Saying no to Noah

There are times when I want to tell people, "Stop.  You are making it way too easy for me."

I would almost like it better if the loonies had stronger arguments, you know?  Make me work for my posts.  Stop me in my tracks with some actual logic or evidence.

Sadly, that rarely happens.  I won't say "never;" I have more than once posted retractions or corrections.  And I live in hopes that the wingnuts will eventually start adopting the scientific method as their modus operandi.

But I don't see it happening any time soon.  Instead, we still have daily examples of what my father used to call "shooting fish in a barrel."

The latest example of fish-shooting has to do with the reactions to the soon-to-be-released Darren Aronofsky biblical epic Noah, starring Russell Crowe and Emma Watson.  (Watch a trailer here.)  The movie is due in theaters on March 26.

 [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

You would think that the staunch Christians would be tickled pink that Hollywood is putting a biblical story on the Big Screen -- they certainly loved the gruesome Passion of the Christ, not to mention classics like The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Ten Commandments.

But no.  The site Christian News published an article called "New 'Noah' Film Starring Russell Crowe Flooded With Controversy," which described the reactions of Christians who have been allowed to pre-screen the movie.  "Earlier reports of the film expressed disapproval that Noah was depicted as being centered on an environmental agenda, and that Aronofsky viewed Noah as the 'first environmentalist,'" author Heather Clark writes, implying that Christianity and environmentalism are somehow antithetical.  "Noah is also stated to be tormented with guilt for surviving the flood while others perished."

Well, yeah.  I'd guess he would be.  But it only gets weirder from there.  Angie Meyer-Olszewski, an entertainment publicist, was interviewed by Fox411 and said, "You can’t stray from the Bible in a Bible-based film without upsetting a percentage of the Christian faith base.  Interpretations may vary, but if the story changes, even a little, it’s deemed offensive.  When a studio releases a movie that’s biblical, they are playing a game of religious roulette."

But no one had a stranger, or more bizarrely ironic, reaction than our old pal Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.  In an interview with Newsmax, Ham said, "In the movie, it seems Noah is a far cry from the Noah of the Bible.  He's angry, even crazy.  It makes a mockery of Noah's righteous nature and is actually anti-biblical...  Noah was a preacher of righteousness, (but) this just isn't the case in Hollywood's version.  He's a delusional, conflicted man, more concerned about the environment, animals, and even killing his own grandchild than he is with his family and his relationship with God."

Ham then went on to say, in a quote that I swear I'm not making up, "Sure, after watching the film, people could be directed to read the true story for themselves in the Bible.  But in this day and age, young people have a hard time deciphering reality from fiction and don't often take the time to form their own educated opinions."

*irony overload*

The last quote prompted atheist blogger Hemant Mehta to say, "He didn't really just say that... did he?"

Then noted evangelical wackmobile Ray Comfort weighed in, because things weren't surreal enough.  "I wouldn't encourage a soul to pay Hollywood to make any movie that undermines the credibility of the Bible, and this one certainly does," Comfort said.  "Do it right -- according to the script in the Scriptures -- and we will support it in the millions, as we did with Ben-Hur."

Ah, yes.  I do remember the famous chariot race scene from the Gospel of Luke, don't you?

And if this weren't enough, we now have word that the movie is being banned in Muslim countries, thus far Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, with Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt expected to follow suit.   The reason -- it is an insult to depict any of Allah's prophets (of which Noah is considered one), and the movie "contradicts the stature of prophets and messengers... and antagonizes the faithful."

Well then.  This just shows, once again, the truth of the South African proverb, that there are forty different kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.  I mean, really; do they expect that a movie is going to follow the "script in the Scriptures" to the letter?  If it did, it would be, what, fifteen minutes long?  And have no character development or, frankly, plot.  But there you have it; I guess you can't please everyone.  And it's not like it's the only biblical epic you have to choose from, if that sort of thing floats your, um, ark.  The Jesus's-life movie Son of God is already in the theaters, and seems to be generating better responses from the faithful, for what it's worth.

As far as director Aronofsky's feelings about the controversy surrounding Noah, the media depicts him as upset by it, but I honestly doubt he is.  The kerfuffle over the movie's biblical accuracy, and whether it should be viewed by the devout, is keeping it in the media -- which is exactly where Aronofsky wants it to be.  I predict it'll be a roaring success, at least for the first few weeks.  Irish poet Brendan Behan said it best: "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

Type tests, weird verbiage, and Pod'Lair

It seems like lately, self-inquiry tests are all the rage.

They range from the banal ("What Harry Potter character are you?"  "What rock star are you?"  "What Joss Whedon character are you?") to the tried and true (the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is still really popular) to the absurd (the various sorts of astrology).  And on the face of it, there's nothing wrong with the urge to find out more about what makes you tick.  After all, the legend "Gnothi Seauton" (Know Yourself) was inscribed on the Temple of Delphi over 2,500 years ago, and those Greek philosophers were no slouches in the wisdom department.

[image courtesy of photographer Thomas Hawk and the Wikimedia Commons]

Still, some of them seem to be making unduly heavy weather out of the whole thing, and I ran into an example of this just the other day.  Called "Pod'Lair," for no reason I could find, it is described as follows:

Pod'Lair methodology reads a person's innate nature, what we call their Mojo, with an accuracy never before possible, which allows humans to know themselves in truly unprecedented ways, ending the debate on whether or not people have qualia and what it involves...

Once you understand the basics of Pod'Lair theory, and you've begun to see the Mojo phenomenon for yourself, it improves your understanding of and interaction with every facet of your life, including: education, career, relationships, community, politics, spirituality...basically all of existence.

Well, naturally, I was curious about what my Mojo was, even though it's really hard for me to take anything with the name "Mojo" particularly seriously.  And it required that I send in a ten-minute video of myself, which I wasn't going to do.  The whole thing apparently hinges on subtle facial movement cues that are supposedly indicators of personality types, a bit like Bandler & Grinder's neurolinguistic programming (which honesty compels me to mention has also been flagged as having many of the characteristics of pseudoscience).  So I went to the "About Us" page, where I read passages like the following:

The Mojo Dojo Pathway is the Universal Pathway for the Language of Mojo. This pathway is focused on Mojo Reading of yourself and others, in order to understand how Mojos interact with one another in Social Alchemy. This is the objective study of Mojo, as it applies to the relationships within the Human Matrix.

Well, I think I'm at least above average at reading comprehension, and while reading a lot of the stuff on this site I was wearing a perplexed expression, my head tilted a little, rather like my dog does when I try to explain something complex and difficult to him, like why he shouldn't try to hump the cat.  Unfortunately, unlike my dog, I wasn't able just to wag my tail and forget about it all.  Some sort of perverse drive kept me working my way through this website:

It is essential to know how to rein in your top two Powers. Modulation causes stress on the system, which is Keening. The individual Mojos begin to have shut-down mechanisms designed for self-protection and energy conservation. These are healthy to a point, but over the long term they can shut the system down in a way that is damaging, temporarily or permanently, which is known as Stress Lock.

No, really, I shouldn't read any more, I really think that's...

You can generate energy from within, but as you generate that energy, it encounters the Bubble of your home and responds to it. Much like a creature in the womb reaches out consciously to get nutrients, it needs to be a conducive womb for the creature to get what it needs. This sounds simpler than it is because in many ways humans have stepped away from their Bubble being an essential part of their harmonious existence, having been told what to do by Bubbles that are already in place.

I mean, I have other things to do this morning, and it's not necessary that I...

Spirit Forms refers to the Unconscious Genius that every human has. The unconscious portions of the psyche often present themselves as autonomous entities that when dialogued with improves a human's understanding and performance in any endeavor, be it artistic, scientific, athletic, etc. The Language of Spirit Forms includes the Pathways of Spirit Ambassador (Universal Pathway) and Temple of Spirits (Personal Pathway).

Merciful heavens, please stop...

Humanity is within Gaia, Gaia is within the Cosmos, the Cosmos is within Natural Law, and this all came to be where we are now. To attempt to tell the Human Collective, Gaia, Cosmos, and everything above it what to do is the height of arrogance.

OKAY.  Thank you very much.  So anyway, after I spent way more time trying to read this stuff than I should have, and coming away with the understanding that Humans Are Heroic Love And Cosmic Energy, or something, I did a little digging and found out that evidently some people who are cognitive psychologists think there might actually be some legitimacy to the whole thing (read one interesting thread here, where Pod'Lair is considered seriously along with MBTI and neurolinguistic programming theory).

What strikes me, though, is the question of how a skeptic, with a reasonable background in human neurology, could decide if there's anything to this at all from the outside -- the writing is so dense, and (frankly) so mixed up with woo-woo verbiage, that it's impossible for me to tell.  Even one indicator that the whole thing had been tested against other sorts of psychological assessments, and found to have value, would have made a difference.  Instead, under "Evidence," we're just given some vague hand-waving arguments coupled with a much longer section about why Jung, Maslow, MBTI, typology, and astrology (!) are all wrong, and that's supposed to be enough to go on.

Oh, and we're also given descriptions of the 32 basic Mojo types, including "Xyy'nai," which "engage the dynamics of human communities through interpersonal connection, social awareness, and shepherding, creating an attentive and diplomatic character." We are also told that example "Xyy'nais" are Barack Obama and Miley Cyrus.

Because those two clearly have so much in common.

Now, mind you, it's not that I think that there's anything wrong with pursuing self-knowledge. Far from it.   It's more that I have the sense that any test that purports to divide all of humanity into a small number of classes based upon artificial distinctions is doomed to failure.  And I also wonder if any of these type tests -- be it MBTI, Pod'Lair, or "What Dr. Who Character Are You?" -- is telling us anything about ourselves that we couldn't have figured out with an hour's honest self-reflection.

But being an inquisitive sort, I am tempted to send in a video.  I'd like to see what they'd make of my rather unfortunate face.  And to anyone who goes to the Pod'Lair site (which I linked above), and decides to participate -- do come back here and post the results.  Like I said before: there's nothing like actual results to support a conjecture.  And even if the evaluation of its accuracy would have to come from one's impression of oneself, it'd be interesting to see whether the whole thing has any basis in reality.

Jurassic pyramid

There is a tendency amongst some folks that I just don't understand; and that is that if there is no ready explanation for things at hand, they feel obliged to make one up.

Maybe it's because I'm well aware of the extent of my own ignorance, and have no particular shame in saying "I don't know."  I try to make sure that the size of that territory gets smaller over time rather than larger; I am not, I hope, complacent, nor am I intellectually lazy.  If there's a topic about which I am ignorant, I am very willing to put in the hard work of learning.

Still, you can't be an expert about everything.  And one of the areas in which I am sadly lacking is geopolitics.  This is why when a student asked me, yesterday, why Vladimir Putin was so interested in the Crimea, I said, "I'm not sure."

I know that there are a good many ethnic Russians in the Crimea; there was a set of maps in an article on BBC News that showed the divide between areas of the Ukraine where the native language was Ukrainian, and where it was predominantly Russian.  Unsurprisingly, over 50% of people in the Crimea speak Russian as their first language.  Add to that the fact that the town of Sevastopol is a major naval center on the Black Sea, and it's not to be wondered at that Putin would like to find a reason to annex the region.

Still, the reasons for such military power plays are seldom simple, or few in number, and I was hesitant to say that these were Putin's only motives.  So I thought I'd do a little research, and see what else I could find.  And I found, in short order, some other claims -- that recently-ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was pro-Russian and anti-EU, and the previous president and presumptive current leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who was just released from prison, is pro-EU and anti-Russian.  That there are valuable oil and gas pipelines passing through that region that are vital to the Russian economy.  That Russia wanted to halt a trade agreement with the EU which had been proposed, and which was moving toward ratification.

And also, that Putin knows that a vastly powerful, energy-harvesting Jurassic-era pyramid is located in the Crimea, and he wants to control it.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Yes, you read that right.  And if you did a double-take upon reading it, well, so did I.  I may have even done a triple-take.  Jurassic-era?  As in back when there were dinosaurs?  Like, 180 million years ago?

Yup.  According to an article in the Crimean News Agency, a Ukrainian scientist named Vitalii Goh discovered the pyramid back in August of 2012:

A Ukrainian scientist discovered the oldest pyramid in the world. Most interestingly, it was found in the most beautiful corner of the country, in Crimea.

As the ICTV channel reported, the finding was revealed by accident, when during his test alternative methods of finding water Ukrainian scientist Vitalii Goh discovered underground unknown object, which proved to be a giant pyramid of 45 meters in height and a length of about 72 meters. Goh said that the pyramid was built during the time of the dinosaurs.

“Crimean pyramid” has a truncated top, like a Mayan pyramid, but its appearance is more like an Egyptian. It is hollow inside, and a mummy of unknown creature is buried under the foundation.

“Under the foundation is a small body in the form of a mummy long 1.3-1.4 meters with a crown on his head.”

Well, there is a general trend I've noticed, and that is that if you say the word "pyramid," the wackos start coming out of the woodwork.  So instead of asking the relevant questions -- such as how the hell such a pyramid could have been built when there were no humans there to build it, and how, if the story had even a scrap of truth, it didn't rock the archeological world -- we have comments like the following:

Considering these pyramids were built by the fallen angels when they were imprisoned here on earth before man...I wouldn't be surprised!

They are also NOT fighting the wars in the Middle East over "oil"...put another way, the Tower of Babel was built in modern day Iraq at the location of the strongest stargate on earth. TPTB are fighting for control of this portal.

These pyramids might indicate key locations of energy and would explain a great deal in light of current circumstances!

Antidiluvian [sic] technology!  This is why Russia claimed the North Pole a few years ago!

The Crimean pyramid was undoubtedly built by dinosaurs then, using huge stones from faraway quarries, and then constructed using a complicated system of ramps and pulleys.

This last one almost made me spit a mouthful of coffee all over the screen, but I'm glad it did, because it meant that I didn't choke to death when I read the next one:

Gravity was much weaker back then.  Explains why beasts could roam the Earth that are far too large to survive today.  Also explains how the Pyramids were built.  Less gravity means lighter rocks making the job far easier.  One day gravity became stronger (for whatever reasons) and that caused the massive die off of all large beasts. Also explains why small mammals survived easily and coniferous plants become overrun by flowering plants.

That's it.  I think we can quit, now.  That is the single dumbest thing I have ever read.

It does, however, remind me of the character of Calvin's dad in the immortal comic strip Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson.  Some of the most memorable exchanges between Calvin and his dad are when Calvin asks his dad a technical question, and gets an answer that is not much better than Jurassic gravity-warp dinosaurs building pyramids:

Calvin: Why does the sun set?
Dad: It's because hot air rises. The sun's hot in the middle of the day, so it rises high in the sky. In the evening then, it cools down and sets.
Calvin: Why does it go from east to west?
Dad: Solar wind.
Calvin: Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets?
Dad: That's all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire.
Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff.
Calvin: Oh.
Dad: That's why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don't the people get burned up?
Dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That's why it is dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn't the sun crush the whole state when it lands?
Dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun's just about the same size.
Calvin: I thought I read that the sun was really big.
Dad: You can't believe everything you read, I'm afraid.
Calvin: So how does the sun rise in the east if it lands in Arizona each night?
Dad: Well, time for bed. 

This puts me more in the position, though, of being like Calvin's mother, doesn't it?  In one strip, Calvin asks his dad, "How do they figure out the load limit on bridges?" and his dad says, "They drive bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it breaks.  Then they weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge."  And Calvin's mom, perturbed, shouts, "Dear, if you don't know the answer, just say so."

Which brings us full circle.  There are lots of geopolitical reasons, I'm sure, that Vladimir Putin wants to invade the Crimea.  Some of them are probably logical, and perhaps some of them reflect a measure of megalomania.  However, I am reasonably certain that none of them involve dinosaur-built energy-warping pyramids that were constructed when the gravitational pull of the Earth was lower.

And to the people who are circulating this claim, I have only one thing to say: dear, if you don't know the answer, just say so.

The Cat in the Red and White Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Mind Control Hat

There are times -- and I say this with all due affection toward my fellow human beings -- that I wish people would just get a freakin' grip on reality.

I mean, yesterday's post was bad enough.  We had several individuals, including (scarily enough) some higher-ups on the Chicago police force, who evidently forgot to read the "All resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer on movies like Minority Report and The Sixth Sense.

But at least the people in yesterday's post can, apparently, tell the difference between a real live human and a cartoon character, which is more than I can say for the folks I ran across last night.

As surprising as it may sound to those of us whose skulls aren't filled with cobwebs and dead insects, this sort of thing isn't unprecedented.  This is far from the first time that we have had someone who has thought that cartoon characters actually existed.  Back in 2008 there was a Muslim imam who issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, saying, "The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him... Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases."  Not to be outdone, there was a serious discussion in academic circles two years later over the question of whether Dora the Explorer was an illegal immigrant.  Since I started Skeptophilia late in 2010 I've actually written about two additional cases -- one of my first posts ever was about an inquiry done by the Vatican that concluded that the Simpsons were Catholic, and the following year I wrote about a serious academic study done in France that proved that the Smurfs are communists.

How, you might ask, could it get any more ludicrous?  Oh, it can, friends and neighbors.  It can.

Because now we find out the Dr. Seuss's iconic character "The Cat in the Hat" is actually a symbol for the Illuminati takeover of the civilized world.

Avoid looking directly into his evil, evil eyes.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'd like to be able to say that this is all a joke, that we're looking at yet another example of Poe's Law.  But no, these people seem to be entirely serious.  Here's a representative passage:

About the “Cat in the Hat” which incorporates symbolic content of the mind control programs. See Cat in the Hat movie book showing symbolism, such as the RED and WHITE Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Hat with the GRAMOPHONE HORN inside aka Victor Listening to his MASTERS Voice, FEEline Basement, and holding a “HOE”. Dr. Seuss worked for Army Propaganda and had ties to Standard Oil. It opens to find a public lethargic, unimaginative and un-moving, without eyes to see and ears to hear, to an apparent hidden ideology, Cold War Communism. The moving force, The People of the Pagan Cat (The Cult of Freya), enters the cosmic domain of the American public UNINVITED (Operation PAPERCLIP).”

Yes!  I see it all, now!  And the Fish was Senator Joseph McCarthy, warning the American public of the danger, but would anyone listen?  Nooooooo!

At the end of the story, we're told, the Cat makes everything okay... at least, it seems that way:

The Cat restores order to the mess of CHAOS with Magic and a Luciferian illusion. Finally, Freya Rides and Wotan Reigns again, the cosmos is restored to its natural order and beauty (archaic paganism), and the fish is left with the dilemma of the Cat People’s ILLUMINATED mysticism, magic; and the mysterious SECRET ORDER over CHAOS; and Christianity.”

Ha ha!  Yes!  What?

And that's not all of the bad stuff that Dr. Seuss was up to.  I bet you never even knew that the famous Horton Hears a Who is actually about the New World Order.  First, there's the fact that the name "Horton" comes from "Horus" + "Aton."  And yes, I'm referring to the Egyptian gods, which are clearly relevant here.  But that's not all:

Here is some of what was revealed about what is currently happening on planet earth.

1. The whos live on a speck (earth).  The mayor of whoville communicated with Horton (god in the sky) who warns him that his speck is not safe.

2. No one will listen to the mayor who is trying warn everyone of the message. He points our that weather changes which are happening are precusors [sic] to the end of the world.

3. He declares that "martial law" should be imposed (this is a kids [sic] movie) and everyone who wants to survive should go underground to the safety bunkers.

4. A black vulture named "vlad" steals the speck from horton and drops it causing the first catastrophe. (planet x passing)

5. All the whos join together and form a wormhole, break the bounds of thier [sic] universe and are heard by horton (god) and are thereby spared and sent to the new world.

And don't even get me started about The Lorax.

You know, the world has got to be a seriously scary place when you see evil symbolism and portents of doom everywhere, even in children's cartoons.  It actually makes me feel kind of sorry for people who believe this stuff.  Now, to be fair, I'm willing to believe that sometimes I might be overly trusting of people -- I tend, usually, to think that most people are acting out of benevolent (or at least morally neutral) motives, most of the time.  And I will admit that there are cases when I'm probably wrong.

But fer cryin' in the sink, I would prefer to think the best of my fellow humans, and occasionally get kicked in the ass, than I would to go around thinking that every cloud in the sky has been seeded with poison by the Evil Government Overlords.  You have to wonder, if that's the way these folks see the world and the human race, why they think it's so important to blow the whistle.  Nihilism would be, on the whole, more pleasant.

Or maybe they're just batshit crazy.  I dunno.

Pre-crime, psychic nannies, and ghost cows

You'd think, after four years of writing Skeptophilia, that I'd be inured to wacko claims.

If anything, though, my incredulity has only increased over time.  "Are you kidding me right now?" I frequently say to my computer screen, while doing research.  But of course, talking to a computer doesn't earn me much in the way of Sanity Points myself, so perhaps I should just proceed on to the latest assaults on my suspension of disbelief that I've come across in the last few days.

First, from the "You Do Realize That That Was A Movie, Right?" department we have some people in the Chicago Police Department who want to create a Pre-Crime Division, à la Minority Report.

The people behind this are using an "analytical tool" developed at Yale to generate a list of four hundred or so people in the Chicago area that are identified as "most likely to be involved in violent crime" in the future.  "These are persons who the model has determined are those most likely to be involved in a shooting or homicide, with probabilities that are hundreds of times that of an ordinary citizen," a press release stated.  Commander Steven Caluris of the CPD added, "If you end up on that list, there's a reason you're there."

Righty-o.  Because that could never backfire.  People on the list apparently then receive visits from a law enforcement official, warning the pre-malefactors that Commander Caluris knows when they've been sleeping, he knows when they're awake, he knows when they've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness' sake.

Or something like that.

What strikes me about all of this, besides the fact that there has to be a constitutional law issue here somewhere, is how easily such a system could fuck up royally.  Speaking of movies we don't want to emulate, how about Brazil -- where a clerical error landed poor Archibald Buttle in the hands of Michael Palin as the psycho torture chamber supervisor.  I can only hope that wiser heads will prevail, even though historically, once someone lands on a "great idea for revolutionizing the field," it takes a complete crash and burn and usually several years of finger-pointing and blame-placing before things change.


Our second story is from Florida, where we have a woman who is billing herself as the world's only "psychic nanny."

Denise Lescano, of Naples, Florida, says that it's her mission in life to help families deal with children who can speak to dead people.

"This is not a scary thing, this is a very healing and comforting thing.  Many of the families that come to me, they really don't even believe in me, they are skeptical.  When I am able to help them and really pinpoint what is going on, it is incredibly validating and relieving for the family."

My reaction is that once again, we seem to have people who are confusing a movie with reality, in this case The Sixth Sense.  Yes, I know that children often make oddball claims, and that some of them can be downright spooky.  My younger son, when he was age six, scared the absolute shit out of me one time when he had a night terror.  I heard him scream, and leaped out of bed and flew down the hall -- it was about eleven at night, and at the time I was a single dad -- to find him sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes wide open, trembling.  I ran to him, and said, "Nathan, what's wrong?"

He pointed toward an empty corner of his room, and said, in this strange, deadpan voice, "It's staring at me."

As is typical with night terrors, he calmed down and went back to sleep after about ten minutes or so, and the next morning remembered nothing.  I, on the other hand, needed months of therapy to recover from the experience.

So, yeah, kids say bizarre things sometimes.  But I flatly refuse to believe that there was a monster (invisible to everyone but him) staring at my son from the corner of the bedroom; and the anecdotal reports of Kids Who See Ghosts that Ms. Lescano describes don't really do much for me, either.

Neither am I all that impressed by a claim out of Swaziland that a man was attacked and bitten by a Ghost Cow.  Amused, yes.  Impressed, no.

The whole thing apparently started when one Sikhumbuzo Ndwandwe, of the town of Vimbi, fell afoul of "one of the area's feared traditional healers," Lizwe Dlamini.  Dlamini evidently had lost several of her cows to a nighttime marauder who had hacked them to death with a machete.  Dlamini thought that Ndwandwe was responsible, and she took steps to have her revenge on him.

Ndwandwe was asleep, he said, when he felt something bite him.  He woke up to find that there was a "black ghost heifer who was feasting on his flesh," a phrase that makes me simultaneously want to guffaw and gag.  Alarmed (who wouldn't be?), he ran to Dlamini, begging her to call off the carnivorous bovine spirit, but she "wouldn't hear any of it."

Mynd yøu, cøw bites kan be pretti nasti.

Dlamini, when questioned by the police, expressed "surprise" that her ghost cow had bitten Ndwandwe, but then said that the law enforcement officials had better leave her alone, or she'd sic the cow on them, too.  Which kind of makes you wonder how surprised she actually was.  "I asked about the suspect, they pointed fingers at someone else hence my decision to handle it my way," she said, adding, "This applies also to the police officers who are tormenting me."

Don't even make me call out my Invisible Vampire Goats, she seems to be saying.  Although I will if I have to.

I don't, for the record, have a movie to compare this last story to.  I have never seen a movie about flesh-eating ghost cows, although if there ever is one made, I'll definitely go see it.

So, there you are, our crazy news items for today.  I have to say, I am a little in awe of people's ability to keep coming up with bizarre claims I'd never heard of before.  Maybe at some point I'll run out of material for this blog, but so far, it seems like keeping up with the constant flood of wingnuttery without losing my marbles myself is more the problem.

NASA, lawsuits, and jelly doughnuts

One of the questions you seldom hear asked, either of skeptics or of their counterparts, is, "What would it take to convince you that you were wrong?"

It was asked at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate, and it may have been the most telling moment of the whole thing; when Ken Ham said, "Nothing could ever convince me I was wrong," and Bill Nye said, "All it would take is one piece of hard evidence," it pointed out both the fruitlessness of debating people like Ham, and also the fundamental difference between a scientific viewpoint and a non-scientific one.  If you are a scientist, one piece of reliable evidence that your previously-held understanding is wrong would be sufficient to force a review of what you thought you knew.

I say "review" rather than "revision" because the one thing this leaves out is the quality of the evidence.  There are still the possibilities of measurement error, uncontrolled variables, and researcher bias to consider.  And factoring in these is no mean feat.  However, this is why peer review exists -- and why anecdotal reports, of the sort that are usually trotted out to support various woo-woo claims, don't sway me much.  If you want me to sit up and take notice, then go the traditional route of peer review.  Once you've done that, we can talk.

Of course, the problem is that a lot of woo-woos don't like peer review because they perceive the cards as stacked against them.  And this is when the whole issue takes on the added dimension of a systematic coverup.  In the first chapter of his wonderful book Voodoo Science, Robert Park tells the story of Joseph W. Newman, who claimed that he had circumvented both the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics by inventing an "energy machine" that could solve the world's problems by outputting more energy than was put into it -- in effect, a Perpetual Motion Machine With Benefits.  Scientists rolled their eyes and walked away, prompting Newman to blame his failure to get a patent on a conspiracy against him.  And while no one who understood any physics did much more than scoff, he gained considerable traction amongst people who love to see the Underdog take on The Man.

It's probably much the same sentiment that led to a guy named Rhawn Joseph to announce last week that he's suing NASA, claiming that the recent "jelly doughnut rock" situation was evidence of life on Mars -- but that NASA, in the way of Evil Government Agencies, was covering the whole thing up.

You might have heard about the "jelly doughnut," which made the news a couple of weeks ago.  It's a light-colored rock that appeared suddenly in the field of view of the Mars rover Opportunity where no such rock had been in earlier photographs.  The whole thing was certainly a shock -- any time you're doing remote sensing of another planet, and something plays now-you-don't-see-it, now-you-do, it makes scientists sit up and take notice.

[image courtesy of NASA]

To me, the rock doesn't look that much like a jelly doughnut; and NASA scientists called it, with marginally better justification, "Pinnacle Island."  But whatever you call it, it was sort of a mystery.  "Much of the rock is bright-toned, nearly white," a NASA spokesperson said, in a press release.  "A portion is deep red in color.  Pinnacle Island may have been flipped upside-down when a wheel dislodged it, providing an unusual circumstance for examining the underside of a Martian rock."

Well, as soon as I saw this, I knew that the woo-woos were not going to be able to resist wooing all over this story.  And it wasn't long before claims that this was alien life started to appear on fringe sites like Above Top Secret.  But now, we have someone going a step further, with a lawsuit against NASA that demands that they come clean about the nature of the rock.  Rhawn Joseph, a self-styled cosmologist, is demanding that the agency "perform a public, scientific, and statutory duty which is to closely photograph and thoroughly scientifically examine and investigate a putative biological organism."

The problem, of course, is that it remains to be seen what NASA could do that would convince Joseph that this was just a rock.  Joseph himself seems to have somewhat dubious allegiances; he has written for the Journal of Cosmology, a journal that biologist and skeptic P. Z. Myers says "... isn't a real science journal at all, but is the... website of a small group... obsessed with the idea of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth."  As for Joseph himself, it's fairly significant that he was involved in a rather ugly shouting match with astronomer David Brin and JoC editor-in-chief Rudolf Schild over a paper Joseph had submitted for review to Brin which Brin said contained "glaring faults."

So Joseph is not, perhaps, someone with the highest credibility in the scientific world to begin with; but leaving that aside (as we must, because it's always important to separate the claim from the claimant), does he have a basis for suing NASA to force them to reveal what they're hiding?

In a word: no.  I mean, think about it.  What earthly (or Martian, to be more precise) reason would NASA scientists have to cover up evidence of life on Mars?  The first scientists to demonstrate the existence of extraterrestrial life will be instantaneously famous.  Especially, as in this case, if the living thing in question is large, multicellular, and capable of slithering quickly into the view of a remote camera.  Considering that NASA has been trying to figure out if there was life on Mars since the Viking probes of the 1970s, it's highly unlikely that they'd cover it up if some living creature just happened to photobomb Opportunity's surface photographs.

But that sort of logic is apparently not convincing to Joseph.  "The refusal to take close up photos from various angles, the refusal to take microscopic images of the specimen, the refusal to release high resolution photos, is inexplicable, recklessly negligent, and bizarre," Joseph said, in the text of the lawsuit.

You have to wonder how the folks at NASA are responding to all of this.  Considering the bullshit they have to deal with on a daily basis -- whether or not Nibiru is heading toward Earth, what the current position of the Comet Elenin is, what our likelihood is of being struck by a huge asteroid -- I can only imagine that they just rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, hell, not another freakin' lawsuit."

And of course, even if the lawsuit is settled in NASA's favor -- which I can only hope it will be -- it's doubtful that it will silence Joseph and his supporters.  As I've commented before, once you've decided that everyone is lying to you, there is no piece of evidence that will be sufficient to convince you.

It is the salient point, really, and the acid test for whether you've left the realm of science.  If ever you are asked, "what would convince you that you are wrong?" and your answer is "nothing ever could," you are no longer doing science.  You are off in the rarefied air of woo-wooism -- and it might just be time for a u-turn.

Dentophobia

I only have one real phobia, and that is: dentists.

I know where this phobia came from.  My childhood dentist, Dr. Webre, was not of the kind, gentle, "you seem to be uncomfortable, do you need more Novocaine?" variety.  Dr. Webre graduated from the Josef Mengele School of Dentistry.  Once, when I was about nine years old, he was filling a small cavity, and I could still feel the drill.  I tried to man up, and was doing my best not to scream, but evidently I flinched a little.  Dr. Webre's response?

"Stop that jerkin' around, or this drill is going to go right through your face."

He said this to a nine-year-old child.

I know, as an atheist, that I don't believe in hell, but I'd almost be willing to revise my belief system if somehow it would mean that Dr. Webre was there.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned that when he removed my wisdom teeth, he broke one of them.  Into three pieces.

So, like I said, it's kind of understandable that I have an absurdly powerful fear of dentists.  I start feeling nauseated about a week before an appointment, and it doesn't go away until I'm in the car driving home afterwards.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Doctors have made great strides in treating deep-seated phobias.  The trick is disconnecting the limbic system fear-response from whatever the stimulus is, and is often accomplished through a combination of medications and exposure therapy.  The problem is, exposure therapy means... exposing yourself to the cause of the phobia.  In my case, it was much easier just to avoid the whole thing and hope that my teeth wouldn't fall out.

Now, let me say up front that my current dentist is awesome.  He has this wonderful thing called "sedation dentistry" in cases where you need something major done.  You not only more or less sleep through the entire procedure, you don't remember anything afterwards.  I saw this work wonderfully when my younger son, Nathan, had his wisdom teeth extracted.  Nathan was given a combination of diazepam and triazolam prior to going in.  You might be wondering what these two drugs are, so allow me to explain that the difference is that diazepam has two azepams, while triazolam has three azolams.

Okay, I admit, I have no idea what those drugs are.  But they were amazing.  When Nathan came out of the dentist's office after the extractions, he was showing the level of agitation normally associated with lobotomy victims.  On the way home, he had to exert all of his effort to avoid drooling on the upholstery.  He went right to bed, woke up five hours later, and had no memory of any of it, then or since.

So I'd seen the whole thing work splendidly, but I still couldn't bring myself to go in.  My feeling was that I'd have needed some diazepam and triazolam just to be able to make the phone call and make an appointment without fainting or throwing up.  But last month, I realized I had to do something, because one of my teeth was kind of sensitive, and I was worried that if I didn't get it checked I was probably going to regret it.

So I called and made an appointment.  The only way I was able to do it was that I kept telling myself that (1) I could cancel it if I freaked out too badly, and (2) Dr. Webre wasn't going to be there, cackling and rubbing his hands together maniacally, when I got to the dentist's office.

I made it through the following month, barely.  The nightmares started about a week before the appointment.  I couldn't concentrate on anything but the thought of OH DEAR GOD I HAVE A DENTAL APPOINTMENT IN A WEEK.  Then it was the day before, and the day of, and a sort of gallows-hilarity descended upon me.  Yesterday, during my classes, I had this frenetic, hysterical energy.  "Ha ha!" my brain seemed to be saying.  "May as well laugh, given that you're going to die in five hours!"

I know that this may all seem ridiculous to my readers who aren't phobic about anything.  But I am not exaggerating when I say that anyone who has a phobia about something they have to deal with on a daily basis -- like going outside, or the dark, or insects -- must truly exist in perpetual agony.

Anyway, I drove to the dentist's office, was welcomed warmly by first the secretary and then the hygienist, and taken into the examining room.  And...

... everything went fine.

My sensitive tooth turned out to be a little bit of root exposure from receding gums.  The hygienist and the dentist both said that it was nothing to worry about, that it could be treated with a sensitive-teeth toothpaste and a fluoride rinse, and failing that, the spot could be sealed with a simple procedure that takes about 45 minutes and doesn't even require Novocaine.  Everything else about my mouth was fine, which shocked everyone given that the last time I'd been in the chair was fifteen years ago.

Dumb luck, sometimes, is a wonderful thing.

So they made me promise to come back in a year for a cleaning.  I said I would, and I think I was being honest.  As exposure therapy goes, this one may have been fairly successful.  I can only hope that next year, I won't go through the agonizing four weeks between phone call and appointment, picturing every possible worst-case scenario my limbic system can dredge up.  I think, actually, that I won't worry very much at all.

Take that, Dr. Webre.