Skepticblog

Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

—Lewis Carroll, 1872, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Every few months or so, you see a “documentary” on a cable program searching for Noah’s ark. Every other year or so, the media picks up a story where someone has “discovered Noah’s ark.” The latest incident occurred when former Baywatch actress and Playboy model Donna D’Errico was injured trying to climb Mt. Ararat. All it takes is a quick web search to discover that these foolish quests and dubious claims happen over and over again, year in and year out, just like false prophets who proclaim the end of the world in six months. The most famous of these “false alarm” discoveries occurred in 1993, when George Jammal hoaxed a documentary about “discovering” the Ark; it was later revealed he never went to Turkey, and that the “wood” he showed was a piece of pine soaked in soy sauce.

What is striking about all these amazing claims that there is NEVER any further research, or follow-up. After the big splash of the hot story in the media, one never hears that they actually tested the “Ark wood” to see if it was really old, or return to the same place for more data. (Ironically, since creationists deny radiocarbon dating, they can’t very well use it for their own purposes and then reject it for all others). Most of the time we’re given some lame excuse, such as the “Ark” vanished under an avalanche after their visit, or the Turkish authorities would not allow them to return to Ararat. Surely, if they had actually found something, they would have gone back again and again and accumulated more and more evidence, as true scientists and archeologists always do. Instead, it’s a flash in the pan of media publicity, then…nothing. Lord knows these people have LOTS of money to follow the pursuit. Nearly every “Ark” story on their broadcasting or on their websites is followed by a plea for more money to continue this work. If real scientists were funded for real research at the levels these creationists are for phony research, just think of the useful discoveries we would have made by now! Instead, the money goes down the rabbit-hole of their mysterious and untaxable income, and we never get any results. Now they are taking an even bigger bite, not only out of their own flock, but out of taxpayers. Ken Ham’s ridiculous “Answers in Genesis” organization has bamboozled the Governor of Kentucky and much of their legislature to give them tax breaks and new roads and infrastructure to build a Noah’s ark replica in Kentucky, adjacent to their phony creationist “museum” in Petersburg, Kentucky. Now, no matter what you think of these matters, the State is supporting the Church, and Kentucky taxpayers who object to this expenditure of their tax dollars have no choice. Fortunately, the AiG organization is having trouble raising money for the “Ark Park” and has postponed construction indefinitely, and even attendance at the “Creation Museum” is declining and hurting their finances. (Check out this clever parody, “Koran Kountry”, that imagines a Muslim-themed park supported by Kentucky tax dollars). (continue reading…)

I don’t have any a-priori or ideological issue with any of the specific practices that fall under the “organic” rubric. I do have a problem with the fact that there is an organic rubric. In fact I think the USDA made a mistake in giving into pressure and creating their organic certification. At the time they tried to make it clear that “certified organic” said absolutely nothing about the product itself, only that certain rules and restrictions were followed. It was not an endorsement of organic farming, just a way to regulate the use of the term in labeling food. Unfortunately, it further solidified the organic false dichotomy.

I recently wrote about the Stanford study – a systematic review of studies of organic produce. They concluded:

The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Some of the reaction to the Stanford study, and my discussion of it, illustrates the problem with the false dichotomy – it encourages muddy thinking. There is a range of practices that are allowed and not allowed in organic farming to meet USDA certification. Excluded practices include genetically modified (GM) ingredients, ionizing radiation, and use of sewer sludge. There is also a long list of allowed and excluded substances (such as organic vs non-organic pesticides).

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Back in August I noticed with some surprise that a new network of skeptic and atheist bloggers had started up at Skepticblogs.com. (Surprised, because I had thought we owned that domain. When Skepticblog, our own skeptical group blog formed back in 2008, we made sure to snap up all the variations on our name that we could get our hands on. However, it seems that Skepticblogs.com was not then available, and therefore got missed.)

Hypatia of Alexandria, the inspiration for Skeptic Ink. Artwork by Ryan Grant Long

Looking at the new site, it seemed to us that two group blogs with such similar names (just an “s” apart) and overlapping (though not identical) rationalist missions could create confusion and headaches for both sites. Happily, we were swiftly able to sort things out with the organizers of the new blog, thanks to their very neighborly approach: they relocated to a new domain, and we did what we could to help.

So I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the whole crew over there for their community-minded kindness and assistance, and introduce you to the relocated, rebranded, and redesigned Skeptic Ink blog (aka, the Skeptic Ink Network, or more playfully, SIN). I see that it is home to an energetic mix of different voices, each touching on different facets of a wide rationalism — not only the scientific skepticism that is Skepticblog’s area of concentration, but also atheism, philosophy and related topics they deem “vital to human flourishing.”

I hope you will check out Skeptic Ink, and join me in thanking them for their collaborative spirit.

A review of Once we all had Gills: Growing up evolutionist in an evolving world, by Rudolf A. Raff

Autobiography is a popular genre in the publishing industry, but most are accounts of famous actors or politicians or other public figures. There are relatively few good examples of autobiographic accounts by important scientists (both past and present). Most scientists tend not to write autobiographical accounts of themselves, whether it be because they are too modest, too busy, or whether the ego-denying, self-effacing scientific culture which suppresses the first-person pronouns and the active voice (“the experiment was conducted by so-and-so’s lab”) makes us less than willing to talk about ourselves. When an autobiographical account of a prominent scientist appears, it gives us important insights into the questions of how great scientists are made, as well as how they made their discoveries. Reading Darwin’s autobiography (even if he did modify some details) has been an important source regarding events and ideas led to his discovery of evolution by natural selection. Feynman’s autobiographical books (especially Surely you’re Joking, Mr. Feynman) are laugh-out-loud funny as this brilliant misfit gives us his quirky view of the world, amazing his professors and colleagues, and playing tricks on Army security when he was working on the Bomb in Los Alamos. E.O. Wilson’s 2006 autobiography Naturalist shows how his childhood love of collecting bugs in Alabama blossomed not only into a career as a world famous ant expert, but also to his insights about ecological biogeography and sociobiology. For historians of science, as well as people who want to understand what makes a great scientist, such rare first-person accounts are highly valuable. (continue reading…)

[Questo post è disponibile anche in italiano nella versione online di Query, la rivista ufficiale del CICAP (Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sul Paranormale). Potete leggerlo qui.]

Steven Novella’s post last week on the complex topic of the ethics of speech was inspired by consideration of the ethics of “colloquial use of the term ‘crazy.'” This is an area of interest to me. I have often argued both for professional restraint in the things skeptics say and the manner in which we say them; and, for the importance of ongoing conversation on the ethics and efficacy of skeptical practice. But Novella’s post also had excellent timing, as I was already planning on touching on some of the thorny ethics at the intersection between skepticism and mental illness.

I should say at the outset that I have little in the way of solutions to offer. That’s natural and proper: I am not a mental health professional, so it should seem surprising (or reckless) if I had many answers—insofar as answers even exist. My professional experience in skepticism does suggest some troubling questions, however. As well, many people have personal or family experience with the tragedies of mental illness, serious addiction, or both. My own life has been no exception, so I confess that I feel acutely aware the topic.

That said, let’s look at some angles of interest.
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One of the main themes of scientific skepticism, at least one of my favorite themes, is that we cannot take the accuracy of our own perceptions for granted. We cannot trust what we remember about what we think we experienced – a principle I call neuropsychological humility. Human brains process information in a complex way, making assumptions and adjustments that are useful most of the time, but introduce multiple opportunities for misperceptions. This is partly why we need objective evidence as a check on our perceptions.

Neuroscientists continue to document the many ways in which our perceptions can be fooled. One category of such phenomena are so-called cross-modal interactions – one sensory modality influencing another. The basic concept here is that our brains are receiving multiple streams of information simultaneously and they weave those streams into one seamless experience of reality. Therefore what we see influences what we hear, and what we hear influences what we see, which influences what we feel, etc.

By exploiting these cross-modal interactions researchers can trick the brain into a false experience – by bending or breaking the rules of these interactions. They do this somewhat like magicians, creating scenarios for which evolution would likely not have prepared us.

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Today I went on HuffPost Live for a conversation about UFOs: whether they’re alien spaceships, whether the government is covering them up, etc.; more or less, the usual stuff. Here is the video (and here’s a direct link if the embedded video isn’t working for you):

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Over the past 1.5 years of blogs, I’ve discussed all sorts of science deniers, from the Flat Earthers, to the geocentrists, to the various crackpots and fringe physicists, to the young-earth creationists, with their broad-based attack on most of biology, geology, anthropology, and cosmology. Nearly all of this attitude toward science comes from biblical literalism. But if you asked the average person, or even a physicist, whether Einstein and relativity were a threat to religion, you’d get a resounding “no.”  Relativity may be a difficult to explain in layman’s terms, and sometimes counter-intuitive way of understanding physics at the extremes of velocity and space, but it’s hard to imagine why it would trouble a fundamentalist. Perhaps its importance to modern cosmology might make it an anathema to them, but it’s not threatening in and of itself, is it?

There you would be wrong! Apparently to the mind of some conservatives and creationists, ANY thing in science can become a threat to their world view, and therefore requires one of their bizarre forms of attack and rebuttal. Take, for example, conservative activist Andrew Schlafly. He is the son of famous anti-feminist homophobic activist Phylis Schlafly, and the editor of Conservapedia, a strange attempt to mimic Wikipedia but with a strong conservative bias. Andrew Schlafly is not uneducated: he has an engineering degree from Princeton, a law degree from Harvard and worked for Intel and Bell Labs. However, he has no training in any of the sciences that might challenge his conservative ideology, and it plainly shows in how he writes about subjects beyond his expertise. He is a classic case of what has been called the “smart idiot,” educated enough to sound convincing but not educated in the right areas of expertise to realize he’s wrong—and with strong ideological denial filters, confirmation bias, and issues of cognitive dissonance that cause him to perform some incredibly weird thought processes. (continue reading…)

We Need More “Psychics” Like Dave

Thanks to one of my magic students, Michael McMenamin for alerting  me on this Belgian PSA.  It’s brilliant. Seems to me CFI or JREF could do a lot of people real good by doing something similar instead of spending thousands of dollars on more talking head seminars and preaching to the choir. As usual, Europe has to show the rest of the world the trend.  Good for them. (continue reading…)

In 2011 Mitt Romney paid $1,935,708 in taxes and made $4,020,772 in donations to charity, presumably most of it to the Mormon Church. Did Mitt Romney pay his fair share of taxes? That depends on how one defines “fair,” which we can think of in two uses: (1) fair value for services rendered; (2) fair percentage of earned income.

1. Fair value for services rendered. For what amounts to roughly the same services rendered by the government that I received in 2011 (military, police, fire, roads and infrastructure, courts, and other essential services, along with future promises we both hope will be honored—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), then Mitt paid almost two orders of magnitude more in taxes than I paid. And, presumably, I got everything from the government that Mitt got (except for Secret Service protection because I’m not running for President), or at least in the ballpark. So, by this definition of “fair,” it seems not unreasonable to ask: why should Mitt pay so much more than me when he doesn’t get additional police and fire protection, better roads and bridges, superior courts, and the like, than I receive for my much lower taxes? Almost no one accepts this definition of “fair,” but it’s worth thinking about as an exercise in critical thinking about how society should be structured. If Mitt and I lived on the same block why should he have to pay so much more for the same road on which we both drive? Is Mitt’s house going to get extra special fire protection from the local fire department because he paid more than I did? If we both sent our kids to the same public school, do Mitt’s kids get two orders of magnitude better education than my kids? The answer to all of these questions is obviously “no,” but why are we not asking these questions?
2. Fair percentage of earned income. Mitt paid about 15% of his income in taxes. I paid about double that amount. Here we can turn the above questions around and ask why Mitt should only pay half of what I’m paying in percent of income for those same roads, schools, police and fire departments, courts, and the like? I’ll admit, it irritates a little that I’m paying so much more in percentage than Mitt, but I must also confessedly note that knowing Mitt paid almost two million in taxes attenuates that irritation considerably. Two million bucks is a lot of dough to hand over to bureaucrats in hopes that they do something useful with it.

So this entire topic turns on a simple definition of what we mean by “fair,” and that, in turn, seems to turn on what our goals as a society should be: equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? (continue reading…)