many other plausible explanations for what happened in the Williams case, without any appeal to woo-woo. I won't go into details, because several of them cast Knight in a pretty unpleasant light, and I've no wish to do that as I have no proof of those, either; my point is not that any particular explanation is correct, but simply that there are a great many other possibilities in this situation that could adequately explain what we know without espousing the view that the remote viewers saved the day.
All of which, I realize, is because of my biases. I know little about the case except what was presented in the article. Because of my pre-existing condition -- that I tend to assume that the world operates by the known laws of science unless I'm shown convincing hard evidence otherwise -- I read the entirety of this article with, shall we say, a fairly jaundiced eye, and ended by saying, "Yeah, right. Still not doing it for me." It does raise the question of what it would take to convince me... and on that count, perhaps Hal Puthoff is right. It would take my being "intimately involved in the phenomenon." In other words, direct evidence. And for that, I'm still waiting.
Still, it's hard, sometimes. Witness my reaction to the article I just read, entitled "Remote Viewers Help Police Solve Murder."
I had hardly clicked on the link before I was already thinking, "Pfft. Bunch o' malarkey." That reaction only intensified as I read -- beginning with their definition of "remote viewing:" "Remote viewing calls for people to look at random numbers and letters and then let their mind wander, during which they will be able to conjure mental images of people, events and places." My thought was, "Oh, hey, I can do that! I just call it 'daydreaming.'"
But, of course, that's not what the article meant. The author goes on to tell the story of Robert Knight, a Las Vegas photographer, who alerted police to the disappearance of his friend, Stephen B. Williams, in 2006. Knight was unhappy with the progress made by the police in the case, so he enlisted a teacher of remote viewing, Angela Thompson Smith, for help:
He knew Smith as a teacher of remote viewing, and she apparently knew her stuff. From the late 1980s through 1992, she worked with Princeton University’s Engineering Anomalies Research team. She then moved to Boulder City and became research coordinator for the Bigelow Foundation, which engaged in paranormal research for its founder, Robert T. Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America chain and founder of Bigelow Aerospace... When Knight came to her in 2006, Smith and six remote viewers she had trained went to work. They included a retired airline captain from Henderson; a retired U.S. Air Force nurse from Dayton, Ohio; a civilian Air Force contractor from Texas; a civil engineer from Virginia; a photographer from Baltimore, Md.; and a university librarian from Provo, Utah. Each was given a coordinate — a random series of letters and numbers — on which to focus.The punchline: that night in his hotel room, Knight saw a news broadcast in which the newscaster mentioned that an unidentified body had been pulled from the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island. Knight "knew who it was," and called the morgue the next morning, saying he could identify the body. Sure enough, it was Williams. Then Knight said he had more:
The viewers each did from one to three remote viewing sessions of about an hour each. They were seeking information unknown at the time, working blind with only the random numbers and letters provided by Smith to focus on. Smith began the work with an initial viewing of the missing man, a follow-up viewing of the suspect’s location, then a profile of the suspect. The other viewers helped seek possible accomplices and the location of the suspect after he fled.
The images they gleaned painted a picture of a body in water, perhaps in criss-crossed netting, near Catalina Island off the Southern California coast.
Knight’s information went beyond the body identification. He told police about a man named Harvey Morrow, a supposed investment adviser, who had befriended Williams and was investing Williams’ money — a few million dollars — on his behalf.The article ends with a quote from a scientist:
Investigators looked into it and found that Morrow was stealing Williams’ money. By now, after Williams’ death, Morrow wasn’t to be found.
Knight told detectives that remote viewers believed Morrow had fled to the British Virgin Islands. One of the viewers even sketched a boat with Morrow on board.
Both observations turned out to be accurate.
Clark said Morrow appeared to have no clue he was a suspect. He left the Caribbean for a job as a used car salesman in Montana — for a boss who was a former cop. He Googled Morrow and discovered he was sought for questioning in the Williams homicide.
Morrow was arrested and convicted in November and is now serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.
Physicist Hal Puthoff, one of the founders of the government’s Stargate remote viewing program, isn’t taken aback by skeptics.Well. He sure told us, didn't he?
“People seem to fall into two categories: those who have been intimately involved with the phenomenon and know it works, and those who haven’t and know it can’t,” he said.
Okay, here's my problem, and I will readily admit that my reaction to all this is based upon my biases that the world works a particular way. First, I am strongly disinclined to believe in remote viewing, and also telepathy, telekinesis, psychometry, and a variety of other kinds of ESP and action-at-a-distance, because I see no possible mechanism by which they could work. Despite the undoubtedly excellent credentials of Physicist Hal Puthoff, the mechanisms of energy storage and transfer, the behavior of fields, and so on, are exceedingly well understood by physicists, and if remote viewing et al. are real, they must involve some method of energy transfer that is not only outside of the realm of what we currently understand, but is undetectable by any of the instruments physicists use. And it's not for want of trying; people have been for years trying to develop some kind of "psi-meter," if for no other reason to win James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, but without success.
Second, I just can think of too many other plausible explanations for what happened in the Williams case, without any appeal to woo-woo. I won't go into details, because several of them cast Knight in a pretty unpleasant light, and I've no wish to do that as I have no proof of those, either; my point is not that any particular explanation is correct, but simply that there are a great many other possibilities in this situation that could adequately explain what we know without espousing the view that the remote viewers saved the day.
All of which, I realize, is because of my biases. I know little about the case except what was presented in the article. Because of my pre-existing condition -- that I tend to assume that the world operates by the known laws of science unless I'm shown convincing hard evidence otherwise -- I read the entirety of this article with, shall we say, a fairly jaundiced eye, and ended by saying, "Yeah, right. Still not doing it for me." It does raise the question of what it would take to convince me... and on that count, perhaps Hal Puthoff is right. It would take my being "intimately involved in the phenomenon." In other words, direct evidence. And for that, I'm still waiting.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
The Gospel according to Mr. Eyes
In today's news, we have yet another story that illustrates a variety of truisms, to wit:
Eventually Bugeyes was asked to write an article for the HuffPost, which he did (here), and included some audio clips from people who were amongst the tens of thousands who left voicemails for him.
Okay, this is when my problem started, because as I was reading all of this I was working from the assumption that Bugeyes is serious, but I listened to the clips -- and one of them claims that Florida ice cream truck drivers are aliens. My first thought was, "Okay. Now I get it. This is parodying conspiracy theorists. Bugeyes is making fun of the whole MIB phenomenon." But I felt kind of uneasy about that conclusion; nowhere was that moment when his commentary went so far over the top that I was certain that it was parody. There was something awfully... earnest about him. So I kept reading.
And eventually, Bugeyes somehow decided that not all Men in Black were Men in Black, because he accused Arianna Huffington herself of being an alien:
So, okay, Skeptophiliacs: what do you think? Is Bugeyes126 serious? Or is he a smart guy who is engaged in an elaborate parody? In the conspiracy theorist column, we have the following evidence:
Whichever it is, I'm thinking that if what he's doing has attracted the attention of HuffPost, I may be approaching this blog writing thing the wrong way. It has been a continual source of pain to me that ridiculous ideas have a much greater cachet than critical thinking does, which explains why astrology and fortunetelling and homeopathy are so much more popular than, say, classes in formal logic. Maybe I need to get a little flashier. Maybe I need to install a Woo-Woo Hotline. Maybe I need to start featuring audio clips from people who have seen Bigfoot. Maybe I need to make a mock-up, as Bugeyes126 did in a recent post, of my face featured on The Weekly World News.
Or maybe I just need to calm down and go have another cup of coffee.
- You can't argue with a woo-woo.
- If you try, your arguing makes their belief stronger.
- It's damn hard to tell if someone is an actual woo-woo or is parodying woo-woos.
Eventually Bugeyes was asked to write an article for the HuffPost, which he did (here), and included some audio clips from people who were amongst the tens of thousands who left voicemails for him.
Okay, this is when my problem started, because as I was reading all of this I was working from the assumption that Bugeyes is serious, but I listened to the clips -- and one of them claims that Florida ice cream truck drivers are aliens. My first thought was, "Okay. Now I get it. This is parodying conspiracy theorists. Bugeyes is making fun of the whole MIB phenomenon." But I felt kind of uneasy about that conclusion; nowhere was that moment when his commentary went so far over the top that I was certain that it was parody. There was something awfully... earnest about him. So I kept reading.
And eventually, Bugeyes somehow decided that not all Men in Black were Men in Black, because he accused Arianna Huffington herself of being an alien:
You're an extraterrestrial. I know it. You know it.
I'm not trying to expose you, but you have information I can't get from anyone else. I know you work with the Men in Black Suits. And I want to work with them, too. Please help me.
How did I find out? Last night, I received a call into my Men In Black Suits Are Real hotline from someone who asked that I conceal his identity "for the sake of the shareholders." The caller had specific information about The Huffington Post that nobody else could possibly know. And his message was clear.
It all makes sense now. With all you're involved with across the world, I've certainly had my suspicions.This resulted in Arianna Huffington responding, in what may be one of the funniest video clips I've ever seen (starting with her referring to Bugeyes as "Mr. Eyes"), and you all need to watch it (here). Make sure you watch the whole thing, because the best part is at the end.
So, okay, Skeptophiliacs: what do you think? Is Bugeyes126 serious? Or is he a smart guy who is engaged in an elaborate parody? In the conspiracy theorist column, we have the following evidence:
- Nowhere does he ever break from the True Believer Persona.
- The people who called in to his "hotline" sound pretty serious.
- He has over 43,000 followers on his Facebook page, many of whom (to judge by their comments) are True Believers to the point where they should be medicated.
- Neither does Stephen Colbert.
- Ice-cream trucks? Really?
- He appears to be fourteen years old.
Whichever it is, I'm thinking that if what he's doing has attracted the attention of HuffPost, I may be approaching this blog writing thing the wrong way. It has been a continual source of pain to me that ridiculous ideas have a much greater cachet than critical thinking does, which explains why astrology and fortunetelling and homeopathy are so much more popular than, say, classes in formal logic. Maybe I need to get a little flashier. Maybe I need to install a Woo-Woo Hotline. Maybe I need to start featuring audio clips from people who have seen Bigfoot. Maybe I need to make a mock-up, as Bugeyes126 did in a recent post, of my face featured on The Weekly World News.
Or maybe I just need to calm down and go have another cup of coffee.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Unreality shows
It's amazing how mushy our perception of the word "reality" is.
Just a couple of days ago, I was working out at the gym with a friend, and I noticed that while she was on the treadmill, she was watching a television show that seemed mostly to be composed of heavily made-up women yelling at each other. After we were done, I asked her what movie she'd been watching, and she looked sheepish and said, "It wasn't a movie. It was Real Housewives of New Jersey."
After discussing it for a little while, she agreed that the word "Real" in the title might be a misnomer.
We now have dozens of "reality" shows, from Survivor to Jersey Shore to Sister Wives to Celebrity Apprentice. The women-yelling genre has, apparently, spread from New Jersey, and there are now Real Housewives shows in Miami, Orange County, Atlanta, New York, and Beverly Hills.
The issue, of course, is that none of these shows are "real." All of them have staged, stylized action, and many of them work under artificial rules ("vote one person off the island every week"). So right from the get-go, it's apparent that their definition of "reality" isn't exactly what you'd find in The Concise Oxford.
And now, to add a further layer of unreality to the whole thing, we have a "reality show" featuring a contest between psychics. (Source)
A dozen alleged psychics, amongst them "top Scottish medium" June Field, will travel to the Ukraine this summer to to participate in a woo-off. Every week, the psychics will do their stuff -- do readings, hold seances, channel spirits -- and a panel of judges will eliminate one a week until the World's Best Psychic is the only woo-woo left standing. (The winner also receives a cash prize of a little over $30,000.)
At this juncture, I should probably mention that one of the judges will be Uri Geller -- the "psychic" whose alleged telekinetic ability so conspicuously failed him on The Tonight Show, when Johnny Carson wouldn't allow him to bring in his own set of pre-prepared spoons to bend. Geller's excuse, of course, was that Carson's skepticism was "interfering with the atmosphere."
Um, no, Mr. Geller -- you are the one who is claiming to be able to interfere mentally with stuff at a distance, without touching it. Carson knew it was a fake.
So the whole thing kind of lacks credibility points right from the outset. Field, however, is tickled by her being chosen to participate, although she told reporters for The Daily Record that she couldn't predict how she was going to do, which is a little ironic, considering.
"I’m keen to do the show for the exposure it will bring but also to prove to the doubters that there’s more to this world than meets the eye," she said.
And how, exactly, will this prove anything? To anyone who is a real skeptic, a staged, contrived television show, with a panel of judges who (considering the only one of their number mentioned by name) aren't exactly unbiased, won't prove anything except what a huge moneymaker psychic nonsense is. Given all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that is bilked from the public annually by these people, it's not like we needed a "reality show" to prove that.
So, honestly, I'm certain that this will turn out to be even less real than Real Housewives of New Jersey. I wonder if there will be scenes of the psychics wearing lots of make up, yelling at each other, or possibly telekinetically pushing each other around and bending up each other's silverware. Because that might be worth watching just from a comedic standpoint.
Just a couple of days ago, I was working out at the gym with a friend, and I noticed that while she was on the treadmill, she was watching a television show that seemed mostly to be composed of heavily made-up women yelling at each other. After we were done, I asked her what movie she'd been watching, and she looked sheepish and said, "It wasn't a movie. It was Real Housewives of New Jersey."
After discussing it for a little while, she agreed that the word "Real" in the title might be a misnomer.
We now have dozens of "reality" shows, from Survivor to Jersey Shore to Sister Wives to Celebrity Apprentice. The women-yelling genre has, apparently, spread from New Jersey, and there are now Real Housewives shows in Miami, Orange County, Atlanta, New York, and Beverly Hills.
The issue, of course, is that none of these shows are "real." All of them have staged, stylized action, and many of them work under artificial rules ("vote one person off the island every week"). So right from the get-go, it's apparent that their definition of "reality" isn't exactly what you'd find in The Concise Oxford.
And now, to add a further layer of unreality to the whole thing, we have a "reality show" featuring a contest between psychics. (Source)
A dozen alleged psychics, amongst them "top Scottish medium" June Field, will travel to the Ukraine this summer to to participate in a woo-off. Every week, the psychics will do their stuff -- do readings, hold seances, channel spirits -- and a panel of judges will eliminate one a week until the World's Best Psychic is the only woo-woo left standing. (The winner also receives a cash prize of a little over $30,000.)
At this juncture, I should probably mention that one of the judges will be Uri Geller -- the "psychic" whose alleged telekinetic ability so conspicuously failed him on The Tonight Show, when Johnny Carson wouldn't allow him to bring in his own set of pre-prepared spoons to bend. Geller's excuse, of course, was that Carson's skepticism was "interfering with the atmosphere."
Um, no, Mr. Geller -- you are the one who is claiming to be able to interfere mentally with stuff at a distance, without touching it. Carson knew it was a fake.
So the whole thing kind of lacks credibility points right from the outset. Field, however, is tickled by her being chosen to participate, although she told reporters for The Daily Record that she couldn't predict how she was going to do, which is a little ironic, considering.
"I’m keen to do the show for the exposure it will bring but also to prove to the doubters that there’s more to this world than meets the eye," she said.
And how, exactly, will this prove anything? To anyone who is a real skeptic, a staged, contrived television show, with a panel of judges who (considering the only one of their number mentioned by name) aren't exactly unbiased, won't prove anything except what a huge moneymaker psychic nonsense is. Given all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that is bilked from the public annually by these people, it's not like we needed a "reality show" to prove that.
So, honestly, I'm certain that this will turn out to be even less real than Real Housewives of New Jersey. I wonder if there will be scenes of the psychics wearing lots of make up, yelling at each other, or possibly telekinetically pushing each other around and bending up each other's silverware. Because that might be worth watching just from a comedic standpoint.
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