New studies show that the author of Skeptophilia is brilliant!

I would love it if some psychologist who studies the effect of media on people's beliefs would do a specific experiment, and then let me know the results.

The experiment I'd like done is to have a series of fake news articles that test subjects would read.  There would be two different kinds of articles -- ones in which the headline basically summarized what the text of the article said (as it should be), and ones in which the headline made a statement that was at odds with what the text of the article actually claimed.  Then, subjects would answer some questions, and see which had a greater impact in their memory -- the contents of the headline, or the contents of the article text.

I strongly suspect that when the text of an article and the headline conflict, it's the headline that will have the biggest effect on what readers remember.  It's the first thing they see; it's in bold print; and it gives a catchy, terse summary of what the story supposedly is about.  All of the details in the text, I think, are much more likely to be lost, misremembered, or ignored outright.

This comes up because of an article sent to me by a friend, which was entitled "New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane, while government dupes are crazy and hostile."  The story, which appeared in 21st Century Wire, is making a pretty bold claim -- that what the conspiracy theorists have been claiming all along is correct.  All of us skeptics, who have scoffed at the chemtrails and Illuminati and mind control and RFID chip implants and evil Satanic Masonic rituals, are not only wrong, we are the crazy ones.

Naturally, I was pretty interested to read about this.

The first paragraph basically mirrored the headline, stating that "those labeled 'conspiracy theorists' appear to be saner than those who accept the official version of contested events."  Then, we hear about the first study:

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK). Entitled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites.

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

By this time, I was already bouncing up and down in my chair, yelling, "Just wait a moment!  That doesn't support what the headline said at all!" at my computer.  So we have double the number of conspiracist comments as conventional ones posted on news websites -- we're supposed to conclude from this that the conspiracists are more likely to be right?  Or sane?  All it means is that conspiracist comments are common, which is hardly the same thing.

I don't even think that the we can even conclude from this that the conspiracists themselves outnumber the "conventionalists."  For that, we'd need to make the further assumption that people of all beliefs are equally likely to post, which seems like a leap, considering what a rabid lot some of the conspiracy theorists seem to be.

Then, we hear about the second "study:"

(T)hese findings are amplified in the new book Conspiracy Theory in America by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, published earlier this year by the University of Texas Press. Professor deHaven-Smith explains why people don’t like being called “conspiracy theorists”: The term was invented and put into wide circulation by the CIA to smear and defame people questioning the JFK assassination! “The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”

In other words, people who use the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed, historically-real conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination. That campaign, by the way, was completely illegal, and the CIA officers involved were criminals; the CIA is barred from all domestic activities, yet routinely breaks the law to conduct domestic operations ranging from propaganda to assassinations.

Ah.  So because (1) conspiracy theorists don't like being called conspiracy theorists, and (2) the CIA engaged in some nasty business surrounding the JFK assassination, the conspiracy theorists are actually sane when they babble about chemtrails and the Bilderberg Group.  Got it.

Then, we have an alleged conclusion from psychologist Laurie Manwell, of the University of Guelph, summarized as follows:

Psychologist Laurie Manwell of the University of Guelph agrees that the CIA-designed “conspiracy theory” label impedes cognitive function. She points out, in an article published in American Behavioral Scientist (2010), that anti-conspiracy people are unable to think clearly about such apparent state crimes against democracy as 9/11 due to their inability to process information that conflicts with pre-existing belief.

So, I did a little digging on Manwell -- and as you might already be anticipating, the author of the article in 21st Century Wire is misrepresenting her, too.  Turns out Manwell thinks that laypeople of all stripes tend to ignore factual information, and pay more attention to claims that support what they already believed.  Take a look at what she wrote in a June 2007 paper, "Faulty Towers of Belief:"

Most laypersons would agree with research showing that attitudes influence a person's evaluation of a subject -- whether it be an idea or another person -- and that the stronger the attitude, the greater influence it will have in evoking a positive or a negative evaluation.  However, the types of reasoning processes that laypersons believe they use when evaluating information are not necessarily the processes that they actually use.  Research repeatedly shows that what people say they are doing, and what they are actually doing, are often two very different things... Thus, in evaluating the events of 9/11, we need to keep in mind that there are many factors that influence our judgments, including previously formed attitudes and beliefs, many of which are resistant to change, and some of which we may not even be aware of at the time of evaluation.

So, the bottom line is that Manwell's contention is that we're all prone to confirmation bias, which is hardly the same thing as claiming that the conspiracy theorists are clear-eyed exponents of the truth, and the skeptics are dim-witted obstructionists.  And as far as who is entering the argument with more "previously formed attitudes and beliefs," might I just ask you to consider that question from the standpoint of contrasting Alex Jones with, say, Michael Shermer?

Oh, but don't let that stand in the way of your drawing the conclusion you'd already settled on.  Here's the last line of the article in 21st Century Wire:

No wonder the anti-conspiracy people are sounding more and more like a bunch of hostile, paranoid cranks.

So, there you have it.  Take some actual research, claim it supports the contentions you already had, then turn around and accuse your opponents of doing what you just did.  Craft a nice, inflammatory headline that basically says, "You Should Believe Me Because the People Who Disagree With Me Are Big Fat Liars," and call it good.

Chances are, the most your readers are going to remember about what you wrote is the headline, anyway, which gives me an idea.  Maybe I should start giving my posts headlines like "New Studies Show That You'll Have Good Luck If You Send Gordon Money."  It's worth a try, because attempting to become independently wealthy as a writer seems to be a losing proposition any other way.

UFOs, eyewitnesses, and the persistence of hope

I have something of an obsession with aliens.

I own t-shirts with pictures of UFOs and little gray guys.  My favorite movie of all time is Contact.  I have a poster on the wall of my classroom of a glowering alien, purchased on my visit to the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico, and another one that is a replica of the spaceship poster from Fox Mulder's office in The X Files -- the one with the caption, "I Want to Believe."

I daily peruse reports on sites like UFO World News and Latest UFO Sightings and Real UFOs and The UFO Casebook, wherein we get to read reports like the following:

Orlando, Florida - 08-19-13 To give a better idea of the area, I am right near UCF and out west from here is the executive airport; it is not uncommon to see many planes flying in an east/west fashion here.

I was on my back porch grilling and noticed a light hanging in the sky, off toward the west.

Initially I thought "Far off plane, no big deal."

I suppose it must have seemed a little strange when I first spotted in retrospect, because I remember thinking "I am going to watch this thing move, it's certainly a plane."

Well, what originally looked like landing lights began to seem a little less so; the longer the thing held its position and size in the air.

The thing was hovering and sort of pulsating and possibly rotating at times.

The light would change from red to blue to white to greenish almost randomly, but at times would seem to follow a sequence as well.

It was slowly descending over the 30-40 minute period, sometimes making abrupt motions. Overall, its motions were slow, though.

And no, I never seem to get tired of reading this stuff.

Of all of the wild claims I hear, I think an alien visitation to Earth is the one that I would be the most excited about, should it turn out to be true.  And I'm not alone; eminent physicist and science writer Michio Kaku has weighed in on the topic, saying, "95% of UFO sightings can be immediately identified as the planet Venus, weather balloons, weather anomalies, swamp gas, you name it, we’ve got it nailed.  It’s the 5% that give you the willies.  5% remain totally unexplained."

And, he says, we should seriously investigate that 5%.

Now, far be it from me to contradict a brilliant man like Dr. Kaku, but my first thought when I heard him say this was, "What, precisely, does he want the scientists to investigate?"  In virtually all of these cases, all we have is eyewitness testimony -- which is notoriously unreliable, and leaves nothing behind for an investigator to study.  Even in cases where the witness isn't lying outright, there's no guarantee that the person is recalling correctly what (s)he saw, or not misinterpreting some completely natural, terrestrial phenomenon.  Thus this handy chart for identifying what you see up in the sky:

In all seriousness, I think the issue here is very much whether there is anything at all in this realm that qualifies as evidence.  In the case of the sighting from Orlando, Florida, quoted above, should an astronomer be contacted, the question very much remains to be asked what exactly it is that the eyewitness wants the scientist to do about it.  Okay, you saw some flashing lights.  So?  How is that a scientific claim, one that I could evaluate on the basis of rational inquiry?

Some UFO enthusiasts believe that the sheer volume of claims indicates that there is something real to all of it (and you also hear an undercurrent of conspiracy there, too, in that some of them believe that the US government is actively suppressing those claims).  To which I respond: yeah, and recent polls indicate that 46% of the citizens of the United States believe that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old.  Science, fortunately, is not done by popular majority vote.

So, sad to say, there's still not sufficient hard evidence (i.e. any) to believe that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are visiting the Earth.  Still less that it happens dozens of times a day, which is the impression you get from reading the reports on UFO websites.  It's a shame, really.  Think of how many cool things that a real alien visitation would show -- that we were not alone in the universe, that biological life and intelligence can evolve on other worlds, that interstellar flight was possible.  But at the moment, if we're being honest, we have to hold off on that conclusion -- the fair thing, in the absence of evidence, is to keep our desire for an answer in abeyance.

Forever, if need be.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm going to take down my posters or stop reading the reports from MUFON (The Mutual UFO Network). 

A guy can keep hoping, after all.

Diagnosing demonic possession using crayons

There are times when I wonder if some people aren't really crazy, but are engaging in a sort of elaborate game of self-parody.

I do, after all, spend a lot of time saying, "I'm not making this up.  I promise," and still some of the topics I find for this blog seem to have the effect of making my readers say, "No, really?  That's just straining credulity to the snapping point."

Yeah.  I know.  Take, for example, the televangelist and the "ex-gay" therapist who got into a discussion this week about how you can diagnose both homosexuality and demonic possession using a drawing of a brain and a box of colored pencils.

Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn, an Israeli-born evangelical who runs the Benny Hinn Ministries and the "Miracle Crusades" revival meeting/faith healing circuit, was interviewing Jerry Mungadze, a psychologist who claims that his therapy turns gay people straight and even "changes their brains to be more like straight people's."  So we're definitely talking about a serious meeting of minds, here.  The following is a transcript of the conversation that ensued:

Mungadze:  Everything that I talk about is based on numbers, is based on studies.  Which is what you do when you're a scientist.  Now, one thing that surprised me, is that for many, many years when I lived in Africa, I saw people that were demonized, but I didn't know that you can actually see demonization in people's brains, which I can now.

Hinn:  Wait, wait, wait, stop.  You can see demonization in people's brains?

Mungadze:  Yeah.

Hinn:  How?

Mungadze:  There is a certain color that I won't mention that tells me if a person has been demonized.

Hinn:  Now, let me explain what he just said to you.  What he has you do, and we're going to show you materials that you can have on your own [holds up drawing of a brain], he divides the brain into different parts, and each part speaks of one area of your life.  This [points to various areas on the drawing] is how you relate to people, this is your compassion, this is your identity, and this deals with your focus, and so on.  And by the colors you choose, you take colored pencils and color every area, he can tell you everything about yourself.  Now, you hear this, and you go, "no, no, that's impossible."  Now, trust me.  This man really can.

Mungadze:  I can be in a room with some people, for example some of the people of the occult, people who were steeped in demonology.  I may not know just by sitting next to them, but I let them do that [color the brain drawing] and I can tell them what spirit they have and what it is doing in their life. 

Hinn:  By the color.

Mungadze:  Yeah.  The trouble, it is a spiritual trouble.  Demonization, for instance.  Or if the trouble is abuse, if they grew up in a family where there is abuse, or people who come from the occult, or come from witchcraft.

Hinn:  What colors do they choose, usually?

Mungadze:  Usually blacks and browns, and grays.

There was also this earlier interview with Mungadze on the Daystar Network, wherein he revealed that he can diagnose men as being gay using the same technique.  Gay guys, apparently, like to use pink crayons more than straight guys do.

Every time I think these people can't possibly find a way to make themselves appear more ridiculous, they do, somehow.

I have sometimes been accused of only going after the low-hanging fruit -- of choosing the most absurd fringe beliefs out there, and highlighting those, rather than engaging in the more difficult job of countering subtle, intelligent arguments (and those do exist).  To some extent, guilty as charged.  On the other hand, I wouldn't feel the need to point out the idiotic claims of people like Hinn and Mungadze if everyone had the reaction of laughing them into oblivion.  But according to the Wikipedia article I posted above, Benny Hinn is incredibly successful at convincing people -- his television show This is Your Day is one of the world's most-watched Christian broadcasts, and his revival meetings are incredibly well-attended.  In three meetings on a "crusade" in India, his message was heard by 7.3 million people.

He is also incredibly wealthy.  Using donations from the faithful, he was able to purchase a personal Gulfstream G4SP jet (dubbed the "Dove One") valued at $36 million, and which costs an estimated $600,000 a year to maintain and operate.

We're not talking about some kind of fly-by-night revivalist preacher at the county fair, here.  People listen to this guy, and mostly, they believe him.

So it's easy for the rationalists to sit back and laugh.  "Colored pencils?  Demonization?  Diagnosing psychiatric conditions using crayons?"  But unfortunately, such is the widespread credulity in the world, the no-evidence-needed, faith-based approach to knowledge, that even such an apparent act of self-parody as Hinn and Mungadze just engaged in doesn't seem to elicit much besides a resounding "Hallelujah."

Propaganda

Yesterday I did what I should never do, something that is even sillier than responding to a post in the "Comments" section on the online news: I responded to someone who had posted inflammatory rhetoric on Facebook.

Even as I was doing it, part of my brain was shouting, "No!  Don't do this!  It'll just make things worse!"  But the other part of my brain just responded with a helpful hand gesture involving one finger, and made me go ahead and click "Post" on my response.

What incited me to do this was a Facebook page link that led me to the website of The Alliance Defending Freedom, which has the headline, "How anti-Christian extremists are using our public schools to radically transform our culture (and how YOU can use the $1.2 million matching grant to stop them!)."  We are also treated to this picture, which illustrates how serious all this is:

In fact, it was the picture that was what triggered my response, which was, "...except that this never happened.  But carry on."  The original poster responded, "But it's heading that way!"  And I responded, "Oh, c'mon.  I would never do any such thing to one of my students, and I'm an atheist, for cryin' out loud."  And she responded, "That's because YOU have common sense.  Not everyone does."

At that point, I gave up.

When I looked at the Alliance Defending Freedom's website, I think what struck me most was the following bit:

Act now to protect religious freedom in public schools!

• Planned Parenthood
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
• The Obama administration
• Advocates of homosexual behavior

All of them have big plans for eliminating your faith from our public schools.

The first step in their scheme has been to crack down on any form of religious expression in school.

Prayers are forbidden. Religious references are censored in students’ schoolwork. Students are punished for speaking out about their faith in class.

And these extremists are not stopping there. They’re striving to use public schools to undermine our children’s faith and indoctrinate them with anti-Christian propaganda.

And I thought, "propaganda?"  Really?

Webster's defines propaganda as, "(1) Information, esp. of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view; or (2) The dissemination of such information as a political strategy."

And these people are accusing the atheists of using propaganda?

Let's start with poor little Emily's school paper, which has been marked with an "F" and "Remove Jesus please!"  This is so obviously a poorly Photoshopped image that I wouldn't think anyone would fall for it; still less for a scenario where any teacher, in any school in the US, would give an assignment to their students to "give an example of someone who impacted your life" and then add the caveat of, "Oh, but it can't be Jesus.  No Jesus allowed."  Despite the impression of the people who wrote this website, that Christians are some kind of small, desperately embattled group, might I point out that in the US, Christians are still vastly in the majority, at (as of last year) 71% of the population?  In many places in the US, it is hard to find anyone who isn't Christian.  So tell me: what's the likelihood of some evil atheistic teacher getting away with giving a child an F on a paper for mentioning Jesus?  Nearly three-quarters of the nation would be seething with outrage.

Oh, but try even having kids learn about other religions, and see how these people react.  Just last week, an elementary school in Wichita, Kansas was forced by public outcry to remove a display that described the "Five Pillars of Islam" after a photograph of the bulletin board went viral (and especially after The Washington Post said that the display was promoting Islam).  Never mind that the school also had displays about Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, the latter including a poster of the Last Supper.  Never mind that teaching about world religions -- including Christianity -- is part of the state's elementary school curriculum.

Propaganda.

Oh, and it's all well and good to "pray for our efforts to keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in public schools," to quote the Alliance Defending Freedom's website again.  But don't even let the kids be exposed to information about any other worldviews.  Can't have that.

Apparently, it's perfectly fine to break down the Separation of Church and State, but you damn well better make sure that it's the right church you're letting in.

Bottom line: proselytizing, of any kind, has no place in public schools.  I would be wrong to try to force my atheism on my students, or even to try to convince them in some more subtle fashion.  Matters of belief have no place in the classroom.  But if I would be wrong to put up some kind of Atheist Manifesto in my classroom (if such a thing existed), then the teacher in Muldrow High School, of Muldrow, Oklahoma was also wrong for putting up the Ten Commandments in her room.  (And lest you think that the Ten Commandments are just some kind of universally-accepted norms for good behavior, allow me to remind you that the first one reads, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.")  I might also point out that when 11th grader Gage Pulliam contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation about this unconstitutional display, he was harassed by Christian students to the point of being threatened with physical violence, despite the fact that he said publicly, "I want people to know that this isn't me trying to attack religion.  This is me trying to create an environment for kids where they can feel equal."

The knife cuts both ways, doesn't it?  Funny thing, that.  And unlike little Emily's Jesus paper, Gage Pulliam and the harassment he faced is real.

What we need here is tolerance, and an understanding that belief is a matter of conscience, best left to discussion between children and their friends and families.  There are, actually, places where religion should be checked at the door -- and public schools are one of them.  This doesn't mean abandoning your beliefs, it just means not using them as some kind of hammer to smash over the heads of people who don't happen to think like you.

And it also means not using sleazy propaganda to try to convince people.

How not to administer First Aid

In the latest from the Now I've Seen Everything department, Amazon is offering a new item for sale: A Homeopathic Emergency First Aid Kit.

No, I'm not kidding.  Here's a picture of the item, which costs $55.

My first thought was to wonder how you could provide "homeopathic first aid," given that homeopathy rests on the idea that to prepare a "remedy," you take a sample of whatever it is that creates the same symptoms you have, and dilute it until there's none left.  How do you do that, for first aid situations?  If you accidentally smash your thumb with a hammer, do you stick the hammer in a container of water and shake it up, serial dilute the water with more water, and drink the result?

This would be even more difficult if you'd been, for example, hit by a car.

But the advertisement lists the remedies included, and unfortunately, there is no Tincture of Hammer or Extract of Oldsmobile included.  The kit includes: Aconite, Arnica, Apis, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Bellis perennis, Bryonia, Calendula, Cantharis, Carbo veg, China, Gelsemium, Hypericum, Ignatia, Ipecac, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, and Silica.  The latter to be used, undoubtedly, when you get cut by broken glass.

What amazes me, here, is how Amazon doesn't see that this is a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.  Suppose you're out camping, and someone in your family gets stung by a bee, and goes into anaphylactic shock.  Well, fear not!  The handy Homeopathic First-Aid Kit has "Apis," which is (I am not making this up) extremely dilute bees.  So you give the little pills to the bee sting victim, instead of doing what anyone with more than five working brain cells would do, which is to get the victim to a hospital where he could get an epi pen shot.

I think we can all predict how this little scenario will end.

But no, the homeopaths claim; it's all based in science!  We've done experiments!  And it works!  To which I respond: I'm sorry, but homeopathy is only slightly more scientific than the "Four Humors" model of human physiology, which claimed that (for example) the best way to cure a fever was to remove a pint or two of the patient's blood.

Curiosity being what it is, however, I did look up "Apis" on the site "ABCHomeopathy," and I found that taking Apis is supposed to "act especially on outer parts, skin, coatings of inner organs, serous membranes.  It produces serous inflammation with effusion, membranes of brain, heart, pleuritic effusion, etc.  Extreme sensitiveness to touch and general soreness is marked."  If, actually, that was something you were trying for.  The list of conditions for which it is recommended is lengthy, and I will only mention a few of them that struck me as amusing:  "Stupor alternating with erotic mania;" "Jealous, fidgety, hard to please;" "Bores head into pillow and screams;" and "Feet too large."

Oh, and peritonitis.  Yes, you read that right.  This site recommends taking a sugar pill for peritonitis.

Speaking of asking for a lawsuit.

So, anyway, there you are.  You can buy your own homeopathic first-aid kit, if you have nothing better to do with $55, which in my opinion would include using it to start a campfire.  But to leave you on an upbeat note, I encourage you to watch this sketch from the British comedy show That Mitchell & Webb Look, wherein we get to see some actual use of "alternative medicine" in an emergency room.  Make sure to stick around to the end for a demonstration of how to make "homeopathic beer."  It'll cheer you up, even if you are "jealous, fidgety, and hard to please."

Comet ISON, and the end of the world as we know it

Ever since the media started calling Comet ISON the "Comet of the Century," I was waiting for the woo-woo hoopla to start.

There's something about comets that excites the imagination, to be sure, and I use the word "imagination" deliberately.  When the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet was imminent, astronomer Camille Flammarion let slip that one of the materials present in comet tails was cyanide, and furthermore stated that the passage of the Earth through the comet's tail could "possibly snuff out all life on this planet."  This unleashed a panic wherein people purchased gas masks by the thousands, and more improbably, "anti-comet pills" and "comet umbrellas."  Because we all know that if you are exposed to cyanide, all you have to do is huddle underneath your umbrella and things will be just fine.

Of course, none of that came to pass, but that doesn't mean that people are any more sensible about things nowadays.  Halley reappeared in 1986, but not before we had another "Comet of the Century," Comet Kohoutek in 1973, which was supposed to be spectacular but which got downgraded to the Comet of Next Tuesday At 11 PM when it turned out to be nearly impossible to see.  This didn't stop noted wingnut David Berg, leader of the fringe group the Children of God, from claiming that Kohoutek was the harbinger of doom and a sign of the End Times, thus becoming one in a long series of instances where the world failed to cooperate and End, as planned.

Then, of course, we had the never-to-be-forgotten Comet Elenin, which in 2011 was rumored not to be a comet at all, but (1) a UFO, (2) a planet called Nibiru, (3) an incoming megaweapon that would destroy Earth, or perhaps (4) all of the above.  Elenin also sparked mass panic amongst people who failed 8th grade science when it was claimed that the comet was going to spark massive tsunamis, and cause the magnetic poles to flip.  Or possibly cause the whole Earth to flip over.  Or slingshot us right out of our orbit.  But fortunately for us, the Law of Gravitation is still strictly enforced in most jurisdictions, and Elenin's miniscule mass relative to the Earth's caused no effects whatsoever other than a disappointed "Awwww" from the woo-woos, especially when it disintegrated completely on close pass with the sun.

But all of that isn't stopping people from claiming that ISON is going to be the one.  Really, this time we mean it.  We already have one site claiming that ISON is an alien spacecraft, because when you digitally monkey around with the NASA photograph of the comet...

... you get this:

Well, q.e.d., as far as I can tell.

Then, there's the chance that ISON will cause a solar flare -- something not outside the realm of possibility, apparently, according to recent research by astronomer David Eichler of Ben Gurion University in Israel.  Eichler believes that even something as relatively small as a comet could cause a shock wave when it struck the sun because of how fast it's moving, and that shock wave would cause a solar flare/coronal mass ejection event that could wreak havoc with electronics here on Earth.  Not content with just having our cellphones get fried, the alarmists have already nicknamed ISON "the Sungrazer" and predicted that it will cause an "Extinction-Level Event."

Is it just me, or do these people seem to be happy about the obliteration of all life on Earth?

In any case, the actual research on ISON seems to indicate that (1) it's going to be another Kohoutek-style flop, visually, and (2) if it gets close to the sun, it will just disintegrate, like Elenin did.  Which means we'll have to wait for the next Comet of the Century to kill us all.

I'm sure there'll be one soon.  Me, I'm content to wait.

Attack of the fnords

Today I learned a new term that is apparently gaining popularity amongst the conspiracy-theory crowd, and that term is "fnord."

Originally coined for the Illuminatus! Trilogy by authors Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, a fnord is a typographic or symbolic representation of disinformation, intended to misdirect or hypnotize.  Wikipedia says about its use in Shea and Wilson's writings,

In these novels, the interjection "fnord" is given hypnotic power over the unenlightened. Under the Illuminati program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word "fnord". For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, and prevents rational consideration of the subject. This results in a perpetual low-grade state of fear in the populace. The government acts on the premise that a fearful populace keeps them in power...  To see the fnords means to be unaffected by the supposed hypnotic power of the word.

So of course, it was only a matter of time before the conspiracy theorists latched onto this idea, despite Shea and Wilson's trilogy clearly being shelved in the "fiction" section of Barnes & Noble.  And once they decide that the government is planting fnords around, the next question is obviously... where?

Answer?  The logo for "Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers."

According to a guy who goes by the handle of "Solomon Sevens," this logo is just so fnordful that it's a wonder we don't lapse into some kind of catatonic state when we look at it.  If you listen to his YouTube presentation on the subject, which he delivers in a nasal monotone so dull that I expected him to end his sentences with, "Anyone?  Anyone?  Buehler?", you come away convinced either that (1) the entire superstructure of civilization is trying to destroy your mind, or else (2) the conspiracy theorists really need to institute some kind of quality control.

Because what is it that Mr. Sevens thinks are the super-evil symbolic fnords present in this logo?  He tells us that there are three of them:  (1) The circle around the little girl's head; (2) the curlicues underneath the word "Wendy's;" and (3) the fact that the logo is printed in all primary colors.

And I'm thinking, "that's it?"  That's the best you can do?  You're not even going to use numerology to show that the name "Wendy's" somehow generates the Number of the Beast?  You're not going to tell us that you can rearrange "Old-Fashioned Hamburgers" to spell "Balderdash! Humoring Foes?"  You're not going to comment on the oddly hypnotic black eyes which the little red-haired girl uses to bore into your soul and convince you that you really want to eat a truly terrible hamburger right now?

All you can come up with are a circle and a curlicue and some red and yellow printer's ink?  Those are your ultra-evil fnords?

Oh, Mr. Sevens tells us, it's because circles represent the Eye of Satan!  And the curlicues are just like the designs on the dollar bill that are next to the All-Seeing Eye in the Pyramid!  It's the Illuminati!  Trying to control us all!  Even coming at us when we stop for lunch!

It's kind of an anticlimax, isn't it?  Here I was expecting to find out that logos were going to be full of all kinds of subliminal messages, and I find out that I'm supposed to be afraid of clip-art.

So, anyway, that's what a fnord is.  I'm a little disappointed, frankly.  I thought they'd at least have some gravitas, given how weird the name is, but no luck.  So I'll just go get my breakfast, which I will eat off a circular plate using a fork with a curlicue design.  If I go missing, just look for me in the local insane asylum.  I'll be housed in the wing where they keep all the "sheeple."