A recent article by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones, which you should all read in its entirety (here), considers the mysterious phenomenon of why people believe things for which there is no factual evidence. The most perplexing thing in Mooney's article, which he does an admirable job explaining but which I still can't quite comprehend, is the well-documented phenomenon of people's beliefs actually strengthening when they are presented with persuasive evidence contrary to their ideas.
I won't steal Mooney's thunder by repeating what he said -- he said it better than I could, in any case. But do want to give a brief example, described more completely in Mooney's article. He tells about a doomsday cult whose leaders were convinced that the world was going to end on December 21, 1954. A researcher went to join the cult members on the fatal day, waiting to see what was going to happen when the clock struck midnight. What you'd think -- that they'd all kind of blink, and look around them, and laugh and say, "Okay, I guess we were wrong. What a bunch of goobers we are," didn't happen. They came up with a cockamamie explanation of why the world hadn't ended -- that their faithfulness and belief had caused the alien overlords to issue Earth a reprieve. What it didn't do, amazingly, was cause anyone to question their root assumptions.
I came across a perfect, if rather maddening, example of this phenomenon yesterday. I'm always on the lookout for any news in the cryptozoology world, and yesterday morning I bumped into one I'd never heard of before. Dubbed "Slender Man," it's a tall, thin humanoid, dressed in black, with no facial features -- just a shiny, smooth, white face. Allegedly, it has been associated with a number of mysterious disappearances, often of children, and there is even a short documentary (also worth taking a look at, here) which contains video and audio footage showing appearances of Slender Man. It's quite creepy -- not recommended for watching at night. (Don't say I didn't warn you.)
The problem is, it's a fake. Not just the documentary; the entire story. A certified, up-front, yeah-okay-we-admit-that-we-made-the-whole-thing-up fake. Back in June of 2009, there was a "paranormal photograph" contest on the Something Awful forums, a site devoted to pranks, digitally altered photographs, and hoaxes. A fellow named Victor Surge sent in a submission, with the description of his creation, whom he dubbed "Slender Man." The original thread on the forum is still going, and runs to 46 pages. If you can bear to go back through it, you can read how the story developed, starting with a single digitally altered photograph, and finally blossoming into a whole cryptozoological "phenomenon," complete with a history.
The difficulty, of course, is that when you make up something convincing, people are... convinced. Lots of people. If you Google "Slender Man" you'll pull up hundreds of websites, and amazingly, many of them consider him a real paranormal phenomenon. (Upon realizing what I just wrote, I had a momentary thought of, "Implying that there's a difference between real and unreal paranormal phenomena? I'm losing my marbles." But I hope that my readers will understand what I meant by that phrase, and not think that I've turned into some kind of Sasquatch Apologist, or anything.)
At first, I thought that the owners of these websites simply hadn't heard that it was a hoax -- or actually, not even a hoax, because Surge had never really intended for anyone to believe him. The most astonishing thing is that a number of these websites state that they know all about Surge and the Something Awful contest -- and they believe that this story was invented, after the fact, to cover up the "research" that Surge had done on Slender Man and to keep the phenomenon a secret, to stop the public from panicking!
After reading that, and recovering from the faceplant that I experienced immediately thereafter, I thought about Mooney's article, and the desperation with which people cling to beliefs that are contrary to known fact. Why on earth does this happen? Aren't we logical beings, imbued with intelligence, rationality, and fully functional prefrontal cortices?
Sadly, Mooney's answer seems to be "only sometimes." Again, I won't go into tremendous detail -- you should simply read Mooney's article. But the basic claim is that when we've infused a belief with emotion, we meet contrary evidence with a physiological and neurological reaction that mimics our fight-or-flight response -- we either decide to fight ("what you're saying isn't true!") or we flee ("I won't listen."). What almost none of us do is to take that evidence, think about it clearly, and revise our basic core beliefs to fit.
All of which makes it abundantly clear to me that humans are, in fact, animals, and that we often respond to new situations with no more "higher thought" than your typical fluffy woodland creature does. It makes me wonder why we still see a fundamental divide between "human" and "animal" -- but of course, looking that assumption in the face is pretty likely to generate a fight-or-flight response, too.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Swash yer bucklers, laddie!
Last week, two students came into my classroom after school. One of them asked me, "I'm wondering if you know what a swash is, and how you buckle it?"
It is probably not a coincidence that the student who asked the question was wearing a pirate hat at the time.
This led to a highly amusing, and as it turns out, completely irrelevant conversation about how pirates had to not only check to make sure that their flies were zipped, but that their swashes were securely buckled.
Actually, the word "swashbuckler" has been in use since the sixteenth century, and (according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology) comes from the verb "to swash," meaning "to clash together noisily," and the noun "buckler," meaning "a small round shield." Apparently "swashbuckler" didn't begin as a noun at all, but as a verb meaning "to clash a sword noisily against your shield so as to intimidate your foe." A highly appropriate action for a pirate to engage in, but this means that "swashbuckling" is a truly lovely example of one of my favorite linguistic phenomena -- that of back formation.
Back formation occurs when a word is treated as if it contains a common inflection -- such as the -er ending meaning "someone who does a particular action," -ing meaning "currently doing something," or -ed meaning "this action occurred in the past" -- when in fact the apparent inflection is just a coincidental part of the word itself. Then, someone "undoes" the fake inflection, and a new word is born. The classic example of back formation is "to burgle," which is a back formation from "burglar." Even though the -ar ending in "burglar" sounds like the usual -er ending (as in "farmer" and "teacher") by pure coincidence only, the word was verbified in the nineteenth century by following the logical pattern: farmers farm, teachers teach, so burglars must burgle. Others include "to gel" (or "jell"), originally from "jelly," which is a cognate to the French word gelé, meaning "frozen" or "congealed;" "to lase" (from "laser," which is an acronym having nothing to do with the -er morpheme -- it stands for Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation); and "to loaf" (from "loafer," which comes from the German landlaufer, meaning "hobo").
A fairly obscure, but awfully funny, example of back formation is "to maffick," meaning "to cause trouble, to riot." It originated during the Siege of Mafeking (pronounced like "maffick-ing") during the Boer War in what is now South Africa -- a siege that lasted 217 days and apparently involved large quantities of troublemaking and riot. Someone evidently decided that Mafeking was the present participle of a verb (in fact, it's the name of a town, and is of Dutch origin), and decided that the people in Mafeking must engage in mafficking. It prompted the British satirist Saki (H. H. Munro) to write the couplet,
Mother, may I go and maffick,
Tear around, and hinder traffic?
It seems that "swashbuckler" works the same way. "Buckler" comes from the French boucle, meaning "shield;" so like "burglar," its ending in -er is entirely a coincidence. In fact, as a composite, the "swash" part is the verb and the "buckler" part is the noun; so instead of "swashbuckling," it should probably be "bucklerswashing," but that sounds silly and unbefitting of a pirate.
So fear not, lads and lassies; go forth and be swashbucklers to yer hearts' content, and ye needn't worry about having to buckle yer swashes. Ye should still probably make sure yer flies are zipped. Arrrr.
It is probably not a coincidence that the student who asked the question was wearing a pirate hat at the time.
This led to a highly amusing, and as it turns out, completely irrelevant conversation about how pirates had to not only check to make sure that their flies were zipped, but that their swashes were securely buckled.
Actually, the word "swashbuckler" has been in use since the sixteenth century, and (according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology) comes from the verb "to swash," meaning "to clash together noisily," and the noun "buckler," meaning "a small round shield." Apparently "swashbuckler" didn't begin as a noun at all, but as a verb meaning "to clash a sword noisily against your shield so as to intimidate your foe." A highly appropriate action for a pirate to engage in, but this means that "swashbuckling" is a truly lovely example of one of my favorite linguistic phenomena -- that of back formation.
Back formation occurs when a word is treated as if it contains a common inflection -- such as the -er ending meaning "someone who does a particular action," -ing meaning "currently doing something," or -ed meaning "this action occurred in the past" -- when in fact the apparent inflection is just a coincidental part of the word itself. Then, someone "undoes" the fake inflection, and a new word is born. The classic example of back formation is "to burgle," which is a back formation from "burglar." Even though the -ar ending in "burglar" sounds like the usual -er ending (as in "farmer" and "teacher") by pure coincidence only, the word was verbified in the nineteenth century by following the logical pattern: farmers farm, teachers teach, so burglars must burgle. Others include "to gel" (or "jell"), originally from "jelly," which is a cognate to the French word gelé, meaning "frozen" or "congealed;" "to lase" (from "laser," which is an acronym having nothing to do with the -er morpheme -- it stands for Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation); and "to loaf" (from "loafer," which comes from the German landlaufer, meaning "hobo").
A fairly obscure, but awfully funny, example of back formation is "to maffick," meaning "to cause trouble, to riot." It originated during the Siege of Mafeking (pronounced like "maffick-ing") during the Boer War in what is now South Africa -- a siege that lasted 217 days and apparently involved large quantities of troublemaking and riot. Someone evidently decided that Mafeking was the present participle of a verb (in fact, it's the name of a town, and is of Dutch origin), and decided that the people in Mafeking must engage in mafficking. It prompted the British satirist Saki (H. H. Munro) to write the couplet,
Mother, may I go and maffick,
Tear around, and hinder traffic?
It seems that "swashbuckler" works the same way. "Buckler" comes from the French boucle, meaning "shield;" so like "burglar," its ending in -er is entirely a coincidence. In fact, as a composite, the "swash" part is the verb and the "buckler" part is the noun; so instead of "swashbuckling," it should probably be "bucklerswashing," but that sounds silly and unbefitting of a pirate.
So fear not, lads and lassies; go forth and be swashbucklers to yer hearts' content, and ye needn't worry about having to buckle yer swashes. Ye should still probably make sure yer flies are zipped. Arrrr.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Give Rex food. Give Sonya money.
Whenever I drive, I listen to satellite radio. I revolve through four or five stations, mostly alternative rock, but an occasional announcement by the DJ clues me in to how much more is actually on satellite radio than I am aware of.
Which is how I came to find out that on Tuesday evenings from 6-8 PM Eastern Time, on Sirius channel 102, you can hear a call-in show with a pet psychic.
Sonya Fitzpatrick claims to be able to communicate telepathically with animals. She states that she discovered this ability as a child, when she lost a great deal of her hearing because of an illness, but found that she could still communicate with animals. She temporarily lost her ability due to the trauma of finding out she'd eaten a goose she'd raised for Sunday dinner, but regained it later, and for a time had a show on Animal Planet called The Pet Psychic.
Some people swear by her. In one case, a veterinarian brought his four-year-old mutt, Ernie, to Sonya to determine why he barks continuously. (Ernie, not the veterinarian.) Sonya communed psychically with Ernie for a moment, then clapped her hands to her face.
"He can't open his mouth," she whispered, her voice strained with emotion. "They put something over his nose and mouth ... taped his nose up."
She then told Ernie's owner not to worry about the barking, that he was now barking "because he can" and that they were "yips of joy."
In another case, she told a dog's owner that her dog wanted to meet "a black dog," and was "worried because her owner's back hurts."
I don't know about you, but the whole thing makes me wonder a little. First, there's the obvious problem that Sonya Fitzpatrick can say whatever she wants; it's not like with a regular psychic, where there's any fear of contradiction. The dog isn't going to say, "Um, no, actually that's not what I was thinking." So it's not that this is a verifiable fake; it's not even potentially verifiable at all.
Second, I've been around dogs all my life, and I'm pretty sure that what is going on in their minds most of the time is: Not Much. We own two dogs at the moment, and mainly what they seem to think about is the concept of "Food." During dinner preparation, both dogs sit watching me make dinner, their eyes focused on me like two pairs of laser beams, trying to induce me, presumably through some sort of canine telekinesis, to drop the food on the floor. If Sonya did some kind of Vulcan mind-meld with my dogs, I think she wouldn't come up with much more than "I'M HUNGRY FEED ME NOW."
And I don't even want to think about what it'd be like to try to get into psychic contact with a cat. I strongly suspect that our cats' minds are mostly filled with evil plots involving shredding the furniture and tormenting the other pets. I also think, given the smug way they look at me sometimes, that they frequently have sardonic thoughts about my general appearance.
"You call that a hairstyle?" they seem to say. "You look like a wilted dandelion. And you're not thinking of wearing that shirt, are you? Dear god, yes, it appears that you are. Well, at least iron it, will you? No? I can't bear to watch." And then they turn away and close their eyes, every whisker radiating disapproval.
So even if Sonya could communicate with my cats, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to know what they're thinking. But the whole thing does demand the question of what level of brain is required in the pet for Sonya to be able to get in touch. Could she contact a hamster? A snake? A pet frog? A goldfish? One specific ant in an ant farm? I don't know about you, but I'd certainly enjoy watching her try.
Not that I'll ever have the chance; it's not like she makes house calls. But she does do personal readings, on the telephone, if you're willing to wait for months (she gets hundreds of requests a day).
They cost $300. For a thirty-minute reading.
Yes, folks. There are thousands of people out there who are willing to spend $300 of their hard-earned cash to have a woman who claims to be a pet psychic tell them over the phone that Rex would like some extra gravy on his kibble tonight. Which proves a variety of things, including (1) there are a great many gullible people in the world, (2) many people are more willing to spend their money on stuff like psychic readings than are willing to support a tax increase to fund frivolous things like public education, and (3) Sonya Fitzpatrick is a very smart, and very rich, businesswoman.
Which is how I came to find out that on Tuesday evenings from 6-8 PM Eastern Time, on Sirius channel 102, you can hear a call-in show with a pet psychic.
Sonya Fitzpatrick claims to be able to communicate telepathically with animals. She states that she discovered this ability as a child, when she lost a great deal of her hearing because of an illness, but found that she could still communicate with animals. She temporarily lost her ability due to the trauma of finding out she'd eaten a goose she'd raised for Sunday dinner, but regained it later, and for a time had a show on Animal Planet called The Pet Psychic.
Some people swear by her. In one case, a veterinarian brought his four-year-old mutt, Ernie, to Sonya to determine why he barks continuously. (Ernie, not the veterinarian.) Sonya communed psychically with Ernie for a moment, then clapped her hands to her face.
"He can't open his mouth," she whispered, her voice strained with emotion. "They put something over his nose and mouth ... taped his nose up."
She then told Ernie's owner not to worry about the barking, that he was now barking "because he can" and that they were "yips of joy."
In another case, she told a dog's owner that her dog wanted to meet "a black dog," and was "worried because her owner's back hurts."
I don't know about you, but the whole thing makes me wonder a little. First, there's the obvious problem that Sonya Fitzpatrick can say whatever she wants; it's not like with a regular psychic, where there's any fear of contradiction. The dog isn't going to say, "Um, no, actually that's not what I was thinking." So it's not that this is a verifiable fake; it's not even potentially verifiable at all.
Second, I've been around dogs all my life, and I'm pretty sure that what is going on in their minds most of the time is: Not Much. We own two dogs at the moment, and mainly what they seem to think about is the concept of "Food." During dinner preparation, both dogs sit watching me make dinner, their eyes focused on me like two pairs of laser beams, trying to induce me, presumably through some sort of canine telekinesis, to drop the food on the floor. If Sonya did some kind of Vulcan mind-meld with my dogs, I think she wouldn't come up with much more than "I'M HUNGRY FEED ME NOW."
And I don't even want to think about what it'd be like to try to get into psychic contact with a cat. I strongly suspect that our cats' minds are mostly filled with evil plots involving shredding the furniture and tormenting the other pets. I also think, given the smug way they look at me sometimes, that they frequently have sardonic thoughts about my general appearance.
"You call that a hairstyle?" they seem to say. "You look like a wilted dandelion. And you're not thinking of wearing that shirt, are you? Dear god, yes, it appears that you are. Well, at least iron it, will you? No? I can't bear to watch." And then they turn away and close their eyes, every whisker radiating disapproval.
So even if Sonya could communicate with my cats, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to know what they're thinking. But the whole thing does demand the question of what level of brain is required in the pet for Sonya to be able to get in touch. Could she contact a hamster? A snake? A pet frog? A goldfish? One specific ant in an ant farm? I don't know about you, but I'd certainly enjoy watching her try.
Not that I'll ever have the chance; it's not like she makes house calls. But she does do personal readings, on the telephone, if you're willing to wait for months (she gets hundreds of requests a day).
They cost $300. For a thirty-minute reading.
Yes, folks. There are thousands of people out there who are willing to spend $300 of their hard-earned cash to have a woman who claims to be a pet psychic tell them over the phone that Rex would like some extra gravy on his kibble tonight. Which proves a variety of things, including (1) there are a great many gullible people in the world, (2) many people are more willing to spend their money on stuff like psychic readings than are willing to support a tax increase to fund frivolous things like public education, and (3) Sonya Fitzpatrick is a very smart, and very rich, businesswoman.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Elegy for a dying language
In the news last week was a story about a pair of grumpy old men, who live in the village of Ayapa in southern Mexico. The two old men don't much like each other, and despite the fact that they only live 500 meters away from each other, they haven't spoken in years. One, Manuel Segovia, is described as being "a little prickly;" the other, Isidro Velazquez, is said to be stoic and a bit of a recluse.
All of which would be nothing more than a comical vignette into small-town life, except for the fact that they are the last two fluent speakers of the Ayapaneco language.
Ayapaneco is one of 68 indigenous languages in Mexico. It is from the Mixe-Zoque family of languages, which are spoken by people of Olmec descent. It survived the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, but was finally done in by the institution of compulsory Spanish education in the 20th century and has been dwindling ever since.
My question of the day is: should we care?
Current estimates are that there are about 6,000 languages in daily use by native speakers (which excludes languages such as Latin, that are in daily use in schools but of which no one is a native speaker). A great many of these are in danger of extinction -- they are spoken only by a handful of people, mostly the elderly, and the children aren't being raised fluent. It's an eye-opening fact that 96% of the world's languages are spoken by 4% of the world's people, and the other 96% of the world's people speak the other 4% of the world's languages.
Run that one around in your head for a while.
On the top of the list is Mandarin, the most widely-spoken language in the world. English, predictably, follows. Of the people who speak neither Mandarin nor English, a substantial fraction speak Hindi, Spanish, Russian, or some dialect of Arabic. Most of the rest of the world's languages? Inconsequential -- at least in numbers.
Linguists, obviously, care deeply about this. Michael Krauss, professor emeritus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, has stated, "... it is catastrophic for the future of mankind. It should be as scary as losing 90% of the biological species."
Is he right? The argument for preserving languages is mostly derived from a cultural knowledge perspective; language is a way of encoding knowledge, and each different sort of code represents a unique body of that knowledge. That argument has its points, but it is also specious in the sense that most languages can encode the same knowledge somehow, and therefore when the last native speaker of Ayapaneco dies, we won't have necessarily lost that culture's knowledge. We may have lost the ability to figure out how that knowledge was encoded -- as we have with the Linear A writing of Crete -- but that's not the same as losing the knowledge itself.
The analogy to biodiversity is also a bit specious. Languages don't form some kind of synergistic whole, as the species in an ecosystem do, where the loss of any one thread can cause the whole thing to come unraveled. In fact, you might argue the opposite -- that having lots of unique languages in an area (such as the hundreds of mutually incomprehensible native languages in Australia) can actually prevent cultural communication and understanding. Species loss can destroy an ecosystem -- witness what's happening in Haiti and Madagascar. It's a little hard to imagine language loss as having those same kinds of effects on the cultural landscape of the world.
Still, I can't help wishing for the extinction to stop. It's just sad -- the fact that the number of native speakers of the beautiful Irish Gaelic and Breton languages are steadily decreasing, that there are languages (primarily in Australia and amongst the native languages of North and South America) for whom the last native speakers will die in the next five to ten years without ever having a linguist study, or even record, what it sounded like. I don't have a cogent argument from a utilitarian standpoint abut why this is a bad thing. It's aesthetics, pure and simple -- languages are cool. The idea that English and Mandarin can swamp Twi and Yanomami is probably unavoidable, and it even follows the purely Dawkinsian concept of the competition between memes. But I don't have to like it, any more than I like the fact that my bird feeders are more often visited by starlings than by indigo buntings.
All of which would be nothing more than a comical vignette into small-town life, except for the fact that they are the last two fluent speakers of the Ayapaneco language.
Ayapaneco is one of 68 indigenous languages in Mexico. It is from the Mixe-Zoque family of languages, which are spoken by people of Olmec descent. It survived the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, but was finally done in by the institution of compulsory Spanish education in the 20th century and has been dwindling ever since.
My question of the day is: should we care?
Current estimates are that there are about 6,000 languages in daily use by native speakers (which excludes languages such as Latin, that are in daily use in schools but of which no one is a native speaker). A great many of these are in danger of extinction -- they are spoken only by a handful of people, mostly the elderly, and the children aren't being raised fluent. It's an eye-opening fact that 96% of the world's languages are spoken by 4% of the world's people, and the other 96% of the world's people speak the other 4% of the world's languages.
Run that one around in your head for a while.
On the top of the list is Mandarin, the most widely-spoken language in the world. English, predictably, follows. Of the people who speak neither Mandarin nor English, a substantial fraction speak Hindi, Spanish, Russian, or some dialect of Arabic. Most of the rest of the world's languages? Inconsequential -- at least in numbers.
Linguists, obviously, care deeply about this. Michael Krauss, professor emeritus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, has stated, "... it is catastrophic for the future of mankind. It should be as scary as losing 90% of the biological species."
Is he right? The argument for preserving languages is mostly derived from a cultural knowledge perspective; language is a way of encoding knowledge, and each different sort of code represents a unique body of that knowledge. That argument has its points, but it is also specious in the sense that most languages can encode the same knowledge somehow, and therefore when the last native speaker of Ayapaneco dies, we won't have necessarily lost that culture's knowledge. We may have lost the ability to figure out how that knowledge was encoded -- as we have with the Linear A writing of Crete -- but that's not the same as losing the knowledge itself.
The analogy to biodiversity is also a bit specious. Languages don't form some kind of synergistic whole, as the species in an ecosystem do, where the loss of any one thread can cause the whole thing to come unraveled. In fact, you might argue the opposite -- that having lots of unique languages in an area (such as the hundreds of mutually incomprehensible native languages in Australia) can actually prevent cultural communication and understanding. Species loss can destroy an ecosystem -- witness what's happening in Haiti and Madagascar. It's a little hard to imagine language loss as having those same kinds of effects on the cultural landscape of the world.
Still, I can't help wishing for the extinction to stop. It's just sad -- the fact that the number of native speakers of the beautiful Irish Gaelic and Breton languages are steadily decreasing, that there are languages (primarily in Australia and amongst the native languages of North and South America) for whom the last native speakers will die in the next five to ten years without ever having a linguist study, or even record, what it sounded like. I don't have a cogent argument from a utilitarian standpoint abut why this is a bad thing. It's aesthetics, pure and simple -- languages are cool. The idea that English and Mandarin can swamp Twi and Yanomami is probably unavoidable, and it even follows the purely Dawkinsian concept of the competition between memes. But I don't have to like it, any more than I like the fact that my bird feeders are more often visited by starlings than by indigo buntings.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Vade retro satana
The Yahoo! news yesterday ran a story about Father Jose Francisco Syquia, a Catholic priest in the Philippines, who claims he has been going around exorcising demons. The reporter who wrote the story was shown videotapes of people thrashing about, speaking in "unearthly voices," sometimes with "inverted crosses appearing on their foreheads." Syquia and his assistants go through a dramatic ritual, and the demons leave.
He has a 100% success rate.
Syquia, in what the reporter calls "a rare interview," states, "There is a great dramatic increase of possessions right now. More and more the demons are gaining a foothold into this society." He clearly wishes us to see him, and his practices, as being the spearhead of good against evil. Pope Benedict XVI, for his part, agrees; he recently released a new set of guidelines and encouraged trained priests to perform more exorcisms.
I find this whole thing bizarre and not a little appalling.
I suspect that any of my readers who are inclined to believe in demons and exorcisms will probably accuse me of doing what I so often criticize in others, namely, declaring a belief without providing any evidence. Nevertheless: I simply don't believe that Syquia and his ilk are casting out demons. No, I haven't seen the videos, which are kept under lock and key in Syquia's office in Manila. No, I haven't talked to Syquia myself, nor to anyone he's "exorcised." No, I have no concrete data of any kind. By my usual standards for understanding, I should have no right to make a statement one way or the other.
But I am going to anyway. I think Syquia is a charlatan, his claims are nonsense at best and outright fraud at worst, and the people who believe him are dupes.
The idea of demonic possession has been around for millenia, and the belief that certain people can cast those demons out isn't new, either. Cuneiform tablets from the Sumerians record the possession of people by "gid-dim" (sickness demons). Medieval European history is rife with accounts of demonic possessions. The belief is still widespread in many parts of Africa and Asia, amongst both Christians and followers of traditional religions.
My reasons for disbelieving the whole thing are nebulous enough that I can't call them an argument, but I think they carry enough weight that they should be given some consideration.
First, there are legitimate psychological illnesses, especially schizophrenia and dissociative personality disorder, that resemble the symptoms alleged to occur in demonic possession. Interesting that modern medicine and therapy can identify organic causes for these disorders, and reduce or eliminate the severity of symptoms in many cases, isn't it? You wouldn't think that a demon would be quelled by antipsychotic meds.
Second, the force of belief is a powerful one. You probably have heard of the placebo effect, a well-documented phenomenon in which a person who believes he is receiving an effective medicine will often show improvement even if he is given a sugar pill. Less well-known is the nocebo effect, in which a person who believes he is being targeted for supernatural harm will actually grow ill and die. This has been documented in cases of voodoo "curses." How the brain actually alters to change a person's state of health in either case isn't understood, but it clearly happens -- no supernatural agent necessary.
Third, I find it curious that demonic possession doesn't seem to occur amongst atheists. You'd think we'd be sitting ducks, wouldn't you? All of the cases I've read about have been either amongst people who "invited possession" (i.e. worshiped Satan or the like) and had second thoughts, or amongst people who believed devoutly in demons and were terrified that they'd become victims. In other words, belief comes first. And again, if you have to believe in a demon to be possessed, it kind of calls into question the believers' definition of what a demon is, and what it is capable of doing.
Last, it is simply too easy to fake "evidence" these days. Any sufficiently talented film editor could make an absolutely convincing exorcism video. And when a person is in a position of power -- as Father Syquia is over the people he works with -- the temptation to increase that power by duping those who believe in you is all too strong. The number of "faith healers" who have been exposed as frauds is long -- more than one has been caught "healing severely ill individuals" who later turned out to be perfectly healthy actors hired to play the part of the sick. Faith healers are, I think, nothing more than talented magicians (of the David Copperfield variety) -- clever at misdirection and sleight of hand, but no more capable of curing disease through paranormal means than I am. I have no reason to believe that exorcists don't fall into the same category.
It takes no presupposition of the existence of the supernatural to believe in purely human evil. People do horrid things, sometimes. Convenient though it might be to blame such acts on temptation (or possession) by the devil or his minions, there is usually an earthly explanation that is sufficient -- fear, psychosis, abuse during childhood, hunger for power, envy, a desire for revenge. Taking advantage of those who believe in supernatural evil for your own ends, however, is itself evil -- and I am very much afraid that Father Syquia and his ilk are guilty of exactly that.
He has a 100% success rate.
Syquia, in what the reporter calls "a rare interview," states, "There is a great dramatic increase of possessions right now. More and more the demons are gaining a foothold into this society." He clearly wishes us to see him, and his practices, as being the spearhead of good against evil. Pope Benedict XVI, for his part, agrees; he recently released a new set of guidelines and encouraged trained priests to perform more exorcisms.
I find this whole thing bizarre and not a little appalling.
I suspect that any of my readers who are inclined to believe in demons and exorcisms will probably accuse me of doing what I so often criticize in others, namely, declaring a belief without providing any evidence. Nevertheless: I simply don't believe that Syquia and his ilk are casting out demons. No, I haven't seen the videos, which are kept under lock and key in Syquia's office in Manila. No, I haven't talked to Syquia myself, nor to anyone he's "exorcised." No, I have no concrete data of any kind. By my usual standards for understanding, I should have no right to make a statement one way or the other.
But I am going to anyway. I think Syquia is a charlatan, his claims are nonsense at best and outright fraud at worst, and the people who believe him are dupes.
The idea of demonic possession has been around for millenia, and the belief that certain people can cast those demons out isn't new, either. Cuneiform tablets from the Sumerians record the possession of people by "gid-dim" (sickness demons). Medieval European history is rife with accounts of demonic possessions. The belief is still widespread in many parts of Africa and Asia, amongst both Christians and followers of traditional religions.
My reasons for disbelieving the whole thing are nebulous enough that I can't call them an argument, but I think they carry enough weight that they should be given some consideration.
First, there are legitimate psychological illnesses, especially schizophrenia and dissociative personality disorder, that resemble the symptoms alleged to occur in demonic possession. Interesting that modern medicine and therapy can identify organic causes for these disorders, and reduce or eliminate the severity of symptoms in many cases, isn't it? You wouldn't think that a demon would be quelled by antipsychotic meds.
Second, the force of belief is a powerful one. You probably have heard of the placebo effect, a well-documented phenomenon in which a person who believes he is receiving an effective medicine will often show improvement even if he is given a sugar pill. Less well-known is the nocebo effect, in which a person who believes he is being targeted for supernatural harm will actually grow ill and die. This has been documented in cases of voodoo "curses." How the brain actually alters to change a person's state of health in either case isn't understood, but it clearly happens -- no supernatural agent necessary.
Third, I find it curious that demonic possession doesn't seem to occur amongst atheists. You'd think we'd be sitting ducks, wouldn't you? All of the cases I've read about have been either amongst people who "invited possession" (i.e. worshiped Satan or the like) and had second thoughts, or amongst people who believed devoutly in demons and were terrified that they'd become victims. In other words, belief comes first. And again, if you have to believe in a demon to be possessed, it kind of calls into question the believers' definition of what a demon is, and what it is capable of doing.
Last, it is simply too easy to fake "evidence" these days. Any sufficiently talented film editor could make an absolutely convincing exorcism video. And when a person is in a position of power -- as Father Syquia is over the people he works with -- the temptation to increase that power by duping those who believe in you is all too strong. The number of "faith healers" who have been exposed as frauds is long -- more than one has been caught "healing severely ill individuals" who later turned out to be perfectly healthy actors hired to play the part of the sick. Faith healers are, I think, nothing more than talented magicians (of the David Copperfield variety) -- clever at misdirection and sleight of hand, but no more capable of curing disease through paranormal means than I am. I have no reason to believe that exorcists don't fall into the same category.
It takes no presupposition of the existence of the supernatural to believe in purely human evil. People do horrid things, sometimes. Convenient though it might be to blame such acts on temptation (or possession) by the devil or his minions, there is usually an earthly explanation that is sufficient -- fear, psychosis, abuse during childhood, hunger for power, envy, a desire for revenge. Taking advantage of those who believe in supernatural evil for your own ends, however, is itself evil -- and I am very much afraid that Father Syquia and his ilk are guilty of exactly that.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
"Friday," the JFK assassination, and ancient astronauts
I am fascinated by networks, connectivity, and information transfer. I know that this has become a science in and of itself, with complex mathematical models and theories, almost all of which are beyond the scope of my understanding; but the whole concept still draws me. I first ran into it years ago, when the "Six Degrees of Separation" idea first became common knowledge. Besides the generally appealing idea that I could actually be connected with everyone on Earth within six degrees, I found especially interesting the idea that certain people could be "nodes" -- people who are multiply connected because of their belonging to several different disjoint social groups, and therefore who would act to reduce significantly the average number of links between myself and a farmer in Nepal.
Now, of course, with electronic media, people are connected far more, and across far greater distances, than ever before. I'd suspect that most people are linked in fewer than six degrees of separation these days. And while this has some positive features, it also (as with most things) has a downside.
Being multiply, and rapidly, connectible means that information flows faster, easier, and further than in the past, it also means that there is a much quicker conduit for bullshit than previously. I had two interesting demonstrations of this just in the past couple of days.
Most of you by now have probably heard Rebecca Black's "song" "Friday," which catapulted to fame by virtue of being the worst song ever recorded, worse even (if you can believe this) than either "I Write the Songs" or "Copacabana." Maybe even worse than all of Barry Manilow's repertoire put together. Most people, after listening to about twenty seconds of this song, respond by sticking any available objects into their ears, even if the objects are steak knives. The spread of this song, which resembles in so many ways the spread of an infectious disease, is itself an interesting example of connectivity; but even more fascinating is the spread of a meme that claims that "Friday" is about the JFK assassination. Here is a version of this claim, copied verbatim:
"The driver of the car that JFK was assassinated in, had the name Samuel Kickin (kickin in the front seat, sitting in the back seat...). The assassination occurred on a Friday and when was shot the Secret Service yelled at Jackie Kennedy to "get down" (got to get down on Friday). Part about the cold war and spread of communism are also referenced [everybody rushin' (russian)] and to top it all off, in the hotel that morning JFK declined a breakfast of sausage, eggs and toast for a bowl of Bran Flakes instead (got to have my bown, got to have my cereal). Also, the following Monday JFK was supposed to sign a bill into law requiring all public schools to provide bus transportation for their students. (got to catch my bus...). Now obviously, "fast lanes, switching lanes" refers to the arms race between the US and the USSR. Fast productions of nuclear weapons, switching up whoever had more control, etc."
About two minutes of quick online research was enough to prove that this was virtually entirely made up. The driver of JFK's car was William Greer, not "Samuel Kickin." There is apparently no truth to the whole "bran flakes" claim, nor to the "bus transportation bill" claim. But so far, so what? This is just another of those weird things, initially probably intended to be humorous, that someone wrote. However, the whole thing has gone viral; I've been asked at least five times in the last three days if I have "heard that 'Friday' was about the JFK assassination."
Then, two days ago, I ran across a reference to a claim that I first saw in the 1970s -- that the Dogon tribe of Africa had prior knowledge, through contact with "ancient astronauts" from another planet, that the star Sirius had a companion star that was too small to see with the naked eye. According to this story, they even got the orbital period of this star correct. Aficionados of UFOs and aliens and so on just love this story, because if true, it would seem to be evidence that a relatively primitive tribe had information that they could only have gotten from an advanced society.
Of course, that last statement is literally true; the advanced society they got it from is France. The anthropologist who first made the claim of the Dogon's knowledge, Marcel Griaule, is thought to be the one who "contaminated" the Dogon with outside information in the first place. The discovery of Sirius' companion star ("Sirius B") was all over the news in the 1920s, when Griaule was working with the Dogon, and the Dogon themselves are peculiarly fascinated with the stars. It doesn't take much of a reach to guess that Griaule was the source of the information, especially given that subsequent researchers into the Dogon culture found that the only ones who had actually heard of "po tolo," as they called Sirius B, were the people in the village Griaule had visited.
Nonetheless, this story is still circulating. A search for the keywords "Sirius" and "Dogon" garnered 109,000 hits, and a quick perusal of the first three pages was enough to demonstrate that almost all of them buy Griaule's idea wholesale. And this points to another, and more depressing conclusion; skeptical thought seems to travel slower than bullshit does. Ridiculous ideas, like Griaule's claim that ancient astronauts had visited the Dogon, have more of a panache than do prosaic statements such as "Griaule told 'em himself, and then claimed he'd discovered something amazing." Who would be motivated to tell a friend something like the latter? While the former... well, you can see how that story might have a little more tendency to get passed along.
The eye-opener, for me, is how easy it is now for ideas to spread. Prior to the internet, ideas moved as fast as people did, or as fast as books could be passed along. Now, in the blink of an eye, an idea -- good or bad -- can travel halfway around the world. And given the tendency of most people not to question sources that give an appearance of authority, it's hardly to be wondered at that "I read it on a website," or (even better) the "my friend sent me a link," has become the mode for meme spread.
It should also always be a red flag for skeptics. Websites like Snopes, which vets current stories for veracity, help to some extent; but there's no substitute for critical thinking and a little bit of good research, and also for responsible people refusing to pass along links to websites that claim that listening to Rebecca Black's song "Friday" is what drove Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate JFK, and afterwards she escaped to Mali where she lived with the Dogon, until she caught a ride on an alien spacecraft and escaped to Sirius B, where she now lives as Barry Manilow's love slave.
Although, you have to admit, that does make for a pretty plausible story.
Now, of course, with electronic media, people are connected far more, and across far greater distances, than ever before. I'd suspect that most people are linked in fewer than six degrees of separation these days. And while this has some positive features, it also (as with most things) has a downside.
Being multiply, and rapidly, connectible means that information flows faster, easier, and further than in the past, it also means that there is a much quicker conduit for bullshit than previously. I had two interesting demonstrations of this just in the past couple of days.
Most of you by now have probably heard Rebecca Black's "song" "Friday," which catapulted to fame by virtue of being the worst song ever recorded, worse even (if you can believe this) than either "I Write the Songs" or "Copacabana." Maybe even worse than all of Barry Manilow's repertoire put together. Most people, after listening to about twenty seconds of this song, respond by sticking any available objects into their ears, even if the objects are steak knives. The spread of this song, which resembles in so many ways the spread of an infectious disease, is itself an interesting example of connectivity; but even more fascinating is the spread of a meme that claims that "Friday" is about the JFK assassination. Here is a version of this claim, copied verbatim:
"The driver of the car that JFK was assassinated in, had the name Samuel Kickin (kickin in the front seat, sitting in the back seat...). The assassination occurred on a Friday and when was shot the Secret Service yelled at Jackie Kennedy to "get down" (got to get down on Friday). Part about the cold war and spread of communism are also referenced [everybody rushin' (russian)] and to top it all off, in the hotel that morning JFK declined a breakfast of sausage, eggs and toast for a bowl of Bran Flakes instead (got to have my bown, got to have my cereal). Also, the following Monday JFK was supposed to sign a bill into law requiring all public schools to provide bus transportation for their students. (got to catch my bus...). Now obviously, "fast lanes, switching lanes" refers to the arms race between the US and the USSR. Fast productions of nuclear weapons, switching up whoever had more control, etc."
About two minutes of quick online research was enough to prove that this was virtually entirely made up. The driver of JFK's car was William Greer, not "Samuel Kickin." There is apparently no truth to the whole "bran flakes" claim, nor to the "bus transportation bill" claim. But so far, so what? This is just another of those weird things, initially probably intended to be humorous, that someone wrote. However, the whole thing has gone viral; I've been asked at least five times in the last three days if I have "heard that 'Friday' was about the JFK assassination."
Then, two days ago, I ran across a reference to a claim that I first saw in the 1970s -- that the Dogon tribe of Africa had prior knowledge, through contact with "ancient astronauts" from another planet, that the star Sirius had a companion star that was too small to see with the naked eye. According to this story, they even got the orbital period of this star correct. Aficionados of UFOs and aliens and so on just love this story, because if true, it would seem to be evidence that a relatively primitive tribe had information that they could only have gotten from an advanced society.
Of course, that last statement is literally true; the advanced society they got it from is France. The anthropologist who first made the claim of the Dogon's knowledge, Marcel Griaule, is thought to be the one who "contaminated" the Dogon with outside information in the first place. The discovery of Sirius' companion star ("Sirius B") was all over the news in the 1920s, when Griaule was working with the Dogon, and the Dogon themselves are peculiarly fascinated with the stars. It doesn't take much of a reach to guess that Griaule was the source of the information, especially given that subsequent researchers into the Dogon culture found that the only ones who had actually heard of "po tolo," as they called Sirius B, were the people in the village Griaule had visited.
Nonetheless, this story is still circulating. A search for the keywords "Sirius" and "Dogon" garnered 109,000 hits, and a quick perusal of the first three pages was enough to demonstrate that almost all of them buy Griaule's idea wholesale. And this points to another, and more depressing conclusion; skeptical thought seems to travel slower than bullshit does. Ridiculous ideas, like Griaule's claim that ancient astronauts had visited the Dogon, have more of a panache than do prosaic statements such as "Griaule told 'em himself, and then claimed he'd discovered something amazing." Who would be motivated to tell a friend something like the latter? While the former... well, you can see how that story might have a little more tendency to get passed along.
The eye-opener, for me, is how easy it is now for ideas to spread. Prior to the internet, ideas moved as fast as people did, or as fast as books could be passed along. Now, in the blink of an eye, an idea -- good or bad -- can travel halfway around the world. And given the tendency of most people not to question sources that give an appearance of authority, it's hardly to be wondered at that "I read it on a website," or (even better) the "my friend sent me a link," has become the mode for meme spread.
It should also always be a red flag for skeptics. Websites like Snopes, which vets current stories for veracity, help to some extent; but there's no substitute for critical thinking and a little bit of good research, and also for responsible people refusing to pass along links to websites that claim that listening to Rebecca Black's song "Friday" is what drove Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate JFK, and afterwards she escaped to Mali where she lived with the Dogon, until she caught a ride on an alien spacecraft and escaped to Sirius B, where she now lives as Barry Manilow's love slave.
Although, you have to admit, that does make for a pretty plausible story.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
An argument over nails
An old proverb, variously attributed to the Arabs and to the Chinese, says, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In a striking example of this principle, in yesterday's news we find a story about religious history that has resulted in what may be a first: something that atheists and devout Christians seem to be in complete agreement on.
Simcha Jacobovici is a filmmaker. There are sites that call him an archaeologist, but that seems to be a leap; he's done a number of film documentaries about archaeological sites in the Middle East, but as far as I can tell that's the limits of his archaeological training. Most of his films have been fairly obscure, but recently he has leapt into the spotlight with an interesting claim -- that he has discovered two of the nails used in Jesus' crucifixion.
Jacobovici's claim rests on the assertion that the tomb where they were found belonged to Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest whom the gospels assert was the man who turned Jesus over to the Romans. The nails, Jacobovici states in an interview, were bent in such a way as to keep a crucified man's wrist from pulling free, and that there would have been no other reason to keep the nails unless they had been important.
"Caiaphas was not a man who sent thousands to be crucified," Jacobovici said. "He is known to have caused the crucifixion of one man and one man only, and that is Jesus."
The claim is a fairly tenuous one right from the start. To begin with, the Israeli Antiquities Authority is doubtful that the tomb belongs to the Caiaphas of the gospels. That assertion, and therefore the rest of Jacobovici's argument, a spokesperson stated, "has no basis in archaeological findings or research."
Even if it is Caiaphas' tomb, the rest of the argument relies on some pretty flimsy logic. Jacobovici's statement that Caiaphas is known to have turned only one man over to the Romans is true, but the key word here is not "only" but "known." We know next to nothing about Caiaphas' life other than the couple of lines in the gospels that mention him (there is also a brief mention of him in Acts as having been present at the trials of Peter and Paul). In any case, there is not a shred of evidence to back up Jacobovici's claim that Caiaphas had the nails buried with him out of guilt over Jesus' death.
So, as far as I can tell, Jacobovici's argument runs something like this: a couple of nails that look like they may have been used in a crucifixion were found in a tomb that may or may not have belonged to Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest of the gospels. We can imagine that Caiaphas might well have felt bad about sending Jesus to his death. Conclusion: the nails were the ones used in Jesus' crucifixion, and Caiaphas commanded that he be buried with them because he felt guilty.
This claim has resulted in howls of derision from two different groups -- from serious archaeological researchers, who decry Jacobovici's methodology (to use the word fairly loosely), and from devout Christians who are understandably concerned about such claims further eroding public confidence in the evidence for the veracity of the gospels. Both camps consider the film a cheap publicity stunt, a view I entirely share. Jacobovici seems more concerned about turning a quick buck in such venues as The So-Called History Channel than he does about serious scholarship.
Jacobovici, of course, is defiant. "It's easy to scoff," he said, in an interview on ABC News. "But it's hard to do three years of investigation, which I've done. Could it be that these are the nails? You ask the question, you don't scoff."
Actually, Mr. Jacobovici, what you do is you examine the evidence with a skeptical mind; you don't make claims based on a chain of logic the consistency of taffy, and expect us to believe you've proved anything. You don't make unverifiable assertions and then get your knickers in a twist when serious researchers criticize what you've done.
But that's not what this is about, is it? This is about money, and you don't really care that the experts are scoffing as long as it will result in more people watching your film. Because, as Irish poet Brendan Behan said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity."
Simcha Jacobovici is a filmmaker. There are sites that call him an archaeologist, but that seems to be a leap; he's done a number of film documentaries about archaeological sites in the Middle East, but as far as I can tell that's the limits of his archaeological training. Most of his films have been fairly obscure, but recently he has leapt into the spotlight with an interesting claim -- that he has discovered two of the nails used in Jesus' crucifixion.
Jacobovici's claim rests on the assertion that the tomb where they were found belonged to Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest whom the gospels assert was the man who turned Jesus over to the Romans. The nails, Jacobovici states in an interview, were bent in such a way as to keep a crucified man's wrist from pulling free, and that there would have been no other reason to keep the nails unless they had been important.
"Caiaphas was not a man who sent thousands to be crucified," Jacobovici said. "He is known to have caused the crucifixion of one man and one man only, and that is Jesus."
The claim is a fairly tenuous one right from the start. To begin with, the Israeli Antiquities Authority is doubtful that the tomb belongs to the Caiaphas of the gospels. That assertion, and therefore the rest of Jacobovici's argument, a spokesperson stated, "has no basis in archaeological findings or research."
Even if it is Caiaphas' tomb, the rest of the argument relies on some pretty flimsy logic. Jacobovici's statement that Caiaphas is known to have turned only one man over to the Romans is true, but the key word here is not "only" but "known." We know next to nothing about Caiaphas' life other than the couple of lines in the gospels that mention him (there is also a brief mention of him in Acts as having been present at the trials of Peter and Paul). In any case, there is not a shred of evidence to back up Jacobovici's claim that Caiaphas had the nails buried with him out of guilt over Jesus' death.
So, as far as I can tell, Jacobovici's argument runs something like this: a couple of nails that look like they may have been used in a crucifixion were found in a tomb that may or may not have belonged to Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest of the gospels. We can imagine that Caiaphas might well have felt bad about sending Jesus to his death. Conclusion: the nails were the ones used in Jesus' crucifixion, and Caiaphas commanded that he be buried with them because he felt guilty.
This claim has resulted in howls of derision from two different groups -- from serious archaeological researchers, who decry Jacobovici's methodology (to use the word fairly loosely), and from devout Christians who are understandably concerned about such claims further eroding public confidence in the evidence for the veracity of the gospels. Both camps consider the film a cheap publicity stunt, a view I entirely share. Jacobovici seems more concerned about turning a quick buck in such venues as The So-Called History Channel than he does about serious scholarship.
Jacobovici, of course, is defiant. "It's easy to scoff," he said, in an interview on ABC News. "But it's hard to do three years of investigation, which I've done. Could it be that these are the nails? You ask the question, you don't scoff."
Actually, Mr. Jacobovici, what you do is you examine the evidence with a skeptical mind; you don't make claims based on a chain of logic the consistency of taffy, and expect us to believe you've proved anything. You don't make unverifiable assertions and then get your knickers in a twist when serious researchers criticize what you've done.
But that's not what this is about, is it? This is about money, and you don't really care that the experts are scoffing as long as it will result in more people watching your film. Because, as Irish poet Brendan Behan said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity."
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