This is your brain during the apocalypse

Given the rather apocalyptic bent of the last two posts, it was kind of a curious coincidence that a student of mine sent me a link to a study that was published last week in the journal Nature - Neuroscience.  The gist seems to be that our brains are just not wired to expect, and therefore prepare for, calamities.

The study, done by a group of German and British scientists, created descriptions of a series of eighty pleasant to unpleasant events, of varying likelihood -- contracting a fatal disease, getting a better job, being mugged, winning the lottery, having one's house burn down, finding a $20 bill on the street, getting in a car accident.  The subjects were asked to estimate the likelihood of each of these events happening to them.  Afterwards, the researchers told the subjects the actual probabilities -- and, not surprisingly, the subjects had overestimated some risks, and underestimated others.

Where it got interesting was that the researchers resurveyed the subjects after some time had passed, and found that they were able to adjust their perceptions of probability -- but only for the favorable outcomes and the unfavorable ones that they'd overestimated.  Their perception of their risk for the unfavorable outcomes they'd underestimated remained too low, as if they couldn't quite bring themselves to believe that a bad outcome was more likely than they'd thought.

Further, they did fMRIs on the subjects while they were taking the surveys, and found that when they considered future calamities, a part of the frontal cortex would activate, a part of the brain that seems to act as a shield to keep us from dwelling on negative emotions.  In the words of the researchers:

We found that optimism was related to diminished coding of undesirable information about the future in a region of the frontal cortex (right IFG) that has been identified as being sensitive to negative estimation errors . . . this human propensity toward optimism is facilitated by the brain's failure to code errors in estimation when those call for pessimistic updates. This failure results in selective updating, which supports unrealistic optimism that is resistant to change.

This is a fascinating result.  I wonder, though, how this explains the uncommon, but uncommonly loud, ones amongst us who are doomsayers.  We have religious apocalyptics like Ronald Weinland, who seem to drool over the prospects of nuclear war, the fall of the American government, and the Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of Unbelievers.  Then, we have our small-scale pessimists, who relish the prognostication of doom from a variety of causes, from ecological catastrophe to economic collapse, from asteroid collisions to massive, Contagion-style plagues.

Do these folks just have a less active right IFG?  Or are they the true realists, and the rest of us Pollyannas?  In my Environmental Science class, I warn fairly consistently against a blithely optimistic, "Oh, We'll Fix Things Somehow, We Always Do" approach to ecological problems.  But my own approach tends to optimism, as well; I always end my Environmental Science course, in the last lecture of the year, by saying, "We've talked about a lot of negative, worrisome stuff in this class, but if I was a pessimist, I wouldn't be a teacher.  Go out and change the world."

I've always liked to think that I approach life rationally, and that my opinions and attitudes are largely based upon reason, evidence, and logic.  But given the results of the study in Nature - Neuroscience, I'm left wondering if my generally bouncy, upbeat attitude is a brain-wiring phenomenon, and therefore not reflective of the way the world actually is.

Ye gods, that's a depressing thought.  Maybe I shouldn't think about this any more.  I mean, it's not like my perceptions could be that far wrong, right?

Of course right.

Tilting plates and the Lost Tribes of Israel

I've always had a fascination for geology, so when I saw the website about a collapse of the tectonic plates underneath Java and Pakistan, I had to take a look.  (Here's the site.)

Now, if you go to the link, and you're like most people, you'll probably notice the header and immediately roll your eyes.  Not always being the most observant person in the world, I focused instead on the headline, which shrieks about a twenty-foot drop in the coastline of Java, "confirmed by Google satellite."  Then followed maps, including one purporting to show that the shore was now submerged under twenty feet of water.  Despite this devastation, there was "total silence on the international news" about the event.

At this point, even I began to get suspicious, but I kept reading -- and found that the article said that Pakistan was sinking, too, and that the devastation it experienced from the floods during the summer of 2010 was due to the "western end of the Indo-Australian plate tilting downwards."  This subsidence meant that when the rains came, there was nowhere for the water to go.

Now, I'm no geologist, but I do know enough to recognize that plates don't just "tilt downwards" suddenly.  Both Pakistan and Indonesia are geologically active, yes; but they aren't even on the same plate boundary (Pakistan is at the margin of the Indian and Arabian plates, Indonesia at the margin of the Australian and Eurasian plates).  What happens at one boundary isn't going to have much of an effect at the other.

So, at this point, the needle on my bullshittometer was pegged.  But it turns out that there was more to come  Here's the conclusion of the article:

It’s time to stay prepared.  The G-d of Israel is now rearranging Planet Earth.  The continent that once was the home of Adam and Eve in the Gans Eden, will soon be restored. That Paradise was created and then lost by disobedience and defiance against the sovereign will of G-d.  Yet, a “Plan” was made for redemption and restoration of Gans Eden again. As the prophets of Israel have collectively revealed, complete redemption and restoration will only come through apocalyptic catastrophes. The “Appointed Time” appears to now have arrived.  The Lost Tribes of the House of Israel will soon be restored.  The rest of the House of Judah will be reunited not only with their own Orthodox brothers in Israel but also with their cousins, the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.  All will be reunited in the Messiah.

(The writer seems to be unusually fond of "Bold," doesn't he?)

What I find curious here is how long it took for me to recognize that something was amiss.  (And that's excusing my missing the header on the website - if you didn't check out the link, it says, "Destination Yisra'el: A Blog for the Lost Ten Tribers Awakening to Their New Reality.")  And even once I began to realize that the author was making some fairly wild claims, I kept looking for a way to buy the central premise -- that there was some kind of odd tectonic shift happening in Asia.  It was only when I got to the part about reestablishing the Garden of Eden that I went, "Oh.  It's just another woo-woo wingnut.  I see."  (And if you want a more thorough debunking of the above site, including where the satellite images came from, go here for a fine illustration of the fact that even woo-woos sometimes police their own.)

One of my faults, I suppose, is that I want to believe people.  I don't like starting from the assumption that a lot of folks are (1) liars, (2) morons, (3) dupes, or (4) all three.  That's the road to cynicism, and I hope I never cross the line from skeptic to cynic, because that's a pretty dry, dusty world to live in.  But what it does mean is that I always tend to give people a shot at making sense, unless the first shot goes right through their own feet (as was the case with yesterday's Nouveau Apocalyptic, Ronald Weinland). 

Hope springs eternal, I guess, even in the heart of a snarky rationalist like myself.  And if that hope is sometimes doomed to be dashed, I suppose that's just the way of things.  I do believe that almost everyone is capable of thinking logically and critically -- and although this blog is largely devoted to people who don't, it won't stop me looking for, and celebrating, the ones who do.

Just call me the Diogenes of skepticism.

Next up at bat...

Now that Harold Camping has officially retired as Chief Prognosticator of the Apocalypse, we have a new ultrareligious wingnut stepping in to fill his shoes.

Ronald Weinland, minister in the Church of God - PKG (Preparing for the Kingdom of God), has said that Jesus is coming back to Earth on May 27, 2012, thus beating the Mayans by almost seven months.

According to Weinland,

January 7, 2012, is another important occurrence for the timing of God’s work and end-time events. This date is an important crossroad in time as it ends a prophetically historic portion of time in Daniel that consists of a prophetic measure of “time” and “times” that began after Trumpets of 2009. January 8 of this year begins the final “half-a-time” of this full prophetic period known as “time, times, and half-a-time.” That day is the start of the final period of 140 days (half-a-time) that leads up to the very coming of the Messiah spoken of in those same prophecies of Daniel.

The "Trumpets of 2009?"  I remember 2009 very clearly, and I don't recall any trumpets.  But maybe they were playing somewhere else, I dunno.

It's interesting, if you go to his website (here), that his listing of holy days to be observed by his followers continues all the way up into 2014.  You'd think that if Jesus was returning to Earth in May to kick some ass, it would render the whole thing moot, as aren't the true believers supposed to be assumed bodily into heaven after that?  Even if I'm wrong on that point, you'd think that worship service schedules would be suspended given the fact that the United States is supposed to "fall" after experiencing a nuclear war this spring.  Kind of pointless to hold a church service if all the believers are in heaven, and all of the potential converts are dead, don't you think?  His website is unclear on that point, but one thing that is mighty clear is that if you want to follow him and as a result "be impregnated by the spirit of God," you need to give him 10% of your after-tax income.

Seriously.

Of course, he's fully expecting that people like me will ignore his words.  "The truth is ridiculed, ignored, slandered, and mocked," he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that many of us also ridicule, ignore, slander, and mock people who obviously have a screw loose.  But then, he pulls out his trump card; anyone who mocks him, he says, "will be smitten by God with cancer."

Wow.  I... I don't know what to say.  Should I start setting aside money for my chemotherapy now?  It probably wouldn't do any good, I guess, given my suspicion that what gets smitten by god stays smitten.

In all seriousness, people like him anger me -- not because I don't think that everyone has a right to believe whatever they want to, but because his loony apocalyptic worldview is bound to be appealing to the weak, the easily deluded, those looking for something solid to grab on to.  And these folks will likely bankrupt themselves to pay the tithes that Weinland demands; this happened to many of the followers of Weinland's previous church, the Worldwide Church of God, when it was led by the charismatic Herbert W. Armstrong -- leading many to characterize it as a cult.

I know that there's no way to stop people like Weinland; the American laws governing freedom of religion are there for a reason.  But when does religion cross the line into victimization?  At what point does a church become a cult?  These aren't easy questions.  But I do know one thing:

I'm not cancelling my summer plans, because I'll bet you a thousand dollars we're all still here come May 28.

Saturday shorts

Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're following a few breaking stories that you might be interested in.

First, the BBC reports (here) that the government of Sweden has recognized a new religion.  It is called "the Church of Kopimism," and was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student Isak Gerson.  Its central tenet is that the holiest of holy rituals is...

... file sharing.

Yup.  They believe that ctrl-C and ctrl-V are sacred symbols, and using them is akin to a religious ritual. 

"For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament," Gerson said in a statement.  "Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore copying is central for the organisation and its members.  Being recognised by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi.  Hopefully this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution."

Um, okay.  Like we can't see where this one is going:

Investigator:  "You're under arrest for illegally making and selling ten thousand pirated copies of Skyrim, netting $200,000 in the process."

Suspect:  "But, sir, I'm a card-carrying member of the Church of Kopimism."

Investigator:  (in a disappointed voice)  "Oh.  Okay, then.  Have a nice day."

Of course, given how rich some of the head honchos of other religions have become from their nutty beliefs, it's hard to see what the actual difference is.


Next, the show Finding Bigfoot has once again given us skeptics a chance for a good belly laugh with this clip, in which we see three apparently entirely serious people attempting to imitate what Bigfoot sounds like.  We have a guy imitating the "high-pitched scream" that Sasquatches make, which in his version sounds like he was goosed in the ass with a pointy stick.  Then a guy who appears to be wearing a raccoon cap does a few of what he calls "Squatch grunts" and a siren call.

But the funniest moment is when the first guy does an imitation of what Sasquatch language sounds like.  I can't possibly reproduce this in print, but all I can say is, if you can watch this bit of the clip without wetting your pants, you've got a Bladder of Steel.  Especially given that afterwards, Raccoon Cap Guy says, in complete seriousness, "Naw.  It sounds better than that."


Speaking of unintelligible communications, next we have a story about scientists at UC-Berkeley who are trying to decipher some radio signals that might be of alien provenance. 

Apparently, some signals picked up by a radio telescope being used by SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Life) made astronomers' ears perk up.  "These signals look similar to what we think might be produced from an extraterrestrial technology," researchers wrote on the project's website Friday.  "They are narrow in frequency, much narrower than would be produced by any known astrophysical phenomena, and they drift in frequency with time, as we would expect because of the Doppler effect imposed by the relative motion of the transmitter and the receiving radio telescope."

Of course, this doesn't mean that they are extraterrestrial in origin, and fortunately, they're all being very careful to make sure that the public understands that.  Seth Shostak, an astronomer who has been associated for years with SETI, responded to the announcement with his typical caution, stating that it is all too likely that the signal is a transmission that originated on Earth.  "They're definitely picking up an intelligent species, but one that's likely well known to us -- ourselves," Shostak told reporters.  "This is very common. It would require quite a bit of follow-up to determine whether it's E.T. or just AT&T."


Last, we have news in from scientists at Central European University in Hungary that in terms of cognition, dogs are about as smart as your average six-month-old.  In particular, their ability to understand "intent to communicate" was about as highly developed as an infant's.  This was determined by an experiment in which a researcher took sixteen dogs, and tried to get them to look at a container that had food in it.  In the first trial, she said, "Hi, dog," in a low voice, without making eye contact, and then looked at the food container.  In the second, she said, "Hi, dog!" in a high-pitched voice, made eye contact, and then looked at the food container.  The result, she said, was that in the second trial, the dogs spent more time looking at the food container, as if they understood that she was trying to communicate something -- while in the first, they didn't get it because there seemed to be no "intent to communicate."

I'm doubtful, frankly.  If they'd used my dogs, I can tell you that they would have spent the entire time looking at the food container no matter what the researcher did.  My dogs spend a lot of time staring at containers of food, because they are apparently convinced that if they just look at it long enough, it will magically pop open and spill food all over the floor.  They also attempt this kind of canine telekinesis at dinner time, when they seem to be trying to will my t-bone steak to slide off the plate and into their waiting jaws.  Why they keep trying this, when it never works, is beyond me.  But at least it keeps them occupied.


So, that's our news for today.  The Church of File-Sharing, Bigfoot noises, alien radio signals, and communicating with your dog.  We tirelessly scour the world's news for the latest oddball developments, so you can have these stories delivered to your doorstep.  No thanks are necessary, but if you have an extra copy of Skyrim handy, just pop it in the mail, because we'd really like to give it a try.

An alien cathouse

Hey, guys -- have you ever found yourself jealous of Captain James T. Kirk, who wherever he went, always had to fight off the seven-foot-tall green women with brass corsets, who had been waiting for a galactic era for Kirk to show up and hop into bed with them?  New worlds to explore, new alien women to shag, that was the life for Kirk.  And c'mon, you have to admit that would have its attractive side.

Well, fire up the warp drive, because soon you might be able to experience something of that thrill, if (1) you don't mind going to Nevada, and (2) you're really good at suspending your disbelief.

Dennis Hof, entrepreneur and owner of several (legal) brothels, is now planning on opening an alien-themed one, presumably to attract the science nerd demographic.  The whole thing will have an Area 51 theme, with rooms decorated to look like alien worlds, and the women will have costumes, and (it is to be surmised) large quantities of body paint.  For costume design, Hof has hired none other than Heidi Fleiss, the "Hollywood Madam," who gained notoriety after being arrested for running a high-priced prostitution ring in southern California.

"She's the chief alien design queen," Hof told the Las Vegas Review-Journal two days ago.

Well.  It's not that I disapprove of anything done between consenting adults, as long as no one gets hurt; but doesn't this all strike you as kind of... silly?  Personally, I think the whole thing would make me laugh, not feel frisky.  And wouldn't the body paint... um, rub off?  Antennae get knocked askew?  Pointed ears come loose?  I mean, role play is one thing, but this would require a suspension of belief that I doubt I'd find myself capable of, even if for some reason I had the desire to get it on with one of the Blue Amazon Women of Bazonga-4.

Which I don't, particularly.

I'm sure, however, there will be plenty of guys who do.  There's a whole subgenre of science fiction that is basically alien erotica, so evidently there are people who get off on that sort of thing (literally and figuratively).  So whatever my personal reluctance would be, I have no doubt that there are a sizable number of guys who have every episode of Star Trek memorized, and who would be thrilled to have an opportunity to experience sex with a Vulcan woman.  (I'm guessing that logic would have very little to do with it, however.)  And my guess is that when the brothel opens, the crew of the USS Intercourse will have no shortage of business.

So, anyway, that's the news from Worldwide Wacko Watch for today.  An alien brothel in Nevada, as if Nevada needed anything to make it weirder.  A place to seek out strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly come where no man has come before.

President Obama in space

Whatever you think of the accomplishments of one president or another, it can't be easy to hold the highest office in the land.  And one of the most trying things are the prognostications of the political pundits, calculating your popularity on a daily basis, noting how your decisions effect your standing.  Imagine if every day on television, you heard people like Wolf Blitzer make statements about you like, "Steve's decision to tailgate the slow-moving elderly guy in the Buick today really cost him in the polls.  We know he was late to work, but it may not have been the prudent thing to do.  Given the fact that when he finally passed the old guy, Steve flipped the him off, this clearly will trigger a loss of popularity in the above-65 age bracket.  We calculate that Steve's approval rating went down 2.8% for this reason alone."

By the way, did you know that Wolf Blitzer is his real name?  I always doubted that, from the first time I heard it.  It always sounded to me like one of those made-up names, the way romance novel authors always have names like "Desiderata St. Cloud."  In fact, I once bet one of my students that it was a pseudonym, so we looked it up -- and it turns out that no, it is his real name, and in fact "Wolf" is a traditional name in his pack.  Er, family.

But I digress.

Anyhow, my point is that it's got to be hard to hear everyone having an opinion about what you're doing, if you're president.  Just look at what the Grand Warlock of Mexico said, just a couple of days ago.

First of all, did you know that Mexico had a Grand Warlock?  I didn't.  It sounds like a fun job, although you apparently have to grow your hair and beard out and look really scraggly, at least to judge by the current one, Antonio Vazquez.  Vazquez, who lives in Catemaco, practices brujeria, or a Central American form of sorcery, and each year he makes highly publicized predictions.  Last year, for example, he predicted that in 2011 a South American leader would be assassinated.

Okay, that didn't technically come true, but this hasn't stopped people from seeking out his help, nor from listening to his predictions.  And his main prediction this year: President Obama will lose the 2012 election.

To me, it seems a bit early to be making these kinds of statements, given that we don't even know who the Republican nominee will be.  But this hasn't stopped Vazquez, who has also predicted that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will have "a terrible relapse" of his cancer.

Vazquez learned all this, he says, from "Tarot cards and observations of the stars."

And this isn't the end of President Obama's current problems, either; we now have a devastating revelation that he secretly went to Mars in the 1980s.

This story, broken by noted wingnut Alfred Lambremont Webre, states that two "high-ranking government advisors," Andrew Basiago and William Stillings, not only saw Obama in "Mars training classes" in 1980,  but that they both saw him on Mars, in the "rudimentary U.S. facilities" that were built on Mars between 1981 and 1983.

Obama, then a teenager, was teleported with nine other teenagers to Mars from a "staging room" at Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles.  "I can confirm that Andrew D. Basiago and Barack Obama (then using the name "Barry Soetoro") were in my Mars training course in Summer , I encountered Andy, Courtney M. Hunt of the CIA, and other Americans on the surface of Mars after reaching Mars via the 'jump room' in El Segundo, California.”

Well, all I can say is, I'm sure this will make Obama's approval rating go down even further.  The idea that the President of the United States participated in a Teenagers in Space program, not to mention got to teleport, and didn't tell the rest of us, is just reprehensible.  Next thing you know, we'll find out that while he was on Mars, he got caught in a rip in the space-time continuum and had to be returned to Earth by Geordi LaForge, because otherwise it would change history so that Michele Bachmann wins the 2012 presidential election, which would cause a massive exodus of everyone with a triple-digit IQ from the United States, but now there's a problem on the Enterprise with antimatter containment in the warp core, which causes several of the non-essential red-shirted Starfleet members to get flung against the wall and die, but fortunately Captain Picard comes up with a brilliant plan and the whole thing is resolved before the credits roll.

In any case, I don't know how much all of this bad news is going to cost President Obama.  First, a warlock in Mexico says he's going to be defeated in the upcoming election, and then we find out he participated in a highly classified space program that was top secret to everyone but Alfred Lambremont Webre.  I'd think that's gotta cost him some percentage points.  Maybe Wolf Blitzer knows for sure.

The rampages of Oily Man

New Jersey has the Jersey Devil.  West Virginia has Mothman.  Southern England has Spring-heeled Jack.  All sightings of mysterious, humanoid creatures with distinctly non-human features, who are capable of running, jumping and (in some cases) vanishing in a way no normal person could, and who are blamed for strings of attacks on a terrified citizenry.

And now, in Malaysia, we have the orang minyak -- "Oily Man."

According to a story on the Asia News Network, residents of Gombak, Selangor province, have been terrorized lately by an entity (or more than one of them) that would certainly scare the crap out of me -- a large, muscular, half-naked man, with glowing eyes -- and completely covered in oil.

The orang minyak, so goes the legend, is a resident of the dense forest, and comes out at night with the intent of finding human women to have his way with.  In the case of the recent sightings, there have been a couple of unsuccessful attacks -- the women Oily Man attacked escaped unscathed -- but there have been multiple reports of oily footprints, and in one case a human-shaped oil patch on the ground where the orang minyak is alleged to have slept.  One resident, Aslam Khan, says he got a good look at one.

"I saw the bald orang minyak hiding behind the water tank of a house at about two in the morning," Khan told reporters.  "It was breathing really loudly, like a cow.  It was black and shiny.  When I shone my light on it, the thing stuck out its head to look back at me.  Before I could do anything, it climbed up the roof and disappeared."

Khan said that upon investigation, they had found the spot where the orang minyak conducts its nightly oil bath and reciting of jampi (ritual prayers).  I'm relieved, actually.  At least Oily Man is observing the religious formalities.  Who knows what an atheist Oily Man might be capable of?

The article in question clearly treated the appearances of the orang minyak as a paranormal occurrence; and that's obviously what the residents of Gombak think.  In fact, their explanation is that the orang minyak is a spirit that is attempting to complete its initiation into black magic and become a full-fledged demon, and in order to do so has to have sex with a certain (unspecified) number of human women.  To which I say: I'm doubtful.  If I were a resident of Gombak, I would be looking for a guy who seems to be buying more than his fair share of Head & Shoulders Greasy Hair Formula Shampoo.

Once again, I have to ask the question of why people seem so determined to jump to a paranormal explanation for something that admits of a simple, logical, and rational solution.  It's all well and good to say, "Well, those are superstitious people, down there in Malaysia" -- which may or may not be true, and ignores the fact that we self-congratulatory Americans have our own way of ignoring Ockham's Razor (consider how many people read, and trust, horoscopes, and how rich the "Psychic Hot Line" people are).  So it's perhaps unjustified for us to point fingers.  But whatever the source of the attacks -- be it an evil spirit with an affinity for grease, or a sexual predator taking advantage of a credulous populace -- I hope they stop soon.  The article stressed how tense the people of Gombak were becoming, having to be on guard round-the-clock.  I can see how that would wear on one, whatever the nature of the attacker -- paranormal or otherwise.