Starchild skulls and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

Today's question is: at what point has a person made so many absurd claims that we are justified in no longer listening to anything (s)he has to say?

It's the skeptic's version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."  There are people who have repeatedly trotted out wild stories, stating that they have proof -- and then the proof turns out to be faked, misinterpreted, or just plain nonexistent.  Unfortunately, though, this doesn't impel them to do what most of the rest of us would; apologize, issue a retraction, retreat into an embarrassed obscurity.  No, many of these people become belligerent and combative, and back off for a short time only to issue further bizarre claims, stating that this time it'll be different, this time they really have hard evidence.

I ask the question because of an article that has been making the rounds lately about the so-called "Starchild Skulls," a collection of elongated skulls that were discovered by archaeologist Julio Tello in Peru in 1928.

The skulls are odd-looking, there's no doubt about that.  But the ancient peoples of western South America are known to have practiced frontal skull flattening, by attaching two flat boards to the front and back of an infant's head.  So that should have been that.

That probably would have been that if it hadn't been for Lloyd Pye, who declared that the skull was of a human/alien hybrid (he's the one who nicknamed it the "Starchild Skull").  Pye was an author and lecturer who frequently expounded on this topic and other fringe-y areas of science/pseudoscience, speaking with great authority despite apparently having only a bachelor's degree in psychology and no other particular qualifications as an expert.  But Pye died of lymphoma last December, and it seemed like the whole thing was dying down.

Enter Brian Foerster, who has jumped the "Starchild Skull" back into the news with an announcement that there has been genetic analysis of the skull and the results show that it is "clearly not human:"

It had mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far. But a few fragments I was able to sequence from this sample indicate that if these mutations will hold we are dealing with a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Then Foerster says that he's not releasing the results of the DNA analysis quite yet, but he will do so "soon."  This was when my eyes started to narrow suspiciously, because it reminded me of... someone... someone who'd pulled the same trick before...

So I started to try to find who it was that Foerster gave the samples to for genetic analysis.  And guess who it turned out to be?

Melba Ketchum.

Yes, dear old Dr. Melba Ketchum, she of the genetic analysis of Bigfoot, whose results were so abysmally bad that she refused to release them for months, issuing periodic tantalizing press releases about how groundbreaking they were -- only to have them labeled as bogus during the peer review process when she finally did submit them.  Undaunted, she created her own scientific journal specifically to publish the rejected paper.  Then, when the paper was published, it turned out that amongst her source citations were one that actually demonstrated the opposite of what she claimed it did, one that was about hoaxes... and one that stated, outright, that it was written as an April Fool's Day prank!

My general feeling is that Dr. Ketchum has effectively used up all of the benefit-of-the-doubt she deserves.  The fact that she is still at the whole "we have the data, and it's convincing, but we're not going to show it to you" illustrates to me that there is no particular reason we shouldn't laugh right in her face, and by extension, in Foerster's.

I think we need a corollary to Carl Sagan's ECREE Principle (Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence).  Let's call it PHRREE -- Proven Hoaxers Require Really Extraordinary Evidence.  It may be that this time, finally, Melba Ketchum has the goods, and she'll be vindicated.  I think I'm to be excused if I am inclined to doubt it.  And given her track record, it is incumbent on her to prove herself -- using the time-honored and reliable road called "peer review."  And until such time as she does that, and has her and Foerster's "research" published in a reputable scientific journal, I think we're well within our rights to ask them both to shut the hell up.

A planetary pirouette

Well, you know what time it is, at least if you are of an astrological bent.  Me, I had to have it pointed out by a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia.  Now that I know, I'm all in a tizzy.

Mercury is in retrograde.  Time to head for the hills.

Of course, the whole thing is a completely natural occurrence that happens because the planets are moving with a different angular velocity than the Earth is.  The phenomenon has been known since the time of the ancient Greeks, and is in fact what gave rise to the name "planet" ("planetes" means "wanderer" in Greek).  The planets are all actually traveling in nice, neat ellipses; the whole thing is a trick of perspective because we're also in motion.  The outer planets go into retrograde when the (faster moving) Earth "overtakes" them in orbit; the inner ones, when they go around the outer curve of their orbit and appear to go into reverse as they curve back in toward the Sun.  (For an excellent discussion of why this happens, with diagrams, go here.)

The apparent retrograde motion of Mars [image courtesy of NASA and the Wikimedia Commons]

So we've moved one step past the astrological silliness of our lives and fates being controlled by the positions of the planets relative to the stars; now we have to factor an optical illusion of backwards motion that isn't even actually happening.

The complete wackiness of this claim is, apparently, not evident to the astrologers, who consider a Mercury retrograde to be a calamity of the first water.  Consider the article that appeared over at Elephant called "13 Ways to Avoid Getting 'Mercury Retrograded,'" wherein we find out that at least we'll have almost a month's worth of excuses for fucking up everything we try:

How Mercury functions in our birth charts explains a great deal about how we formulate ideas and how we share them. It indicates how we make sense of the everyday world we live in. During these three weeks when Mercury is retrograde, our mental faculties are not functioning well; in fact they go on vacation.

When this unique event happens (three times this year), communications of all types go haywire!

Suddenly, normal communication becomes unreliable, filled with misinformation where important data is missing or misunderstood. The passage of information from one person to the other seems to be unintentionally cloudy or confused in some way.

Well, this sounds like the way my life usually is, but that may be because I'm a high school teacher.

Then we hear some guidelines regarding how to avoid the problems implicit in this event, which include:

• Don't argue with your spouse.  My wife will be glad of that one.
• Don't purchase computers or install software.  I'm afraid that's a rule that may have to be broken, because my computer is on its last legs, and I get the Spinning Beachball of Death whenever I expect it to do anything complicated, such as loading a website, scrolling down a page, or typing at a rate of more than three characters per minute.
• Don't make changes to your appearance.  Well, it's not like I was considering dyeing my hair green, or anything, so I think I can manage that one.

Other than that, we have prohibitions against buying new cars, a new home, or starting a new job, all of which I wasn't planning to do in any case.

But then, we find out the much more alarming news that this time, Mercury is traveling retrograde in Pisces.  *gasp of horror*  Think I'm being sarcastic?  You'll be gasping, too, when you read the article called, "The Return of Past Lovers as Mercury Retrogrades in Pisces," wherein we find out the following:

All Mercury retrograde periods tend to stir up people from your past. You'll perhaps run into an old colleague on the street, get a call from a friend you haven't heard from in years or suddenly get an email from someone you met but never fully connected with, many Moons ago. Retrogrades are all about returning, going back to something that we started but never quite finished. And when you factor in the magical Pisces energy, it's all about the return of past lovers.

Whether you're single or attached, you can bet that "the one who got away" will pop up in your mind in the coming weeks. And he/she is probably thinking of you too, perhaps at the exact same moment. Will your lost love call you? Will your amazing lover from last year suddenly reappear with a middle-of-the-night sext? Mercury Retrograde in Pisces will stir your emotions and make you question romantic decisions made long ago. What's done is not necessarily done -- yet.

All of which makes me respond as follows:  AAAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHH *hides under coffee table*

Can I just say that the lion's share of my former romantic entanglements are "former" for a reason?  I actually want what's done to be done.  I'm perfectly happy with my wife, and can think of one former girlfriend, in particular, a call from whom would make me hop the next plane to Madagascar.  Not to imply that I had a knack for dating wackos, exactly; but let's just say when I see those Facebook things that ask you to describe your love life using a book title, the one that always comes to mind is All's Well That Ends Well.

What I find funny about all of this is that the starry-eyed types are wiggling their eyebrows significantly about something that happens for weeks at a time, three times a year.  So, basically, what we have here is a giant blob of confirmation bias, wherein we are encouraged to attribute any weirdness during twelve weeks of 2014 -- almost a quarter of the year -- to the fact that one of the planets appears to be doing a little pirouette in the sky.

Me, I think life is just weird, and it's got bugger-all to do with the stars.  But if any of my former girlfriends thinks that this would be a fine excuse to look me up, allow me to state, for the record, that I have an unlisted phone number and live in Madagascar.  So sorry I missed you.

22 questions, 22 answers

So the Ham-on-Nye debate is history, and we science-minded types are breathing a sigh of relief that it went as well as it did.  As I pointed out six months ago, Bill Nye had every reason to refuse to debate Ken Ham.  In fact, it's misleading to call it a debate in the first place, as Ken Ham doesn't accept hard evidence as the sine qua non of understanding.  He said as much, during the question-and-answer period, when he was asked "What would it take to change your mind?" and he answered in what may have been the most telling quote of the entire evening:

Well, the answer to that is that is that I'm a Christian, and as a Christian, I can't prove it to you, but god has shown me very clearly through his word, and he has shown himself in the person of Jesus Christ, that the bible is the word of god.

I admit that this is where I start from.  I can challenge people, that you can go and test that, you can make predictions based on that, you can check the prophecies in the bible, you can check the statements in Genesis.  I did a little bit of that tonight.

I can't ultimately prove that to you, all I can do is to say is to say to someone, "Look, if the bible really is what it claims to be, if it really is the word of god (and that's what it claims), then check it out, and the bible says that if you come to god believing that he is, he will reveal himself to you and you will know.

As Christians, we can say that we know, and so far as the word of god is concerned, no, no one is ever going to convince me that the word of god is not true.

Contrast that to what Bill Nye said, to the same question:

We would need just one piece of evidence.  We would need one fossil that swam from one layer to another, we would need evidence that the universe is not expanding, we would need evidence that the stars appear to be far away but are not.

We would need evidence that the rock layers could form in just years as opposed to an extraordinary amount of time, we would need evidence that you can reset atomic clocks and and keep neutrons from becoming protons.

Bring on any of those things and you would change my mind immediately.

So it really wasn't a debate.  Further, it has the possible downside of giving the impression to anyone on the fence that there is controversy over the issue; as I've said many times before, there is far more controversy, in scientific circles, about the ultimate explanation for gravity, and the means by which it operates, than there is over evolution.

So the Great Debate was really preaching to the choir, as it would inevitably have to be.  Still, most folks I've seen seem to think that Ken Ham had his ass handed to him -- even a poll over at Christian Today gave Nye the win, with the final tally being a decisive 92%-8%.

This hasn't stopped the creationists from singing Ham's praises, of course, which is pretty much what I expected.  There was a post over at Buzzfeed that's been making the rounds, wherein writer Matt Stopera asked 22 creationists what message they had for the evolutionists.  And despite my stance that arguing with these folks is generally fruitless, I felt obliged to respond largely because of the level of derp evident in so many of these statements.

So here they are -- the 22 statements from creationists, and my 22 responses.  Just so I don't have to write "sic" a hundred times, you'll just have to trust that I'm copying them with the spelling and grammar as written (or click on the Buzzfeed link and verify it for yourself).

1.  Bill Nye, are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?

My answer: Damn skippy he is.  I'll take a rational, evidence-based understanding of the world over Bronze-Age mythology and magical thinking any day of the week.

2.  Are you scared of a Divine Creator?

My answer:  Are you scared of Frost Giants?  Why would I be scared of something I don't believe in?

3.  Is it completely illogical that the Earth was created mature?  i.e. trees created with rings...  Adam created as an adult...

My answer:  Yes, it is.  If you're accepting that, then how do you know you weren't created five minutes ago by Zeus, with your memories as-is?  If you don't buy that we understand the world through logic, reason, and the information from our senses, and accept that the world acts in a regular, understandable way, you have to throw out all of science, not just evolution.  Interesting, isn't it, that questions like yours -- that undermine our ability to know the universe -- could equally well be applied to chemistry, but no one ever frames them that way?

4.  Does not the Second Law of Thermodynamics disprove evolution?

My answer:  Fer cryin' in the sink, take a fucking physics class.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that in a closed system, entropy (disorder) always increases.  The Earth is not a closed system, therefore there can be local and temporary decreases in entropy.  There is no conflict between thermodynamics and evolution.

5.  How do you explain a sunset if their is no God?

My answer:  The Earth rotates.  q.e.d.

6.  If the Big Bang theory is taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?

My answer:  See #4, especially the part about taking a fucking physics class.

7.  What about noetics?

My answer:  What about it?

8.  Where do you derive objective meaning in life?

My answer:  The meaning in my life comes from my connections to my family, friends, vocation, pets, and community.  I don't need a magical sky guy to give my life meaning; I create meaning for myself.

9.  If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate?  By chance?

My answer:  Pretty much, but the chance was really high.  Organic compounds are common in the universe, can readily be created by abiotic processes, and will self-assemble into cells.  Life is probably abundant in the universe.  Once again: no need for the hand of a magical sky guy.

10.  I believe in the Big Bang Theory.  God said "BANG!" it happened!

My answer:  How nice it must be for you to have an understanding of the universe that doesn't require you to do any hard work.

11.  Why do evolutionists/secularists/huminists/non-God believing people reject the idea of their being a creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terrestrial species?

My answer:  Whatever drugs you have been ingesting, can I have some?

12.  There is no inbetween... the ONLY one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds necessary for "official proof..."

My answer:  You seriously think that the only hominid fossil is Lucy?  And that scientists have a numerical threshold for "official proof?"  "Nope, sorry.  We've only got 99 pieces of data supporting the existence of velociraptors.  If only we had one more... but for now, we'll have to classify them as "imaginary."

13.  Does metamorphosis help support evolution?

My answer:  Of course it does.

14.  If Evolution is a theory (like creationism and the Bible), then why is it taught as fact?

My answer:  Creationism (and the bible) are not theories.  Theories are testable models of how the world works.  Saying "god did it" is not a testable statement.  "Theory" doesn't mean "it could just as easily be false as true."

15.  Because science is by definition a theory -- not testable, observable, nor repeatable -- why do you object to creationism and intelligent design being taught in school?

My answer:  See #14.  And I object to it for the same reason that you would object if your child's chemistry teacher taught him that you can convert base metals into gold via alchemy; because it's wrong.

16.  What evidence has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?

My answer:  Three examples out of hundreds known: Chromosome duplication and subsequent divergence.  Segment and polarity genes in arthropods.  Allopolyploidy.  All of which are excellent supports for evolution and speciation, so thanks ever so much for asking.  (For a wonderful take-apart of the so-called "information problem," go here.)

17.  What purpose do you think you are here for, if not for Salvation?

My answer:  If you mean Purpose, capital "P," then I think there isn't one, an idea that seems to terrify religious people and doesn't bother me at all.  I don't really feel the need for there to be a Cosmic Reason for Everything.  As far as my more immediate purpose; to teach, learn, love, enjoy, grow, experience.  And that's enough to satisfy me.

18.  Why have we found only 1 "Lucy" when we have found more than 1 of everything else?

My answer:  That may be one of the dumbest questions I've ever read.  How do you manage to remember to walk without dragging your knuckles on the ground?

19.  Can you believe in the "Big Bang" without "faith?"

My answer:  Science doesn't require faith; science and faith are opposites.  (Unless you're talking about my faith that science actually is a valid way of knowing the universe; if that's what you mean, then we can talk, but I don't think that's what you're asking.)  The Big Bang is a model that explains the evidence we see; faith is the belief in things not seen.  It takes no more faith to "believe in" the Big Bang (although I hate using the word "belief" referent to a scientific model) than it takes faith to "believe in" genes, or atoms, or stars, or the core of the Earth.

20.  How can you look at the world and not believe Someone Created/thought of it?  It's amazing!!!

My answer:  Ah, yes, the Proof from Incredulity.  "I can't imagine this, so it must be god."  Well, yeah, okay, the world and all of the life in it is pretty amazing.  That I feel that way is why I became a biologist.  But it's also pretty crazily thrown together, too, which is why "intelligent design" doesn't work.  Take the human male reproductive apparatus, for example, which has to be one of the most oddly "designed" organ systems in the animal kingdom.  We have two extremely sensitive structures that have to be positioned outside of the abdominal cavity in order to work, right at a position where they are easily kneed, kicked, and head-butted by small children and large dogs; the sperm-delivery device is fused to the urinary system, thus (as a friend of mine put it) being the equivalent of running a sewer pipe directly through a playground; and the urethra passes right through the prostate gland, which is unusually likely to become cancerous and squeeze the whole thing shut.  If a deity planned all of that, he has a really twisted sense of humor.

21.  Relating to the big bang theory... where did the exploding star come from?

My answer:  If you can't be bothered to take a fucking physics class, will you people please at least read the Wikipedia article on a topic before you ask moronic questions?

22.  If we come from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

My answer:  If my ancestors came from France, why are there still French people?


So, anyway, there you have it; my response to the Nye/Ham debate, and the 22 questions from creationists.  My head now hurts from all of the faceplants I did reading those, and I suspect yours might, too.  So, as my gift to you for making it all the way to the end, here's a Klingon facepalm, to show you that Worf is on our side.

Biebs in space

Writing this blog sometimes puts me into very odd conversations.

Witness what happened yesterday, an exchange between myself and a friend that started out with the odd question, "Do you know what Justin Bieber is?"

I responded, "Of course I know who Justin Bieber is."

"Not who," my friend said.  "What."

"Um," I said, showing my usual articulateness when confronted with peculiar questions.  "Well, he's a pop singer whose songs make me want to remove my ears with a vegetable peeler.  He also, by his recent behavior, appears to be a spoiled rotten brat."

"Nope," my friend said.  "He's an alien."

At that point, the light dawned.  Like I said, sometimes I'm a magnet for bizarre claims, but that doesn't mean that I'm quick on the uptake about it.  "Lemme guess," I said.  "Someone found a photograph of him where he appears to have antennae, or something."

"Better than that.  Video footage, where his eyes seem to turn into reptile eyes."

"Marvy," I responded.  "Bieber's one of the reptilian overlords.  I shoulda known."

So my friend directed me to an article on Huffington Post amusingly titled, "Fox News Accidentally Reveals That Justin Bieber is a Reptile."

Apparently what happened is that an alert Fox News viewer, whose YouTube handle is RyGuyVA, was watching the footage showing the Biebs in court after his unfortunate run-in with marijuana, prescription medications, a Lamborghini, and a Miami Beach police officer (in that order).  And RyGuyVA notice that in one frame, Bieber's eyes appear to change.

"Boom," RyGuyVA says.  "I always though that stuff was BS. But come on."

Seriously, look into those eyes.  Don't they seem bent on world domination?

Of course, the easier explanation is that it's a "video compression artifact," a loss of video data as it is reduced to fit available storage space or transmission bandwidth.  And as we've seen before, you can turn grainy images into anything.  Take a look at the "unfocused gaze illusion" -- in which your brain takes a blurry image of a human face and makes a decision (wrong, as it turns out) about which way the eyes are pointing.  Even more startling is the effect of focusing a blurred image of Charles Allen Gilbert's painting "All is Vanity" -- pass your cursor over the fuzzy image and watch what it turns into!

But of course, there are people who would just love to belieb that Justin is an all-powerful alien.  And I have to admit that "reptilian overlord" has more gravitas than "drug-addled twit."  Given that there are conspiracy theorists like the wonderfully bizarre David Icke who think that bunches of famous people are reptilian aliens, including various pharaohs, kings and queens (including Queen Elizabeth II of England), 43 of the US Presidents (no word I could find on which ones were left out), the entirety of the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, and the late comedian Bob Hope, it's no real surprise that Justin Bieber should be on the list, too.  I guess they need someone to provide them with music, out there in Reptilian Command Central.

At this point, though, don't you think he's kind of overstayed his welcome here on Earth?  I mean, besides the annoying songs, he's now breaking the law and just generally making a nuisance of himself, to the point that there's now a "We The People" petition to deport him back to his native Canada.  But if he's really an alien, then why should we burden Canada with him?  Put him on a rocket and send him out into space, is what I suggest.  Let his reptilian buddies pick him up and bring him back to Zeta Reticuli, or wherever the hell they're supposed to be from.

That'd turn me into a belieber.

Puppies from hell

Is it just me, or are the claims of the ultra-religious getting nuttier of late?

Maybe it's just because the craziest ones are the ones that get the most press, and I'm falling for some kind of media-driven dart-thrower's bias.  But consider -- just in the last couple of months, we've had the following:

• a pastor who claims to be able to exorcise demons via Skype, followed by;
• a Catholic priest who says that no, that's impossible, but he can exorcise demons without ever meeting the allegedly possessed individual;
• a guy who wants to be paid by the South African government because he believes his prayers kept the electricity going during the World Cup;
• some people who think that a supernova remnant that has been nicknamed "The Hand of God" is... actually the hand of god;
• some people who think that Siri is predicting the opening of the gates of hell, this coming July;
• and a guy who has founded a service to send explanatory emails to your loved ones if you're taken away during the Rapture.

Now, allow me to reiterate up front something that I've said many times, to wit: I know that there are reasonable, logical, and smart people who belong to all different sorts of religions.  I have a good many religious friends, and I respect their right to their views, just as they respect mine.  Put another way; just because I happen to be an atheist doesn't mean that I'm issuing some kind of indictment against the brains, rationality, or motives of all religious people.

But it does seem like the extreme wing of the religious world has shown increasing signs lately of the sort of comical wackiness that is really hard for me not to ridicule.  Or maybe I'm just noticing it more, I dunno.  But take, for example, William Tapley, self-proclaimed evangelist and End Times prophet who calls himself "the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse," and who seems to have spent considerable time doing sit-ups underneath parked cars.

Before I tell you about Tapley's latest pronouncement, it bears mention that he's been in the news before.  He's the one who said, back in 2011, that the decorations in the Denver International Airport were rife with "phallic symbols."  To me, most of what he claims are sexually suggestive designs just look like... random designs.  Tapley insists, though, that the Evil Male Genitalia are there, and that he has a "gift from god" that allows him to see penises where others don't.

Myself, I don't think that's anything I'd brag about.

But now, he's come up with something even wackier than Devil Dongs Over Denver.  Ready?

Okay, you know the adorable Budweiser commercial, featured on the Superbowl, that showed a cute yellow lab puppy who keeps running away to go back and visit his buddy the Clydesdale horse?  Of course you do.  The YouTube video has gotten over 38 million hits, and that's not counting the people who saw it during the game.

Not what it appears to be, says Tapley.  The commercial...

... is a warning of the imminent apocalypse, as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

The puppy represents the Antichrist, Tapley said, in his own video, which is linked in this story that appeared over at ALWire.   Note that the puppy came from "Warm Springs Puppy Adoption;" "Warm Springs," Tapley said, refers to "the Lake of Fire" where all of the unbelievers will end up burning for eternity.  (He doesn't specify what the "puppy adoption" part represents.)

Fig. 1: Evil Satan-Spawn from the Maw of Hell.  Don't let the fuzzy widdle face fool you.  [image courtesy of PharaohHound and the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's the direct quote, which I swear I am not making up:  "(Hell) is where our puppy dog comes from. … But this puppy dog is more than a cute, warm, fuzzy animal.  He is a symbol of the Antichrist."

Yup.  Right.  And I suppose this is a symbol of the Beast With Seven Heads:

 Fig. 2:  Looking into the mesmeric depth of his eyes is placing your immortal soul at risk!  [image courtesy of Nicholas Suzor and the Wikimedia Commons]

Okay, look.  I know that, to some extent, this is going for the low-hanging fruit.  But still; there are people out there who believe this stuff.  And they vote.  Despite the fact that you'd think that anyone this insane would not be allowed outside unsupervised.

On the other hand, maybe we could look upon this as movement in the right direction.  Perhaps enough people are recognizing the inherent craziness of the far reaches of the religious worldview that it's forcing the remaining adherents further out into the ozone layer.   Maybe this outburst of lunacy is just growth pains, as humanity progresses on its way to adopting a more reasonable outlook.

Or maybe Tapley is just a raving whackmobile.  I suppose that's just as likely.

Squatchius invisibilis

There's a general rule about claims of the paranormal, vis-à-vis the amount of hard evidence thereof, and on first glance it's a little counterintuitive.  It would seem that the likelihood of such claims being true would be directly proportional to the number of people who say they've seen whatever it is -- ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, or whatever.  Assuming equal (and low to nonexistent) hard evidence in favor, the only thing we have to go on is eyewitness testimony, and the more there is of that, the better supported the claim is.

Right?

In fact, it is exactly the opposite.  The likelihood of a bizarre claim being true, in the absence of evidence, is inversely proportional to the number of eyewitness claims.

Let's take something for which we have exactly zero tangible, scientifically admissible evidence -- Bigfoot.  We hear cries of indignation from Squatchers that we skeptics are being unfairly dismissive.  "How can all of the eyewitness accounts be wrong?" they say.  And it sounds reasonable -- at first.

But think about it.  Let's accept, for the moment, that the Squatchers are right, and there is a large proto-hominid species out there -- with a large enough population not only to be reproductively viable and stable, but to give rise to frequent sightings.  (And if you want to see how many sightings do get reported every week, just check out sites like Bigfoot Field Journal.  You'll be astonished.)

So, we've got thousands of very large animals out there, being seen every week -- and not once, never, has one of them left behind a carcass, a clump of hair, a bone, or a tooth demonstrably of proto-hominid origin?  With that many eyewitness sightings, there should be at least one incontrovertible piece of hard evidence by now.  That there isn't is fairly damning.

In reality, of course, a rare, intelligent, wary cryptid should produce almost no sightings at all.  Look, for example, at how infrequently people see bobcats -- a shy, nocturnal species that is also amazingly common.  There are an estimated 30,000 bobcats in New York state -- which, in 2006 and 2007, resulted in only a little over 100 sightings each year.  I've lived for over twenty years in a rural part of upstate New York, spent lots of time out in the woods, and I've never seen one.

So really, what's relevant here is the evidence:sightings ratio.  The lower that is, the less likely the claim is to be true.  If there are thousands of eyewitness claims, and very little hard evidence, the conjecture can effectively be dismissed, because the evidence:sightings ratio is damn close to zero.

Of course, that's a serious blow to the Squatchers, and these are not folks who will take such a thing lying down.  The Bigfoots have ways of not being seen, they say.  They bury their dead -- thus, no bones, no teeth, no skins.  Beyond that, things get even wackier.  A Squatcher named Linda Jo Martin thinks that the reason they get away is that they're telepathic, so they hear our thoughts as we approach and escape, especially if we were intent on capturing or (heaven forfend) shooting one.  Another Squatcher, the amusingly-named Kewaunee Lapseritis, thinks that the Bigfoots are not only psychic, they're in contact with space aliens, and get away on spaceships if they are in danger.

But that's bush league crazy compared to what I came across yesterday, advanced as a serious claim on the wonderfully wacky site Cryptomundo; the reason we can't find Bigfoots, or any hard evidence thereof, is because they've developed cloaking ability.

If you're like me, your first thought was, "No, that's not Bigfoot; I believe you're thinking of the Klingons."  But it appears that they're serious.  Here's a direct quote:

One of the most heated subjects of debate in the bigfoot world is about the possibility that the creatures elude us so well because they have some kind of “cloaking” ability that no other creature is known to possess. Some witnesses claim this ability is in fact real, while others scoff. But most, like me, just want a clear answer…and some visual proof wouldn’t hurt either.

This demands that we ask the question of how you could have visual proof of something that can become invisible.  But that thought evidently never occurs to them, as the author goes on to describe a... well, I guess I'll call it a "sighting," for want of a better word... by a fellow named Dave Moser in North Carolina:

Our group was on a planned walk down a hard packed dirt trail, south of our camp. Many in the group have had BF experiences on this tail before which parallels a ridge to the west and east so you are walking in somewhat of a valley. A team of 6 had left the campground around 2330 and may have gone close to a ¼ mile down the trail when I observed the 4 team members who were approximately 70-80 yards ahead of me had stopped and were looking to the west or right side of the trail. It’s customary for me to stop and observe the area with my Thermal camera from the rear of the group. I prefer this position because I like to scan behind us to see if anything is following and it also gives me a wider angle of view of what the front team may be observing. The 5th team member was approximately 8-10 feet ahead of me and had G3 night vision binoculars. I noticed that one of the front team members had stepped a few feet off the road in the woods. He was also using a thermal imager but did not have any noticeable heat signatures that I know of. After talking to him yesterday to find out the reason he had stopped he provided the following statement:

“I hear something moving to the left of trail. What at first was a deer making a distress call and then thumping noise like someone or thing was stomping its foot. I do not think it was a deer making the stomping noise. When I walked off the trail and staying by the tree, I felt like I was being watched. I had a sense that whatever it was it was now in front of me about 50 yards.”

Nothing was observed or heard during the brief stop at 12:03am early Saturday morning but upon review my first indication to there being something there was the leaves shuffling. I knew right away that no one was in the woods to the left or right of me so a rewind was required. The rest of the midnight hike was uneventful except for the return trip to camp. One of my team members usually has an EMF detector on his persons and as we passed the spot where the figure was captured on the Thermal and about 50 yards north his EMP detector went ballistic, I mean a full pegged out hit that lasted for close to a minute beeping loudly. Although nothing was ever seen or discovered to cause the deflection it was a strange coincidence to say the least!

To Moser's credit, he states outright that he doesn't think this was a "cloaked Bigfoot," although how anyone can even type that phrase without guffawing is beyond me.  For one thing, if an animal can turn invisible, how could it see?  Its eyes, including the lens and retina, would suddenly have the same transparency and refractive index as air, meaning that light would go right through them.  (Right through its whole head, in fact.)  So if Bigfoot can turn invisible, it would also become instantaneously blind, which would explain why it was shuffling through the leaves and bumping into things.

On the other hand, why am I even addressing this seriously?

No, I don't know, either.

A photograph I took in Colorado.  There is an invisible cloaked Bigfoot in the lower right of the shot.

The bottom line is that if your evidence:sightings ratio is so low that you have to make appeal to telepathy, UFOs, or advanced cloaking technology to explain to skeptics why you don't have the goods, then you should probably just give up.  Harsh, but realistic.

Spend your time looking for bobcats, instead.  They're really cool-looking, and as an added bonus, they actually exist.

Demon redux

A few days ago, I posted about a fellow named Bob Larson who claims to be able to exorcise demons from the possessed via Skype.  My general feeling was that actual demons, if they're as powerful and evil as the religious claim, would have no particular reason to listen to a guy who was babbling prayers at them via a wonky internet connection from 2,000 miles away.

Not that this addresses the deeper problem that there's no evidence that demons exist in the first place.  But still.

Evidently, there are a lot of people who saw the Larson story and agree with me, on the first point at least.  One of them is a gentleman named Isaac Kramer.  Kramer, in an interview that you can watch over at Vocativ, said, "They just can't be done that way.  If a person is fully possessed, the demon inside of them will not let them sit in front of the computer screen to be exorcised.  Chances are, they’re going to throw the computer screen across the room and destroy everything."

Which sounds pretty reasonable, until you find out that Kramer is a Catholic priest who is the director of the International Catholic Association of Exorcists,  and he's apparently only saying this because he thinks he can do it better than Larson can and resents the competition.

I would like to think that belief in demons is on the decline, but if you've been following the news, there have been several recent stories where claims of possession were taken seriously by the powers-that-be.  The best publicized, just last week in Gary, Indiana, involved a house that was a "portal of hell," a nine-year-old boy who walked up a wall backwards, and various priests and chaplains and so on -- a story that got so much press that the priest who was in charge of it all, Reverend Michael Maginot, ended up being interviewed on Fox News' show The O'Reilly Factor.

Bill O'Reilly, to his credit, started out with the right approach; he asked for Maginot to keep his story fact based, and asked the priest what he knew about the little boy.  Maginot responded, not surprisingly, "Actually, I have never met any of the children.  The first time I heard about the incident was after the boy walked up the wall backwards...  I was in my parish, conducting a bible study, when I got the call, and they called me in to do an exorcism."

O'Reilly said, "Now, exorcism in the Catholic church is a serious thing... you have to jump through hoops to get it approved...  It disturbs me a little that the boy involved -- and this is according to the newspaper, and other eyewitnesses -- was doing incredible things, like walking up walls, but you yourself never talked to the boy.  Why not?"

Why not, indeed.  Maginot seemed vaguely embarrassed by the question -- as well he should have been.  "Well," he responded, " when I went to do the interview, at the home, with the mother and the grandmother, it was a four-hour interview, and the first two hours were basically getting information on all the occurrences leading up to the incident."

"The problem I'm having with this," O'Reilly countered, "is number one, you didn't see the boy.  The credibility of the Catholic church is in a tough way now, in this country.  Exorcism is a serious thing, a very serious thing.  I understand you got permission from the bishop in your diocese to do this.  But it seems to me that the story is not solid enough to go public with it.  There are a lot of people watching right now who are saying, 'this is more mumbo-jumbo from the Roman Catholic church, there's no credibility here at all.'  How would you answer that?"

More nervous, sidewise glances from Rev. Maginot.  "Well, the two boys and the girl, the one boy was put into a lockdown psychological children's ward, and the other two were taken to the Carmelite sisters who take care of foster children.  And so they were taken away from the parents, the mother and the grandmother, and so I didn't have access to them.  And the mother, I found out at the very end, was also possessed.  I put the crucifix on her forehead, and she began to convulse."

Righty-o, then, Father Maginot.  That's your evidence?  And you think that the mother, who was the one who had called in the priests, has any credibility at all?  Not mentioning, I notice, that this woman has already been exorcised four times and has a history of mental problems?  That the children need to be in foster care not because there are demons roaming around, but because their mother is a raving lunatic?

I can't say I often agree with Bill O'Reilly, but this time he nailed it, and asked all the right questions.  And it bears mention that O'Reilly himself is a practicing Catholic, who has no vested interest in making Maginot and his In The Name Of Jesus Begone act look silly. 

But that's not stopping the story from making the rounds, not as evidence that the whole practice is ridiculous, but that it somehow proves that demons exist.  As further evidence, they say, there's the photograph of the house, which shows a demon looking out a window:

To me, this more looks like E.T. the Extraterrestrial than it does like your conventional image of a demon.  And all of which goes to show that, as we've seen before, "proof" means something entirely different in the realm of religion than it does in the realm of science.

Interesting, too, that it only seems like people who were already religious get possessed, isn't it?  You'd think that a strident nonbeliever like myself would be perfect Satan bait.  But atheists never seem to need exorcisms.  Funny thing, that.

Probably the true believers would explain this by saying that we're being controlled by the Evil One, we just don't realize it.  You can't win.

Anyhow, that's our story for today.  I just want to end by stating a hope that the poor kids involved in this mess get some help and counseling, and their mother gets the help she needs, too... probably in the form of some heavy-duty medication.