Skepticblog

I recently went through one of my old mentalist catalogues from a company that specialized in mediumistic stunts and props and was reminded that such gimmickry as “Telephones to the Dead” are nothing new. (continue reading…)

The famous Traveling Salesman math puzzle is much more than just a fun game. It’s a dramatically illustrated way to understand the efficiencies involved in product distribution models. The problem works like this: Take a map and draw dozens of dots on it. The salesman’s task is to define a driving route that visits each dot, with the minimum driving distance connecting them all. He has to visit so many locations, and he wants to burn as little gas as possible. Obviously this is something that people are looking at harder than ever today.

There’s a very cool piece of freeware software that uses a genetic algorithm to solve the Traveling Salesman problem. It’s by Michael Lalena and is found at http://www.lalena.com/AI/Tsp/. Draw dozens (or hundreds) of dots, and the software will start with a random route and then refine it iteratively until it’s super efficient. It’s fun trying to stump it with a zillion dots in a pattern that appears to be hard to traverse, and then to see what a surprisingly simple curve it finds to visit them all. (continue reading…)

As you may recall, the James Randi Educational Foundation recently tested a woman named Patricia Putt who claimed she could "read" people, that is, write down statements that accurately described these people, without knowing them in advance. She applied for the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, and the preliminary test was performed in England by JREF friends Professors Christopher French and Richard Wiseman.

Briefly, 10 women were read by Ms. Putt, she wrote down descriptions of them, and then after the readings each of the ten women was allowed to look over the readings and determine which one fit her best.

In advance of the testing, Putt and the JREF agreed that if 5 of the 10 women chose correctly, then this would indicate that something interesting was happening, and she could move on to the final testing. And how did she fare?

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For this week’s blog I’ll post two related video links, the first for an Australian television series called Compass, which interviewed me while I was in Sydney last summer, on “The Atheists.”

WATCH the video on abc.net.au

I think it is a well done show, fair and balanced, so to speak, but I do find the premise rather interesting in as much as they purport to be studying “us” like we’re some mysterious species recently discovered on a remote island. From the voice over: “What do they believe? And are they all the same?” Picture David Attenborough hanging from a cliff face, “and here, if you look closely, you’ll see amongst the vast forest of believers the rare spotted atheist, whose diet remains a mystery but whose mating habits produce far fewer offspring than believers, and so they nest precariously on face cliffs such as this one so as not to be devoured by their carnivorous neighbors…”

Here’s the show summary:

Compass talks to atheists of different stripes.Eminent philosopher John Gray; science writer and editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer; historian and writer Inga Clendinnen and Australia’s best known atheist Phillip Adams, all explore the philosophical and practical consequences of being an atheist.

How does their atheism shape their attitudes to science and the big questions of our time such as war and global warming? Is conflict between atheists and believers inevitable and necessary? Or, is this debate generating more heat than light?

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The origins of life on earth remains a daunting scientific challenge. The difficulty is in trying to find evidence to infer what chemical reactions took place billions of years ago. There may ultimately be no way to settle the issue, but that does not mean the question cannot be addressed scientifically.

Of course, the enemies of science (creationists and their ilk) exploit this fact to argue that science cannot understand life origins, and therefore we must invoke supernatural explanations. They often further confuse the question of life origins with evolution – the subsequent change in life over time.

Despite the claims of creationists, there actually is a rigorous scientific discipline exploring questions surrounding the first stirrings of life on earth. Recently researchers took an important, if incremental, step in understanding how non-life became life.

Powner, Gerland, and Sutherland published a paper in which they explore how RNA (ribonucleic acid) could have arisen on the early Earth.

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Guerilla Skepticism is gaining momentum. My recent post about so-called “Telephones to the Dead” sprawned a huge outcry from both sides of the issue. Since “Box of Fiends” hit this blog, I have received replies from hundreds of people; both “experts,” “researchers” and from those of us who just can’t believe talking to dead people is even an issue. Have people gone mad?  I have to constantly rein in my anger over the fact that such a ridiculous claim has and continues to draw so much intense emotion. I find myself frequently quoting Issac Asimov’s “Unicorn Wings” theory to myself and whoever will listen to keep from getting drawn into this and other quagmires of self-deception. (continue reading…)

Recently I hit a milestone on my audio podcast Skeptoid: the 150th episode. I wanted to do something really fun, and decided a lavish broadway musical was the way to go. Normally my listeners expect 10 minutes of me talking in a dry and boring manner, so I figured this would be a fun way to surprise everyone.

The concept was a musical version of a secret meeting of the Illuminati, ruing the fact that the population has discovered alternative and faith-based everything, and thus profits are down. (continue reading…)

Scott Hurst, a skeptic and JREF friend, has written an entry for Swift asking how much responsibility antivax mouthpieces like Meryl Dorey and Jenny McCarthy have for deaths caused by their rhetoric. It’s a solidly-written piece that is well-researched and brings up what I think is a valid point. While we do have the right to free speech in the U.S., there are ramifications to it. Are they responsible if parents don’t vaccinate their children, and deaths follow? It’s a fair question.

Somewhat less fair, perhaps, is a video that has been made making fun of Jenny McCarthy. While I think it provides an outlet for the visceral need to do something to stop her relentless nonsense about vaccinations and autism, I don’t know if this sort of thing really helps. I don’t know if it will convince any fence-sitters or believers, and can come across as being mean-spirited. I think there’s a difference between being angry and showing it, and being simply mean. What do you think? I’ve heard opinions going both ways on this video.
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As many of you read through the entries for the SkepticBlog from all of these talented minds, you probably see many references to The Skeptologists.

I’ll assume for a moment that many of you already know what The Skeptologists is all about. Since the start of the blog, many new readers are undoubtedly trying to figure it out. Today, rather than writing a long blog here, I’m going to invite you to take a look at the newly refreshed Skeptologists Website.

This past weekend, I spent a few hours giving our Official Show Site an overhaul, adding details about the theme of the show and giving some never released details about how the program will be presented.

You don’t get it for free however, It will cost you a minute or two. Once you’ve read through the website, please take a quick moment to make a comment on the “Your Turn” page so that those who come through afterwards (including TV execs and agents that we send there) will understand just how much support we have for a skeptically-minded TV program.

Visit the Official Show Website at www.Skeptologists.com

I hope you enjoy the site, and look forward to your comments.

If you see any typo’s or encounter technical problems, please feel free to email me directly.

Enjoy!

TED has gone viral! The now famous conference entitled Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED), which began life in the quaint environs of Monterey, California but since moved to a more expansive venue in Long Beach (with regional TEDs springing up and the TED talks on TED.com among the most watched lectures in history), is now finding itself cloned. Last year I spoke at the La Ciudad de las Ideas (City of Ideas) in Puebla, Mexico, and reported on that TED-like conference in these blog pages (part 1 & part 2). Last week I spoke at Thinking Digital, this one held in the gorgeous city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, during which I proved myself to be a truly Ugly American when I asked my host the name of the river that runs through the heart of the city as we were driving over it (“uh, that would be the Tyne”). Right. Good start Shermer. (continue reading…)