I think the most maddening of all of the logical fallacies is the Straw Man.
In case you're not familiar with this particular infuriating ploy, the Straw Man fallacy is when the individual you're arguing with knocks down an oversimplified (or exaggerated, or flat-out incorrect) characterization of your position, and then forthwith declares that (s)he has won the argument. Ann Coulter, that living embodiment of specious thinking, is the past master of the Straw Man; she is notorious for taking the weakest (or most extreme) viewpoints of American liberals, demonstrating that those are incorrect, and concluding from this that all Democrats (i.e. around 50% of Americans) are blithering morons.
But you've never seen an example of the Straw Man fallacy like the one I'm about to show you.
Zach Kopplin, a young man from my home state of Louisiana who has become a champion for the teaching of evolutionary biology in public school science classes, posted a video on YouTube, showing a discussion between Louisiana Senator Mike Walsworth and a high school science teacher on the floor of the state senate. Walsworth asks the teacher if there are any experiments that have been done that demonstrate Darwinian evolution in action. The teacher responds that there have, and proceeds to describe Richard Lenski's elegant experiment with the bacteria E. coli, in which a population of E. coli were sampled over decades, and the samples frozen, with the (unfrozen) remainder subjected to various environmental factors as selecting agents -- and at the end of the decades-long project, all of the bacteria, the various frozen ones and the ones that had been allowed to continue growing, were compared. (Estimates are that in the duration of the experiment, over 50,000 generations of bacteria had occurred.) Guess what? The lineage had changed demonstrably, with novel genes cropping up (including one that allowed one branch of the "family" to metabolize citric acid). There you are: evolution in action.
And then Senator Walsworth asked the teacher if any of the bacteria had evolved into a human. (It may have been my imagination that immediately afterward, Senator Walsworth added, "Herp derp hurr!")
The teacher, of course, responded "No." And one lady in the audience did a highly amusing forehead-smack. But you could just about hear all of the creationists in the audience responding, "Well, ha! There you go, then! I guess Senator Walsworth showed you."
You'd think that the transparency of this particular Straw Man would be so obvious that no one could possibly fall for it. But this sort of response is frequent enough that you have to wonder if creationists attend special Straw Man Training Workshops in order to learn how to perform it as obnoxiously as possible. I've had conversations with creationists (I won't dignify them with the name "arguments"), and have been asked questions like, "Have you ever seen a cat give birth to a squid? Well, okay, then! (Herp derp hurr.)" You can trot out all of the evidence you want, all of the examples of evolution being directly observed in the field or in the lab, but if you can't show me an animal evolving, in one generation, into an animal from a whole different freakin' phylum, I'm not buying it.
But of course, that last statement is the crux of the matter, isn't it? "I'm not buying it." I've already decided what I believe (note, "believe;" not "understand"). Nothing you can do can change that. If you establish your definitions and evidence, I'll just shift my ground so that it redefines the terms. (Yet another fallacy, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.) Show me experiments that support your theory, I'll ask why those experiments didn't do something entirely different, and then sit back with a cheesy grin on my face and claim I won.
The sad fact is, by some estimates 30% of Americans do think that this constitutes "winning." And you may think this is a tad harsh, but it's my considered opinion that anyone who is that incapable of understanding the basics of critical thinking (not to mention the basics of biology, chemistry, and scientific induction) should not be entrusted to cast a vote.
Which, now that I come to think of it, explains Mike Walsworth's presence in the Louisiana senate.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Which of these things is not like the other?
So, today we're going to play a version of "Bluff the Listener" (from one of my favorite NPR shows, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me"). I've got three stories to tell you. Two of them are convincing spoofs; the third is real (well, at least in the sense that the person making the claim is serious about it). Your task: identify which are spoofs and which is the legitimate story.
Story 1: The Grave's a Fine and Private Place, But None, I Think, Do There Embrace...
In previous posts, we've considered cases where people have believed that they were vampires, werewolves, and human/alien hybrids; here, we have a site for people who believe they're ghosts. And apparently, even if you're a ghost, it doesn't mean that you don't need romance in your... um... life.
The site "Ghost Singles" bills itself as "The Best Dating Site for Dead Singles," and has a database of profiles you can peruse. You enter a bit about yourself ("I am a MALE GHOST seeking a FEMALE GHOST"), an age range you're looking for (between 18 and 180 years old), and can specify what sort of death you want your prospective lover to have had (the choices are "sudden," "mysterious," "tragic," and "horrible"). Then, you are shown the profiles that fit your specifications.
For example, I looked at the profile for "DeadGrrrrl," age 94, wherein we find out the following:
Story 2: Sun, Stand Thou Still Over Gibeon
There's been a lot of hoopla over how the biblical account of creation (and subsequent history) of the Earth contradicts the scientific account. And, as we've seen so many times, the whole thing turns on giving more credence to the words of an allegedly infallible book than to mountains of hard, factual evidence. So if you're going to discount anything that runs counter to the bible, why not go all the way?
That's the main point of the webpage "Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine." We start out with the relevant bible verses:
Story 3: Fetch, Fido! Fetch!
Many of us feel a strong connection to our furry friends, and sometimes have the sense that they know what we're thinking. My dogs, for example, have an uncanny knack for knowing when I'm about to feed them, and immediately go into a whirling, hyperdestructive vortex of zero-IQ canine energy as soon as the food bag rustles.
So it was only a matter of time before some psychic decided that canine telepathy was real, and began to make use of it...
... even going so far as to make her dogs her official business partners.
Linda Lancashire, a professional psychic from Heanor (Derbyshire, England), now employs her two poodles, Hilda and Tallulah, in her clairvoyant readings. The dogs, whom Lancashire refers to as "The Lulas," sit on the couch while she's talking to a client, and they pick up on the thoughts that the client is having, and relay them to Lancashire by woofing and pawing at her.
Each dog has her specialty. Tallulah, in particular, picks up on relationship issues, and has been known to communicate to Lancashire, "Listen, Mummy, this lady is not happy." Hilda, on the other paw, is more of a specialist in money and health matters.
Lancashire and her psychic poodles have quite a following, and although she states she has "incredible integrity (about) working confidentially," she mentioned that she has clients that include celebrities, politicians, and professional athletes.
Her fee runs to £40 per hour-long session, which seems pretty reasonable, given that she has to split it three ways.
Are you ready for the answers?
Story 1: Almost certainly a spoof. This story was dug up by a pair of very alert students who have been some of my best investigative reporters (they were the ones, for example, who informed me about the Flying Men of Colorado). While I couldn't find anywhere on the Ghost Singles site that explicitly stated that it was a spoof, there are enough bits that are obviously played for laughs that there's no way it can be serious, such as the fact that one of the female ghosts on the database calls herself "GreatBeyondBabe." (The vampires, werewolves, and human/alien hybrids, however, are dead serious.)
Story 2: Spoof. This one was identified as a spoof by the wonderful site RationalWiki on its page "List of Examples of Poe's Law." However, one of the websites that is cited on the Anti-Heliocentrism page -- FixedEarth.com -- is, as far as I can tell, real. And scary as hell.
Story 3: Real. "Linda Lancashire" is a real person, and her dogs, Hilda and Tallulah, are real as well. And apparently Ms. Lancashire really, truly believes that her dogs act as psychic relays, and has made them full business partners. And the quote about Tallulah telling her about the "unhappy lady" was not made up.
How did you do? I'm glad if you won, because it means that you show fine perspicacity and critical thinking skills. I am not, however, going to record your voicemail message. Carl Kasell, I'm not.
Story 1: The Grave's a Fine and Private Place, But None, I Think, Do There Embrace...
In previous posts, we've considered cases where people have believed that they were vampires, werewolves, and human/alien hybrids; here, we have a site for people who believe they're ghosts. And apparently, even if you're a ghost, it doesn't mean that you don't need romance in your... um... life.
The site "Ghost Singles" bills itself as "The Best Dating Site for Dead Singles," and has a database of profiles you can peruse. You enter a bit about yourself ("I am a MALE GHOST seeking a FEMALE GHOST"), an age range you're looking for (between 18 and 180 years old), and can specify what sort of death you want your prospective lover to have had (the choices are "sudden," "mysterious," "tragic," and "horrible"). Then, you are shown the profiles that fit your specifications.
For example, I looked at the profile for "DeadGrrrrl," age 94, wherein we find out the following:
Hi guys! My real name is Dorothy, and I'm from West Virginia. Do I say where I'm from as where I was born or where I died LOL?I don't know about you, but if I wasn't married, I would be tempted. I'm a sucker for a woman who likes cats and honey butter and says "LOL" a lot.
ANYWAY, I used to like to sew, and miss it so bad! I also miss honey butter like nothing else.
I used to miss my cat until she died. That was like seventy years ago, and then she was fun to have back around. Now she disappears for like a decade at a time, then comes back for a few years. Don't ask me what a dead cat's doing. Hey, I thought they had 9 lives! lol!!
Anyway, shoot me a message! XXOO
Story 2: Sun, Stand Thou Still Over Gibeon
There's been a lot of hoopla over how the biblical account of creation (and subsequent history) of the Earth contradicts the scientific account. And, as we've seen so many times, the whole thing turns on giving more credence to the words of an allegedly infallible book than to mountains of hard, factual evidence. So if you're going to discount anything that runs counter to the bible, why not go all the way?
That's the main point of the webpage "Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine." We start out with the relevant bible verses:
"He has fixed the earth firm, immovable." (1 Chronicles 16:30)Once those foundations are laid down, we only have to consider the following to see where all of this is going:
"Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm …" (Psalm 93:1)
"Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken." (Psalm 104:5)
"…who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast…" (Isaiah 45:18)
"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." (Ecclesiastes 1:5)
"Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." (Joshua 10, 12-13)
Indeed, it was this Copernican heliocentricity concept that gradually broke the back of Bible credibility as the source of Absolute Truth in Christendom. Once the Copernican Revolution had conquered the physical sciences of Astronomy and Physics and put down deep roots in Universities and lower schools everywhere, it was only a matter of time until the Biological sciences launched the Darwinian Revolution.And the final nail in the coffin of heliocentrism comes from Ken Ham, from Answers in Genesis:
…[S]omething well known to high-school physics students, but apparently not to bibliosceptics—that it’s valid to describe motion from any reference frame.The only possible conclusion: if you're not a Satan-led, foaming-at-the-mouth piece of liberal atheist scum, you'll immediately return to believing that the Earth lies at the center of the entire universe, and everything, even the distant stars and galaxies, revolve around it, as is revealed in the scriptures.
Story 3: Fetch, Fido! Fetch!
Many of us feel a strong connection to our furry friends, and sometimes have the sense that they know what we're thinking. My dogs, for example, have an uncanny knack for knowing when I'm about to feed them, and immediately go into a whirling, hyperdestructive vortex of zero-IQ canine energy as soon as the food bag rustles.
So it was only a matter of time before some psychic decided that canine telepathy was real, and began to make use of it...
... even going so far as to make her dogs her official business partners.
Linda Lancashire, a professional psychic from Heanor (Derbyshire, England), now employs her two poodles, Hilda and Tallulah, in her clairvoyant readings. The dogs, whom Lancashire refers to as "The Lulas," sit on the couch while she's talking to a client, and they pick up on the thoughts that the client is having, and relay them to Lancashire by woofing and pawing at her.
Each dog has her specialty. Tallulah, in particular, picks up on relationship issues, and has been known to communicate to Lancashire, "Listen, Mummy, this lady is not happy." Hilda, on the other paw, is more of a specialist in money and health matters.
Lancashire and her psychic poodles have quite a following, and although she states she has "incredible integrity (about) working confidentially," she mentioned that she has clients that include celebrities, politicians, and professional athletes.
Her fee runs to £40 per hour-long session, which seems pretty reasonable, given that she has to split it three ways.
Are you ready for the answers?
Story 1: Almost certainly a spoof. This story was dug up by a pair of very alert students who have been some of my best investigative reporters (they were the ones, for example, who informed me about the Flying Men of Colorado). While I couldn't find anywhere on the Ghost Singles site that explicitly stated that it was a spoof, there are enough bits that are obviously played for laughs that there's no way it can be serious, such as the fact that one of the female ghosts on the database calls herself "GreatBeyondBabe." (The vampires, werewolves, and human/alien hybrids, however, are dead serious.)
Story 2: Spoof. This one was identified as a spoof by the wonderful site RationalWiki on its page "List of Examples of Poe's Law." However, one of the websites that is cited on the Anti-Heliocentrism page -- FixedEarth.com -- is, as far as I can tell, real. And scary as hell.
Story 3: Real. "Linda Lancashire" is a real person, and her dogs, Hilda and Tallulah, are real as well. And apparently Ms. Lancashire really, truly believes that her dogs act as psychic relays, and has made them full business partners. And the quote about Tallulah telling her about the "unhappy lady" was not made up.
How did you do? I'm glad if you won, because it means that you show fine perspicacity and critical thinking skills. I am not, however, going to record your voicemail message. Carl Kasell, I'm not.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Battleground Texas, and the war over public schools
"We just want teachers to teach the controversy."
"Teachers should not be indoctrinating students with either viewpoint; they should teach students how to think, not what to think."
"Present both sides of the question, and let students decide."
These are the rallying cries of the ongoing push by young-earth creationists to insinuate their views into science classrooms nationwide. And on the surface, it all sounds Fair And Balanced, doesn't it? It paints the scientists as the narrow-minded ones, the ones who would love nothing better than to pull the wool over students' eyes, the ones who give only their own skewed viewpoint and pretend that it is the truth.
A report was just issued yesterday by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund that shows this claim to be the bullshit it is -- that once allowed a foothold in the public schools, evangelical Christians subvert, indoctrinate, and ignore any kind of standards for critical thinking. If you have ever been tempted by the evenhanded-appearing "teach the controversy" rhetoric, consider this.
In 2007, lawmakers in Texas passed a bill that encouraged public school teachers to include in their curricula courses about the "influence of the bible in history and literature." Once again, this sounds like it's fair enough, doesn't it? After all, the bible has had an immense effect on history (most of it bad, in my opinion), and ignoring the role of religion in shaping culture is absurd. But this gave the zealots just the foothold they needed. According to the report from TFNEF, which was authored by a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, the 57 public school districts and three charter schools that introduced bible-based courses into state-funded curricula accomplished the following:
So, I will reiterate what I've said so many times; this is not about rational argument. These people are not interested in argument except insofar as it can introduce into people's minds the incorrect impression that there is doubt about evolution and the antiquity of the Earth. In fact, these zealots cannot be argued with at all -- not by any reasonable definition of the word "argument" -- because they do not accept evidential grounds as the means to support a proposition. And they will never, ever give up, because to them, giving up is letting Satan win.
We do agree about one thing, though. This is war. And it's one that that the rationalists damn well better commit themselves to winning. There are countries in the world that are run on the precepts of religion, where questioning the paradigm is considered evil, where antiquated ideas from a human-written book are considered to be infallible. To name a few: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mali, Algeria.
Oh, wait, that's not fair, you may be saying... that's because those governments base their laws in the precepts from the Qu'ran. The bible is different, right?
Read the book of Leviticus, and write down how many of the statutes listed therein you'd be willing to live under as legal mandates. Then come back and we'll talk.
"Teachers should not be indoctrinating students with either viewpoint; they should teach students how to think, not what to think."
"Present both sides of the question, and let students decide."
These are the rallying cries of the ongoing push by young-earth creationists to insinuate their views into science classrooms nationwide. And on the surface, it all sounds Fair And Balanced, doesn't it? It paints the scientists as the narrow-minded ones, the ones who would love nothing better than to pull the wool over students' eyes, the ones who give only their own skewed viewpoint and pretend that it is the truth.
A report was just issued yesterday by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund that shows this claim to be the bullshit it is -- that once allowed a foothold in the public schools, evangelical Christians subvert, indoctrinate, and ignore any kind of standards for critical thinking. If you have ever been tempted by the evenhanded-appearing "teach the controversy" rhetoric, consider this.
In 2007, lawmakers in Texas passed a bill that encouraged public school teachers to include in their curricula courses about the "influence of the bible in history and literature." Once again, this sounds like it's fair enough, doesn't it? After all, the bible has had an immense effect on history (most of it bad, in my opinion), and ignoring the role of religion in shaping culture is absurd. But this gave the zealots just the foothold they needed. According to the report from TFNEF, which was authored by a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, the 57 public school districts and three charter schools that introduced bible-based courses into state-funded curricula accomplished the following:
- Using instructional materials that teach that racial diversity can be traced back to Noah's sons
- Implementing courses that describe the Rapture as a likely future event, and discuss whether it will occur before or after the return of Jesus and his thousand-year reign on Earth
- Using materials that portray Judaism as a "flawed belief system" that is completed and transcended by Christianity
- Using materials that explicitly state that the bible is the inerrant word of god, and compare conventional historical timelines with those in the bible -- concluding, of course, that the bible is more accurate
- Using "textbooks" that explicitly evangelize -- one of them states, in its preface, "May this study be of value to you. May you fully come to believe that 'Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.' And may you have ‘life in His name.'"
- Teaching that the Earth is 6,000 years old, and that evolution is a "discredited theory"
- Implementing courses that require the extensive memorization of bible verses
- Using such highly-rigorous support materials as Hanna-Barbera cartoons on biblical stories and a "documentary" claiming that UFO/alien sightings are angels
So, I will reiterate what I've said so many times; this is not about rational argument. These people are not interested in argument except insofar as it can introduce into people's minds the incorrect impression that there is doubt about evolution and the antiquity of the Earth. In fact, these zealots cannot be argued with at all -- not by any reasonable definition of the word "argument" -- because they do not accept evidential grounds as the means to support a proposition. And they will never, ever give up, because to them, giving up is letting Satan win.
We do agree about one thing, though. This is war. And it's one that that the rationalists damn well better commit themselves to winning. There are countries in the world that are run on the precepts of religion, where questioning the paradigm is considered evil, where antiquated ideas from a human-written book are considered to be infallible. To name a few: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mali, Algeria.
Oh, wait, that's not fair, you may be saying... that's because those governments base their laws in the precepts from the Qu'ran. The bible is different, right?
Read the book of Leviticus, and write down how many of the statutes listed therein you'd be willing to live under as legal mandates. Then come back and we'll talk.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Real vs. fake astrology
Astrology is not, unfortunately, limited to the western world. People have looked to the sky for portents, not just in Europe and the Americas, for millennia. There's a tale from Chinese history that over four thousand years ago, two astrologers, Ho and Hsi, were executed by the emperor for failing to predict a solar eclipse (that their other predictions were correct, I doubt, but that's a big one to miss given that astrologers are supposed to have their eyes in the sky all the time).
India has its own astrological tradition, based in the Vedas, the sacred writings of the Hindu religion. And like many of these beliefs, they have persisted up to today. Vedic astrology is still so popular that courses in it are taught in several Indian universities. And I'm not just talking about looking at the beliefs from an anthropological perspective; no, they're taught as if they were science (which I find appalling). In particular, the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party has championed the study of astrology as science, with one of their most outspoken leaders, former Minister of Human Resources Murli Manohar Joshi, stating that he wanted to see universities come up with grant proposals for ways to "rejuvenate the science of Vedic astrology in India," and then "export it to the world." [Source]
As if we don't have enough ridiculous woo-woo ideas of our own around here already.
Now, however, Joshi and others of the BJP are trying to introduce legislation that would require astrologers to register with state authorities. Joshi himself was the keynote speaker at the 4th International Astrological Conference in Karnataka, where he made the announcement. The Karnataka Astrologers' Association, who hosted the conference, are fully in favor of this, which is a little puzzling; you would think that such a move would be as popular as the time that legislation was passed in Romania requiring witches to pay income tax.
But no, the KAA and other such groups are solidly behind this move. Why, you might ask?
The answer: because this will help to sort out "real astrologers" from "fake astrologers."
I'm not making this up. The vice president of the KAA has gone on record as stating that these fake astrologers put forth "mindless prophecies," that damage "the reputation of astrology, which is traditionally viewed as a science."
Oh. I see. And the "real astrologers" put forth what kind of prophecies, again?
It would be entertaining to have the KAA host a contest, where a "real astrologer" and a "fake astrologer" both make predictions based on the stars, and wait to see which one comes true. My own analysis of the position of the planet Saturn relative to the constellation Orion has indicated that both of them would fail miserably, an outcome that would confirm my belief that all of astrology, be it Vedic, Chinese, or the horoscope from the New York Times, is patent horse waste.
Of course, the sad fact is that it's pretty unlikely that (1) the KAA would agree to any such thing, or that (2) true believers would stop believing even if such a contest had the results I predicted. Astrology is far too subject to such errors in thinking as the dart-thrower's bias -- the tendency of people to notice the hits and ignore the misses. And the astrologers themselves often engage in a form of the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy -- where they call attention to past correct predictions, and conveniently fail to mention all the ones they missed. (The name of the fallacy comes from a story of a Texas man who had bullseyes painted on his barn wall, and each one had a bullet hole exactly in the center. It turned out that he'd shot the holes first, and then painted the bullseyes around them afterwards.)
In any case, it will be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out. Will the "real astrologers" have to present a document certifying that they've taken Vedic astrology course work at one of the Indian universities that offers it? Will they have to undergo a rigorous exam testing their knowledge of the rules of the game? The worst part of it all is that if this legislation succeeds, it will amount to a major world government lending credence to the superstitious beliefs of a bunch of charlatans, and further confusing the gullible public about what science actually is.
But of course, since we have the Institute for Creation Research right here in the US doing the same thing, and doing their level best to influence public policy, perhaps I shouldn't point fingers.
India has its own astrological tradition, based in the Vedas, the sacred writings of the Hindu religion. And like many of these beliefs, they have persisted up to today. Vedic astrology is still so popular that courses in it are taught in several Indian universities. And I'm not just talking about looking at the beliefs from an anthropological perspective; no, they're taught as if they were science (which I find appalling). In particular, the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party has championed the study of astrology as science, with one of their most outspoken leaders, former Minister of Human Resources Murli Manohar Joshi, stating that he wanted to see universities come up with grant proposals for ways to "rejuvenate the science of Vedic astrology in India," and then "export it to the world." [Source]
As if we don't have enough ridiculous woo-woo ideas of our own around here already.
Now, however, Joshi and others of the BJP are trying to introduce legislation that would require astrologers to register with state authorities. Joshi himself was the keynote speaker at the 4th International Astrological Conference in Karnataka, where he made the announcement. The Karnataka Astrologers' Association, who hosted the conference, are fully in favor of this, which is a little puzzling; you would think that such a move would be as popular as the time that legislation was passed in Romania requiring witches to pay income tax.
But no, the KAA and other such groups are solidly behind this move. Why, you might ask?
The answer: because this will help to sort out "real astrologers" from "fake astrologers."
I'm not making this up. The vice president of the KAA has gone on record as stating that these fake astrologers put forth "mindless prophecies," that damage "the reputation of astrology, which is traditionally viewed as a science."
Oh. I see. And the "real astrologers" put forth what kind of prophecies, again?
It would be entertaining to have the KAA host a contest, where a "real astrologer" and a "fake astrologer" both make predictions based on the stars, and wait to see which one comes true. My own analysis of the position of the planet Saturn relative to the constellation Orion has indicated that both of them would fail miserably, an outcome that would confirm my belief that all of astrology, be it Vedic, Chinese, or the horoscope from the New York Times, is patent horse waste.
Of course, the sad fact is that it's pretty unlikely that (1) the KAA would agree to any such thing, or that (2) true believers would stop believing even if such a contest had the results I predicted. Astrology is far too subject to such errors in thinking as the dart-thrower's bias -- the tendency of people to notice the hits and ignore the misses. And the astrologers themselves often engage in a form of the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy -- where they call attention to past correct predictions, and conveniently fail to mention all the ones they missed. (The name of the fallacy comes from a story of a Texas man who had bullseyes painted on his barn wall, and each one had a bullet hole exactly in the center. It turned out that he'd shot the holes first, and then painted the bullseyes around them afterwards.)
In any case, it will be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out. Will the "real astrologers" have to present a document certifying that they've taken Vedic astrology course work at one of the Indian universities that offers it? Will they have to undergo a rigorous exam testing their knowledge of the rules of the game? The worst part of it all is that if this legislation succeeds, it will amount to a major world government lending credence to the superstitious beliefs of a bunch of charlatans, and further confusing the gullible public about what science actually is.
But of course, since we have the Institute for Creation Research right here in the US doing the same thing, and doing their level best to influence public policy, perhaps I shouldn't point fingers.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Memento mori
People have really weird attitudes toward death.
Note that I am not just referring to religious concepts of the afterlife, here, although as an atheist I am bound to think that some of those sound pretty bizarre, too. I've heard everything from your traditional harps-and-haloes idea, to being more or less melted down and fused with god, to fields of flowers and babbling brooks, to spending all of eternity with your dead relatives (and it may sound petty of me, but considering a few of my relatives, this last one sounds more like a version of hell to me). Then, of course, you have the much-discussed Islamic 72-virgins concept of heaven, which brings up the inevitable question of what the virgins' opinions about all of this might be. All of these strike me as equal parts absurdity and wishful thinking, given that (honestly) believers have come to these conclusions based on exactly zero evidence.
But today, I'm more considering the rituals and traditions surrounding death itself, aside from all of the ponderings of what (if anything) might happen to us afterwards. I was first struck by how oddly death is handled, even here in relatively secular America, when my mom died seven years ago. My wife and I were doing the wrenching, painful, but necessary choosing of a coffin, and we were told by the salesman that there was a model that had a little drawer inside in which "photographs, letters, and other mementos can be placed." There was, we were told, a battery-powered light inside the drawer, presumably because it's dark down there in the ground.
Carol and I looked at each other, and despite the circumstances, we both laughed. Did this guy really think that my mom was going to be down there in the cemetery, and would periodically get bored and need some reading material?
Lest you think that this is just some sort of weird sales gimmick, an aberration, just yesterday I ran into an article that describes an invention by Swedish music and video equipment salesman Fredrik Hjelmquist. Hjelmquist has one-upped the coffin with the bookshelf and reading light; his coffins have surround-sound, and the music storage device inside the coffin can be updated to "provide solace for grieving friends and relatives by making it possible for them to alter the deceased's playlist online."
The whole thing comes with a price tag of 199,000 kroner (US$30,700), which you would think would put it out of the price range of nearly everyone -- but there have been thousands of inquiries, mostly from the United States and Canada, but also from as far away as China and Taiwan.
Now, I understand that many of the rituals surrounding death are for the comfort of the living; the flowers, the wakes, the songs at funerals, and so on. But this one is a little hard to explain based solely on that, I think. Is there really anyone out there who would be comforted by the fact that Grandma is down there in Shady Grove Memorial Park, rockin' out to Metallica? I would think that if you would go for something like this, especially considering the cost, you would have to believe on some level that the Dearly Departed really is listening. Which, to me, is kind of creepy, because it implies that the person you just buried is somehow still down there. Conscious and aware. In that cold, dark box underground.
To me, this is the opposite of comforting. This is Poe's "The Premature Burial."
The whole thing brings to mind the Egyptians' practice of placing food, gifts, mummified pets, and so on in the tombs of departed rich people, so they'll have what they need on their trip into the afterlife. But unlike the Egyptians, who had a whole intricate mythology built up around death, we just have bits and pieces, no coherent whole that would make sense of it. (And again, that's with the exception of religious explanations of the afterlife.) As a culture, we're distinctly uneasy about the idea of dying, but we can't quite bring ourselves to jump to the conclusion, "he's just gone, and we don't understand it."
I was always struck by the Klingons' approach to death in Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a comrade-in-arms is dying, you howl, signifying that the folks in the afterlife better watch out, because a seriously badass warrior is on the way. But afterwards -- do what you want with the body, because the person who inhabited it is gone. "It is just a dead shell," they say. "Dispose of it as you see fit."
Me, I like the Viking approach. When I die, I'd appreciate it if my family and friends would stick me on a raft, set it on fire, and launch it out into the ocean. That's probably all kinds of illegal, but it seems like a fitting farewell, given that I've always thought that Thor and Odin and Loki and the rest of the gang were a great deal more appealing than any other religion I've ever run across. But if that turns out to be impractical, just "dispose of me as you see fit." And fer cryin' in the sink, I am quite sure that I won't need a reading light or surround-sound.
Note that I am not just referring to religious concepts of the afterlife, here, although as an atheist I am bound to think that some of those sound pretty bizarre, too. I've heard everything from your traditional harps-and-haloes idea, to being more or less melted down and fused with god, to fields of flowers and babbling brooks, to spending all of eternity with your dead relatives (and it may sound petty of me, but considering a few of my relatives, this last one sounds more like a version of hell to me). Then, of course, you have the much-discussed Islamic 72-virgins concept of heaven, which brings up the inevitable question of what the virgins' opinions about all of this might be. All of these strike me as equal parts absurdity and wishful thinking, given that (honestly) believers have come to these conclusions based on exactly zero evidence.
But today, I'm more considering the rituals and traditions surrounding death itself, aside from all of the ponderings of what (if anything) might happen to us afterwards. I was first struck by how oddly death is handled, even here in relatively secular America, when my mom died seven years ago. My wife and I were doing the wrenching, painful, but necessary choosing of a coffin, and we were told by the salesman that there was a model that had a little drawer inside in which "photographs, letters, and other mementos can be placed." There was, we were told, a battery-powered light inside the drawer, presumably because it's dark down there in the ground.
Carol and I looked at each other, and despite the circumstances, we both laughed. Did this guy really think that my mom was going to be down there in the cemetery, and would periodically get bored and need some reading material?
Lest you think that this is just some sort of weird sales gimmick, an aberration, just yesterday I ran into an article that describes an invention by Swedish music and video equipment salesman Fredrik Hjelmquist. Hjelmquist has one-upped the coffin with the bookshelf and reading light; his coffins have surround-sound, and the music storage device inside the coffin can be updated to "provide solace for grieving friends and relatives by making it possible for them to alter the deceased's playlist online."
The whole thing comes with a price tag of 199,000 kroner (US$30,700), which you would think would put it out of the price range of nearly everyone -- but there have been thousands of inquiries, mostly from the United States and Canada, but also from as far away as China and Taiwan.
Now, I understand that many of the rituals surrounding death are for the comfort of the living; the flowers, the wakes, the songs at funerals, and so on. But this one is a little hard to explain based solely on that, I think. Is there really anyone out there who would be comforted by the fact that Grandma is down there in Shady Grove Memorial Park, rockin' out to Metallica? I would think that if you would go for something like this, especially considering the cost, you would have to believe on some level that the Dearly Departed really is listening. Which, to me, is kind of creepy, because it implies that the person you just buried is somehow still down there. Conscious and aware. In that cold, dark box underground.
To me, this is the opposite of comforting. This is Poe's "The Premature Burial."
The whole thing brings to mind the Egyptians' practice of placing food, gifts, mummified pets, and so on in the tombs of departed rich people, so they'll have what they need on their trip into the afterlife. But unlike the Egyptians, who had a whole intricate mythology built up around death, we just have bits and pieces, no coherent whole that would make sense of it. (And again, that's with the exception of religious explanations of the afterlife.) As a culture, we're distinctly uneasy about the idea of dying, but we can't quite bring ourselves to jump to the conclusion, "he's just gone, and we don't understand it."
I was always struck by the Klingons' approach to death in Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a comrade-in-arms is dying, you howl, signifying that the folks in the afterlife better watch out, because a seriously badass warrior is on the way. But afterwards -- do what you want with the body, because the person who inhabited it is gone. "It is just a dead shell," they say. "Dispose of it as you see fit."
Me, I like the Viking approach. When I die, I'd appreciate it if my family and friends would stick me on a raft, set it on fire, and launch it out into the ocean. That's probably all kinds of illegal, but it seems like a fitting farewell, given that I've always thought that Thor and Odin and Loki and the rest of the gang were a great deal more appealing than any other religion I've ever run across. But if that turns out to be impractical, just "dispose of me as you see fit." And fer cryin' in the sink, I am quite sure that I won't need a reading light or surround-sound.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Amodal nudity
I am endlessly interested in human perception. The way our sensory systems, and the sensory-integrative parts of the brain, work is one of the most fascinating parts of biology -- and one of the least understood. And it only gets more interesting when you combine it with that topic that everyone thinks about and pretends that they don't: sex.
I started considering the connection between sex and perception because of an article on the James Randi Educational Foundation's website called "The Lurking Pornographer: Why Your Brain Turns Bubbles into Nude Bodies." In it, we find photos that lead to the rather startling conclusion that when a swimsuit-clad individual has the swimsuit covered up by strategically placed blank space, our brain makes the executive decision that the person in the photograph is naked.
Don't believe me? Take a look:
And lest you think it's just because men are sex-obsessed, it works for photographs of guys, too:
The author of the article, Kyle Hill, explains this effect as the "lurking pornographer" in the brain; that the brain is always "looking for the body parts we are trying to cover up" as an outcome of the pressure to reproduce. I wonder, though, if it might be simpler than that; my guess is that this is just a form of amodal completion, where the brain tries to fill in the gaps in incomplete images in the way that requires the least assumptions. A simple example is the Kanisza triangle:
That you have a white triangle overlaid on top of a triangular outline and three black circles is a simpler explanation than having three V-shaped bits and three black Pac-Man shapes all laid out just so as to appear to make two triangles. But amodal completion, like any inference based on incomplete information, can also get it wrong. Consider the horse(s) and cat(s) in the following drawing:
Two horses (in the left-hand drawing) and two cats (in the right-hand one) are merged into one by the brain "forcing" a wrong interpretation -- amodally completing the two animals into a single, extra-long horse and cat because of trying to fill in the missing pieces in the simplest possible way.
Likewise, when we have no other information about a person -- all we see is skin -- inferring a swimsuit seems like a jump. The easier solution is that they're running around naked. And of course, the fact that this stimulates our brains in a different way makes us stick with that solution once we've arrived at it.
It's like our neural network is hardwired with a perceptual form of Ockham's Razor, especially when the simpler solution is one that's kind of fun to look at.
Still, there's no doubt that most of our brains are obsessed with sex. The three chemicals that mediate the majority of the sexual response -- dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin -- are a mighty powerful cocktail, and none of them have much to do with thinking. Interestingly, dopamine is the same neurotransmitter that is involved in addiction -- which may explain why the "sex drive" is called a "drive."
Oh, and about all of the claims that men think about sex twice as much as women do; there may be something to it. According to recent research by Dr. Ananya Mandal, the preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus, which is one area of the brain involved in sexual response and mating behavior, is 2.2 times larger in men than in women. Size apparently matters -- in that respect, at least.
Anyhow, I thought all of this was pretty cool. It's always interesting to find out why we do what we do. It's why I found Desmond Morris' classic book The Naked Ape so fascinating when I first ran into it, at age 17 -- I'd never before considered human behavior from the standpoint of looking at humanity as if we were just another animal species. And far from being demeaning, that perceptual shift leaves me feeling interconnected to the rest of the natural world in a far more intricate way. We have reasons for doing what we do, just like every other living thing on Earth -- including the birds and the bees.
I started considering the connection between sex and perception because of an article on the James Randi Educational Foundation's website called "The Lurking Pornographer: Why Your Brain Turns Bubbles into Nude Bodies." In it, we find photos that lead to the rather startling conclusion that when a swimsuit-clad individual has the swimsuit covered up by strategically placed blank space, our brain makes the executive decision that the person in the photograph is naked.
Don't believe me? Take a look:
And lest you think it's just because men are sex-obsessed, it works for photographs of guys, too:
That you have a white triangle overlaid on top of a triangular outline and three black circles is a simpler explanation than having three V-shaped bits and three black Pac-Man shapes all laid out just so as to appear to make two triangles. But amodal completion, like any inference based on incomplete information, can also get it wrong. Consider the horse(s) and cat(s) in the following drawing:
Two horses (in the left-hand drawing) and two cats (in the right-hand one) are merged into one by the brain "forcing" a wrong interpretation -- amodally completing the two animals into a single, extra-long horse and cat because of trying to fill in the missing pieces in the simplest possible way.
Likewise, when we have no other information about a person -- all we see is skin -- inferring a swimsuit seems like a jump. The easier solution is that they're running around naked. And of course, the fact that this stimulates our brains in a different way makes us stick with that solution once we've arrived at it.
It's like our neural network is hardwired with a perceptual form of Ockham's Razor, especially when the simpler solution is one that's kind of fun to look at.
Still, there's no doubt that most of our brains are obsessed with sex. The three chemicals that mediate the majority of the sexual response -- dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin -- are a mighty powerful cocktail, and none of them have much to do with thinking. Interestingly, dopamine is the same neurotransmitter that is involved in addiction -- which may explain why the "sex drive" is called a "drive."
Oh, and about all of the claims that men think about sex twice as much as women do; there may be something to it. According to recent research by Dr. Ananya Mandal, the preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus, which is one area of the brain involved in sexual response and mating behavior, is 2.2 times larger in men than in women. Size apparently matters -- in that respect, at least.
Anyhow, I thought all of this was pretty cool. It's always interesting to find out why we do what we do. It's why I found Desmond Morris' classic book The Naked Ape so fascinating when I first ran into it, at age 17 -- I'd never before considered human behavior from the standpoint of looking at humanity as if we were just another animal species. And far from being demeaning, that perceptual shift leaves me feeling interconnected to the rest of the natural world in a far more intricate way. We have reasons for doing what we do, just like every other living thing on Earth -- including the birds and the bees.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Gulag Earth
As I've mentioned before, teaching a class in Critical Thinking means that I have a perpetual source of weird stories to write about. Properly trained and motivated, high school students are outstanding at ferreting out bizarre news, crazy websites, and insane YouTube videos -- and (which should be cheering) are quite good at recognizing nonsensical beliefs for what they are.
It was an alert student who found a site two days ago entitled, "Is the Earth a Prison For Your Soul?" Just from the title, I guessed that it was going to be a Christian website, and the "prison" idea would be a metaphor for our being stuck here because of Adam and Eve believing the talking snake and eating the Evil Apple of Doom and all, and how we can be paroled if we just accept Jesus as our personal savior. I've seen lots of those sorts of websites before, and if that's all it had been, I wouldn't have thought it merited a post.
It turns out I was wrong. The originator of this post thinks that the Earth is a prison. Literally.
My first reaction is that if you spent your entire life in Newark, you might be justified in concluding that we live in a penal colony; but if not, you have to admit that there are lots of nice places down here. Cozumel, for example, has way too high a proportion of bikini-clad women and fruity drinks with umbrellas to qualify for "gulag" status. And if the Van Allen belt is a "barbed wire fence," it's a pretty flimsy one, given that satellites pass across it on a daily basis, and every space mission that's gone more than 60,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface has successfully gone right through it. And that includes the ones that landed on the "guard house" moon, and found that there were no security guards, or even night custodians, up there.
So, okay, he got a few details wrong, but let's give him a chance. Maybe he can tell us why we got sent to prison in the first place. After all, there has to be a reason that our souls have been exiled here, right? Well, it turns out that it's because we're kind of... dumb:
The writer ends with the following chilling thought:
So, anyhow, there you are. You are actually an alien convict, in a world where everything is set up to be as frustrating as possible in order to teach you a lesson. I guess this does explain a few earthly phenomena, such as the IRS, tailgaters, slow internet connections, the DMV, spam email, Justin Bieber, annoying commercial jingles, and people who read over your shoulder. There are some holes in the theory, which include pleasant things like chocolate, red wine, mid-afternoon naps, and sex, and why if this is a prison colony no one ever gets time off for good behavior. But I guess that not even the best model ever explains everything.
It was an alert student who found a site two days ago entitled, "Is the Earth a Prison For Your Soul?" Just from the title, I guessed that it was going to be a Christian website, and the "prison" idea would be a metaphor for our being stuck here because of Adam and Eve believing the talking snake and eating the Evil Apple of Doom and all, and how we can be paroled if we just accept Jesus as our personal savior. I've seen lots of those sorts of websites before, and if that's all it had been, I wouldn't have thought it merited a post.
It turns out I was wrong. The originator of this post thinks that the Earth is a prison. Literally.
Are we condemned to a sentence of solitary confinement within our own cell like body's [sic]?Oooookay.
Condemned, not only to be trapped here on earth, but to never know our true nature,or even our alleged crime. To know nothing from start to finish...
We are all as surprised to be alive as the next person, not knowing death, it is as if we have all found ourselves here and no-one really has any experience of anything other than being alive here on earth. No real knowledge of a 'before' or an 'after'.
It is like a global case of amnesia. If we only know life what do we really know of death?...
It is interesting to think that the Van Allen belt provides an excellent barbed wire enclosure to us on earth, a planetary force field keeping us in... Our moon is a handy guard house.
Perhaps 'aliens' exist as a kind of 'drone maintenance crew' keeping our prison functioning and making sure we can't escape. Perhaps that explains their 'lack of empathy' perceived by many alleged insiders like 'Mad man across the water' and others.
My first reaction is that if you spent your entire life in Newark, you might be justified in concluding that we live in a penal colony; but if not, you have to admit that there are lots of nice places down here. Cozumel, for example, has way too high a proportion of bikini-clad women and fruity drinks with umbrellas to qualify for "gulag" status. And if the Van Allen belt is a "barbed wire fence," it's a pretty flimsy one, given that satellites pass across it on a daily basis, and every space mission that's gone more than 60,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface has successfully gone right through it. And that includes the ones that landed on the "guard house" moon, and found that there were no security guards, or even night custodians, up there.
So, okay, he got a few details wrong, but let's give him a chance. Maybe he can tell us why we got sent to prison in the first place. After all, there has to be a reason that our souls have been exiled here, right? Well, it turns out that it's because we're kind of... dumb:
If aliens exist then is their 'not contacting' us a kind of cruelty ? After all these alleged sightings and contacts, the fact that we have been treated with such contemptible disdain perhaps points to our guilt in their eyes ?... They don't save us from our hellish ignorance because that is what they think we truly deserve ? Perhaps our lesson is 'cooperation'...So... the reason that the aliens won't get a hold of us is because they're giving us the silent treatment? That explains so much! All the absence of evidence in the woo-woo world is deliberate! The ghosts are refusing to show up whenever skeptics are around in order to make laughingstocks of true believers; Bigfoot runs away shouting "neener-neener-neener" every time someone brings out a camera that is not set on "blur;" the Loch Ness Monster dons a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak every time the underwater sonar is turned on. It's all a deliberate campaign to frustrate the absolute hell out of humans, to teach them a lesson!
Is communicating with 'off world entities' really communicating with the 'before and after' ? If we truly got to talk with an off world entity wouldn't we then know who we were and what we are doing here... Perhaps we will never communicate off world until we have worked out these things for ourselves ? Perhaps no communication to and from our prison is allowed.
The writer ends with the following chilling thought:
Perhaps if we really knew who we are and where we are we'd be more cooperative with each other less inclined to follow the bankers usury system of citizen slavery. Perhaps we are all still just mining gold for the Annunaki.Ah, those damn Annunaki. I shoulda known they'd be behind all this.
So, anyhow, there you are. You are actually an alien convict, in a world where everything is set up to be as frustrating as possible in order to teach you a lesson. I guess this does explain a few earthly phenomena, such as the IRS, tailgaters, slow internet connections, the DMV, spam email, Justin Bieber, annoying commercial jingles, and people who read over your shoulder. There are some holes in the theory, which include pleasant things like chocolate, red wine, mid-afternoon naps, and sex, and why if this is a prison colony no one ever gets time off for good behavior. But I guess that not even the best model ever explains everything.
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