Battle rejoined: the Oklahoma "Academic Freedom" bill

One of the frustrating things about being a skeptic is that I feel like I fight the same battles over and over.  I know that there's a point to continuing the battle; new generations of kids keep coming, and they need people who are committed to teaching them to think rationally.  And there are hopeful signs, such as a recent poll that indicated that the number of people who identify themselves as atheists has increased to its highest level ever (1 in 5).

But nowhere do I get that "oh, hell, here we go again" feeling like I do with the ongoing efforts by fundamentalist Christians to insinuate religion into public school science curricula.  This time it's the state of Oklahoma, where state bill HB1674 -- the so-called "Academic Freedom Bill" -- will allow students to submit work without penalty, even if it contradicts the understanding of evidence-based science.  [Source]

"I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks," said Gus Blackwell, a state representative and evangelical Christian who spent twenty years on the Baptist General Convention.  "A student has the freedom to write a paper that points out that highly complex life may not be explained by chance mutations."

They're getting craftier, I have to say.  Being that intelligent design and "irreducible complexity" didn't work (given that they are no more scientific than a theory that Christmas presents must be made by Santa Claus, given that there's no way that presents just show up by themselves on Christmas), they've had to turn to a different tactic -- branding disbelief in evolution as "critical thinking."  And if it wasn't obvious that they were talking about evolution, and not, for example, the periodic table, the bill itself explicitly states that its purpose is to encourage teachers to point out "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of topics that "cause controversy," including "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Yeah.  And that has no political and religious agenda.  Right.

A heartening point, though, is that of the eight "academic freedom" bills proposed since 2004, none have passed.  So one can only hope that even in a relatively conservative, religious state like Oklahoma, wiser heads will prevail.

 
Isn't it interesting, too, that they call these bills "Academic Freedom" bills?  They follow a long succession of pieces of legislation that are given names that are far more positive than their content -- No Child Left Behind, the Clear Skies Initiative, the Patriot Act.  You have to wonder if legislators actually read the content of the bills they're voting on, or if they just look at the title, and think, "Whoa, I can't have it go on record that I voted against that."  I suspect that some of them would probably vote for the Happy Bunnies and Rainbows Act even if the act itself legalized using tasers on kittens.

So, just to set things straight: "academic freedom" and "critical thinking" do not mean some brainwashed 9th grader writing a paper in biology class claiming that Adam and Eve rode triceratopses, and that his teacher then has to give him an A.  Doubting mountains of evidence-based, peer-reviewed science because your pastor says different is not "thinking independently."  And there are enough vocal rationalists in this country that every time you ultra-religious try this, we will fight you.  No matter how tired of the battle we get.

Every damn time.

******************
Update, 22 February 2013:  House Bill 1674 passed in committee, 9-8.  [Source]  I can only hope this generates a challenge in the courts.

The archangel video hoax

I really, really dislike hoaxers.

I've made the point more than once in this blog that we skeptics have a hard enough time counteracting the built-in errors -- things like confirmation bias, dart-thrower's bias, and the inherent inaccuracies of our brains and perceptual apparatus.  The last thing we need are people out there, callously and deliberately creating convincing fakes.

The latest in this long string of liars came to my attention because of a video link that popped up on Facebook.  The individual who posted it headed it with the caption, "And you think angels aren't real!"  Underneath, another poster had responded, "I don't see how this could possibly have been faked."  So, naturally, I had to take a look... and so do you.  So take two minutes and watch the whole thing.  [Link:  Is he SUPERMAN or an ARCHANGEL?]

Pretty wild, eh?  If you watched it till the end, you might have noticed that they even got the angle of the shadows right -- as the truck bears down on the cyclist, the shadow turns and lengthens at just about the angle I'd expect.

Now that's what I call attention to detail.

So, why, then, don't I believe it's real?

Let's leave aside my usual objections that "there is no evidence that the world works this way."  Let's just take what information we have from the video.

First, there is no reason to claim that this would be "impossible to fake."  All you have to do is go to any recent action/adventure movie and consider how easy (albeit not cheap) it is to create completely convincing special effects.  This one -- with shadowy figures disappearing and rematerializing -- would not be difficult at all to a sufficiently skilled video technician.

Second, did you notice the little spinning logo in the lower left?  This is the logo for the owner of the YouTube channel that posted it -- a fellow who goes by the name Cybert9.  So I took a moment to check out other videos he'd posted, and they included:

Chemtrails over Central America
Shape-shifting Reptilian on TV
HAARP Activity again
Female masseuse hybrid
and... UFO Clouds

So I think we have a little problem with source credibility, here.

Then, we have the Chinese characters in the upper right.  Notice those?  I don't read or speak Chinese, so I'm going on second-hand information, but I found that the characters read "Zhu Xian."

Which is the name of a Chinese video production company that specializes in video games.

So, apparently, what we have here is a clip from a promotional video that was taken out of the original context, and launched into the repost network by someone who claimed that it was real.  I'm not saying that Cybert9 was the one who perpetrated the original hoax; it may well be that he was somewhere further down the line, and was taken in like all of the other millions of people who have watched this video.  (There are three versions of the "archangel video" that I found on YouTube, and together they have gotten well over two million total hits.  And while a few commenters seemed to be of the opinion that it was fake, a good many posted comments like, "Wow!  How can this not have been on the news?" and "It looks real to me.  I believe it.")

The whole thing just pisses me off, because, as I said, it's not like there aren't a hundred natural reasons that people believe crazy stuff.  My job as a skeptical writer and critical thinking teacher is hard enough, thanks.  So, to the person who started this hoax, I have only one further thing to say:

Breaking news: Russian meteor explosion causes major eruption of nonsense

Why oh why can't people just accept the scientific explanation for something?  Why must they come up with wacky woo-woo bullshit every damn time?

I am, of course, referring to the news story that I'm sure all of you have heard of by now; the meteor explosion that injured over 1,000 people yesterday near Chelyabinsk in the Urals region of Russia. 

It was, to be sure, quite an event.  The shock wave from the explosion shattered windows and damaged buildings, and because it occurred near a populated area, it was captured more than once on cameras.

But the first problem with the public understanding of what had occurred was that it happened on the same day as a near pass by a different piece of rock, asteroid 2012 DA14.  Eminent astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson went on record as saying that the two events were unrelated, and the fact that they occurred on the same day was nothing more than a coincidence.

But no.  It couldn't be just a coincidence.  Start with a post in the blog Twilight Language, wherein we find the following quote from "astrologer Philip Levine:"

In other times and places, these would be a sign, a very big sign, saying something (what depends on which prophet or psychic you listen to). If you think the Universe is intelligent and an embodiment of some kind of Being, then you would want to know what It is saying.
If, like most, you believe the Universe is just a random collection of debris with no meaning other than chaos, then Statistics is your God. And the statistical chance of ONE of these things happening is immensely small, but TWO on the SAME DAY, within hours, in this infinitely vast Universe, is something to give one pause.
If you aren't sticking your head in the sand, how does this coincidence/synchronicity strike you?

It strikes me as a damn coincidence.  That's what you call it when two events coincide.

Then we had Russian parliament member Vladimir Zhirinovsky blathering on that the meteor wasn't actually a meteor, it was an American weapons test:

Those were not meteorites, it was Americans testing their new weapons... (Secretary of State John Kerry) was looking for (Russian Foreign Minister) Lavrov, and Lavrov was on a trip.  He meant to warn Lavrov about a provocation against Russia.

Right.  Because that's plausible.  The US Secretary of State calls up, and says, "Um... just so you know, we're about to blow up a weapon over one of your cities today.  Hope you don't mind.  Give my regards to the wife and kids."

Things only got worse from there.  A "senior clergyman" in Yekaterinburg said the meteor was a Sign from God:

From the Scriptures, we know that the Lord often sends people signs and warnings via natural forces.  I think that not only for the Ural [regions] residents, but for the whole of humanity, the meteorite is a reminder that we live in fragile and unpredictable world.  It is the Lord's message to humanity, and we need to pray to understand it.

Or, maybe, just consult an astronomer.  They seem to understand it pretty well.

Which is more than I can say for major league baseball player José Canseco, who weighed in on the event with the following series of tweets:

No way was that a meteor in russia today
Governments think truth is a poison that will kill them
we have lots of enemies dont underestimate them
long range test deal with russia operation meteor
north korea do the math

The media is now calling Canseco a "meteor truther."  Which makes me want to weep softly and bang my head against my desk.

NASA, of course, had the straight scoop, and said that the Russian explosion was, in fact, a meteor, and that this meteor and the flyby asteroid were unrelated:

According to NASA scientists, the trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object. Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14′s trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north.

But why listen to a bunch of silly old scientists when you can get your information from an astrologer, a clergyman, a batshit crazy politician, or a washed-up baseball player?

To sum up: AAAARRRRGGHHH.

Oh, and one last thing; if you see people post a photograph that they claim is the crater from yesterday's meteor, and it looks like this:

Please do me a favor and set them straight.  This is the Derweze Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, a place where a combination of natural gas seeps and soil that's high in flammable organic matter resulted in a giant burning hole in the ground.  It has nothing to do with the meteor.

Thanks.  I'll just go take my high blood pressure medication, now.

Money, bias, and climate science

I've often wished that politics was more frequently informed by good science, but the pessimistic side of me (never very deeply buried) wonders if that is even possible.  There are politicians who understand science, but given the complexity of the situations that lawmakers deal with -- combining the hard facts uncovered by scientific research with the economic and business impacts, considering how any proposed changes would affect the average citizen, and keeping in mind what it takes to get reelected -- it's no wonder that governmental policy often makes a hash out of it.

You need no conspiracies in effect to have that result.  Our government is built in such a way that this is the inevitable outcome.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the current battle over climate change.  You would think that people would see the simple dichotomy between whether climate change is actually happening (something about which climatologists are hardly in doubt) and what, if anything, should be done about it.  It's amazing how few people understand that these two questions aren't the same thing.  I have more than once seen people arguing, with no apparent awareness of a break in the logical chain, that climate change isn't happening because decreasing fossil fuel use would have devastating effects on our economy.

Oh, that it were that simple.  If the world worked that way, I could just state that I didn't believe in my home and car needing expensive maintenance because it's having "devastating effects on my bank account," and they would magically take care of themselves.

Still, the politicization of the climate issue is having tremendous effects on the public perception of what is, at its base, a scientific question.  Interesting, isn't it, that by and large liberals accept that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and conservatives deny it?  You'd think that a scientific conclusion would be based upon the evidence, not on your political party.  And the research is clear; as I mentioned in a recent post, the number of peer-reviewed studies that support climate change outnumber the ones that question it by over 500:1.

A study that was just reviewed in The Guardian points up why that may be.  Over the past ten years, conservative billionaires have funneled over $120 million dollars into think tanks that have only one purpose; to cast doubt in the minds of voters and lawmakers regarding climate change.  [Source]  The two umbrella organizations that oversaw the handling of the funds -- Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund -- spent the money on strategic planning, public disinformation campaigns, and beefing up the coffers of the handful of scientists left who deny that climate change is real.

And the conservatives, with straight faces, accuse the climatologists of being in the pay of environmental organizations.  I wonder who has deeper pockets, Donors Trust or the Sierra Club?

Lest you think that I'm just showing my bias here, take a look at "Plutocracy, Pure and Simple," by George Monbiot.  Starting in 2002, the Republicans recognized that climate change could be used as a wedge issue, and that acknowledging the science was tantamount to political suicide.  Conservative consultant Frank Luntz actually said, "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.  Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."  And this script has been followed to the letter.  The think tanks that were funded by Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, and the likes of the Koch brothers have generated not only campaigns to raise doubt in the minds of voters, but public school curricula that include explicit statements that whether climate change is happening is "a major scientific controversy."

By my definition, a "controversy" is "something people disagree about."  500:1 in favor hardly qualifies as a "controversy."

But of course, that's not how they want the layperson, the average citizen, to see the situation.  They want the voters to think that the science is uncertain, because if the scientists can't even figure out what's going on, then we sure as hell don't want to give up our gas-guzzling cars and coal-fired power stations. 

I find the whole thing infuriating.  It's not that I don't realize that the profit motive can lead to abuses; money corrupts, and all that sort of thing.  It's more that these wealthy donors and giant money-handling machines are sowing confusion in the minds of the average man and woman -- the people who, above all, need correct information in order to make informed decisions.  And that confusion is leading to all of us, lawmaker and citizen alike, doing nothing, as the world continues to warm, the ice continues to melt, the seas continue to rise.

The result: let's stay with the status quo, even if it marches us right off a cliff.

Water of life

I bet you think that water is healthful.  I bet you buy the silly old scientifically-supported contention that plain, ordinary, clean water, direct from your tap, is the best thing for you, and that consuming enough water has been shown to reduce your likelihood of everything from high blood pressure to kidney stones.

Ha.  A lot you know.

There's been a whole industry that's arisen whose motto is, "My water is better than your water."  We have all of the bottled water companies, trampling each other to prove that their brand is the most Natural Clear Clean Mountain Spring Water you've ever drank, and everyone else's is the equivalent of drinking sewer effluent.  (You may want to know that four-year study, released in 2000 by the National Resources Defense Council, showed that in general, bottled water has poorer quality with regards to chemical and bacterial contamination than typical municipal tap water.)

Then you have your vitamin-enhanced water, your fruit-flavored water, your aroma-essence-infused water.  Many of these have enough sugar added that you risk type 2 diabetes just from walking past the display in the grocery store.  And every year, new brands crop up.

But the silliness doesn't end there.  Just yesterday, in rapid succession, I ran across two new, special kinds of water, and the wackiness of these two outstrips the claims of all of the other kinds of water put together.

Let's start with "Pi Water."  I don't recommend clicking on the link, because the website is equipped with some sort of extremely annoying graphic device that makes the text blink, and I wouldn't want anyone having a seizure because of me.  But anyhow, what is "Pi Water?"  At first, I expected it to have something to do with 3.14159 etc., but no:

Pi Water is the water that is very similar to your body water (Living Energy). Living energy means “the energy to live.” Do you know anyone who rarely gets sick or recover quickly when they get hurt? These people have strong living energy. Pi Water has the same function (energy) that your body water has.

My favorite part of this is the definition of "living energy."  It reminds me of the entry in the glossary of my favorite science spoof, Science Made Stupid:   "reasoning, circular (n.) -- see circular reasoning."

So, how was this "living energy water" discovered?  It turns out that a guy was researching plants, and just kind of stumbled on it:

Pi Water was discovered in 1964 during the study of physiology of plants by Dr. Akihiro Yamashita, a professor at the Agricultural Department, Nagoya University. He was studying about FLORIGEN. What makes the bud become a flower? Researchers thought it might be related with hormones. They had named the phenomenon FLORIGEN and studied it.

During the study, Dr. Yamashita discovered “body water,” which affects the difference of the bud change instead of hormones. He also discovered that the body water contains a very small amount of Ferric Ferrous Salt (Fe2Fe3) and the water has the function to control our body function normally. After that, through many studies and research, Dr. Yamashita succeeded to make the water that has the same function with your body water artificially and named it Pi Water.

So... if you give humans something that makes plants flower, we'll blossom too?

How might this work, you're probably asking?  I know that's what I asked.  Well, the site tells you, in great detail.  I apologize for the length of this passage, but you really should read the whole thing:

Pi Water is compounded with Fe2Fe3, which is effective when its quality becomes very small (2 x 10^-12 mol). At this level, Fe2Fe3 is an elementary particle, such as an electron, a proton and a neutron, and it works like a conductor of a medium to transmit energy and information to other substances. The following is the assumption of Pi Water principles at the present time:
Generation cycle of electron energy.

Substance generally consists of a group of molecules and a molecule is a group of atoms. An atom consists of atomic nuclei and electrons, and an atomic nucleus consists of protons and neutrons. The electrons circle, while spinning, around an atomic nucleus on a certain orbit. When the atom receives undulation of cosmic energy, the electrons start to spin faster and circle on farther than the usual orbit, causing the electrons to have high energy called, "erected state". However, the electrons cannot keep their erected state/high energy condition for too long, and they tries to get back to the usual orbit. In Pi Water, we believe that such energy creating cycles by the electrons are happening, and that the transmission of energy and information is very actively taking place.

Oh.  Okay.  What?

I have to admit that I may be having trouble understanding this because I was too busy laughing about electrons being in an "erected state."  I guess that in some sense, an erection is a type of excitation.  Given that today is Valentine's Day, it does open up whole new possibilities for geeky come-hither lines:  "Hey, baby, I'm in a highly energized quantum level tonight.  You want to help my electrons return to the ground state?"

After this, the site goes on to blather on about how the "Pi Water" process infuses water with the subatomic particle called a "pi meson," and at that point, I gave up.  (Go here to find out what a pi meson actually is.)

But we're not done here yet.  Because I found a second site, a site that makes "Pi Water" look like Nobel Prize material.  This site tells you how to make "Sun and/or Moon Water:"

Water was designed to carry the Sun’s sub-atomic nutrients (sound and color vibrations) to all living things. It was also meant to carry the cosmic energy of the moon, stars, and planets. This is referred to as The Music of the Spheres.  Structuring the water first (as described in Chapter 11 of Dancing with Water) makes it more receptive to imprinting but simply placing water in the Sun or Moon will imprint the water to a certain degree.

One more bit will suffice:

When making water in the sunlight, place it in a glass container directly on the Earth. This way, the gentler Earth frequencies will balance the strong solar energy. Depending on the position and strength of the sun, leave it exposed for no more than 10-30 minutes. (Direct sunlight on standing water will eventually rob it of its energy.) Drinking water that has been placed in the sunlight is a wonderful way to get the vibratory energy of the complete color spectrum. It is also very energizing...  Setting water out on the night of the full moon creates water that carries the feminine energy of the full moon. If you want to lengthen the influence of the full moon (or of a particular full moon) in your life, this is a good way to do it.  To program your water with the energy of the moon, stars, and planets, choose a clear night (it does not have to be a full moon). Place your covered, glass or egg-shaped clay container directly on the Earth in a place where it will receive the full night sky. (Glass allows the light of the moon and stars to penetrate the water better but the shape of the egg gathers cosmic frequencies just as efficiently—if not more so.)

There also a part later about how you can enhance your sun and/or moon water by using crystals, copper triskelions, and "tensor rings."  Just reading it made me pretty freakin' tense.

So, we're back to my usual question: how can anyone with an IQ higher than that of road salt believe any of this horse waste?  An average middle-school student knows enough science to recognize this as ridiculous.  But evidently this kind of woo-woo foolishness is becoming increasingly popular, and because of that, is big business.  Big lucrative business.  (Google "structured water" and see how many hits you get.  I dare you.)

I recognize that I'm probably shouting in a hurricane, here.  The people who fall for this kind of claptrap are not the ones who are going to be reading skeptical websites.  But still.  "Pi Water?"  Now with more pi mesons?  Sun water with the sun's "vibratory energy of the complete color spectrum?"  Egg-shaped containers to "gather cosmic frequencies?"

The whole thing just makes me want to give up water entirely.   I'm thinking of switching to scotch.

Papal prophecies

Well, it's begun.

I knew that as soon as Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, the wingnuts would have a field day with it.  And sure enough, the woo-woo websites were hopping yesterday.  The words "conspiracy" and "prophecy" and "antichrist" and "apocalypse" were used.  Obviously, it couldn't be just what the Vatican said it was -- that Benedict was retiring because he was too pooped to pope.  No.  It had to be something much bigger than that.

Let's start with the fact that shortly after the pope announced his resignation, lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica in Rome:

According to a story in USA Today, experts have analyzed the photograph and found that it's actually not a fake (which was my first thought when I saw it).  On the other hand, I'm not ready to say it's a sign from god, either.  After all, according to lightning expert Martin A. Uman, there are over eight million lightning strikes in the world every day, which is a crapload of signs from god if that's what they are.  Maybe god's "smite" button is stuck on, or something.

But that's not where the nonsense stopped, unfortunately.  According to the site International Tribunal Into Crimes of Church and State, the pope's resignation was because "a European government" was planning on issuing a warrant for his arrest.  The upshot was that the "European government" had its sights set on the Vatican because "...Pope Benedict's complicity in criminal activities of the Vatican Bank (IOR) was compelling his eventual dismissal by the highest officials of the Vatican."

Because that's plausible.  We all know how much the Vatican complies with the demands of other governments.  If the president of, for example, Bulgaria were to ask for the pope's arrest, the Vatican would have no choice but to turn him over.  (Chaos would then ensue as other world leaders gave their two cents' worth, with Hugo Chávez demanding that everyone in Vatican City subscribe to Socialist Worker's Monthly, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad requiring that nuns switch to wearing burqas, and Kim Jong Un asking the College of Cardinals to adopt a "really sexy new hairstyle.")

Then the apocalyptoids began to chime in.  There was a prophecy, they said, made back in 1139 by a guy named Saint Malachy, who either received a vision from god or else had a really bad acid trip, and who claimed that each of the popes was fulfilling a prophecy.  Saint Malachy listed 112 popes, and said that the last one, "Petrus Romanus" (Peter the Roman) would reign throughout the Tribulation, and his reign would end with Jesus returning to judge us all.

Pope Benedict XVI was number... 111.

Dun-dun-DUNNNNN.

Of course, most modern scholars think that the "Prophecies of Saint Malachy" are a late 16th century forgery; even Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, an 18th century Spanish monk, thought the whole thing was ridiculous, noting that the "prophecies" prior to 1600 are extremely accurate, and the ones thereafter seemed like wild guesses.

There are a couple of hits, though, if you squinch your eyes up and look at the prophecies juuuust right.  For example, the prophecy for John Paul I is that he came from "the midst of the moon," and his month-long reign began during a half-moon.  (Okay, I know that half-moons happen twice a month.  Just play along, okay?)  Then we have his successor, John Paul II, whose line has to do with the "labor of the sun," and he was supposedly born during a solar eclipse and buried during a solar eclipse.  But even if eclipses aren't as common as lightning strikes, they're still pretty damn common, with between two and five occurring somewhere in the world every year.  So some date relevant to John Paul II would be bound to occur near an eclipse, no matter what.  The prophecy of Benedict himself requires yet a further reach; his is "gloria olivae," the "glory of olives."  And the best they could do with that was that Benedict was named after St. Benedict of Nursia, who founded the Benedictine Order, which has as its emblem a picture of St. Benedict holding an olive branch.

So, anyway.  Saint Malachy (or whoever forged all of this nonsense in the 16th century) says that the next guy, Petrus Romanus, will have a bit of a rough go:

In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, & Judex tremêdus judicabit populum suum. Finis.

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people.  The End.

So the College of Cardinals had better be careful.  If I were a cardinal, I'd made sure to vote for a guy named "Steve" just to be safe.

Anyhow, that's the latest from the world of crazy quasi-religious prophecy.  It'll be interesting to see what happens next.  Myself, I'm guessing that the College of Cardinals will vote in a new pope, who will pretty much keep doing what they've always done, and everything will settle down, with no further lightning strikes, arrest warrants, or tribulations.  But who knows?  Maybe Saint Malachy was right.  The whole "terrible judge" thing sounds pretty dire.  Maybe I ought to invest in a smite-proof bunker. 

Fast modules, slow modules, and ghost photographs

So, yesterday, I was looking at photographs of alleged ghosts, and completely creeping myself out.

Just so I can share the experience with you, here are a few that I found especially shiver-inducing.

First, from a security camera in a library in Evansville, Indiana, comes this image of a hunched, shadowy creature creeping across the floor... of the Children's Reading Room:

Or how about this one, an old photograph from the 1940s that shows a screaming ghost reaching out towards an unsuspecting young couple:

 
Or this shot of a stern man standing behind an elderly woman -- a man who supposedly wasn't there when the photograph was taken:

Or the shadow in the kitchen -- a shadow cast by no object visible in the photograph (this one immediately reminded me of the episode "Identity Crisis" from Star Trek: The Next Generation -- one of the flat-out scariest episodes they ever did):

So, anyway, there I am, getting more and more weirded out (and still, for some reason, not simply switching to a website with cute pictures of puppies, or something).  And I thought, "Why am I freaking out about all of this?  Not only have I never had a single experience of anything supernatural, I don't even believe in any of this stuff.  I am morally certain that all of these photographs were either deliberate hoaxes, or were camera malfunctions/artifacts, or are examples of pareidolia -- some completely natural explanation must be responsible.  So why am I scared?"

And my mind returned to a book I just finished last week, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002.  Kahneman's specialty is why humans make irrational decisions; his research into how that applies to economic decision-making is why he won the Nobel.  More interesting to me, though, is the facet of his research that shows that human thinking is split into two discrete modules -- a fast module and a slow one.  And those two modules are frequently at odds with one another.

The fast module is what allows us to take quick stock of what's around us.  It is, for example, what allows us to do an immediate assessment of the following photograph:

No "rational thinking" is needed to come to the conclusion that this woman is angry.  On the other hand, the slow module is invoked when doing a math problem like, what is 223 x 1,174?  The vast majority of us could solve that problem, but it would take time and concentration.  (The fact that there are savants who can solve problems like that nearly instantaneously makes me wonder if their brains are somehow wired to do math with the fast module of the brain; merely a speculation, but it's suggestive.)

As an example of how the two modules can be at odds, consider the "Linda Problem."  Participants in a study were told a story about Linda, a single woman, intelligent and outspoken, who was very concerned with issues of social justice.  The participants were then asked which of the following possibilities was more likely:  (1) Linda is a bank teller; or (2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.  By a vast majority, participants chose option 2.  (Did you?)

The problem is, option 2 is wrong.  Not just maybe wrong, it's flat-out wrong, as in impossible.  How could the likelihood of Linda's being a feminist bank teller exceed the likelihood of her being a bank teller?  All feminist bank tellers are bank tellers; adding an extra detail to the description can only have the effect of decreasing the probability.  (To make this clearer, how can there be more brown dogs than there are dogs?)  But the fast module's quick assessment of the situation was that from the information given, she was very likely to be a feminist; the likelihood that she was a bank teller was equal in both possibilities; so it jumped to the (incorrect) conclusion that the combined probability was higher.

So, you can see how the fast module, however useful it is in making the snap judgments that are essential in getting us through the day, is not, at its basis, rational.  It is primed by previous experience, and is inherently biased toward finding the quickest answer possible, even if that answer is completely contrary to rationality.

And that, I think, explains why a diehard skeptic can still be completely weirded out by ghost pictures.  The slow module in my brain thinks, "Okay, pareidolia.  Or the photo was doctored.  No way is this real."  My fast module, on the other hand, is thinking, "Good lord, that's terrifying!  Time for some adrenaline!"  And no amount of soothing talk from my slow module seems to make any difference.

Especially that one with the creeping thing in the library.  That one is freakin' scary.