I'm of two minds with regards to the Olympics.
Okay, to be fair, I'm of two minds with regards to most things. More than two minds, sometimes. My friends have been known to quote Tolkien at me - "Go not to the Elves for advice, for they will say both yes and no." I can usually argue both sides of any point, often equally persuasively - and can talk myself into almost anything.
Well, except for the whole evolution thing. I'm pretty rabid about that. Other than that, I'm kind of ambivalent by nature.
But I digress.
This evening will be the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics, when the most talented athletes will meet in London to being a series of grueling competitions for the gold. Most of these young men and women have trained all of their lives for this moment, and a tremendous amount rides on success. You don't get that far without a huge competitive streak -- and the fact that the majority of the participants will not receive a medal is simple mathematics. So, my question: is the heartbreak worth it?
I still remember watching an event in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Some friends and I were in a bar following a Cornell hockey game, and the television was tuned in to the women's hockey game between Canada and Slovakia. Evidently not having had enough opportunities that evening to watch a puck sliding around, I became glued to the set.
When we came in, it was 13-0 in Canada's favor, with 19 minutes to go in the third period. As I watched, the score finally climbed its way up to 18-0.
I couldn't take my eyes off it. Besides loving hockey, it was a little like watching a car crash. You're seeing it, you know it's going to be bad, but you can't take your eyes off it. That poor Slovakian goalie was powerless to do anything about facing an offense that basically steamrolled her own defense, and one shot after another went in to the net. When the teams lined up to shake hands afterwards, she was in tears.
Don't get me wrong; I like watching skill. The Canadians were clearly more talented and better trained, and deserved the win. But the compassionate side of me hates to watch what amounts to an athletic car crash happening, in full view of millions.
This, of course, isn't the only time this sort of thing has happened. I still remember some years ago when French figure skater Laetitia Hubert was catapulted from 20-some-oddth place into 5th by a flawless short program, and had to go into the finals against the Big Dogs of the likes of Surya Bonaly and Midori Ito. The poor kid couldn't take the pressure, and completely fell apart. The tears of amazed joy from the previous day turned into a performance that was acutely painful to watch, as she tried again and again to land jumps that her nerves just wouldn't handle. It is the only time I've ever seen the camera cut to a commercial break in the middle of someone's performance -- even the network techs couldn't bear to have her humiliation televised.
It's an odd thing, the Olympics. We watch it to see the best of the best strut their stuff, to see people do what 99% of us couldn't in a hundred years dream of doing ourselves. When the inevitable happens, and some of them fail, they sometimes do so in such a spectacular fashion that it makes us want to turn away, to pretend it isn't happening, but we know that we will remember these people as much - or perhaps more - than the ones who get the medals.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against competition per se. And I think that our current self-esteem obsessed educational establishment's emphasis on making sure that everyone wins is wrong-headed; true self esteem comes from challenging yourself, working hard, and succeeding at something you didn't think you'd be able to do. But I do have to wonder if extremely high-stakes competition, from medical schools to American Idol to the Olympics, is more destructive than constructive.
I know that the athletes would say -- most of them, anyway -- that it's the mere fact of making the Olympic team, of getting there, that is the most important, and that the medals are secondary. I only believe that up to a point. If we set up a contest whose sole aim is to raise the fastest, strongest, and most skilled to the skies, then the ones who fall will always draw our sympathy. I honestly don't know if the whole Olympic concept is a good thing or a bad; probably some of both. But for me, the despairing face of Laetitia Hubert, picking herself up off the ice after the sixth bad fall, and the tears on the face of the Slovakian goalie are as much a part of it as is the joy of the gold medalist. If you want the one, you have to accept the other.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Wheat, chaff, and alien abductees
My question today is one that haunts many skeptics -- the question of how one would know if a bizarre claim was actually true, especially in the absence of evidence.
The hardest-nosed of us would probably object to the premises of the question; if there is no evidence, they would say, then there is no basis on which to make a judgment in the first place. And while I agree with that general attitude -- and have applied it myself on numerous occasions -- it always leaves me with the worry that I'll miss something, and just through the weakness of the evidence and my preconceived notions I won't see the grain of wheat in amongst the chaff.
I riffed on this whole idea in my novel Signal to Noise (and if you'll allow me a moment of shameless self-promotion, it is available as an e-book for Kindle from the link on the right side of the page). In the story, a skeptical wildlife biologist, who had decided that all woo-woo claims were bullshit, is confronted with something bizarre going on in the mountains of central Oregon -- and has to overcome his preconceived notions even to admit that it might be real. And in the story, it doesn't help that the news is delivered to him with no hard evidence whatsoever, by a total stranger who just "has a feeling that something is wrong." (I won't tell you any more about it; you'll just have to read it yourself. And at the risk of appearing immodest, it rocks.)
The reason I bring all of this up is a website called Little Sticky Legs: Alien Abductee Portraits, owned by Steven Hirsch. On this website, which you should definitely take a look at, there are photographs of a number of people who claim that they were abducted by, or at least contacted by, aliens, and their first-hand accounts (and in some cases drawings) of their experiences. I thought this was an unusually good example of the phenomenon I've described above, for a variety of reasons.
First, the accounts are weird, rambling, and disjointed, and many of them seem to have only a loose attachment to reality. Second, the photos don't help; whether Hirsch deliberately set out to make his subjects look sketchy is a matter of conjecture, but my sense is that he was playing fair and this is the way these people actually look. And some of them, not to put too fine a point on it, are a little scary. And third, of course, the content of the accounts is fairly contrary to what most scientists think is realistic. So, all of these things combined seem to put them squarely into the category of most of the subjects of this blog; bizarre, possibly delusional, nonsense.
But reading the earnest narratives of these supposed contactees left me feeling a little uneasy. Part of it was a sense that if their stories aren't true, then these people are either lying or else are the victims of hallucinations that could qualify as psychotic breaks. And although I am rather free about poking fun at people who generate strange ideas, I just don't feel right about including as targets people who have genuine mental illnesses.
My unease, however, had another source, and one that haunts me every time I see something like this; what if one of these stories is actually true?
A person who had been abducted, but was left with no physical trace of the experience, might well describe it in just these terms. And if the victim was someone who wasn't highly educated, there's no reason to expect that (s)he would remember the details, or explain them afterwards, in the way a trained scientist would. The general vagueness and lack of clarity is, in fact, exactly what you'd expect if an ordinary person experienced something shockingly outside their worldview.
Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not, in any sense, committing to a belief in alien abductions in general, much less to any specific one of the stories on Hirsch's website. My hunch is that none of these stories is true, and that whatever these individuals is describing has another source than actual experience. But it is only a hunch, and an honest skeptic would have to admit that there is no more evidence that these claims are false than there is that they are true. My only point here is that if one of them was telling the truth, this is much the form I would expect it to take... which means that it behooves all of us, and especially the skeptics, not to discount odd claims without further investigation. Skeptics tend to rail against the superstitious for jumping to supernatural explanations for completely natural phenomena; we should be equally careful not to jump to prosaic explanations when an odd one might be correct.
The best thing, of course, is to withhold judgment completely until the facts are in, but that is pretty solidly counter to human nature, and is probably unrealistic as a general approach. And given the ephemeral nature of some of these claims, the facts may never come in at all. So all we can do is keep thinking, keep watching and listening and investigating... and not be afraid to push the envelope of our own understanding when the time comes.
The hardest-nosed of us would probably object to the premises of the question; if there is no evidence, they would say, then there is no basis on which to make a judgment in the first place. And while I agree with that general attitude -- and have applied it myself on numerous occasions -- it always leaves me with the worry that I'll miss something, and just through the weakness of the evidence and my preconceived notions I won't see the grain of wheat in amongst the chaff.
I riffed on this whole idea in my novel Signal to Noise (and if you'll allow me a moment of shameless self-promotion, it is available as an e-book for Kindle from the link on the right side of the page). In the story, a skeptical wildlife biologist, who had decided that all woo-woo claims were bullshit, is confronted with something bizarre going on in the mountains of central Oregon -- and has to overcome his preconceived notions even to admit that it might be real. And in the story, it doesn't help that the news is delivered to him with no hard evidence whatsoever, by a total stranger who just "has a feeling that something is wrong." (I won't tell you any more about it; you'll just have to read it yourself. And at the risk of appearing immodest, it rocks.)
The reason I bring all of this up is a website called Little Sticky Legs: Alien Abductee Portraits, owned by Steven Hirsch. On this website, which you should definitely take a look at, there are photographs of a number of people who claim that they were abducted by, or at least contacted by, aliens, and their first-hand accounts (and in some cases drawings) of their experiences. I thought this was an unusually good example of the phenomenon I've described above, for a variety of reasons.
First, the accounts are weird, rambling, and disjointed, and many of them seem to have only a loose attachment to reality. Second, the photos don't help; whether Hirsch deliberately set out to make his subjects look sketchy is a matter of conjecture, but my sense is that he was playing fair and this is the way these people actually look. And some of them, not to put too fine a point on it, are a little scary. And third, of course, the content of the accounts is fairly contrary to what most scientists think is realistic. So, all of these things combined seem to put them squarely into the category of most of the subjects of this blog; bizarre, possibly delusional, nonsense.
But reading the earnest narratives of these supposed contactees left me feeling a little uneasy. Part of it was a sense that if their stories aren't true, then these people are either lying or else are the victims of hallucinations that could qualify as psychotic breaks. And although I am rather free about poking fun at people who generate strange ideas, I just don't feel right about including as targets people who have genuine mental illnesses.
My unease, however, had another source, and one that haunts me every time I see something like this; what if one of these stories is actually true?
A person who had been abducted, but was left with no physical trace of the experience, might well describe it in just these terms. And if the victim was someone who wasn't highly educated, there's no reason to expect that (s)he would remember the details, or explain them afterwards, in the way a trained scientist would. The general vagueness and lack of clarity is, in fact, exactly what you'd expect if an ordinary person experienced something shockingly outside their worldview.
Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not, in any sense, committing to a belief in alien abductions in general, much less to any specific one of the stories on Hirsch's website. My hunch is that none of these stories is true, and that whatever these individuals is describing has another source than actual experience. But it is only a hunch, and an honest skeptic would have to admit that there is no more evidence that these claims are false than there is that they are true. My only point here is that if one of them was telling the truth, this is much the form I would expect it to take... which means that it behooves all of us, and especially the skeptics, not to discount odd claims without further investigation. Skeptics tend to rail against the superstitious for jumping to supernatural explanations for completely natural phenomena; we should be equally careful not to jump to prosaic explanations when an odd one might be correct.
The best thing, of course, is to withhold judgment completely until the facts are in, but that is pretty solidly counter to human nature, and is probably unrealistic as a general approach. And given the ephemeral nature of some of these claims, the facts may never come in at all. So all we can do is keep thinking, keep watching and listening and investigating... and not be afraid to push the envelope of our own understanding when the time comes.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Time lapse
Well, the first thing I need to do in today's post is to figure out if I can correct the timestamp, which is clearly wrong. Hmmm... let's see... no, it won't let me do it. Okay, then, I'll just have to state for the record that today you should date all of your checks, documents, and correspondence with "July 25, 1715."
What? How can that be true, you ask? 1715... so, J. S. Bach would still be alive, King George I would just have been crowned king of England, and the USA wouldn't exist for another sixty-odd years? To which I chuckle gently, and explain: of course that's not what I mean. You can't just jump backwards in time, that would be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that the calendar is wrong, not because we've leapt back to the 18th century, but because...
... the years between 614 and 911 C.E. did not exist.
Yes, according to the Phantom Time Hypothesis (sources here and here), devised by Hans-Ulrich Niemitz and Heribert Illig, time actually went from the year 613 directly to the year 912. Any events that occurred during those years, or people who are alleged to have lived then are:
1) legends being misunderstood as reality;
2) misinterpretations of documents that refer to events or people from other time periods;
or 3) deliberate fabrications by a bunch of calendar conspirators.
Some of the people who therefore didn't exist are King Harald I Fairhair of Norway, King Alfred the Great of Wessex, the writers Alcuin, Caedmon, Li Po, and Bede... and Charlemagne.
Why, you might ask, do Niemitz and Illig believe this? Apparently it's based on hiatuses in historical records (the Early Middle Ages in Europe was a chaotic time, and most of the few records that were written during that time have been lost), coupled with perceived gaps in building in Constantinople. Niemitz and Illig also believe that the development of religious doctrine in Europe goes into a stall between the 7th and 10th centuries, as does the progress of art, language, and science. All of these gaps, they say, can be explained if those three centuries didn't exist -- they were inventions of a conspiracy of church fathers in the 11th and 12th centuries, that originated with Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II, and has continued lo unto this very day.
Well, let me see here. Where do I start?
Interesting, if three centuries fell out of historians' pockets somewhere along the way, that astronomical records (especially records of comets and solar eclipses kept by the Chinese) agree precisely with back-calculations done by present day astronomers. The Tang Dynasty -- which coincides almost perfectly with Niemitz and Illig's lost centuries, and which they consider a "Golden Age Myth" -- not only produced art and artifacts, but kept intricate records of observations of events in the sky. It's a little hard to explain the solar eclipses that occurred during that time, and which line up perfectly with when astronomers know they occurred, if (1) those three centuries never happened, and (2) the Tang Dynasty astronomers were themselves later fabrications.
We also have the problem that this is the period during which Islam spread across the Middle East -- so we're supposed to believe that we jump right from 614 (Muhammad is still alive, but has yet to make his pilgrimage to Mecca) to 911 (the Muslims are in control of territory from southern Spain to Arabia and beyond)? And I guess they should revoke my master's degree, because the subject of my thesis (the Viking conquest of England and Scotland) occurred during those years... and so is an elaborate fiction, as is the linguistic and archaeological evidence.
Or, maybe I'm one of the conspirators. I've been accused of that before.
Anyway, this whole hypothesis seems to be a lot of nonsense, and is yet another good example of Ockham's Razor, not to mention the ECREE Principle. So, you can relax, and cancel any plans to go back and yell at your high school history teachers -- Charlemagne was almost certainly a real person. As were Alfred the Great and the rest. Me, I'm glad. I have a hard enough time remembering to write the correct year on my checks when January 1 rolls around; I don't know what I'd do if I had to remember that it was a whole different century.
What? How can that be true, you ask? 1715... so, J. S. Bach would still be alive, King George I would just have been crowned king of England, and the USA wouldn't exist for another sixty-odd years? To which I chuckle gently, and explain: of course that's not what I mean. You can't just jump backwards in time, that would be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that the calendar is wrong, not because we've leapt back to the 18th century, but because...
... the years between 614 and 911 C.E. did not exist.
Yes, according to the Phantom Time Hypothesis (sources here and here), devised by Hans-Ulrich Niemitz and Heribert Illig, time actually went from the year 613 directly to the year 912. Any events that occurred during those years, or people who are alleged to have lived then are:
1) legends being misunderstood as reality;
2) misinterpretations of documents that refer to events or people from other time periods;
or 3) deliberate fabrications by a bunch of calendar conspirators.
Some of the people who therefore didn't exist are King Harald I Fairhair of Norway, King Alfred the Great of Wessex, the writers Alcuin, Caedmon, Li Po, and Bede... and Charlemagne.
Why, you might ask, do Niemitz and Illig believe this? Apparently it's based on hiatuses in historical records (the Early Middle Ages in Europe was a chaotic time, and most of the few records that were written during that time have been lost), coupled with perceived gaps in building in Constantinople. Niemitz and Illig also believe that the development of religious doctrine in Europe goes into a stall between the 7th and 10th centuries, as does the progress of art, language, and science. All of these gaps, they say, can be explained if those three centuries didn't exist -- they were inventions of a conspiracy of church fathers in the 11th and 12th centuries, that originated with Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II, and has continued lo unto this very day.
Well, let me see here. Where do I start?
Interesting, if three centuries fell out of historians' pockets somewhere along the way, that astronomical records (especially records of comets and solar eclipses kept by the Chinese) agree precisely with back-calculations done by present day astronomers. The Tang Dynasty -- which coincides almost perfectly with Niemitz and Illig's lost centuries, and which they consider a "Golden Age Myth" -- not only produced art and artifacts, but kept intricate records of observations of events in the sky. It's a little hard to explain the solar eclipses that occurred during that time, and which line up perfectly with when astronomers know they occurred, if (1) those three centuries never happened, and (2) the Tang Dynasty astronomers were themselves later fabrications.
We also have the problem that this is the period during which Islam spread across the Middle East -- so we're supposed to believe that we jump right from 614 (Muhammad is still alive, but has yet to make his pilgrimage to Mecca) to 911 (the Muslims are in control of territory from southern Spain to Arabia and beyond)? And I guess they should revoke my master's degree, because the subject of my thesis (the Viking conquest of England and Scotland) occurred during those years... and so is an elaborate fiction, as is the linguistic and archaeological evidence.
Or, maybe I'm one of the conspirators. I've been accused of that before.
Anyway, this whole hypothesis seems to be a lot of nonsense, and is yet another good example of Ockham's Razor, not to mention the ECREE Principle. So, you can relax, and cancel any plans to go back and yell at your high school history teachers -- Charlemagne was almost certainly a real person. As were Alfred the Great and the rest. Me, I'm glad. I have a hard enough time remembering to write the correct year on my checks when January 1 rolls around; I don't know what I'd do if I had to remember that it was a whole different century.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Cryptid menagerie
It's been a busy week, here in the cryptozoological wing of the Skeptophilia research offices. We're currently tracking three stories about alleged spine-chilling, bizarre, non-human life-forms, and we're not even talking about the cast of Jersey Shore.
First, we've got a story from The Examiner about an old man in the Philippines who was attacked by a shape-shifting monster called an "aswang" or "manananggal," which attacks humans and eats their livers. The still photographs show, lo and behold, an old man being confronted by someone who looks like he's wearing one of the rubberized monster heads from the movie Alien:
So, anyway, the story goes on to say how there's a video of the incident but it "hasn't been released yet," which sounds kind of fishy right from the get-go. Also a bit sketchy is the lack of detail; the victim wasn't named, although it does say that the victim's brother "José" filmed the entire incident. Which raises the question of why he didn't run to help, instead of standing there with a video camera while his brother had his liver eaten.
Then, I noticed that the guy who went to the Philippines to gather information for the report was none other than Blake Cousins, who appeared in Skeptophilia just last week -- as the "investigative reporter" who did the video clip about the 12-year-old boy from Australia who made himself an "Atlantean copper headband" that allowed him to talk to spirits from inside the Hollow Earth. In fact, even the site Phantoms and Monsters, not generally the most skeptical of sources, called this story "possible buffoonery." (Here) So given those two strikes against it, this story is almost certainly a non-starter, especially considering the credibility Cousins has, or the lack thereof. So let's move on to our next story, which takes us to the dry hillsides of Utah.
The UK Daily Mail is reporting on a story about some hikers near Ben Lomond Peak in Weber County, Utah, who saw... a goat man.
In fact, one of them, Coty Creighton, took a photograph of Goat Man:
Creighton told reporters at the Utah Standard Examiner that he "...thought it was a deformed goat. It was clumsy, not nimble… He was on his hands and knees, crawling along the mountainside."
In a separate communication with Salt Lake City's CityWeekly.Net, Creighton said, "I was racking my brain trying to figure out what other type of animal it could be. An albino bear? A honky Sasquatch?"
At this point, I had to stop for a moment to clean the coffee spatters off my computer screen.
Creighton, however, got out binoculars and took a closer look, and found out that it was none of those things. It was...
... a guy in a custom-made goat suit.
Creighton stared at the guy for about five minutes, and at some point, the Goat Man realized he was being observed, and stopped moving -- and just stared back. Creighton got creeped out, and said he wasn't going to get any closer, because "Something was definitely off with that guy."
I'd say that's a major understatement. So if you're going to be in Utah any time soon, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for Goat Man.
Our third report comes all the way from the Moon, via MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and the site Ghost Theory. (Source) It shows a still photograph, and a video clip, of a pulsating, cloudlike "anomaly" hovering over a lunar crater. Scott McMan, of Ghost Theory, writes, "The person who submitted the video seemed as confused as I was because he could only make the following statement: 'I don’t know what to make of this object.'" People who've analyzed the video say that the "entity... moves in a lifelike fashion."
Well, I'm a bit at a loss myself, but my initial reaction is that it looks like a stationary object whose image is being distorted by the passage of the light rays from it through the Earth's atmosphere. This effect, similar to the heat shimmer you see above a hot roadway on a clear day, is caused by light bending as it passes through media with different indices of refraction, warping the image, and (if the medium itself is moving) making it appear that the object itself is moving. I'll admit, though, that it's pretty bizarre-looking. And even though I strongly suspect that this has a perfectly natural explanation that has nothing to do with an alien entity moving in a lifelike fashion, at least it doesn't shout out "hoax!" to me.
Which is more than I can say for the "aswang" photographs and the Utah Goat Man.
First, we've got a story from The Examiner about an old man in the Philippines who was attacked by a shape-shifting monster called an "aswang" or "manananggal," which attacks humans and eats their livers. The still photographs show, lo and behold, an old man being confronted by someone who looks like he's wearing one of the rubberized monster heads from the movie Alien:
So, anyway, the story goes on to say how there's a video of the incident but it "hasn't been released yet," which sounds kind of fishy right from the get-go. Also a bit sketchy is the lack of detail; the victim wasn't named, although it does say that the victim's brother "José" filmed the entire incident. Which raises the question of why he didn't run to help, instead of standing there with a video camera while his brother had his liver eaten.
Then, I noticed that the guy who went to the Philippines to gather information for the report was none other than Blake Cousins, who appeared in Skeptophilia just last week -- as the "investigative reporter" who did the video clip about the 12-year-old boy from Australia who made himself an "Atlantean copper headband" that allowed him to talk to spirits from inside the Hollow Earth. In fact, even the site Phantoms and Monsters, not generally the most skeptical of sources, called this story "possible buffoonery." (Here) So given those two strikes against it, this story is almost certainly a non-starter, especially considering the credibility Cousins has, or the lack thereof. So let's move on to our next story, which takes us to the dry hillsides of Utah.
The UK Daily Mail is reporting on a story about some hikers near Ben Lomond Peak in Weber County, Utah, who saw... a goat man.
In fact, one of them, Coty Creighton, took a photograph of Goat Man:
Creighton told reporters at the Utah Standard Examiner that he "...thought it was a deformed goat. It was clumsy, not nimble… He was on his hands and knees, crawling along the mountainside."
In a separate communication with Salt Lake City's CityWeekly.Net, Creighton said, "I was racking my brain trying to figure out what other type of animal it could be. An albino bear? A honky Sasquatch?"
At this point, I had to stop for a moment to clean the coffee spatters off my computer screen.
Creighton, however, got out binoculars and took a closer look, and found out that it was none of those things. It was...
... a guy in a custom-made goat suit.
Creighton stared at the guy for about five minutes, and at some point, the Goat Man realized he was being observed, and stopped moving -- and just stared back. Creighton got creeped out, and said he wasn't going to get any closer, because "Something was definitely off with that guy."
I'd say that's a major understatement. So if you're going to be in Utah any time soon, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for Goat Man.
Our third report comes all the way from the Moon, via MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and the site Ghost Theory. (Source) It shows a still photograph, and a video clip, of a pulsating, cloudlike "anomaly" hovering over a lunar crater. Scott McMan, of Ghost Theory, writes, "The person who submitted the video seemed as confused as I was because he could only make the following statement: 'I don’t know what to make of this object.'" People who've analyzed the video say that the "entity... moves in a lifelike fashion."
Well, I'm a bit at a loss myself, but my initial reaction is that it looks like a stationary object whose image is being distorted by the passage of the light rays from it through the Earth's atmosphere. This effect, similar to the heat shimmer you see above a hot roadway on a clear day, is caused by light bending as it passes through media with different indices of refraction, warping the image, and (if the medium itself is moving) making it appear that the object itself is moving. I'll admit, though, that it's pretty bizarre-looking. And even though I strongly suspect that this has a perfectly natural explanation that has nothing to do with an alien entity moving in a lifelike fashion, at least it doesn't shout out "hoax!" to me.
Which is more than I can say for the "aswang" photographs and the Utah Goat Man.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Lemmings, hockey fans, and fire pits
Friday, the Silicon Valley Mercury reported that 21 people were treated at a local hospital for burns after participating in a firewalking activity at an event organized by inspirational speaker Tony Robbins. (Source)
My first reaction was that I find it hard to fathom how 21 people were injured. One or two, okay. But 21? You'd think that even by person number 5, the rest of the crowd would see that persons number 1 through 4 were writhing on the ground, screaming with agony, and would say, "Hmmm. Maybe not. I think I'll just watch from the sidelines, thanks." But that's not what happened. Mr. Robbins kept telling the participants, "C'mon! You can do it! This time it's really going to work!", and for some reason they kept believing him. Perhaps he had them lined up in reverse order of IQ, so that each person in line was incrementally stupider than the previous one.
The interesting thing is that even now, Robbins and the events staff aren't admitting that walking on hot coals is basically a stupid thing to do. "We have been safely providing this experience for more than three decades, and always under the supervision of medical personnel," a spokesperson told reporters after the fiasco on Friday. "We continue to work with local fire and emergency personnel to ensure this event is always done in the safest way possible."
And even the injured firewalkers aren't willing to say that the problem is that "hot things will burn you." One participant, Andrew Brenner, told reporters that he did get burned, but it was his own fault, for not having enough "faith and concentration." "I did it before, didn't get into the right state and got burned," Brenner said. "I knew I wasn't at my peak state. I didn't take it as serious."
What strikes me about all of this -- besides the general observation that given a contest between "faith and concentration" and "extremely hot object," the hot object is going to win every time -- is how this is indicative of the lemming-like aspects of human behavior. All of us, when in large groups, tend to participate in behavior that we would never dream of doing while alone or in smaller groups. Look at the kinds of things that can happen at athletic events, concerts, and festivals. I think it unlikely, for example, that I would paint my face, shoulders, and chest red-and-white (Cornell colors, for those of you who are non-New Yorkers) in any group with less than ten members, and the number might rise to 25 if we were talking about a freezing cold day in early March. However, at the ECAC hockey finals, buoyed up by the energy of thousands of cheering Big Red hockey fans...? But perhaps I've incriminated myself enough already.
It all comes from being a social primate, really. We do what the group does, for a variety of reasons. Most of such behavior is probably pretty harmless, honestly, and the sociologists would point to its importance in group cohesion and our sense of belonging. Of course, the dark side of this tendency is the capacity for mob violence. In groups, people will often break their own moral and ethical precepts, not then (if ever) recognizing the point where they crossed that line, because a sort of group mentality takes over. As Stanislaw Lec said, "Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty." And from one of my own personal favorites, Terry Pratchett: "The IQ of a mob is equal to the IQ of its stupidest member, divided by the number of people in the mob."
Leaders, from corporate CEOs to high school principals to motivational speakers, take advantage of this tendency, often with the best of motives. Get the group stirred up; get them excited about something. Identify a few of the major power brokers in the group (the Head Lemmings), and get them on your side. At that point, you can propose damn near anything, and the whole group will follow you. I've seen it accomplish great things; in my own school, five years ago, the creation of our highly successful electives program was accomplished using just such a method. Of course, it's also resulted in riots, crusades, and wars. Any tendency in human nature can be used for good or for evil.
Or just to make people do stupid stuff, like walking across a fire pit after the first twenty people burned their feet up, just because some silly motivational speaker was shouting, "do it! I believe in you!"
My first reaction was that I find it hard to fathom how 21 people were injured. One or two, okay. But 21? You'd think that even by person number 5, the rest of the crowd would see that persons number 1 through 4 were writhing on the ground, screaming with agony, and would say, "Hmmm. Maybe not. I think I'll just watch from the sidelines, thanks." But that's not what happened. Mr. Robbins kept telling the participants, "C'mon! You can do it! This time it's really going to work!", and for some reason they kept believing him. Perhaps he had them lined up in reverse order of IQ, so that each person in line was incrementally stupider than the previous one.
The interesting thing is that even now, Robbins and the events staff aren't admitting that walking on hot coals is basically a stupid thing to do. "We have been safely providing this experience for more than three decades, and always under the supervision of medical personnel," a spokesperson told reporters after the fiasco on Friday. "We continue to work with local fire and emergency personnel to ensure this event is always done in the safest way possible."
And even the injured firewalkers aren't willing to say that the problem is that "hot things will burn you." One participant, Andrew Brenner, told reporters that he did get burned, but it was his own fault, for not having enough "faith and concentration." "I did it before, didn't get into the right state and got burned," Brenner said. "I knew I wasn't at my peak state. I didn't take it as serious."
What strikes me about all of this -- besides the general observation that given a contest between "faith and concentration" and "extremely hot object," the hot object is going to win every time -- is how this is indicative of the lemming-like aspects of human behavior. All of us, when in large groups, tend to participate in behavior that we would never dream of doing while alone or in smaller groups. Look at the kinds of things that can happen at athletic events, concerts, and festivals. I think it unlikely, for example, that I would paint my face, shoulders, and chest red-and-white (Cornell colors, for those of you who are non-New Yorkers) in any group with less than ten members, and the number might rise to 25 if we were talking about a freezing cold day in early March. However, at the ECAC hockey finals, buoyed up by the energy of thousands of cheering Big Red hockey fans...? But perhaps I've incriminated myself enough already.
It all comes from being a social primate, really. We do what the group does, for a variety of reasons. Most of such behavior is probably pretty harmless, honestly, and the sociologists would point to its importance in group cohesion and our sense of belonging. Of course, the dark side of this tendency is the capacity for mob violence. In groups, people will often break their own moral and ethical precepts, not then (if ever) recognizing the point where they crossed that line, because a sort of group mentality takes over. As Stanislaw Lec said, "Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty." And from one of my own personal favorites, Terry Pratchett: "The IQ of a mob is equal to the IQ of its stupidest member, divided by the number of people in the mob."
Leaders, from corporate CEOs to high school principals to motivational speakers, take advantage of this tendency, often with the best of motives. Get the group stirred up; get them excited about something. Identify a few of the major power brokers in the group (the Head Lemmings), and get them on your side. At that point, you can propose damn near anything, and the whole group will follow you. I've seen it accomplish great things; in my own school, five years ago, the creation of our highly successful electives program was accomplished using just such a method. Of course, it's also resulted in riots, crusades, and wars. Any tendency in human nature can be used for good or for evil.
Or just to make people do stupid stuff, like walking across a fire pit after the first twenty people burned their feet up, just because some silly motivational speaker was shouting, "do it! I believe in you!"
Friday, July 20, 2012
Flea, tick, and baloney repellent
Do you subscribe to views of medicine that involve the words "frequency" and "vibration?" Do you think that when you're ill, it would really be a good idea to take a "remedy" from which every last potentially useful molecule has been removed? Do you think that when you get the sniffles, it's because you have a clogged chakra?
Do you have pets?
If you answered all of those questions "yes," you will be thrilled to know that the woo-woos have now extended their wacko ideas into treating Fido, Mr. Fluffums, and your other furry friends.
A friend of mine sent me a link yesterday advertising "Only Natural Pet EasyDefense Flea & Tick Tags," available for $71.99 (on sale), should you have no better uses for 72 bucks, which in my opinion would include using it to start a campfire. Here is the pitch, which (for the record) I am not making up:
1) Seriously?
2) I kind of doubt that my "pet's own energy" repels much of anything. I own two dogs that seem to be magnets for dirt, filth, burs, and dead animal residue, so I think if this tag somehow enhanced my "pet's own energy," every bad-smelling thing in a five-mile radius would suddenly fly through the air toward my house, sort of like the last scene in the movie Carrie only way more disgusting.
3) Saying that something you're promoting is "somewhat similar to the basic principles of homeopathy" is not a selling point, okay? This is a little like a person running for political office saying that his fiscal policy is "somewhat similar to the basic principles of fraud."
4) What is a "quantum mechanic?" Is this a guy who wears a jumpsuit with "Rick" embroidered on the pocket, who works on atoms? "Well, it's gonna be kind of expensive. I had to rotate your quarks, and your electrons' spin kinda had a bit of a shimmy, so I replaced the bearings, and then tuned up the nucleus and lubed the neutrons. She should run pretty smooth now."
The advertisement then goes on to say that the EasyDefense tag is "completely safe for your pet, with no possible side effects." I'm sure this is true. In fact, in my opinion, they should broaden that statement to read, "completely safe for your pet, because it has no effects whatsoever."
It is unclear to me whether there should be a point where the government steps in to prevent hucksters from making claims that are clearly false. However, being that caveat emptor seems to be the general rule, there's nothing to stop anyone from claiming anything, even if it's total baloney (although there are some restrictions with respect to human health -- you are required to state, "The FDA has not evaluated these claims" if, in fact, what you are claiming is patently untrue). In general, the law sides with the seller -- for example, just last week, a Louisiana judge ruled that the claims of fortunetellers and mediums to be psychic are protected free speech. [Source] This makes it all the more important that people learn critical thinking skills early -- because that is the only thing I know that acts to repel frauds, fakes, and phonies. And it does so without even having to resort to using "quantum mechanic's refined frequencies."
Do you have pets?
If you answered all of those questions "yes," you will be thrilled to know that the woo-woos have now extended their wacko ideas into treating Fido, Mr. Fluffums, and your other furry friends.
A friend of mine sent me a link yesterday advertising "Only Natural Pet EasyDefense Flea & Tick Tags," available for $71.99 (on sale), should you have no better uses for 72 bucks, which in my opinion would include using it to start a campfire. Here is the pitch, which (for the record) I am not making up:
Protect your dogs and cats from fleas, ticks and mosquitoes naturally! The Only Natural Pet EasyDefense Flea & Tick Tag is a safe, chemical-free way to keep harmful pests off of your pet. Using state of the art holistic technology, the EasyDefense Tag utilizes your pet’s own energy to create a natural barrier to pests. There are no chemicals or pesticides involved. It is completely safe for pets and humans in the household...Okay. I do have a few questions about this:
The EasyDefense tag is treated with a bio-energetic process and sealed in an electro-magnetic shielded envelope. When opened and placed on your pet, it uses your pet's own inherent energy to send out frequencies that repel pests. The process operates with quantum mechanic's [sic] refined frequencies, and is somewhat similar to the basic principles of homeopathy. (It does not use traditional energy forms like electrical, chemical, thermal, magnetic, or radioactive.)
This holistic energetic approach combines the knowledge of Eastern medicine with advanced Western technology, and is the result of more than 10 years of targeted research in collaboration with renowned doctors and scientists. This quantum energy approach has been used in Europe for many years to enhance human health and wellness through the energizing of objects, water, drinks, and supplements.
1) Seriously?
2) I kind of doubt that my "pet's own energy" repels much of anything. I own two dogs that seem to be magnets for dirt, filth, burs, and dead animal residue, so I think if this tag somehow enhanced my "pet's own energy," every bad-smelling thing in a five-mile radius would suddenly fly through the air toward my house, sort of like the last scene in the movie Carrie only way more disgusting.
3) Saying that something you're promoting is "somewhat similar to the basic principles of homeopathy" is not a selling point, okay? This is a little like a person running for political office saying that his fiscal policy is "somewhat similar to the basic principles of fraud."
4) What is a "quantum mechanic?" Is this a guy who wears a jumpsuit with "Rick" embroidered on the pocket, who works on atoms? "Well, it's gonna be kind of expensive. I had to rotate your quarks, and your electrons' spin kinda had a bit of a shimmy, so I replaced the bearings, and then tuned up the nucleus and lubed the neutrons. She should run pretty smooth now."
The advertisement then goes on to say that the EasyDefense tag is "completely safe for your pet, with no possible side effects." I'm sure this is true. In fact, in my opinion, they should broaden that statement to read, "completely safe for your pet, because it has no effects whatsoever."
It is unclear to me whether there should be a point where the government steps in to prevent hucksters from making claims that are clearly false. However, being that caveat emptor seems to be the general rule, there's nothing to stop anyone from claiming anything, even if it's total baloney (although there are some restrictions with respect to human health -- you are required to state, "The FDA has not evaluated these claims" if, in fact, what you are claiming is patently untrue). In general, the law sides with the seller -- for example, just last week, a Louisiana judge ruled that the claims of fortunetellers and mediums to be psychic are protected free speech. [Source] This makes it all the more important that people learn critical thinking skills early -- because that is the only thing I know that acts to repel frauds, fakes, and phonies. And it does so without even having to resort to using "quantum mechanic's refined frequencies."
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Kiss kiss bang bang
There's apparently a evolutionary significance to kissing. Who knew? I'm an evolutionary biologist by background, and I didn't know. Me, I just thought it was kind of fun.
Wendy Hill, a neuroscientist at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, published research a couple of years ago that indicates that there are changes in levels of hormones when couples kiss. Apparently, Hill's team paid heterosexual couples to kiss for fifteen minutes, and measured blood levels of various hormones before and after (and I can only imagine the lines of horny college guys waiting to sign up for this opportunity). (Source)
The results were intriguing. In particular, the hormone oxytocin seems to be affected by kissing. Oxytocin is one of the "feel-good hormones," and has been nicknamed the "cuddle hormone" because it is associated with the maternal instinct and caring for an infant, and the fact that its levels skyrocket in both genders immediately after orgasm. The research indicates that oxytocin levels spike in men during kissing, but they fall in women. This I find surprising, but I can't find anywhere that the researchers speculated as to why oxytocin falls in women after they kiss. This to me would seem to indicate that men feel better after kissing and women feel worse, which seems a little odd. Maybe it's because kissing makes men think about having an orgasm and makes women think about taking care of a infant.
In any case, it's interesting that 90% of human societies (according to the research study) "practice kissing." I don't know about the other 10%. Perhaps they rub foreheads together, or something. Perhaps they don't practice any more because they've figured out how to do it right. It's a mystery.
The other intriguing find of the study was that men prefer "sloppy kisses," whereas evidently women don't. The researchers explain this by positing that saliva contains trace amounts of testosterone, which is linked to increased sex drive in both genders, and swapping spit is a way of dialing up the response in your partner. So, I guess that sloppy kisses are just another human male equivalent of the peacock shakin' his tail feathers -- a chemical way of saying, "hey, baby." So, it falls in the same category as going to the gym to build up your biceps or owning a Jaguar. It's a non-verbal statement that says, "I am just the most virile male you will ever meet in your life. I have so much testosterone that I can just throw it away. You definitely want me to be the father of your children."
Recently Paul Zak, "the world's expert on oxytocin," has published further studies (read about them here) that support the claim that oxytocin has a role in more than just sex, pair bonding, and the mother/infant relationship; it's apparently vital in all sorts of positive social interactions. Zak, in fact, calls oxytocin "the moral molecule." His studies indicate that people's oxytocin levels rise when they have pleasant encounters of all sorts; and if given boosts of oxytocin artificially, they tend to make more moral decisions and behave with more generosity and trust. Oxytocin levels also spike, Zak found, when people play with their pets, socialize with their friends, and watch romantic movies with happy endings. All of these are activities that are connected with pair bonding, social cohesion, and reciprocity -- phenomena that are intrinsic to life as a social primate, so no wonder this response is ubiquitous. It'd be a pretty unpleasant world without it, wouldn't it?
Ah, natural selection. It explains so much.
Anyway, I find all of this stuff pretty fascinating, and I wish you luck conducting any empirical research on the subject that you have the opportunity to do. Here's to raised oxytocin levels.
Wendy Hill, a neuroscientist at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, published research a couple of years ago that indicates that there are changes in levels of hormones when couples kiss. Apparently, Hill's team paid heterosexual couples to kiss for fifteen minutes, and measured blood levels of various hormones before and after (and I can only imagine the lines of horny college guys waiting to sign up for this opportunity). (Source)
The results were intriguing. In particular, the hormone oxytocin seems to be affected by kissing. Oxytocin is one of the "feel-good hormones," and has been nicknamed the "cuddle hormone" because it is associated with the maternal instinct and caring for an infant, and the fact that its levels skyrocket in both genders immediately after orgasm. The research indicates that oxytocin levels spike in men during kissing, but they fall in women. This I find surprising, but I can't find anywhere that the researchers speculated as to why oxytocin falls in women after they kiss. This to me would seem to indicate that men feel better after kissing and women feel worse, which seems a little odd. Maybe it's because kissing makes men think about having an orgasm and makes women think about taking care of a infant.
In any case, it's interesting that 90% of human societies (according to the research study) "practice kissing." I don't know about the other 10%. Perhaps they rub foreheads together, or something. Perhaps they don't practice any more because they've figured out how to do it right. It's a mystery.
The other intriguing find of the study was that men prefer "sloppy kisses," whereas evidently women don't. The researchers explain this by positing that saliva contains trace amounts of testosterone, which is linked to increased sex drive in both genders, and swapping spit is a way of dialing up the response in your partner. So, I guess that sloppy kisses are just another human male equivalent of the peacock shakin' his tail feathers -- a chemical way of saying, "hey, baby." So, it falls in the same category as going to the gym to build up your biceps or owning a Jaguar. It's a non-verbal statement that says, "I am just the most virile male you will ever meet in your life. I have so much testosterone that I can just throw it away. You definitely want me to be the father of your children."
Recently Paul Zak, "the world's expert on oxytocin," has published further studies (read about them here) that support the claim that oxytocin has a role in more than just sex, pair bonding, and the mother/infant relationship; it's apparently vital in all sorts of positive social interactions. Zak, in fact, calls oxytocin "the moral molecule." His studies indicate that people's oxytocin levels rise when they have pleasant encounters of all sorts; and if given boosts of oxytocin artificially, they tend to make more moral decisions and behave with more generosity and trust. Oxytocin levels also spike, Zak found, when people play with their pets, socialize with their friends, and watch romantic movies with happy endings. All of these are activities that are connected with pair bonding, social cohesion, and reciprocity -- phenomena that are intrinsic to life as a social primate, so no wonder this response is ubiquitous. It'd be a pretty unpleasant world without it, wouldn't it?
Ah, natural selection. It explains so much.
Anyway, I find all of this stuff pretty fascinating, and I wish you luck conducting any empirical research on the subject that you have the opportunity to do. Here's to raised oxytocin levels.
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