One of the most frustrating of logical fallacies is the No True Scotsman fallacy. It gets its name from an almost certainly apocryphal story, in which a serial rapist and killer is being pursued by the police in Glasgow, and a Scottish MP encourages the police to search amongst the immigrant population of the city. "No Scotsman would do such a thing," the MP said.
When the criminal was caught, and turned out to be 100% Scottish, the MP was challenged about his remark.
"Well," he said, drawing himself up, "no true Scotsman would have done such a thing!"
The crux of this fallacy is that if you make a statement that turns out, in view of evidence, to be false, all you do is shift your ground -- redefine the terms so as to make your original point unassailable.
Very few other fallacies have such a capacity for making me want to smack my forehead into a wall as this one. Someone who commits this fallacy can't be pinned down, can't be backed into a corner, can't receive his comeuppance from the most reasoned argument, the most solidly incontrovertible evidence. The dancing skills of a master of the No True Scotsman fallacy are Dancing With The Stars quality.
All of this comes up because of an online discussion that I read, and (yes) participated in, a couple of days ago, on the topic of the demonstrability of evolution. Someone, ostensibly a supporter of evolution but seemingly not terribly well-read on the subject, was using such evidence as the fossil record as a support for the idea. A creationist responded, "The fossil record, and fossil dating, are inaccurate. You evolutionists always think that bringing us a bunch of bones and shells proves your point, but it doesn't, because no one can really prove how old they were, and none of them show one species turning into another. You can't show a single example, from the present, of one species becoming another, and yet you want us to believe in your discredited theory."
Well, of course, I couldn't let a comment like that just sit there, so I responded, "Well, actually, yes, I can. I know about a dozen examples of speciation (one species becoming another) occurring within a human lifetime."
Challenged to produce examples, I gave a few, including the ones that I described in an earlier post (Grass, gulls, mosquitoes, and mice, February 9, 2012), and then sat back on my haunches with a satisfied snort, thinking "Ha. That sure showed him."
Well. I should have known better. His response, which I quote verbatim: "All you did was show that one grass can become another grass, or a mosquito can become another mosquito. If you could show me a mosquito that turned into a bird, or something, I might believe you."
Now, wait just a second, here. You asked me for one thing -- to show one species turning into a different species, in the period of a few decades. I did so, adhering to the canonical definition of the word species. And now you're saying that wasn't what you wanted after all -- you want me to show one phylum turning into a different one, in one generation?
So I sat there, sputtering and swearing, and not sure how to answer. So I said something to the effect that he'd pulled a No True Scotsman on me, and had changed the terms of the question once he saw I could answer it, and he'd damned well better play fair. He humphed back at me that we evolutionists couldn't really support our points, and we both left the discussion as I suspect most people leave discussions on the internet -- unconvinced and frustrated. So I was pondering the whole thing, and after taking my blood pressure medications I had a sudden realization of where the confusion was coming from. It was from the idea of a type of organism.
Most people who aren't educated in the biological sciences (and I'm not including just formal education, here; there are many people who have never taken a single biology class and know plenty about the subject) really don't understand the concept of species. They think in types. A bird is one type of thing; a bug is a different one. If you pressed them, they might admit that there were a few types of birds that seemed inherently different; you have your big birds (ostriches), your medium-sized birds (robins), and your little birds (hummingbirds). I've had students that have thought this way, and when they hear I'm a birdwatcher, they seem incredulous that this could be a lifelong avocation. Wouldn't I run out of new birds to see pretty quickly? When I tell them that there are over 10,000 unique species of birds, they seem not so much awed as uncomprehending.
I suspect that the source of this misapprehension is the same as the source of the general misapprehension regarding the antiquity of the Earth and the origins of life: the bible. In Leviticus 11, where they go through the whole unclean-foods thing that eventually would be codified as the Kosher Law, they split up the natural world in only the broadest-brush terms; you have your animals that have hooves and chew the cud, various combinations of ones that don't, creatures that have fins and scales and ones that don't, insects that jump and ones that don't, and a few different classes of birds (which, to my eternal amusement, included bats). And that's pretty much it. Plants were sorted out into ones that had edible parts (wheat, figs, olives), ones that had useful wood (boxwood, cedar, acacia), and ones that had neither of the above (thorn bushes). And these distinctions worked perfectly well for a Bronze-Age society; it kept you from eating stuff that was bad for you, told you what you could build stuff from, and so on. But as a scientific concept, the idea of "types of living things" is pretty ridiculous. And yet it still seems to live on in people's minds, lo unto this very day.
So, anyway, that was my brief excursion into that least useful of endeavors, the Online Argument. It gave me a nice example of the No True Scotsman fallacy to tell my Critical Thinking classes about, when we hit that topic in a few weeks. And it really didn't affect my blood pressure all that much, but it did make me roll my eyes. Which seems to happen frequently when I get into conversations with creationists.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
eBay, metaphysics, and caveat emptor
In what can only be called a puzzling move, online clearinghouse eBay has announced that they will no longer allow selling of "paranormal services."
From the 2012 Fall Seller Update, we read the following:
Now, the hopeful side of my personality is speculating that eBay is pulling these offers because they know them to be inherently fraudulent, and they don't want to have any part in ripping off the credulous. But my second reason for calling this change "puzzling" is that if this is the reason, it's hard to explain some of their other listings, such as:
In any case, that's today's lesson in critical thinking and the principle of caveat emptor. Me, I wonder if I missed my calling. If I could make $550 (or more) handwriting a book of spells, and selling it on eBay, and have people trampling each other to buy it, I could retire from teaching and move somewhere warmer. Spend a couple of hours a day writing out spells, have my wife do the illustrations (because my drawing skills maxed out somewhere in third grade), and spend the rest of the day on the beach soaking up the sun and drinking mojitos. There's the inevitable downside of knowing that I was taking money from people who possess the critical thinking skills of road salt, but hey, if eBay isn't going to worry about that, why should I?
From the 2012 Fall Seller Update, we read the following:
The following items are also being added to the prohibited items list: advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing sessions; work from home businesses & information; wholesale lists, and drop shop lists.My reason for calling this "puzzling" is twofold. First, they have a whole category called "Specialty Services," and it would seem that such things would clearly fall under that heading. And as such claims are bogus from the get-go, it would be hard for a purchaser to file a claim under eBay's stated policies for sellers:
And all of this would seem to be well in line with what these sellers are doing. All they were selling was a prayer or a hex or whatever; there's no guarantee it would work, just as there's no guarantee that if you ask your religious friend to pray for you (or your wizard friend to cast a spell for you) that it'll produce results. The only difference is that here, you're being asked to pay for it.As a seller, you're expected to:
Now, the hopeful side of my personality is speculating that eBay is pulling these offers because they know them to be inherently fraudulent, and they don't want to have any part in ripping off the credulous. But my second reason for calling this change "puzzling" is that if this is the reason, it's hard to explain some of their other listings, such as:
- A Haunted Fairy Drawing Spinner Pendant, which comes with "five garden fairies included."
- A Real Witchcraft-Coven-Owned Secret Book of Shadows, which comes with a "broom and a wand stand." (This thing is handwritten, and has a starting bid of $550 -- and currently has seven bids on it.)
- A Seal of Solomon Pendant that allows you to "command a legion of powerful entities."
- A 6" Feng Shui Crystal Ball, that will help you to "channel energy through the house."
- An Enchanted Pin, that will "amplify effectiveness of spoken spells cast."
In any case, that's today's lesson in critical thinking and the principle of caveat emptor. Me, I wonder if I missed my calling. If I could make $550 (or more) handwriting a book of spells, and selling it on eBay, and have people trampling each other to buy it, I could retire from teaching and move somewhere warmer. Spend a couple of hours a day writing out spells, have my wife do the illustrations (because my drawing skills maxed out somewhere in third grade), and spend the rest of the day on the beach soaking up the sun and drinking mojitos. There's the inevitable downside of knowing that I was taking money from people who possess the critical thinking skills of road salt, but hey, if eBay isn't going to worry about that, why should I?
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Bigfoot sightings, ghillie suits, and the Darwin Awards
I try to be compassionate, I really do. I mean, schadenfreude only gets you so far in life. So when I read the news story a couple of years ago about the health food enthusiast who was giving a lecture on the dangers of high-carb diets in a local library, and while leaving her talk was hit and killed by a bakery truck, my laughter was tempered with a dose of sympathy for the victim and her family.
Sometimes, however, it's hard not to dissolve into guffaws at the misfortunes of others, particularly when they brought said ill luck on themselves. And this brings us to today's story, from Kalispell, Montana, where a guy was killed while trying to create a fake Bigfoot sighting. (Source)
The man, who has been identified as Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell, was wearing a military-style ghillie suit. What is a ghillie suit, you might ask? I know I had to ask, because I didn't know. It's a camouflage suit worn by snipers and other people involved in covert military operations. But it's not your typical patterns-of-leaves type camouflage, the kind worn by hunters; it's covered with ropy fake vegetation. Here's a picture of a ghillie suit from (I am not making this up) TheGhillieSuits.com:
Which brings up two points: (1) this would only count as camouflage if your area has many human-sized furry lumps with arms, which would seem to limit its usefulness, and (2) there are enough civilians who actually want ghillie suits that there's a website that sells them? I'm not sure that this last-mentioned isn't the scariest thing about this whole story.
Be that as it may, Tenley obtained a ghillie suit, and decided (possibly under the influence of alcohol, which seems likely) to stage a Sasquatch sighting alongside Highway 93. So he donned his suit, and proceeded to run about along, and eventually on, the highway. But evidently the ghillie suit's capacity for camouflage exceeded my expectations mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and Tenley was struck by a car. He was thrown into the middle of the road, where he was struck by a second car, killing him.
I've always claimed that woo-woo beliefs were potentially dangerous, and by that I have usually been thinking about quack medical practices like homeopathy, which are sometimes sought out by people who are ill in place of treatments or remedies that actually work. But here we see a case where a man was actually killed not because of his own woo-woo beliefs, but because he was trying to encourage others in their woo-woo beliefs. All of which is rather ironic.
The upside, of course, not that Tenley will be around to celebrate the fact, is that this should be a clear contender for the 2012 Darwin Awards, a yearly contest whose prizes go out to the people who have taken themselves out in the stupidest possible fashion, thus improving the gene pool for the rest of us. If Tenley isn't an odds-on favorite, I don't know who would be.
So, anyhow, that's today's story, the object lessons of which include the following: (1) running around in camouflage makes you hard to see, (2) if you jump into a highway, you're likely to get hit by a car, (3) staging Bigfoot sightings can be dangerous, and of course, (4) alcohol does not lead to clear decision-making processes. So I think we can all thank Tenley for his bad example, and if this post has dissuaded one person from donning a ghillie suit and dancing on the highway, I think we can consider our time here well spent.
Sometimes, however, it's hard not to dissolve into guffaws at the misfortunes of others, particularly when they brought said ill luck on themselves. And this brings us to today's story, from Kalispell, Montana, where a guy was killed while trying to create a fake Bigfoot sighting. (Source)
The man, who has been identified as Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell, was wearing a military-style ghillie suit. What is a ghillie suit, you might ask? I know I had to ask, because I didn't know. It's a camouflage suit worn by snipers and other people involved in covert military operations. But it's not your typical patterns-of-leaves type camouflage, the kind worn by hunters; it's covered with ropy fake vegetation. Here's a picture of a ghillie suit from (I am not making this up) TheGhillieSuits.com:
Which brings up two points: (1) this would only count as camouflage if your area has many human-sized furry lumps with arms, which would seem to limit its usefulness, and (2) there are enough civilians who actually want ghillie suits that there's a website that sells them? I'm not sure that this last-mentioned isn't the scariest thing about this whole story.
Be that as it may, Tenley obtained a ghillie suit, and decided (possibly under the influence of alcohol, which seems likely) to stage a Sasquatch sighting alongside Highway 93. So he donned his suit, and proceeded to run about along, and eventually on, the highway. But evidently the ghillie suit's capacity for camouflage exceeded my expectations mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and Tenley was struck by a car. He was thrown into the middle of the road, where he was struck by a second car, killing him.
I've always claimed that woo-woo beliefs were potentially dangerous, and by that I have usually been thinking about quack medical practices like homeopathy, which are sometimes sought out by people who are ill in place of treatments or remedies that actually work. But here we see a case where a man was actually killed not because of his own woo-woo beliefs, but because he was trying to encourage others in their woo-woo beliefs. All of which is rather ironic.
The upside, of course, not that Tenley will be around to celebrate the fact, is that this should be a clear contender for the 2012 Darwin Awards, a yearly contest whose prizes go out to the people who have taken themselves out in the stupidest possible fashion, thus improving the gene pool for the rest of us. If Tenley isn't an odds-on favorite, I don't know who would be.
So, anyhow, that's today's story, the object lessons of which include the following: (1) running around in camouflage makes you hard to see, (2) if you jump into a highway, you're likely to get hit by a car, (3) staging Bigfoot sightings can be dangerous, and of course, (4) alcohol does not lead to clear decision-making processes. So I think we can all thank Tenley for his bad example, and if this post has dissuaded one person from donning a ghillie suit and dancing on the highway, I think we can consider our time here well spent.
Monday, August 27, 2012
A study in tropical colors
As my regular readers know, I just got back a couple of days ago from a two-and-a-half week trip to Malaysia. I thought it might be interesting to step aside for a day from my usual agenda of lobbing verbal bombs at the woo-woos, and give a few of my impressions of this country.
I was drawn to Malaysia by the birds. I am a fanatical birdwatcher, an avocation that I am more and more beginning to think of as being some kind of benign mental disorder. The trip was an organized excursion put together by Birdquest International, a UK-based company that specializes in taking people to where the birds are. So everyone on the trip shared my obsession -- all seven participants, and the two guides. We shuffled along the trails in a tight, silent little pack, binoculars in hand, scanning trees and underbrush, listening for unusual calls or songs -- and then launching into action like a SWAT team when one was seen: "Bulbul! Olive-winged! Large tree with round leaves, in foreground, nine o'clock, moving left!" And everyone would swivel around to find the bird, and one by one you'd hear, "Got it, thanks!" and every once in a while a "Dammit! It flew!"
But the birds were spectacular. The grounds of the lodge where we stayed in Taman Negara National Park were frequently graced by four or five Crested Firebacks, a pheasant species that looks like it's ready for a fancy costume ball. Not all of them were that easy; it took us several hours of work to locate the elusive Garnet Pitta, a bird that has been called the Jewel of the Rain Forest (photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons):
We never, ever were without our binoculars, except when we were sleeping. We wore them at meals, during rides in the van from one locale to another, and when we were hauling our luggage around. And all it took was the cry of "Bird!" to stop us from all other pursuits and hoist the lenses into the air to see what might have flown in.
Of course, it's not that that was the only attraction to Malaysia. It's a stunningly beautiful country, with huge stands of pristine rain forest, enormous trees draped with lianas and ferns. A botanist would go mad here from the diversity of plant life. I pride myself on my knowledge of plants, and I only recognized perhaps 10% of what I was seeing. Take this strangely-shaped leaf for example:
No idea what it is, other than "cool." Because of the thin soils, most of the trees have these sculpted buttress-roots, that never failed to remind me of Old Man Willow from The Lord of the Rings:
Besides the biology of the place, there's the culture. The food was always interesting, and often delicious. We had a hundred different takes on curry, most with coconut, a food I heartily approve of. I finally got to try durian, the famous spiky (and smelly) fruit of Southeast Asia. Durian has such a pungent smell that it is illegal to open one on public transport or in a hotel room, and I found first-hand that the smell clings to your skin and clothing for hours. What does it smell like? Let me quote food writer Richard Sterling: "Its odor is best described as pig shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock." Anthony Bourdain, even though he likes the stuff, says that after eating it "your breath smells like you've been French-kissing your dead grandmother." So, of course, I had to try it. And... I thought it was delicious. The flavor is kind of indescribable -- musky, sweet, creamy, a little oily. But definitely wonderful, and like nothing else I've ever tasted.
I also ran face-first into sambal ulek, which I have renamed "Malaysian Death Sauce" because I had no idea how freakin' hot it was until I had slathered it all over my breakfast. Now, I'm from southern Louisiana, and have a very high (probably genetic) tolerance for pepper, and this was hotter than anything I've ever eaten. It was only my hatred of losing face amongst comparative strangers that kept me from dumping my plate and taking a second serving with three drops (rather than three heaping spoonfuls) of the stuff.
And speaking of hot: Malaysia is also the other kind of hot. The temperature varies from blazing hot, all the way up through sauna and right into the realm of pressure cooker. I was constantly wringing wet with sweat, and I usually have a high tolerance for hot weather. In the highlands (we spent four days at Fraser's Hill in the Cameron Highlands of central Malaysia) it was a bit cooler, but that's like saying that "compared to a blast furnace, a bread oven is comfortable." It was still near 100% humidity, and I think the temperature only dropped below 80 F for a brief time at night.
The heat and humidity also encourage a variety of animal life, and not all of it is of the oh-look-at-the-cute-little-monkey type. Malaysia has leeches. Terrestrial leeches. These live in the leaf-litter of the forest floor, attach themselves to your shoes, and then crawl up your pant leg in search of dinner. Most of our party got bitten at least once -- I was one of the only exceptions, probably because I daily doused my boots in high-strength insect repellent, to the point that by the end of my trip my boots were composed of 5% shoe leather and 95% DEET. If I ever get rid of those boots, I will probably have to file an Environmental Impact Statement. But I didn't get bitten, unlike poor Linda, a retired nurse from Oakland who got bitten about a dozen times and constantly had large bloodstains on her socks, pants, and shirt.
One of the most curious things about Malaysia was the pervasive role of religion. 61% of Malaysians are Muslim; we saw many veiled women, and daily heard the chanted call to prayer broadcast over speakers. But 61%, although a majority, means that there are plenty of other beliefs; there are substantial numbers of Hindus (whose brilliantly-colored temples were often seen on our van trips), Buddhists, and even a few animists amongst the Orang Asli, or aboriginal settlers of the peninsula. But the Malaysians are, by and large, a people amongst whom the adherence to some religion is taken as given, and who have a big focus on decorum and morality. I saw a few tourists who were showing more skin than was considered proper -- women in short-shorts, men who were shirtless -- and saw more than one skew glance being given to them. I wore shorts on occasion (while not actively birding in the forest; wearing shorts in the Malaysian forest is like waving a sign in front of the leeches that you're open for dinner) and wondered if the tattoo on my leg would attract any negative attention. I didn't notice any, but you have to wonder what the more conservative citizens think of some of the foreigners they see.
Last: Malaysia is far away. It took over 24 hours in the air to get me there, and it is exactly half a day off from my home time zone; when I Skyped with my wife, in the places where wifi was available, I was always had the vertigo-inducing awareness of being on the opposite side of a giant spinning ball. When it was day in New York, it was night in Malaysia, and we had to plan to meet -- as she was getting ready to head to work, I was getting ready to head to bed. On the way back, I took the longest nonstop flight in the world -- Hong Kong to New York City/JFK. Sixteen hours in the air. And although I had no travel mishaps whatsoever -- not so much as a five-minute departure delay -- I do wish I had not been on the special Screaming Toddler Flight. I've never been so glad to get off a plane.
So, anyway, those are a few impressions of my first visit to the continent of Asia. I came away with an impression of a friendly people, a commitment to protecting their beautiful environment, and 199 "life birds" -- species I'd never seen before. I survived sambal ulek and durian, and all in all, had a wonderful time. Still, it's nice to be home, where the temperature is mild, breakfast sauces don't burn your face off, and you can walk in the woods without being bitten by leeches.
I was drawn to Malaysia by the birds. I am a fanatical birdwatcher, an avocation that I am more and more beginning to think of as being some kind of benign mental disorder. The trip was an organized excursion put together by Birdquest International, a UK-based company that specializes in taking people to where the birds are. So everyone on the trip shared my obsession -- all seven participants, and the two guides. We shuffled along the trails in a tight, silent little pack, binoculars in hand, scanning trees and underbrush, listening for unusual calls or songs -- and then launching into action like a SWAT team when one was seen: "Bulbul! Olive-winged! Large tree with round leaves, in foreground, nine o'clock, moving left!" And everyone would swivel around to find the bird, and one by one you'd hear, "Got it, thanks!" and every once in a while a "Dammit! It flew!"
But the birds were spectacular. The grounds of the lodge where we stayed in Taman Negara National Park were frequently graced by four or five Crested Firebacks, a pheasant species that looks like it's ready for a fancy costume ball. Not all of them were that easy; it took us several hours of work to locate the elusive Garnet Pitta, a bird that has been called the Jewel of the Rain Forest (photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons):
We never, ever were without our binoculars, except when we were sleeping. We wore them at meals, during rides in the van from one locale to another, and when we were hauling our luggage around. And all it took was the cry of "Bird!" to stop us from all other pursuits and hoist the lenses into the air to see what might have flown in.
Of course, it's not that that was the only attraction to Malaysia. It's a stunningly beautiful country, with huge stands of pristine rain forest, enormous trees draped with lianas and ferns. A botanist would go mad here from the diversity of plant life. I pride myself on my knowledge of plants, and I only recognized perhaps 10% of what I was seeing. Take this strangely-shaped leaf for example:
No idea what it is, other than "cool." Because of the thin soils, most of the trees have these sculpted buttress-roots, that never failed to remind me of Old Man Willow from The Lord of the Rings:
Besides the biology of the place, there's the culture. The food was always interesting, and often delicious. We had a hundred different takes on curry, most with coconut, a food I heartily approve of. I finally got to try durian, the famous spiky (and smelly) fruit of Southeast Asia. Durian has such a pungent smell that it is illegal to open one on public transport or in a hotel room, and I found first-hand that the smell clings to your skin and clothing for hours. What does it smell like? Let me quote food writer Richard Sterling: "Its odor is best described as pig shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock." Anthony Bourdain, even though he likes the stuff, says that after eating it "your breath smells like you've been French-kissing your dead grandmother." So, of course, I had to try it. And... I thought it was delicious. The flavor is kind of indescribable -- musky, sweet, creamy, a little oily. But definitely wonderful, and like nothing else I've ever tasted.
I also ran face-first into sambal ulek, which I have renamed "Malaysian Death Sauce" because I had no idea how freakin' hot it was until I had slathered it all over my breakfast. Now, I'm from southern Louisiana, and have a very high (probably genetic) tolerance for pepper, and this was hotter than anything I've ever eaten. It was only my hatred of losing face amongst comparative strangers that kept me from dumping my plate and taking a second serving with three drops (rather than three heaping spoonfuls) of the stuff.
And speaking of hot: Malaysia is also the other kind of hot. The temperature varies from blazing hot, all the way up through sauna and right into the realm of pressure cooker. I was constantly wringing wet with sweat, and I usually have a high tolerance for hot weather. In the highlands (we spent four days at Fraser's Hill in the Cameron Highlands of central Malaysia) it was a bit cooler, but that's like saying that "compared to a blast furnace, a bread oven is comfortable." It was still near 100% humidity, and I think the temperature only dropped below 80 F for a brief time at night.
The heat and humidity also encourage a variety of animal life, and not all of it is of the oh-look-at-the-cute-little-monkey type. Malaysia has leeches. Terrestrial leeches. These live in the leaf-litter of the forest floor, attach themselves to your shoes, and then crawl up your pant leg in search of dinner. Most of our party got bitten at least once -- I was one of the only exceptions, probably because I daily doused my boots in high-strength insect repellent, to the point that by the end of my trip my boots were composed of 5% shoe leather and 95% DEET. If I ever get rid of those boots, I will probably have to file an Environmental Impact Statement. But I didn't get bitten, unlike poor Linda, a retired nurse from Oakland who got bitten about a dozen times and constantly had large bloodstains on her socks, pants, and shirt.
One of the most curious things about Malaysia was the pervasive role of religion. 61% of Malaysians are Muslim; we saw many veiled women, and daily heard the chanted call to prayer broadcast over speakers. But 61%, although a majority, means that there are plenty of other beliefs; there are substantial numbers of Hindus (whose brilliantly-colored temples were often seen on our van trips), Buddhists, and even a few animists amongst the Orang Asli, or aboriginal settlers of the peninsula. But the Malaysians are, by and large, a people amongst whom the adherence to some religion is taken as given, and who have a big focus on decorum and morality. I saw a few tourists who were showing more skin than was considered proper -- women in short-shorts, men who were shirtless -- and saw more than one skew glance being given to them. I wore shorts on occasion (while not actively birding in the forest; wearing shorts in the Malaysian forest is like waving a sign in front of the leeches that you're open for dinner) and wondered if the tattoo on my leg would attract any negative attention. I didn't notice any, but you have to wonder what the more conservative citizens think of some of the foreigners they see.
Last: Malaysia is far away. It took over 24 hours in the air to get me there, and it is exactly half a day off from my home time zone; when I Skyped with my wife, in the places where wifi was available, I was always had the vertigo-inducing awareness of being on the opposite side of a giant spinning ball. When it was day in New York, it was night in Malaysia, and we had to plan to meet -- as she was getting ready to head to work, I was getting ready to head to bed. On the way back, I took the longest nonstop flight in the world -- Hong Kong to New York City/JFK. Sixteen hours in the air. And although I had no travel mishaps whatsoever -- not so much as a five-minute departure delay -- I do wish I had not been on the special Screaming Toddler Flight. I've never been so glad to get off a plane.
So, anyway, those are a few impressions of my first visit to the continent of Asia. I came away with an impression of a friendly people, a commitment to protecting their beautiful environment, and 199 "life birds" -- species I'd never seen before. I survived sambal ulek and durian, and all in all, had a wonderful time. Still, it's nice to be home, where the temperature is mild, breakfast sauces don't burn your face off, and you can walk in the woods without being bitten by leeches.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Guest post from skeptic Tyler Tork: The Psychic's Psychic
Hi Skeptophiles,
I'm back from Malaysia, and tomorrow will be back in the saddle again, fueled in my vocation of neatly poniarding woo-woos by such powerfully magical substances as Malaysian Death Curry and Durian, The Fruit From Hell. To gear you back up, today I present a guest post from my friend and fellow skeptic Tyler Tork. You should all check out his website (link posted at the end), and I hope you enjoy his post as much as I did!
**************************************
I'm back from Malaysia, and tomorrow will be back in the saddle again, fueled in my vocation of neatly poniarding woo-woos by such powerfully magical substances as Malaysian Death Curry and Durian, The Fruit From Hell. To gear you back up, today I present a guest post from my friend and fellow skeptic Tyler Tork. You should all check out his website (link posted at the end), and I hope you enjoy his post as much as I did!
**************************************
The Psychics' Psychic
- by guest blogger Tyler Tork
"SuperPsychic Wendy!"[1]
is on your side, O Consumer of Psychic Services. She wants to prevent bogus psychics from cheating you, so she's written a book, The
Naked Quack! [2].
It explains how people get fooled by charlatans. Why waste your money on a fake
medium when you can instead pay $400/hr for the real thing – her?
She also wants to license psychics, a proposal that many of
the readers of this blog can probably get behind. I, for one, would be glad to
issue a professional psychic license to anyone who can prove their powers in a
controlled test (and who swears to use them for good). The many genuine
psychics in this country, concerned about fakers who give their profession a
bad name, surely must regard Wendy! as a heroine.
The James Randi
Foundation could create a testing regimen for licensing. I'm sure a psychic
as gifted as Wendy! must know about the million dollars they offer anyone who
can demonstrate paranormal abilities, so I'm not sure why she hasn't applied.
Odd. It's not about the money, of course; she could give that to a charity.
It's about credibility.
Lacking such a test, we must evaluate psychics as best we
can by other means. Fortunately, a rare few are bold enough to go on record
with predictions for the coming year. As we know, the reading public always
clip or bookmark such articles, and at the end of the year they go back to
check whether the predictions were accurate. So this is a gutsy thing for a
psychic to do.
Never let it be said that Wendy! is timid. Witness her
predictions for 2011. Now we can see how good she really is.
Alas, as I peruse the article, I see that out of seven
predictions, none of them are entirely
correct. Now, nobody claims that precognition is an exact science, so perhaps
it's unfair to take a paragraph of
prediction and count it wrong if not every statement is 100% accurate.
So I broke the predictions into independent statements to see to what extent
they might be at least a near miss. Here they are (paraphrased to avoid any
copyright concerns):
- Tom Cruise breaks his arm doing a stunt. Wrong.
- There are a lot of photos of Tom and Katie arguing. Hard to evaluate since "a lot" is vague, but since I searched a bit and couldn't find a single such photo from 2011, I'm saying wrong on this one.
- Tom and Katie are rumored to divorce. A search turned up nothing. There are always rumors of all kinds about celebrity couples, so I wouldn't be surprised if somebody said this. But did she mean one rumor, or a lot? I rule this one too vague to evaluate.
- Tom and Katie run an ad to show that their marriage isn't in trouble. Wrong.
- The stock market makes major swings at the start of the year. Wrong, basically flat.
- The U.S. sends troops to Nicaragua. Wrong. (Huh?)
- The stock market rises by April. Wrong; market flat thru April.
- The stock market drops by early summer because of "some news". Wrong. Nothing notable before July.
- Obama's increasing unpopularity makes markets nervous (unclear whether this is the news referred to above, but it precedes a prediction about August so I assume it means sometime during the summer, anyway).Wrong. Obama's ratings are flat, actually reaching a year high by July.
- The stock market has another "shaky" period in late August. "Another" implies there's a non-shaky time preceding it, which was not the case. Wrong.
- The stock market stabilizes by the end of the year. Wrong.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for President. Since he's ineligible, no surprise: wrong.
- Arnold's daughter, Christina, goes into acting. Wrong.
- Michael Douglas (already known to have cancer at the time) gets stronger as he battles cancer. Wrong. He gets weaker, losing 32 pounds that he didn't need to shed. Unless she means strength of character, in which case see below.
- Douglas wins an Oscar. Wrong.
- Douglas does TV commercials against smoking. Wrong. In fact, he's sighted smoking, which seems to show that his cancer hasn't taught him much (see above).
- Major floods in the Midwest in March or April. For a change, this one is close enough to count as correct. The floods were a little later than predicted, but I don't want to be too much of a hard-ass. Of course, NOAA, presumably without psychic assistance, was already predicting heavy snowfall, so spring flooding might not be much of a stretch.
- Texas will have major floods in March or April. Wrong.
- [The floods will cause] serious crop damage "everywhere". I assume everywhere means everywhere there was flooding. Since floods always cause crop damage, I don't consider this a separate prediction.
- Accusations of tax evasion, and a scandal involving an anonymous informant, will make Sarah Palin drop out of the Presidential race. It came as a surprise to nobody that Sarah Palin dropped out, since she's a lunatic whom only a handful of people would consider voting for. However, it had nothing to do with taxes or mysterious scandals, so, wrong.
- Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel get engaged. This one is correct. Wendy! successfully predicted the engagement of a couple who'd been dating for years and had talked about getting engaged on national TV.
- Justin and Jessica have a baby girl. Wrong.
- Justin writes and produces an autobiographical film. Wrong. I feel like I'm shooting fish in a barrel here. I don't want to be mean, but really?
- Jessica is nominated for a 2012 Oscar. Wrong.
Tallying that up, there were 22 predictions specific
enough to evaluate, of which 2 were correct. That's an accuracy rate of 9%, and
the ones that were correct weren't the ones I would've given long odds. If
Arnold Schwarzenegger were somehow on the ballot, or if we'd invaded Nicaragua,
I'd be a little more impressed. As it is, I don't know about you, but I like my
psychics to be correct at least 15% of the time, to justify charging $400/hr
($600 if you just count face time).
–
Tyler Tork, occasional contributor of derisive comments
here, writes speculative fiction and answers reader questions online. Every
question deserves a silly answer. www.tylertork.com/qna
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The skeptic goes to Malaysia
My dear Skeptophiles,
This will be my last post for a couple of weeks... by this time tomorrow morning, I will be on my way to the lovely country of Malaysia for a hiking and birdwatching trip that I've been planning for months. Some things I will be experiencing:
Until then, there are a few things you can do to keep your appetite for critical thinking sated. First, you can buy my book, if you haven't already done so. It has the creative title Skeptophilia, is a bargain at only $3.99, and is a collection of 120 of my essays on science, skepticism, critical thinking, and woo-woo-ism. You can get it for Kindle (here) or Nook (here). If you do decide to buy it, many thanks -- and please leave a review.
This is also a chance for you to check out some other skeptical blogs and webpages, so here are a few of my favorites:
Science, Reason, and Critical Thinking
James Randi Educational Foundation
Pharyngula
SkepChick
The Skeptic's Dictionary
The Call of Troythulu
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason
Friendly Atheist
Quackwatch
Bad Archaeology
Bad Astronomy
That should be enough to keep you occupied while I'm gone, don't you think?
In any case, I should return refreshed and re-energized, and hopefully without any loathsome tropical diseases, the last week of August. Until then, keep hoisting the banner of logic!
This will be my last post for a couple of weeks... by this time tomorrow morning, I will be on my way to the lovely country of Malaysia for a hiking and birdwatching trip that I've been planning for months. Some things I will be experiencing:
- amazing natural beauty, including six days in Taman Negara, one of the largest pristine stands of rain forest in Southeast Asia
- an opportunity to see over 300 species of birds, almost all of which will be new to me, and including one called the "Fluffy-backed Tit-Babbler," which I swear I'm not making up
- fantastic local cuisine, including several different kind of curries and a fruit called a "durian" that allegedly smells like a combination of garlic, wet dog, skunk, and sweat socks
- the experience of having my biological clock try to keep track of being twelve hours different from my home time zone
Until then, there are a few things you can do to keep your appetite for critical thinking sated. First, you can buy my book, if you haven't already done so. It has the creative title Skeptophilia, is a bargain at only $3.99, and is a collection of 120 of my essays on science, skepticism, critical thinking, and woo-woo-ism. You can get it for Kindle (here) or Nook (here). If you do decide to buy it, many thanks -- and please leave a review.
This is also a chance for you to check out some other skeptical blogs and webpages, so here are a few of my favorites:
Science, Reason, and Critical Thinking
James Randi Educational Foundation
Pharyngula
SkepChick
The Skeptic's Dictionary
The Call of Troythulu
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason
Friendly Atheist
Quackwatch
Bad Archaeology
Bad Astronomy
That should be enough to keep you occupied while I'm gone, don't you think?
In any case, I should return refreshed and re-energized, and hopefully without any loathsome tropical diseases, the last week of August. Until then, keep hoisting the banner of logic!
Monday, August 6, 2012
Amber teething beads and alternative quackery
Every once in a while, I'll happen across a story that outright makes me angry. Usually this has to do with a woo-woo claim that doesn't just put the believer at risk, but others as well.
And it's worse when the ones whose health and safety are being put in danger are children. Children depend on adults to make good decisions, and when hype, credulity, and commercialism team up to sell parents a bill of goods, it is placing an innocent individual in harm's way -- and one who is not capable of standing up for him/herself, or necessarily even recognizing the danger.
This is the case with the latest fad in "holistic baby care" -- amber teething beads. I was first alerted to this oddball idea by a regular reader of Skeptophilia, who asked me if I'd ever heard of such a thing. I hadn't. But a little bit of research brought me here, where we are given the following combination of half-truths and outright falsehoods:
Oh, no? Then what were the preceding paragraphs of hogwash? These people -- who are only one of dozens of sites I found that are now hawking amber for teething babies -- are clearly dispensing medical advice. Erroneous advice, but medical advice nonetheless.
I'm wondering how long it'll be before the first baby chokes to death on an amber necklace. These things have screw clasps, and the silk cord that the beads are strung on is supposed to break if sufficient tension is given -- reducing the strangulation risk -- but what if a bead pops off the necklace and is inhaled? And then, we have the problem of sites such as this one -- that claim that amber can be used for other purposes than soothing teething pain, such as treating rashes and fevers. So, compound the (1) pseudoscientific claims, with (2) the choking and strangulation risk, and finally (3) the fact that gullible parents are being convinced that children with treatable illnesses will be cured by wearing a necklace, and potentially delay seeking good medical care, and perhaps now you'll see why the whole thing made me furious.
We have lots of ways of giving our children their best shot at healthy lives. Good diet, exercise, and the usual suite of childhood vaccinations (sorry, anti-vaxers, you're simply wrong) are still the best bets for avoiding the illnesses that used to kill tens of thousands of children annually (and still do, in some countries where medical care is poor or nonexistent). We now have an excellent understanding of how immunity works, and can use that knowledge to benefit those who depend on us. And if we take the time to learn a little bit of genuine science, it can immunize us adults as well -- against the false claims of hucksters who are trying to sell us medically worthless items as cure-alls.
And it's worse when the ones whose health and safety are being put in danger are children. Children depend on adults to make good decisions, and when hype, credulity, and commercialism team up to sell parents a bill of goods, it is placing an innocent individual in harm's way -- and one who is not capable of standing up for him/herself, or necessarily even recognizing the danger.
This is the case with the latest fad in "holistic baby care" -- amber teething beads. I was first alerted to this oddball idea by a regular reader of Skeptophilia, who asked me if I'd ever heard of such a thing. I hadn't. But a little bit of research brought me here, where we are given the following combination of half-truths and outright falsehoods:
- Amber releases "healing oils," which are absorbed through the skin and into the bloodstream. (It doesn't.)
- Amber is "electromagnetically alive" and "produces significant amount of organic, purely natural energy." (Well, it can be electrically charged if you rub it with a silk cloth -- but then, so can a balloon, and I've never seen "holistic medicine" sites recommending wearing necklaces made of balloons.)
- Amber contains succinic acid, which is good for you because it is an amino acid. (Succinic acid is not an amino acid.)
- Succinic acid is a therapeutically proven analgesic. (This is true, but you can suck on a blob of amber all day and not absorb enough succinic acid to reduce any pain you might be experiencing.)
- Wearing amber protects you against "the negative effects of electrical equipment such as computers, televisions, mobile phones, and microwave ovens." (Controlled studies of exposure to electromagnetic fields from commonly-used equipment showed no health effects whatsoever, so there's nothing much to protect you from.)
- Amber is good for you because tree resin has anti-microbial properties. (A good antiseptic works much better.)
Oh, no? Then what were the preceding paragraphs of hogwash? These people -- who are only one of dozens of sites I found that are now hawking amber for teething babies -- are clearly dispensing medical advice. Erroneous advice, but medical advice nonetheless.
I'm wondering how long it'll be before the first baby chokes to death on an amber necklace. These things have screw clasps, and the silk cord that the beads are strung on is supposed to break if sufficient tension is given -- reducing the strangulation risk -- but what if a bead pops off the necklace and is inhaled? And then, we have the problem of sites such as this one -- that claim that amber can be used for other purposes than soothing teething pain, such as treating rashes and fevers. So, compound the (1) pseudoscientific claims, with (2) the choking and strangulation risk, and finally (3) the fact that gullible parents are being convinced that children with treatable illnesses will be cured by wearing a necklace, and potentially delay seeking good medical care, and perhaps now you'll see why the whole thing made me furious.
We have lots of ways of giving our children their best shot at healthy lives. Good diet, exercise, and the usual suite of childhood vaccinations (sorry, anti-vaxers, you're simply wrong) are still the best bets for avoiding the illnesses that used to kill tens of thousands of children annually (and still do, in some countries where medical care is poor or nonexistent). We now have an excellent understanding of how immunity works, and can use that knowledge to benefit those who depend on us. And if we take the time to learn a little bit of genuine science, it can immunize us adults as well -- against the false claims of hucksters who are trying to sell us medically worthless items as cure-alls.
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