Falling for fear talk

Ignorance and fear go together.  They grow in the same environments, and feed off each other like some sort of bizarre pair of symbiotic life forms.  The antidote to both is knowledge and understanding.

It's astonishing, though, how resistant some people are to taking that particular medicine.  For example, consider what happened last week in Louisville, Kentucky, where a teacher resigned over parental fears that she was carrying Ebola after a trip to Africa.

Susan Sherman, a religious education teacher at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School, had recently returned from a mission trip to Kenya.  When she got back home, the administration required her to produce a health note from her doctor, and to take a "precautionary 21 day leave."

Parents began to call in with concerns.  Would she be quarantined during that time?  What if this wasn't sufficiently long to cover the incubation period of the disease?  Was it safe to let her come back at all?

So Sherman resigned.

Can we just clarify one thing, here, to you provincial Americans who failed high school geography?  Africa is not one country.  It's lots of countries.

And it's freakin' huge.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The continent of Africa is larger than Europe, China, India, and the United States combined.  The distance between Kenya (where Ms. Sherman was) and Nigeria (the nearest country that had a case of Ebola in the recent outbreak) is about 2000 miles -- about the same as the distance between Washington, D. C. and Phoenix, Arizona.

So if there'd been some cases of Ebola in Arizona, would you force teachers in Washington, D.C. to take 21-day leaves "just in case?"

Look, I understand why people panic about this thing.  Ebola is one terrifying virus.  The end stages of the disease are about as grotesque as anything I can think of.  But the situation isn't going to be helped by succumbing to the media's perpetual fear-talk.

Listen to the scientists.  I know, it's a radical proposal, but still.  And the scientists say:

1. Ebola is hard to catch.  You have to come into direct contact with the body fluids of a person who has active Ebola symptoms in order to catch the disease.
2. The disease is not transmissible at all during its incubation period.
3. This outbreak has been limited to West Africa, in particular the countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.  All of the people who have contracted Ebola have had contact with individuals from that region.
4. The handful of verified cases in the United States have been managed through quarantine and aggressive medical treatment, and all but one of them have survived the disease.

So basically: calm down.  The likelihood of this becoming a global pandemic is slim to none.  

Not that this is going to help Ms. Sherman, who is now out of a job because of the ignorant fears of a few parents, and an administration who didn't have the sense to stand up to them.  Instead of telling those parents, "Read the medical literature.  Also learn some geography," they allowed hype to rule the day, in the name of "precaution."

And in the end, the students and staff of St. Margaret Mary Catholic School were exactly as safe as they were to start with (i.e., very safe), and a teacher who decided to go to Kenya to help people is having to search the employment ads.

Lamar no like science!

It is a minor mystery why someone would volunteer for a job (s)he is clearly unqualified to do.

For example, I would not volunteer for my school district's Technology Advisory Committee.  My prehistoric understanding of technology is legendary in my school.  My general approach to computers is, "Thag push 'on' button."  If that doesn't work, my reaction is, "Thag no like!  Thag hit computer with rock!"

So any input I might have about advancing our school's technology program would be more or less meaningless, unless it involved making sure each classroom came equipped with a rock.

The whole thing comes up because of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.  Because it seems to me like this committee -- which, by the name, you would think is comprised of people who are well-versed in science -- is largely populated by people who would make the aforementioned Thag look like a Rhodes Scholar.

First, we have Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a climate change denier who referred to the findings of 97% of the world's climate scientists as "liberal claptrap."  About the issue, he made the following baffling statement:

Once again those with a global agenda have created a straw man by misrepresenting the position of their critics. I do not believe that CO2 is a cause of global warming, nor have I ever advocated the reduction of CO2 through the clearing of rainforests or cutting down older trees to prevent global warming.

In what pretend world would scientists suggest clearing rainforests to combat global warming?  This is either a straw man about straw men, or it's just idiotic.

Then there's Randy Weber (R-TX), whose lack of understanding of basic science led him to say, "I just don’t know how you all prove those theories going back 50 or 100,000 or even millions of years."  Really, Representative Weber?  You could fix that, you know.

By taking a damn science class.

How about Bill Posey (R-FL)?  He's another climate change denier, whose idea of a scientifically-sound argument goes like this:

I remember in the ’70s, that [cooling] was the threat, the fear.  I’ve read that during the period of the dinosaurs, that the Earth’s temperature was 30° warmer.  Does that seem fathomable to you?

The "period of the dinosaurs?"  Oh, you mean that span of time that lasted 200 million years, and during which there were numerous climatic ups and downs, including at least one ice age?  Perhaps you're referring to the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, in which the average sea surface maximum temperature seems to have been a whopping five degrees warmer than it is today.

Or perhaps you're just a moron.

Then there's Paul Broun (R-GA), who famously referred to evolution as "lies straight from the pit of hell," and that the Earth was created "in six days as we know them."  Of course, Broun is now a lame duck, but he was replaced by Jody Hice (in congress if not necessarily on the Science Committee).  Hice, if anything, may be worse.  He is not only a creationist and a climate change denier, he believes that "homosexuality enslaves people," that women could hold political office "if it's within the authority of her husband," and that "blood moons" -- better known to actual astronomers as lunar eclipses -- could be omens that signal "world-changing events."

And, of course, the whole committee is under the leadership of Lamar Smith (R-TX), who laments the the latest report by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) "says nothing new" in its statement that "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems will occur if humanity keeps its carbon emissions on a business-as-usual course."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Exactly, Representative Smith.  Exactly.  It says precisely what all of the other scientific reports from the past ten years have said.  And the scientists wouldn't have to say the same fucking thing over and over if people like you would listen.

I'm not nearly well-versed enough in the machinations of politics to get how people like this could end up leading science policy in the United States.  My suspicious side can't shuck the niggling feeling that it's a deliberate disinformation campaign, designed to keep gullible and/or poorly-educated voters in a state of ignorance about how science works.  It's possible, of course, that these lamebrains are simply an example of the Peter Principle -- the idea that in the business world, people keep getting promoted until they finally find themselves in a job they have no idea how to do, and then they stay there forever.

Whatever the cause, one thing is clear, though.

Lamar no like science.  Lamar hit science with rock.

The big bad wolf

Given that most of what I do here at Skeptophilia is to rail against people whose primary form of exercise is jumping to conclusions, it's nice to see that occasionally someone gets it right.

And it is, unfortunately, still only "occasionally" at this point. Popular websites are much more likely to leap from reality right into woo-woo-land over any number of claims, from ghosts to El Chupacabra to demons to Bigfoot to psychics.

Hard evidence?

We don't need no stinkin' hard evidence.

But there's a claim out of Macedonia that has stirred up the cryptozoological world, and the folks over at Phantoms and Monsters (of all people...!) are taking exactly the right approach with it.

First, let's look at the claim.

What apparently happened is that a farmer named Trayche, in the village of Novo Selo Stipsko, was plowing his field, and his plow hit an obstacle that turned out to be a wooden box wrapped in a chain. Hoping it was buried treasure, Trayche cut the chain and opened the box, and found...

... this:

The last word, which comes out (more or less) "vrekolak" if you put it into English phonetics, is apparently a word that means (once again, more or less) "werewolf:"

Sabine Baring-Gould explains the many variations of lycanthrope folklore in "The Book of Werewolves," noting the term "vrekolak" resembles the Greek term "bourkolakas." 

"The Greek werewolf is closely related to the vampire. The lycanthropist falls into a cataleptic trance, during which his soul leaves his body, enters that of a wolf and ravens for blood. On the return of the soul, the body is exhausted and aches as though it had been put through violent exercise. After death lycanthropists become vampires. They are believed to frequent battlefields in wolf or hyena shapes, and to suck the breath from dying soldiers, or to enter houses and steal the infants from their cradles," Baring-Gould writes.

So, of course, we have every incentive for the woo-woos to claim that it's a werewolf skull, case closed.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, when the writer at Phantoms and Monsters didn't go that direction.  He mentions a Bulgarian student, Filip Ganov, who saw the box and the skull and interviewed Trayche, and who at least was able to verify that the skull isn't an out-and-out fake.  The article says:

Trayche would not part with his werewolf skull but he did let Ganov take pictures, which were presented to a wildlife expert in Bulgaria who speculated that it was indeed from a wolf but not necessarily a werewolf. Instead, he surmised the wolf was suffering from Paget's disease, a genetic disorder (also common in humans) that can cause misshapen bones and enlarged skulls. Paget's disease can be caused by canine distemper virus, a common virus in wolves and dogs.

How about that?  A rational explanation!  The writer goes on to say:

The skull definitely looks both canine and human and a little baboonish, which would probably cause some consternation among Bulgarians and Macedonians raised on Eastern European folklore. The chain around the box is a good indication whoever buried it believed it was a creature they did not want roaming around again.

Which is exactly the point.  The fact that the people who buried the skull thought it was a werewolf isn't any kind of proof that it is a werewolf.

And finally, there's a call for further investigation:

So, is Trayche's skull-in-a-box from a werewolf? It's definitely a creature that's out of the norm. Only a DNA test will tell.

Precisely.  That's the thing I've always come back to; it's not like we don't have a way to find out the answers to these questions.  It's called science.  Of course, you have to believe the results once you get them, and accept it when you're wrong, a lesson that certain other cryptozoologists (I'm lookin' at you, Melba Ketchum) have yet to learn.

But it's heartening that at least here, we have someone who's saying, "Yeah, it's probably got a natural explanation.  In fact, we've even got a guess as to what that might be.  But let's find out."

Yes, let's.  And while we're at it, let's encourage other fringe researchers to take the same approach.  Could some of what they claim be true?  Sure.  But it's science that's going to tell us the answer, not adding more to the pile of zero-evidence anecdotes.

Attack of the solar dust bunnies

Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a hoax-gone-viral in which a Clickhole piece convinced a lot of folks that Adam Sandler was the next Nostradamus.

This week, it's yet another case of people not understanding the meaning of the word "satire."  We have a claim on Huzlers.com that in December, a "solar storm" will cause "six days of darkness."

Here's how it was presented:

NASA has confirmed that the Earth will experience 6 days of almost complete darkness and will happen from the dates Tuesday the 16 – Monday the 22 in December. The world will remain, during these three days, without sunlight due to a solar storm, which will cause dust and space debris to become plentiful and thus, block 90% sunlight. 

This is the head of NASA Charles Bolden who made the announcement and asked everyone to remain calm. This will be the product of a solar storm, the largest in the last 250 years for a period of 216 hours total.

NASA spokespersons, the article said, say we shouldn't panic, despite the shocking announcement:

Despite the six days of darkness soon to come, officials say that the earth will not experience any major problems, since six days of darkness is nowhere near enough to cause major damage to anything. “We will solely rely on artificial light for the six days, which is not a problem at all”, says NASA scientist Earl Godoy.

Readers are then told to tweet links to the story along with descriptions of what they plan on doing during the blackout, using the hashtag #6DaysOfDarkness.

If the article itself isn't enough to cause a bruise-inducing facepalm, then wait till you hear what happened next.  The story went viral, zooming all over Twitter and Facebook.  Huzlers.com, recognizing a clickbait treasure trove when they saw one, responded with a cobbled-together video from NASA director Charles Bolden (you can see it here; it's actually part of a video about natural disaster preparedness, but viewed from the standpoint of someone who already believed in the solar blackout, you can see why it'd be a little alarming).

Panic ensued.  I've already seen the story at least five times on Facebook, along with hysterical tag-lines like, "Is it actually worse than they're telling us?" and "What if it stays dark?"

Okay.  Let's clear a few things up right from the get-go.

There are such things as solar storms, but this is not how they work.  Solar storms are better known to scientists as coronal mass ejections, and they are massive bursts of plasma (along with the associated effects on the electromagnetic field) that do occasionally strike the Earth.  They play hell with satellites, radio transmission, and electrical delivery systems, and (on the upside) create gorgeous auroral displays.

[image courtesy of NASA and the Wikimedia Commons]

But they do not eject "dust and matter" sufficient to block out sunlight.  The sun, last time I consulted my college astronomy texts, is not some kind of Giant Celestial Dust Bunny, occasionally coughing up clouds of stellar schmutz in our direction.

I think that's what gets me about these viral hoaxes, you know?  It's not that I expect satirical sites to stop satiring; that's their stock in trade, after all.  But the fact that this nonsense gets spread all over, and (worse still) is taken seriously, is inexcusable in this day where a quick trip to Wikipedia would be sufficient to see if such a claim is even in the realm of possibility.

Fact check, people.  Fact check.  Or even better; learn some science.  I know it's a radical suggestion, but fer cryin' in the sink, it's not that hard.  It's the best insurance against being taken in.  Better than Wikipedia, better even than Snopes.  Learn enough science to rely on your own brain's evaluative ability, and keep the satire in the humor section where it belongs.

Asteroid dodgeball

One has to wonder what people get from forecasting the end of the world.

Because some people are really into this.  You've got your religious/End Times Crowd, but they're not the only ones.  There's the We're All Going To Die In An Epidemic Cadre, the Yellowstone Supervolcano Will End Life As We Know It Club, and the ever-present Economic Collapse Will Result In Global War Association.

And is it just me, or do these people seem kind of... happy about the whole idea?

Me, I'm not so thrilled by the prospect.  It's not that life is perfect, but hell, I'll take what I have over everyone in the country dying of Ebola, or being smothered by a giant ash cloud, or even the rivers running red with the blood of unbelievers.

And of course, those aren't the only ways the world could end.  Massive earthquakes, tsunamis, even alien invasions could do the trick.  And if that's not enough, we now have an article bouncing about in the social media that claims that we're all about to die...

... in an asteroid collision.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The site Cosmos Up, which sounds more reputable than it actually turns out to be, ran an article last week called "Dangerous Asteroid Rapidly Approaching Earth?" in which we find out that the euphoniously-named 2014 UR116 is about to play a cosmic game of Whack-a-Mole with the Earth.  Here's how they describe it.  Grammar and spelling is as-written, so you can get the overall charming effect of the original:

A large asteroid named 2014 UR116 is moving into an orbit, most likely involving a collision with Earth. Asteroid flies inside the solar system.

His route is similar to the trajectory of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. He flies by planet, Venus and Mars, and is a real danger for the inhabitants of the earth.

He does that, does he?  I'm scared already.

Russia’s only network of robotic telescopes MASTER created by Lomonosov Moscow State University University in collaboration with the three domestic universities (Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Blagoveshchensk), Kislovodsk Station of the Pulkovo Observatory RAS and the University of San Juan (Argentina), an asteroid discovered in 2014 UR116, – more than 300 meters in diameter – which can collide with the Earth. This was reported by the laboratory site space monitoring MSU.

So far, sounds at least vaguely scientific.  But then, the author goes on to tell us the following:

Exact trajectory of the asteroid 2014 UR116 yet impossible to determine, but theoretically it could collide with the Earth, and Mars and Venus. The energy of the explosion, in the event of a collision with the Earth, a thousand times greater than the explosion of Chelyabinsk asteroid.

It's going to collide with the Earth and Mars and Venus?  One right after the other, or something?  On the other hand, if they mean that we can't tell which one it's going to hit, that's kind of a high uncertainty value.  According to the site Wolfram Alpha, the current distance between Earth and Mars is 157.9 million miles.  If that's the size of the error bars in their trajectory calculations, I'll take my chances, you know?

But of course, "We Don't Know And It Probably Won't Hit The Earth, But Even So, It's A Pretty Big Chunk Of Space Rock" doesn't make nearly as snappy a headline as "Dangerous Asteroid Rapidly Approaching Earth."

Still, you have to wonder why the people currently forwarding this article on Twitter and Facebook seem so... cheery about the whole thing.  Myself, I think that being at ground zero of an asteroid strike would be unpleasant, at least during the 2.8 nanoseconds before I was vaporized by the impact. You'd think people would be circulating articles saying, "Hey, Isn't It Cool That We've Found Another Asteroid That Won't Hit Us?" instead of articles saying "Fuck, We're All Gonna Die."

Yet another way in which I don't get human nature.  I'll add it to the list.

Orgone to the rescue

Are you worried about the New World Order?  Do you fear that the Reptilians are powerful enough to infiltrate the government unchallenged?  Do you look up at passing jets and fret about the toxic stuff in the chemtrails they leave behind?  Are you terrified that we might be attacked by zombies?

Fear not, for we have a great weapon at our disposal.  These assorted bad guys are no match for the...

Orgone Blaster.

Yes, "orgone," the completely nonexistent "universal life force" proposed by Wilhelm Reich all the way back in the 1930s.  Reich and others went through all sorts of gyrations to try to prove it existed, to no avail.  Also to no particular diminishment of their claiming that "orgone" was the magical be-all-and-end-all of the universe, influencing everything from weather patterns to the motion of galaxies to the "psychosexual energy release" experienced during orgasm.

Reich even developed an "orgone accumulator box" that seems to have done nothing but give test subjects a nice place to nap for a few minutes.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

You'd think that the fact that no one has ever been able to demonstrate that orgone exists would put a damper on people's claims involving its mystical properties.

You'd be wrong.

The site I linked above, written by one Sherry Shriner, would be the odds-on favorite in a competition for the Most Quotable Woo-Woo Website.  It tells us that not only does orgone exist, it can be used as a first line of defense against... well, everything.  If the Illuminati do anything, all we have to do is focus our orgone on 'em, and they'll retreat in disarray like the sorry sonsabitches they are.  But don't just take it from me, here's a direct quote from the website:

My Orgone has destroyed the Capricorn Star-Ship, the Shema star-ship, Planet X - Comet Elenin, and thousands of UFOs!

It Works Folks! It's the Only thing that works against Alien-Demonic-Zombie-Vampire- beings! The "dead" hate it! The Aliens hate it! Politicians who have been soul-scalped by Reptilians hate it! Obama hates the White House, Michelle sleeps in Hotels around D.C...the White House Senior Staff meets in air-sealed rooms under the Capitol...why?? Because they HATE the Orgoned air in D.C. !! 

Orgone will cleanse your air/water/food, dissolve chemtrails above your home, keep evil beings out of your home and yard, stop night terrors, it has 101 uses.

Yup.  If you ever are threatened by alien demonic zombie vampire beings, you now have your answer.

You can "orgone" water, too, she says, and shows a photograph of what appears to be a SuperSoaker. I pictured the people in The Walking Dead fighting off zombies with water pistols, and the image was so strangely hilarious that I had to put my head down on my desk for a while.

But in the parlance of the infomercial... "Wait!  There's more!"

The average OB (Orgone Blaster) can neutralize the evil effects of a [cellphone] tower! Not only that, those who are using them are finding that they are neutralizing chemtrails as well!! Not only that, they will repel anything evil and keep it away from your yard, home and family!! Unwanted aliens and demons on your property? No problem bury a few of our OBs at each corner of your property!

We also find out that these things kill viruses, stop thunderstorms and tornadoes, get rid of migraines, helps you sleep, and "lower utility bills... and even lower gas mileage if you put one of them by your engine!"

Because, you know, we all want lower gas mileage.

Other features on the page include references to the Antichrist and the Book of Revelation, angels, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  I mean, the phrase "no stone unturned" could have been coined by someone taking a look at this website.

Going to the "order page" tells us how to get a hold of these amazing devices, which look like little blobs of gray modeling clay.  You have your small blobs, which are $10 each (special discount -- get 20 of 'em for only $200!).  Large ones are $20, or 10 for $220, proving that whatever "orgone blasters" do in the way of repelling zombies, they do nothing for improving your math skills.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering if I've been bitten on the ass by Poe's Law once again, and let me assure you that this is not satire.  In fact, this is not Shriner's first appearance in Skeptophilia -- earlier this year we considered her claim that we're all being controlled by government-implanted microchips, but we can neutralize them using magnets.  She made the International Skeptics' Forum back in 2007, in a posting called "Sherry Shriner, Woo Extraordinaire... at last, we have found a website with everything."

So much as you might think that no one could possibly believe this stuff, the website has every indication of being completely serious.  As for Shriner herself, she is well regarded enough in the woo-woo world that she was interviewed over at Strange Frequencies (for a not-to-be-missed transcript of the interview, go here).

So there you have it.  If you're worried about... well, anything, you've found your answer.  Myself, I'm going to save my money.  I figure that if there are that many evil Illuminati bad guys in the world, I'm probably going to be better off applying for membership than trying to fight them off 24/7.

Pride in place

Although it's pretty obvious that patriotism can be taken too far, I'm all for making the country you live in the best it can be, and then expressing your pride in it.  There are a lot of things I like about being American, for example; and although there are times I wish I lived elsewhere (mostly after listening to Ann Coulter), all in all I'm pretty happy about being a citizen of the United States.

Of course, there's a couple of ways this perfectly natural predilection for your own culture can go wrong.  One is that it can blind you to its faults.  Consider the column this week from Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow, who said that what the world needs is an American jihad:

An American jihad would turn back and topple the terrible self-loathing in our citizens set in motion by President Obama, beginning with his ‘apology tour’ — a psychological plague... We would not only allow, but teach, Americans — including American children — to internalize and project their justifiable feelings of pride in our democracy as superior to all other forms of government. In grade schools we would teach the truth that the founding of our nation and its survival in the face of communism and fascism weren’t just good luck or good planning, but preordained by our commitment to the truth about the essential nature of man. And we would embrace the certain knowledge that history will eventually spread our values all over the globe. 

We the People of the United States are good and we are right. And we need the spirit of an American jihad to properly invite, intensify and focus our intentions to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution here at home, and to seek to spread its principles abroad.

So yeah.  I can see no way that that could go wrong.

But there's a second, and more insidious, way that unbridled patriotism can go awry, and that's when you come to the conclusion that anything that's good must have come from your culture.  And as if to bookend Dr. Ablow's jingoistic screed, this week we had some baffling observations from the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

Modi addressed a gathering of doctors and other professionals in Mumbai last Saturday, and presented his opinion that advances in our understanding of genetics and medicine were not due to research done primarily in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe; the West was merely rediscovering what the Indians have known all along:

We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time.  We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb.  This means that genetic science was present at that time.  That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.

But that is far and away not the most bizarre thing that Modi said.  As regards to astronomy, Modi made the following observation:

There must be many areas in which our ancestors made big contributions.  Some of these are well recognized.  If we talk about space science, our ancestors had, at some point, displayed great strengths in space science.  What people like Aryabhata had said centuries ago is being recognized by science today.  What I mean to say is that we are a country which had these capabilities.  We need to regain these.

And lest you think he was just talking about astronomical observations, you should be aware that Modi believes that airplanes were invented by the god Rama.

My favorite comment, though, was about a different god:

We worship Lord Ganesha.  There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.

That's right, folks; the leader of one of the most populous nations on Earth thinks that an elephant-headed mythological figure is evidence that his distant ancestors had discovered how to do plastic surgery.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

It's all very well to be proud of your culture, nation, religion, ethnicity, or whatever.  But being willfully blind to the accomplishments of others is hardly a virtue.  "I'm happy I'm an American" can all too easily morph into "I'm happy I'm not from Ruritania," and that into "If anything great is out there, it must be from the United States and not from Ruritania."

Which is not only bigoted, it's also demonstrably false.