Bad moon rising

A frequent reader and contributor to Skeptophilia sent me a link to a site that I had to look at really closely before I could figure out whether it was a parody or not.

Called The Mad Revisionist, the site offers up an argument that the Moon does not exist.  Yes, you read that right; this site is not claiming that the Moon landing was fake, it's claiming that the whole Moon is.

It opens with the following paragraphs:

In 1995, the American Historical Association, in an attempt to stifle revisionist scholarship, marked the 50^th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism with a resolution calling on scholars to "initiate plans now to study the significance of the Holocaust." This, however, was not enough of a blow to free academic discourse for the enemies of truth. The president of the AHA, William Leuchtenburg, was asked why the resolution did not go so far as to explicitly recognize the Holocaust as a fact of history. He answered that for a group of historians to say that there had been a Holocaust was tantamount to "an organization of astronomers saying there is a moon."

While, on the surface, this appears as nothing more than a shameless attempt to trivialize and thereby discredit the work of revisionists, it nonetheless got me to thinking: why did this historian single out the moon? Why would a scholar, so familiar with academic standards of evidence, use such language to imply that the existence of the moon, unlike any other issue, was a given and not subject to proof? What, in other words, was he trying to hide?

It was then that I embarked on my research, which has led me to this day when I can confidently make the following assertion: The Moon does not exist.

At this point, I was caught in that uncomfortable region of, "No... um, really?  You're joking, right?"  So I kept reading.  The whole thing is quote-worthy, but I'll leave you to explore the site on your own, which is well worth doing, and only give you a few highlights.

To the objection that we can see the Moon in the sky:  it could be a hologram, or a model, placed there by one of the following: (1) the Illuminati; (2) the CIA;  (3) NASA; or (4) the Rosicrucians.  I think we can all agree that all of the aforementioned would have their own insidious reasons for fooling us into thinking we're looking at the Moon.

To the objection that all of the scientists agree that the Moon exists: we should automatically be suspicious of 100% consensus and scientific orthodoxy.  It means that they're hiding something, and that the Scientific Establishment is determined to squash the views of Brave Mavericks Who Have Discovered The Truth.

To the objection that astronauts have landed there:  Oh, please.  Haven't we debunked that one before?

To the objection that scientists have seen, and analyzed, lunar rocks:  Come on.  How do you know they're from the Moon?  Because the scientists told you they were, and they're in on the conspiracy.  In what may be the best line from the whole site, the author writes, "... if NASA permitted unbiased researchers access to these objects, the fraud would be exposed immediately."

To the objection that the Moon creates tides:  Clouds are closer to the alleged Moon than the oceans are; if the Moon could exert that kind of force on something as massive as the oceans, something as comparatively light as a cloud would go flying off into space.  Ergo: the tides are caused by something else, which "scientists are still researching."

Then follows a "proof" using Newton's Law of Gravitation that if the alleged Moon's path wasn't perfectly circular, the force between the Earth and Moon would fluctuate to the extent that the Moon would crash into the Earth.  As this hasn't happened, the Moon doesn't exist.

There are also several responses to Moon Believers who have written in, and a challenge put out there to anyone who can give unequivocal proof of the Moon's existence.  The first one with acceptable proof will, the site says, receive a $100,000 cash prize.

So, what do you think?  Parody or serious?  I'll give you the answer: it's a thorough, intricate, and brilliantly-constructed parody.  Look down at the bottom of the home page, and in tiny letters, you'll find the following:

DISCLAIMER: All editorial content on this website is strictly not the writer’s/author’s opinion. THE MAD REVISIONIST, located on the moon, is owned and operated by accident. The content of this page is the copyrighted property of THE MAD REVISIONIST. Any illegal copying or circulating of this page, in whole or in part, without the expressed permission of THE MAD REVISIONIST will be taken as a compliment. And no, we're not really offering $100,000. What are you, crazy?

Myself, I think the whole thing is pure genius, and points up in a spectacular fashion how completely impossible it is to argue with conspiracy theorists.  Because once you think that (1) there's a massive disinformation campaign, (2) the people who are the most knowledgeable on the subject are lying to you, and (3) such general rules of thumb as Ockham's Razor and the ECREE Principle do not apply, you can be convinced of anything (or, more likely, can't be unconvinced of whatever crazy idea you happen to be wedded to -- be it Holocaust denial, UFO coverups, New World Order nonsense, the NASA/Nibiru thing, or whatever).

In any case, whoever the Mad Revisionist is, (s)he has a bow and a sincere doff of the hat from me.  Just how long it took me to figure out if it was serious earned some major props -- after all, Woo-Woo Detection is what I do, so the fact that I was fooled for a while is pretty awesome.  And I hope that this shout-out gives you some well-deserved site traffic -- and opens a few people's eyes to how absurd the majority of conspiracy theories actually are.

Nye vs. Ham, and the futility of debating creationists

Most of you probably heard that last month, Bill Nye made a short film called Creationism is Not Appropriate For Children, lambasting creationists for holding back the progress of science in America, and for brainwashing children:

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology... it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates.  You're just not going to get the right answer...  Once in a while, I get a person who says, "I don't believe in evolution."  And I say, "Why not?"  Your world just becomes fantastically complicated if you don't believe in evolution.  Here are these ancient dinosaur bones... here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star except at a different point in their life cycle.  The idea of deep time, of billions of years, explains so much of the world around us.  If you ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, it becomes untenable.  And I say to the grown-ups, if you want to deny evolution, if you want to live in your world that is inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine.  But don't make your kids do it, because we need them.  We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers in the future, we need engineers.

Well, of course the creationists weren't going to take that lying down.  First, Dr. David Menton and Dr. Georgia Purdom of Answers in Genesis crafted a video responding to Nye, claiming (without any apparent sense of irony) that Bill Nye doesn't understand science.  (If you watch their video, note that Purdom has a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, which I'm not sure isn't the thing about all this that appalls me the most.  How someone could achieve doctoral level work in molecular genetics without accepting evolution seems to me not just astonishing, but nearly impossible.)  Purdom explains that she teaches her young daughter about evolution "so that she can see the problems with it, which include a complete lack of a genetic mechanism which allows organisms to gain genetic information and go from simple to complex over time."

So far, other than Purdom's Ph.D., none of this is particularly surprising.  After all, we knew that Nye was a scientist, and we know that anyone working for Answers in Genesis has already decided that a Bronze-Age document written down in pieces three-thousand-odd years ago supersedes all of modern science.  But now, Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis, has jumped in... and (brace yourself for the shock) he also claims that Nye doesn't understand science:

Bill Nye has an agenda to teach children not to believe in God, to teach them that they came from evolutionary processes, that they came from slime over millions of years.  In fact, Bill Nye doesn't really understand science...  He says that we shouldn't teach children evolution, because we need engineers... What does engineering have to do with evolution?  Bill Nye wasn't a scientist, he studied mechanical engineering, and he worked for Boeing at one point.  I hope he didn't apply his evolutionary principles to any of Boeing's airplanes, because if he did I wouldn't want to fly on one.  I wouldn't want to fly on anything that was built by chance and random processes.  What does he think, that all the parts are just laid out on the runway, and they just come together or something?...  Bill Nye is implying that if we want to teach children creation, that it's really a form of abuse...  I'll tell you what is abuse, what is inappropriate for children, it's when you take generations of children, and teach them that they're just animals...  Who determines right and wrong?  You do.  Who determines good and bad?  You do.  What is marriage?  Whatever you want to make it.  It's people like Bill Nye who are actually damaging the kids.  Creationists are telling children that they're special, that they're made in the image of God, and giving them a basis for knowledge, that we can trust the laws of logic, that we can trust the laws of nature...  (Nye) doesn't teach children how to think critically, he doesn't teach them how to think about science, he wants to teach them what to think.  If evolution was true, it would be totally obvious to kids.  The way to convince kids about evolution is that you've got to do what Bill Nye the Humanist Guy wants to do.  You protect them from hearing anything about creation, you totally indoctrinate them, you brainwash them, you don't teach them to think critically at all.

And once again, my general reaction was: *yawn*.

But now, the people at Answers in Genesis have thrown down the gauntlet and challenged Nye to a debate.  Dr. Georgia Purdom, the aforementioned creationist molecular geneticist, stated in an interview in the Christian Post that a debate between Nye and Ham "could be held at a public university, using an impartial moderator.  I would think that someone as polished and charismatic as Mr. Nye would relish the opportunity to debate a creationist.  In addition, since Nye will soon be hosting a new science program, I would think he would like to see the publicity generated by his participation in a major public debate."

And here's where I sat up and took notice.

There is no way in the world Nye should accept this offer.  Evolutionists have nothing to gain by debating with creationists, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being afraid we're going to lose.  (Note that this hasn't prevented me, more than once, from doing just that; in fact, I was once a panelist on a debate between young-earth creationists, intelligent-design proponents, and evolutionists.)  The reason that Nye would be a fool to accept this challenge is that it implies that there is something to debate -- that scientists and creationists actually accept the same ground rules, the same methods, the same standards for evidence.  When you start out from the standpoint of saying, "I believe what this book says because this book says it, it's the word of god," you have trumped any other argument right from the get-go.  You have abandoned the principles of scientific induction and the basis of logical argument.  A "debate" with you would be about as productive as a discussion between two people who are speaking mutually unintelligible languages.

It's easy enough to get needled by the arrogant certainty of the creationists, by their steadfast blindness to mountains of evidence that would be absolutely convincing in any other field.  It's tempting to think, "If I just present it a different way, they'll understand."  The fact is, any debate with creationists only serves to legitimize their views -- and to further convince the public that there is doubt in scientific circles that evolution occurs.  As such, Nye should respond to Purdom, Menton, and Ham with one of his characteristic little smiles, and say, "No, thanks.  But do let me know if you ever come to your senses.  Then we can talk."

Could it be... Satan?

In what can only be described as a Great Leap Backward for rationality, the Roman Catholic Church in Poland has announced that it is publishing the world's only monthly magazine focused exclusively on exorcisms.  (Source)

The journal, called Egzorcysta, will feature stories about Satanic possession, how to recognize it in others, and how to avoid it for yourself.  Its first issue, released on Monday, has articles entitled "Satan is Real" and "New Age: The Spiritual Vacuum Cleaner."

The magazine was apparently conceived as a response to an increasing demand for the services of exorcists in Poland.  Father Aleksander Posacki, a professor of philosophy and theology and "a leading demonologist and exorcist," stated to reporters that the number of exorcisms has risen dramatically, and links the increase to the fall of communism.

"The rise in the number or exorcists from four to more than 120 over the course of 15 years in Poland is telling," he said.  "It's indirectly due to changes in the system: capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of occultism.  Fortune telling has even been categorised as employment for taxation.  If people can make money out of it, naturally it grows and its spiritual harm grows too."

His colleague, Father Andrzej Grefkowicz, has stated that there is a "three-year waiting list for exorcists in Warsaw."

To which I can only respond: you have to wait three years to get an exorcism?  You'd think that if they really believed that Satan was possessing someone, and working through them to commit evil, they'd get someone right on it.  "Let's see... is your daughter making things float around?  Yes... Has she puked up any pea soup lately?...  I see... Is she able to turn her head a full 360 degrees?  Mmmm-hmmmm... I understand... Well, we'll send someone down.  Can you pencil us in for November 12, 2015?"

 Of course, the main problem I see with all of this is that I have never heard of credible evidence that any of it -- Satan, possession, exorcism, and the rest -- has the least basis in reality.  What's always been puzzling to me, and that I've never heard any True Believers adequately explain, is why (if Satan is out there looking for souls to inhabit), he doesn't pick likelier targets.  Odd how the people who get possessed, and who end up in the hands of an exorcist, are virtually always Catholics themselves.  You would think that a scoffing atheist like myself would be a perfect victim, given the apparent weakness of my own Eternal Spirit.  But I've never heard of a single case of a rationalist nonbeliever being possessed.

Which in my mind places demonic possession squarely in the realm of either (1) mental illness, or (2) hysteria brought on by fear.  In the first case, treating the problem using exorcism borders on criminal neglect -- to take some poor schizophrenic, and to try to cure his illness by mumbling some prayers and pouring holy water on his head, is in the same category as the Christian Scientists who waste time praying over someone with appendicitis.  In the second case, I have no doubt that exorcisms sometimes "work" -- in the sense that if your "demonic possession" was caused by your panicked fear that there was an evil entity trying to control you, then an authority figure performing a ritual and telling you that the entity had departed would undoubtedly help you to feel better.  It's a little like the nocebo effect -- the scientifically documented phenomenon in which people who believe that voodoo curses are real become ill if a practitioner tells them that they have been cursed.

The whole thing is profoundly bothersome.  I find it amazing that we sit here in the 21st century, with our incredible access to science, technology, and rational thought, and are still hearing stories about demons and Satan and witches (take a look at this BBC story about people in Ghana who are permanently exiled to "witch camps," away from their families, if they're accused of sorcery).  I know that things have improved -- far more people are rationalists, and have a good understanding of science, now than did even thirty years ago.  But when I read this sort of thing, I realize that we still have a very long way to go.

Unexplainable malarkey

A regular reader and frequent contributor to Skeptophilia sent me a link yesterday, with the message, "Oooh, look!  Another company has discovered that it can sell bogus woo-woo stuff using your favorite words - frequency, field, energy, and vibration!"

Many of you probably recall how pissed off I get when people use scientific words and can't even be bothered to look up the actual definitions.  It's even worse when they use said misused scientific words to rip people off, although clearly some of the responsibility lies with the consumers, because after all, they could also bother to look up the actual definitions if they wanted to -- caveat emptor, and all of that sort of thing.

So, anyway, when I clicked the link, and it brought me to a site called "Unexplainable Frequencies," I knew this one was gonna be good for a few faceplants.  Here's the banner headline on the homepage:

LIFE IS FREQUENCY

Everything In Existence Has It's Own Frequency Signature. Every Person, Every Animal, And Every Planet Vibrate At it's Own Rhythm. Pure Direct Frequencies Can Help You Heal, Grow, And Change. 

 

Evidently, one of the things that "Pure Direct Frequencies" doesn't do is to help you to learn the difference between "it's" and "its."  But maybe I'm just being picky, here.

Further down the page, we find out that we can purchase mp3s ("hundreds of thousands sold," they tell us, which makes me despair for the human race).  These mp3s contain sound recordings that contain "frequencies" that help us to accomplish things in a variety of areas, including:

• Manifestation
• Wealth
• Visualization
• Astral Projection
• Lucid Dreams
• Spirit Guide
• Chakra Work
• Remote Viewing
• Psychic/ESP
• Christ Consciousness
• IQ Increaser

So, I decided to listen to some sound samples.  I picked "IQ Increaser," because heaven knows I could use some help in that department.  The description said:

Our custom IQ/ Memory Booster recording is in a category of it’s own, and is one of our top rated products for good reason.  We begin the session by penetrating your body’s own unique energy field with a low vibrational frequency designed to create feelings of “total knowingness.”  You will begin feeling connected and well rounded within the first few minutes.  You may confuse your new disposition with overconfidence but as you will soon see it’s intended.  Change requires confidence you can’t achieve your desired result unless you believe it’s inevitably going to happen.

We’ll then begin blasting your brain with a frequency directly related to Intelligence.  In fact those with brain functions operating in this range are considered geniuses.  This will help your brains capacity for learning and understanding complex concepts.  In addition to boosting your intelligence this portion of your session can aid arthritis pain, stop involuntary eye movements, and regulate the pulses in women.

Midway through the recording you will begin reflecting on your session and without realizing it you will be recollecting fine details about the past ten minutes.  We manipulated your brain into a higher memory state through frequency and tone.  You will remember things more easily and think deeper than you ever knew you could.  You’ve only unlocked the ability you’ve always had.

You’ll then begin feeling more in tune to what’s really happening around you and enjoy feelings of enlightenment.  You wont realize its happening but we’ve been channeling vibrations towards your cerebral cortex.  You’ll begin to feel your forehead getting warmer and tingling in your spleen.

Your session concludes with another fortifying frequency associated with the functioning of the cerebral cortex.  We want to encourage your brain to store information more efficiently.  When your session concludes we encourage you to try memory games to test your new found ability.  You will notice a considerable difference between your memory skills before and after use. 

All of this sounded pretty hopeful, especially the "aiding arthritis pain" part, although I wasn't sure how I felt about having my spleen tingle.  But I figured it was worth the risk.  So I started the clip, and closed my eyes.

After about 45 seconds, I had an amazing experience!  I said, "Huh."  And I stopped the clip.  Listening to "IQ Increaser" is about as interesting as reading a telephone book.  It turned out to be a bunch of slowly shifting electronic keyboard noises that just kind of go on and on.  I experienced no spleen tingles, my knees still hurt, my cerebral cortex is still un-vibrated and lacking in total knowingness, and my thinking processes seem as fuzzy as ever, although that last one may be because I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.  I can't imagine listening to this stuff for an hour -- it gives new meaning to the word "monotonous."  It sounds like music that was rejected by Music From The Hearts Of Space on the basis of  being too ethereal.

The best part of the whole site, however, is the "Testimonials" page.  To listen to these people talk, you'd swear that listening to the keyboard noises caused major life changes, or at least multiple orgasms.  Here are a couple:

"I bought this mp3 to help me visualize and calm my mind's chatter.  I was surprised how quickly my mind winded down and melted away, leaving me in a perfect visualization state.  This recording did what it claimed."

 

"I been playing this frequency for a few days now in the background when I relax and it certainly does do something weird to my mind.  I will continue to play it regularly."

And my favorite:

"I been listening to the astral projection custom session and I can sometimes feel my body tingling and starting to shift around. I think I will be traveling the astral plane before I know it.  Thank You Unexplainable Frequencies!"

 

So, evidently, there are at least a few people who have achieved positive results, although my own personal opinion is that anything they accomplished by listening to "Unexplainable Frequencies" could have been accomplished without them.  Sorry if you're one of the Satisfied Customers, but "Unexplainable Frequencies" is a lot of pseudoscientific malarkey.

Anyhow, that's today's heaping helping of woo-woo.  More people using words about which they obviously don't have the first glimmer of understanding.  I suppose we should look on the bright side, however; I never saw that they used the word "quantum."  

Curiosity finds a shoe, a finger, and various aliens

It was only a matter of time.

Ever since NASA's roving Mars explorer Curiosity sent its first photographs back to Earth, I've been waiting for some wingnut to use one of them to "prove" something -- that aliens live there, that a superintelligent race had visited there before, or possibly that the US has had a working base there for thirty years, and President Obama visited there when he was a teenager. 

Enter the British YouTube aficionado who goes by the handle StephenHannardADGUK.  (I'm assuming his actual name is Stephen Hannard, which seems likely, so I'll refer to him by that name for the remainder of my post, and my apologies if this is incorrect.)  Hannard has analyzed the Curiosity photographs, examining them down to the last detail, and even applying various filters to them to see if anything is hiding, up there on the dusty Martian surface.  And lo, seek and ye shall find!  Hannard discovered:

An alien poking his head out of a burrow!

UFOs!

A fossilized human finger!

 A shoe!

What is NASA saying about these photographs?  Predictably, they deny that anything weird is going on.  The "UFOs" are dead pixels in the camera's imager, which have lost function and therefore create a white dot on the image that was accentuated by Hannard's use of filters.  As for the grinning alien, the fossilized finger, and the shoe, those are... rocks.  Just plain old Martian rocks.

Hannard and others, however, beg to differ.  After telling us what we're looking at, Hannard concludes with, "What are these objects?... as always, you decide."  In other words, you're free to disagree, as long as you don't mind being a Credulous Fool Who Believes Everything NASA Says.  Of course that's what NASA spokespeople would say.  They're paid to cover stuff up, especially the top-secret covert stuff that's been going on out there on Mars.

Um, yeah.  That's why they've (1) sent a roving robot up there to take photographs of everything it can, (2) had it beam those photographs back to Earth, and (3) made those photographs public.  So if NASA is acting as a covert-operations unit, it might want to rewrite its protocol manual, because right at the moment its methods of maintaining secrecy kind of suck.

Also, if these really are evidence of the presence of aliens (or humans, for that matter) on Mars, I'd really appreciate it if they'd do a better job of cleaning up after themselves and not leave shoes and severed fingers all over the place.  The Earth has gotten mucked up enough with litter and pollution, let's not start doing the same to Mars, okay?

Anyhow, that's the news from the world of Ridiculous Outer Space Alien Conspiracies.  As usual, I'm pretty certain that my missive from the world of rationality won't convince anyone who isn't already convinced, but I feel compelled to post it anyway.  Just call me a Missionary of Skepticism, proclaiming my message to anyone who will listen, lo, even unto the Grinning Alien Groundhogs of Mars.

The American political parties get a Tarot reading

I know that many of you are concerned about the upcoming presidential election in the United States.  Even many of my readers from other countries are likely to be keeping their eyes on what happens in Washington, DC, because (like it or not) the US is a major power broker in the world.  Campaigning is getting hot and heavy, and right now the race is in a statistical dead heat -- raising the tension on both sides.

Well, it will come as a great relief to all of you to know that we now have more data from which to make an educated choice.  Some professional Tarot card readers have weighed in on the topic, and have done readings for both parties so that we can find out not only what party spokespeople have to say about the issues -- we can also find out what a bunch of randomly-dealt pieces of card stock with colorful images might indicate.

Psychic ReeNee Cummins has started a group called UPredict, whose stated goal is to do psychic readings not only for people, but for political groups and for "mysterious things going on around the planet."  So Cummins and her team decided to do readings for the Republican and Democratic Parties, asking five questions of the magic cards:

• How does this party’s platform affect America?
• Is this convention’s philosophy in touch with a majority of Americans?
• Division is a problem in America – How is this convention going to affect this?
• Will there be problems in the areas around the convention?
• What will be the net effect of the convention on the American Culture?

She then assembled seven readers, including herself, and they began to deal out the cards.  So without any further ado, let's see the results!  Cummins writes:

 The first thing that is apparent about the reading done for the Republicans is the lack of Major Arcana cards in the entire reading. There were only 13 Majors for a reading that involved over 120 cards. When there are few majors in a reading, the reader will usually ask the client if they truly understand what is going on in their lives. There is usually a sad lack of understand [sic] or a major toxic ego involved when there are this small a percentage of Majors in a reading. The readers in the room talked about how there seemed to be a nostalgic element in the Republican Party that wanted to take America back to a simpler time.

Really?  The cards told you that last bit?  Or did you just look up the word "conservative" in the dictionary?

Second, the most populous card was the knights of all suites. Knights are a young, dynamic energy; but it is an uneven energy and can be taken to extremes. Again, why the "my way or the highway attitude"? Why are these people so angry? The economy was crashed in 2008 because of bad banking decisions. However the energy of the knight say that these extremes are the energy levels being exhibited towards the current situation with no reflection on what history actually is or what part they (the Republicans may have played in it).  The Reading Room talked about the war on women and that this junior high like energy would explain why the participants refused to understand that they were hurting more than helping. Again, it also explained a hypocracy [sic] towards attending shows in strip clubs in Tampa where tents had been put up to protect the identity of customers.

Okay, so it's becoming pretty clear that most of the "Reading Room" psychics are not card-carrying GOP members.  So let's turn to what they said about the Democrats:

First, the Major Arcana cards reappeared with the Democratic reading. In fact, the Major's were heavy in this reading. Heavy Major Arcana cards mean that what is going on is very important on a spiritual level. It does not predict that this side will win, it says that they will accept the will of the people, and then fight on for the best conclusion.  The Project TAROT Moment Cards were mainly Major Arcana. The first, and most prominent was The Devil. I know, for conservatives that is enought [sic] to make them weep tears of joy; but that would only be for the ill-informed. The Devil deals with a hell of the client's own making. A mental construct that has no physical component in reality. Now who is making a living hell for this administration? Could it be the Republican's decision to make this administration a one term administration? Could their "junior high" attitude about society explain the bullying that has gone on in the media and between people? Could they have turned this President into their own Devil - only to have people discover that their reality is not the one shared by most of the country.

Myself, I find it a little ironic that these people are talking about "reality" while blathering on about a bunch of playing cards that can magically tell you what's going on behind the scenes in the US political arena.

The adults came back into the room - we had a lot of queens and kings of all suites. The idea of introspection to do the right thing and then lead the people in the manner came out strong. But the inner work of the queens was just as important as the leadership of the king. The fact that there was both kings AND queens shows that while men and women are different, there is a need for both genders and the wisdom they bring to the table. The final Project TAROT moments happened with The Justice card and The Fool. The Justice card was a welcome sight. Yes, Justice will be served, and things will be straightened out. However, the Justice card has it's [sic] sword in the air. It can cut the crap and move us forward, or it can slice and dice people who are on the wrong side of history. The last card - The Fool - back to a card of hope and change. Is that what America wants?

Oh, clearly.  You can't argue with the cards.  All-knowing, connected to the mystical energies of the universe, all that sort of thing.

Or, just maybe -- the interpretation of the cards was reflecting the hopes, desires, political leanings, and (in some cases) prior knowledge of the "readers."

This is my problem with the majority of self-proclaimed psychics -- their readings don't have any sort of scientifically-admissible controls, and yet they rail against the skeptics as being "closed-minded" and "unwilling to consider that there might be more to the universe than what the scientists tell us."  Is that so?  Are we really as blind as all that?  Is there something more affecting outcomes than the known physical components of the universe?

Well, if you want anyone to take you seriously, you have to play by the rules.  Show me that a computer, programmed with the meanings of the Tarot cards, could do a card throw for the Democrats and Republicans, and come to the same conclusions as your "Reading Room" team did.  Or even go so far as to have your "readers" do a second throw for each party, and show that it gives you substantially the same results.  Do something that will convince me that Tarot card readings aren't just clever people imposing their own slant on something that is essentially a random arrangement of pieces of card stock.

I'm guessing they'd probably refuse, however, and simply accuse me of having "a sad lack of understand" and "a major toxic ego."

The Motive Fallacy and the reincarnation of Steve Jobs

The "Motive Fallacy" is the assumption that because someone has a motive to say something, that has a bearing on the truth value of what they've said.  The canonical example of the Motive Fallacy is the child who shows his mother a drawing he's made, and asks Mom what she thinks.

"It's beautiful, honey," she says.

"No, it's not," the little boy responds.  "You're just saying that because you're my mother."

The little boy assumes that because the mom has a motive to spare his feelings, she must be lying -- when in fact, the drawing could be either brilliant or terrible, and the mom's motive for saying it's good has no effect on that one way or the other.  She could be lying; she could be telling the truth.  It's impossible to tell.  And assuming that her motive gives you more information is a fallacy.

I ran into a great example of the Motive Fallacy, not to mention a rather bizarre example of woo-woo, a couple of days ago.  The Wall Street Journal ran an article (here) describing how a group of Thai Buddhists have decided that Apple founder Steve Jobs has been reincarnated.

The whole thing apparently hit the news when Apple software engineer Tony Tseung contacted Phra Chaibul Dhammajayo, the abbot of the Dhammakaya Temple near Bangkok, to find out what happened to Jobs following his death.  So the abbot put his mind to it, and finally Tseung got his response last month.  To everyone's immense relief, it was good news.

"After Steve Jobs passed away, he was reincarnated as a divine being with a special knowledge and appreciation for science and the arts," Phra Chaibul said, in the first of a series of lectures that have been made available by the Dhammakaya Temple.  "Everything is high-tech, beautiful, and simple, exactly the way he likes it, and he is filled with great excitement and amazement."  He then went on to say that Jobs now has a full head of hair, sleeps on a floating hover-bed, and if he wants to eat, one of twenty servants immediately brings him what he would like, and if he thinks about his favorite song, it starts playing.

Well, that sounds happy enough.  I mean, my only question would be: how do you know all of this?  But so far, no one seems to be asking this.  All we have is the pronouncement, all too typical with religious leaders, that Phra Chaibul has direct and specific knowledge of something that is unavailable to the rest of us slobs.

What makes this situation more interesting is the response of Phra Payom Kallayano, a Thai religious authority.  He said that Phra Chaibul was only saying all of this as a publicity stunt, because he wanted to attract more followers to the Dhammakaya Temple, and thus more money.  Phra Chaibul, in other words, is only claiming that Steve Jobs was reincarnated because he has a motive to make that claim.

Really?  That's the only problem you see here?  Of course Phra Chaibul has a motive; the Dhammakaya Temple is one of the wealthiest in Thailand, and caters to well-educated, modern Buddhists, virtually all of whom use computers on a daily basis.  Integrating modern technology into religious beliefs is never a simple matter, and Phra Chaibul's statement that Steve Jobs has been reincarnated as a "powerful warrior-philosopher" must give some comfort to Buddhists who worry that today's electronic world bears little resemblance to Nirvana.

But stating that Phra Chaibul has a motive to make the claim is a pretty weak objection, and overlooks a much bigger difficulty, which is that there's not a shred of evidence that it's true.  Isn't it curious that no one in the temple seems to be saying, "Can you show me any proof that Steve Jobs is living in a floating glass house with twenty servants?"  Which would have been the first thing I'd have thought of.  It's what I always think when people make strange claims, even when those claims are part of a well-respected, organized religion.

Maybe the reason for this is that the Motive Fallacy points fingers at specific people, whereas the demand for evidence knocks the pins out from underneath the entire belief system.  If Phra Chaibul is making up the Steve Jobs story so that his temple will get donations, that says something about Phra Chaibul himself, but allows you to leave alone the belief in reincarnation and everything else it implies.  Once you say, "Show me your evidence that this has happened," you've changed the ground rules -- and placed a demand that can be applied to any other statement that the religion has made.  In fact, don't just show me hard evidence that Steve Jobs is living in bliss as a reincarnated warrior-philosopher; show me evidence that reincarnation happens at all.  We know you religious leaders have motives for saying what you do; however, that statement is irrelevant.  Give me some solid reason to believe that god, heaven, hell, and all the rest exist, other than pointing at a passage in a book and saying, "It says so right here."  I'm going to hold your claims to the same gold standard of evidence that I do every other claim about how the world works.

Prominent evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously said that science and religion were "non-overlapping magisteria" -- separate ways of understanding the world, whose methods (and thus standards for establishing truth) were different.  Science is primarily external, and verifiable; religion internal, and unverifiable.  While Gould was a great writer and a brilliant man, I've never thought this made the least bit of sense.  Science's stance -- that our understanding of how the universe behaves is discoverable, and can only be based upon hard evidence -- is really the only reliable protocol we have.  Saying that religious statements don't have to meet the same standard of evidence as scientific ones means that religious leaders can make any damnfool claims they want, and they can't be challenged to prove what they're saying.  But the weak, Motive Fallacy response that Phra Chaibul got after his bizarre public statement is an indication of how few people really want to go there.