The Rogues Gallery

A Grief Reminder

Evan Bernstein — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:42:51 +0000

My friend Mark sent an article my way today via Facebook. Courtesy of The Hartford Courant (the oldest continually running newspaper in America, for the moment), their ‘Business’ section of the website reports that a local engineer is manufacturing “hand held devices” for “effects associated with paranormal.” That is the “business” side of the story.

The other side of the report is that the engineer was inspired to create these devices due to the death of his 17-year old daughter back in 2004. Since that time, he has seen and heard things which he can only interpret as the spirit of his daughter trying to communicate with family members.

Mark’s first thought about the matter was that of sadness. Mark’s second thought suggested the notion is preposterous. I agree with Mark and his assessment of the priority of these two very different aspects of the article.

George Hrab just gave a fantastic talk at NECSS this past weekend about the subject of the loss of loved ones, and the grief and pain associated with such losses. The Courant article is quite timely in this regard, as I try to borrow George’s wisdom and add those pearls to my own set of thoughts on the matter. One of George’s many points was that people have a tendency not to talk about death and all of its unappealing aspects, arguably the worst of which is the sense of pain felt by the bereaved. We are very clumsy and socially unrehearsed when put in the position of having to interact with people in such a state of mind.

I was able to summarize, if not reinforce the thoughts I had before George’s talk, that there are no easy answers to questions concerning the complexities of the human psyche. This may seem a rather obvious thought upon reading, but we have to continually remind ourselves that humans have a tendency to seek out the easiest of answers from a given set of possibilities. This seems especially true when our emotions are in compromised states. I liken this to our pattern seeking tendencies - where the human brain has a disposition to make order out of, what is otherwise, chaos. We want to find reasons for things which may, in reality, have no reasons at all.

With this in mind, I don’t think we need to analyze why the father is interpreting the sound of a ringing doorbell, or the sight of the television changing channels as something paranormal. In my book, he gets a pass, and should not be the object of criticism or ridicule.

The second, and less important, aspect of the story is the engineering, and hence, the apparent “business” side of the story. Although I could go off on a rant about how The Courant did a poor job of reporting and categorizing this story, I will hold off on that for perhaps another day when I talk about the “rag” status of this newspaper.

Strictly from an engineering position, or more simply a general scientific position, I would like to see the test results for these devices. There is no mention in the article about how it has been proven that any of his devices work. There is no information concerning the mechanisms at action in such devices. It is taken for granted that ghost-detecting devices actually work at detecting anything other than mundane phenomena.

The story was also covered on television this past weekend as an episode of ‘Ghost Adventurers’, which airs on The Travel Channel. One of the quotes in the article from the host of the tv show reads:

“Gary is a very, very talented electrical engineer and he’s helped companies, massive companies, in that aspect in order to do things better.”

This is an argument from authority logical fallacy. Gary might be a talented electrical engineer, but this is not a way of proving that the technology actually works. What really matters are tests, results, unbiased data, and replication. Then we can start to have a serious conversation about the technology being accepted as genuine by the likes of the business section of The Hartford Courant.

Did the writer not think to reach out to organizations skeptical of these claims for an alternate point of view?

Perhaps he did, yet this being a rather uncomfortable subject to try and tackle (especially from a business standpoint), perhaps he made a decision, either consciously or subconsciously, to avoid one of the stickier facets of the story. Lets face it, its hard to ask tough questions – questions that contradict the claims of the claimant, even for the sake of playing devil’s advocate - of a person so grieved.

And this goes back to one of George’s points again: people are generally poor and clumsy communicators when it comes to the things they say to other people when the subject pertains to the death of loved ones.

I could go off further and on different tangents regarding this story, but I’m cutting myself short to help preserve the main point I am trying to drive home, which is this …

Good skeptics work hard at trying to understand the world around us, and in that search for a more complete comprehension of the cosmos, we remain mindful of human nature, inclusive of human culture, and understanding of human imperfections.

Word Magnets for Skeptics from SGU!

Rebecca Watson — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:30:49 +0000

We’ve had a few new additions to Skeptical Robot, our merch shop, and my absolute favorite is this sweet set of more than 200 Word Magnets for Skeptics. You can make tons of classic skeptical phrases and even create your own freeform poems on topics like homeopathy, evolution, vaccination, Bigfoot, aliens, and nano-robots. And since the set comes courtesy of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, there are even a few in-jokes you can make (plus the names of all the co-hosts)! Here are a few options:

the plural of anecdote is not evidence

science or fiction

nano robots abducted Bob

bird vs monkey

to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe

Steve debunked homeopathy

And so many more!

[EDIT: SGU is even having a contest: buy a set, create your best skeptical poem, take a photo of it, and send it to info@theskepticsguide.org. The best poems will be read on air, and the one we deem the awesomest will get a free SGU t-shirt!]

Of course, while you’re in the shop you should also pick up the new Chibi PZ Tee (say it three times fast), the tentacle-themed Pharyngula travel mug, and, naturally, a sweet Skepchick logo tee. Look, just buy all the things. ALL THE THINGS

O! Say Can You See …

Evan Bernstein — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:32:20 +0000

We have not one, but TWO delicious examples of pareidolia in the news this week. Pareidolia is the phenomena of seeing patterns in objects, such as a face in the clouds. The human mind has a natural disposition to try and make order out of chaos, and faces are the most common pattern discerned out of randomness. This is because some of the very first images burned in to our brains as infants are that of faces, primarily a mother’s face, for obvious reasons.

Today, we have a chicken nugget purported to look like the famous profile of George Washington. Have a look at this picture of the nugget along side the US quarter dollar. The only truly amazing thing about this nugget is that it fetched $8100 at auction on eBay! Jesus!

Speaking of which, the other image is that of Jesus on a tortilla (again). This is a more readily reported sighting – the face of Jesus “appears” (note the quotation marks) on all sorts of objects – glass windows, oil stains in parking lots, in the knots and stumps of trees, on all sorts of food items, and so on. Is it any co-incidence that the most “popular” (there are those quotation marks again) person in history (Jesus Christ) “appears” so frequently in all kinds of objects all over the world? So far, there are no reports of the tortilla being auctioned.

But in the case of the chicken nugget, the nugget’s owner, Rebekah Speight, to her credit, raised the money on eBay for charity. Good for her!

To Rebekah Speight’s discredit, she’s giving the money to children so they can attend a summer church camp where they will probably learn to be more inclined to see the face of Jesus in tortillas, wallpaper prints, and fecal matter. The irony is bitter.

I would have much rather seen her donate the money for kids to go on a summer trip to Washington DC so they could learn more about the importance of historical figures in US history, such as George Washington.

February 29

Evan Bernstein — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:06:43 +0000

The calendar is one of the most amazing creations of humankind. Including its most obvious of utilities (keeping track of our days and seasons) the calendar is a validation of scientific principles, such as the correct application of the process of predictability – which is to say, a good scientific theory will make certain predictions as a means of testing its validity. So by most measures, the accuracy of The Gregorian Calendar is a pretty damn good system. One big reason why the calendar works as well as it does is because of the concept of Leap Day and Leap Years.

Unless you are still using an abacus instead of a computer, then you know that February 29 is the Leap Day of The Gregorian Calendar. Since this irregular day will be upon us shortly, I thought I’d consolidate some interesting tidbits about February 29.

So I did, and in no particular order, here are the tidbits that caught my attention:

- We have it burned in our brains that Leap Day occurs every four years. This is mostly true, however there is an exception: there is no Leap Day on years ending in ’00, with the exception of ’00 years divisible by 400 (such as the year 2000.)

- There are efforts occurring in US universities where researchers are trying to come up with alternative calendars to ultimately replace The Gregorian Calendar, thereby eliminating the need for Leap Day and Leap Years. Here is the recent SciAm article about this very subject.

- In the early 1700′s in Sweden, they had their own calendar for about a dozen years, and their Leap Years also included February 30!

- February 29 is also known (in some circles) as Saint Oswald Day. And so it is said … in the year of our Lord 992, “On Leap Year Day, February 29, he died after kissing the feet of the 12th man and giving a blessing.” (May The Lords and Saints Preserve Us!)

- Superstitious Grecians (people from Greece) consider Leap Year an unlucky year to get married, and don’t even think about getting married on February 29th in Greece!

- Legend has it that Christopher Columbus took advantage of a lunar eclipse on February 29 in 1504 to get himself out of a perilous situation.

- It is reported that Leap Day has tripped up Google. Their ‘Blogger’ program will not allow existing users born on February 29 to update their profiles, an annoyance to leapers (people born on February 29) who use social media. The company plans to fix the glitch, but we shall see!

- Here is a stupid astrology thing about people born on February 29. I know ‘stupid astrology’ is redundant, but I’m taking liberties today.

And finally … on more of a personal note …

- On February 29 in 1980, Gordie Howe of The Hartford Whalers scored his record-setting 800th career goal. I mention this because I am forever a Whaler’s fan, even though the team is 15 years gone.

Happy February 29th everyone! Lets do this again in about 4 years!

Doctors Drop Unvaccinated Patients

Mike Lacelle — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:32:27 +0000

The decision to vaccinate a child shouldn’t really be a hard one to make. In fact, I don’t really think it should be a decision at all. Vaccines have been proven time and time again to be both very safe and extremely effective. And yet some people still choose not to have their children vaccinated. Personally, I think that’s a very bad decision.

There is SO MUCH bad information out there regarding vaccines, it’s very disheartening. Of course there’s good information, but the bad info is much easier to find. And it’s presented in a way that appeals to that person’s very basic instinct: to shield their child from possible harm. So as I think about it, it seems to me that most (if not all) of these people are doing it for what for them seems like a good reason

The problem is that they not only compromise their child’s health based on faulty information, but they contribute to a loss in herd immunity. This leads to the cases we hear in the news about vaccine preventable diseases affecting communities with low vaccine compliance. These cases are almost entirely avoidable.

Doctors have always taken the matter seriously, but recently, many pediatricians have been parting ways with patients of theirs who refuse to vaccinate. A story in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week reported on a rise in doctors refusing or “firing” patients who do not comply to the CDC and AAAP’s vaccine schedule.

In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and a recent survey of 909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported discharging families for the same reason. By comparison, in 2001 and 2006 about 6% of physicians said they “routinely” stopped working with families due to parents’ continued vaccine refusal and 16% “sometimes” dismissed them, according to surveys conducted then by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I completely agree with the pediatricians’ decision not to see unvaccinated children. Having an unvaccinated child in a doctor’s waiting room full of other children, some sick, is downright dangerous. Both for the unvaccinated child and the other people present.

There’s also an issue of trust. If parents don’t trust their doctor’s medical advice on one subject, why would they trust them on another? There should be a high level of trust there between doctor and patient.

When and if I have children, this will absolutely be one of the factors in choosing a pediatrician. I want to be able to trust that my child’s health is in good hands, and what better hands than someone’s who is willing to give up a select group of patients for the safety of the majority of her or his other patients? I’ll be looking for a doctor who practices science-based medicine.

So what do you guys think? Do you agree with the decision these doctors are making? There is certainly an argument to be made for both sides.

photo by: UNICEF Sverige

SGU Bloopers – Together they form Voltron!

Mike Lacelle — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:57:00 +0000

I’ve been working with the rogues behind the scenes for a few years now, and one of my tasks has (had) been to convert the raw audio tracks into SGU 5×5 episodes. During that time I took it upon myself to grab out some funny behind the scenes clips that never made it to the final podcast.

Here’s a clip that happened during a recording of 5×5 in December of 2009.

For those of you who are wondering, 5×5 isn’t gone. It’s actually going to make a comeback very, very soon. So stay tuned. I will be doing the edits so I’ll be posting some more clips on here as they come in.

Habitable Zone Less Habitable?

Bob Novella — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:36:02 +0000

The hunt for exoplanets has been heating up for years, aided by new technologies and refined methods for finding smaller and smaller planets that may harbor life.

Integral to this hunt is the concept that the ideal planet’s orbit will be in a habitable zone that is far enough away from its parent star that water doesn’t completely evaporate and close enough for liquid water to exist.

In fact, a new earth-sized planet was recently found that was smack-dab in the middle of this Goldilocks zone and our current best candidate for an earth-like planet that could support life as we know it.

This zone however may not be as capacious as we once thought.
It looks like the heat from a star is not the only limiting factor for the survivability of liquid water. Tidal forces can also have a similar effect. This is called Tidal Heating.

The decline of a star’s gravitational pull on a planet means that some parts of a planet are tugged to a greater or a lesser degree than other parts. This not only deforms the shape a planet’s oceans but also its rocky interior (and even its atmosphere).

This constant kneeding of rock makes the planet hotter, potentially turning a wet world into a dessicated Venus-like planet. In fact, these worlds are being called Tidal Venuses.

To read more on this fascinating topic, check out this link

Want Your Palm Read?

Evan Bernstein — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:43:55 +0000

I know I am dating myself, but one of the most memorable lines from any of the hundreds of Bugs Bunny cartoons (which spans over 70 years worth of material) is, while dressed as a “swami”, he asks the antagonist character …

“Do you want your palm read?”

The brute holds out his hand and Bugs proceeds to paint his palm with red paint. Classic stuff for those of us old enough to remember such humor steeped in antiquity.

As the cartoon world clearly knew back in 1949 that swami’s and palm reading and phrenology (reading “bumps” on the head) and other childish notions were excellent vehicles to deliver humor, you would think that in modern times, the human race would continue to laugh off the fantasy of anti-scientific newage such as divination by reading palms.

Welcome to 21st century China, where ancient superstitions, antiquated habits, prejudices against people with certain blood types or certain last names, any many other forms of pseudoscience are alive and well. So what’s the latest news-making nonsense coming out of China these days?

That’s right … Palm Reading!

Reading the palms of children, to be more specific. According to this Reuters article, in a province in northern China, parents are paying 1200 yuan ($190US) to have their children’s palms read. According to the reports, these readings can …

“determine the children’s innate intelligence and potential.”

Funny they should use the wording “innate intelligence”, which is the purported vitalistic component of chiropractic. One might dismiss it as a mere coincidence, but the notion that “innate intelligence” exists at all is a column which has been built exclusively for the Parthenon of Woo. Science has can not detect “innate intelligence”, and until someone comes up with a scientifically valid means of doing so, it does not exist.

It is also funny how the counterbalance in the article, a quote from a “pediatric expert”, offers the following retort:

“This technology remains unaccounted for.”

How weak. First, its not “technology” at all. It is a combination of mysticism and cold-reading. Second, it is not unaccounted for. Palm reading is well accounted for, and it simply doesn’t work. It is fortune telling. There is no evidence whatsoever for the validity of palm reading.

But this is China, and China is a big place with tons of people and ancient cultures and traditions that will never let go of their ingrained and cherished sacred cows. Take a look at this article for more on the wackiness of Chinese culture.

America and other countries around the world all have their own brands of cultural pseudoscience and woo, but the notion of palm reading strikes a chord of infantile thinking and humor steeped in ridiculousness the likes of which Bugs Bunny would still be proud of today.

The Search for a SuperSolid

Bob Novella — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:19:57 +0000

The hunt is on for a new quantum state of matter called Supersolidity.

This state has never been conclusively observed but it would resemble another quantum state that has…superfluidity.

A superfluid is incredibly cool (barely above absolute zero in fact). It has zero viscosity which means it can actually climb up an out of a container. It can also flow through the tiniest pores of any container it’s in.

You may think that a supersolid would be super due to it’s incredible density but that’s not the case.

If you want more details. Checkout this article from my favorite science news-site Physorg.

Enjoy

Email Of The Year (So Far)

Evan Bernstein — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:41:15 +0000

A recently received email reads, unedited, as such …

“I don’t like your attitude on the show. You said the Chem-trails are not real. I have seen them myself and have taken many pictures. I have also seen footage of a weatherman in Oregon saying that the military was doing experiments and laying the chem-trails. Why would you be so sure that they are not real. Who are you?? A bunch of snotty punks that never leave your office? I bet the whole show is there to make real people who seek real truth; look stupid. The “experts” like you claim to be, lie all the fucking time; and so do the people on your show. Thats why you dont have the guts to put up a phone number for calls. I bet you are funded by the goverment, or drug companies or something. No normal people are so arrogant. You are not the “experts” of anything, except lies.”

Wow, that’s quite an email. Allow me to reply one sentence at a time.

“I don’t like your attitude on the show.”

Unsubscribe.

“You said the Chem-trails are not real.”

Yes.

“I have seen them myself and have taken many pictures.”

You saw contrails, not “chem-trails”.

“I have also seen footage of a weatherman in Oregon saying that the military was doing experiments and laying the chem-trails.”

Argument From Authority (a very poor one, to boot)

“Why would you be so sure that they are not real.”

Evidence, lack thereof.

Who are you??

I see where the question mark from the prior “question” went.

”A bunch of snotty punks that never leave your office?”

Ad Hominem.

“I bet the whole show is there to make real people who seek real truth; look stupid.”

Only those who regularly botch their punctuation.

The “experts” like you claim to be, lie all the fucking time; and so do the people on your show.

Asshole Fallacy.

“Thats why you dont have the guts to put up a phone number for calls.”

(212) 384-1000

“I bet you are funded by the goverment, or drug companies or something.”

Something.

“No normal people are so arrogant.”

(Fill in your own thought, I really have no idea what this means.)

“You are not the “experts” of anything, except lies.”

Lies indeed, especially exposing the people who spout and regurgitate them.