A few years ago I spent several months working on a project to digitise and archive hundreds of old family photos. These photos have been sitting around loose in boxes, stored in old photo albums, sat in houses with smokers and generally mistreated. My goal was to preserve these memories and make sure they do not fade away. He’s a few tips I picked up during this project.

Note that I am not a professional archivist or photo conservation expert. This is just a layperson’s experiences with his own project. Your results may vary.

Sorting

Before you start scanning you should sort through the photos and do a quick sort. I started by sorting the different sizes and styles of prints together, and trying to put them into sets.

Prints from the same camera will usually all be on the same size and type of paper, which can help identify sets of photos. Scanning sets together makes cataloguing them later much easier. Getting a rough idea of how many photos of various sizes you have makes it easier to purchase sleeves for them (more on that later).

Take a close look at the backs of the photos too. Sometimes there will be a stamp from the photo developing shop which can be used to match photos into sets. These stamps may even include a date if you are lucky.

Cleaning

I generally do this step as part of the scanning step below. If prints have been stored for a long time they may be dusty or dirty. I generally use a soft brush like a camera lens brush to remove any dust or fluff from prints. You can also use a soft dry cloth such as a microfiber cloth to remove finger prints, just make sure it’s clean and has no residues from cleaning chemicals on it.

I was lucky enough not to have any prints that were dirty or water damaged but I believe there are certain cleaning solutions that can be used for these prints. Just make sure you get the right type of solution for the print you have. Using the wrong type of chemical can irreparably damage prints.

Once you have the prints clean you want to keep them clean. I recommend scanning them as quickly as possible and putting them straight into an archival sleeve. Avoid handling the prints too much, hold them by the edges or use flat stamp tweezers or cotton cloves to move them around.

Scanning

Just as important as keeping your prints clean is making sure the bed of your scanner is clean. Used a mild cleaning solution such as a LCD cleaner with a microfiber cloth (NOT the same one you use on the photos) or a lens brush to make sure you keep the dust and fingerprints out of your scans.

I recommend only using a flatbed scanner for old photos. Some photo shops have tray-feed style scanners which will probably mangle your prints. They’re probably fine for newer 6×4 prints but there is no way I’d use them for old precious photos. Same goes for multi-function printers with tray-feed style scanners and portable roller-type scanners. Flatbed is best.

I scanned all my photos on a Canon PIXMA MG6150, which has an optical resolution of 4800 x 4800 dpi. Its not the best scanner in the world; there are faster scanners with better resolution and built in image processing, but for my purposes it did the job. If you have a multifunction printer, then the scanner in it will probably do the trick. There’s no need to buy a new $1000 scanner for this (unless you really want to).

Your scanner may have different settings to mine, but I set mine up to scan in tiff format at 600ppi. This resolution gives a good balance between quality, scan time and file size. Saving in lossless tiff format avoids problems with jpg compression artifacts which can ruin small photos.

Scan your photos one at a time. It may be tempting to lay half a dozen small prints on the bed and scan them in one hit. I tried this and it ended up being more trouble than its worth. You waste a lot of time cropping these files into individual images, it’s easy to lose track of order and numbering. It can also be difficult to get multiple photos perfectly square on the bed, due to bent prints etc. This means you must straighten them in post-processing, and every time you rotate a digital image, you lose some quality. So, you are better off doing one print at a time and lining it up in the very corner of the bed to make sure it’s square.

Grandmas love writing on the backs of photographs (and sometimes the fronts!), so make sure you scan the backs of these photos as well. This will help with identifying dates, individuals, locations and events later. Some photo shops also used stamps on each print they processed, which can also be a clue as to date and location.

Storage

Once your photos are scanned you need to protect them. I used products from an Australian company called Albox who produces archival folders and polypropylene sleeves. You should be able to find these kinds of materials locally.

Remember when we got a rough count of what sizes of photos we have? Well now you can order your sleeves accordingly. Very small prints can be placed in collector card sleeves. Medium sized prints need to be placed in appropriate sized sleeves. Very large photos can by mounted on A4 card and placed in an A4 sleeve.

Often you will find that you cannot find sleeves that perfectly match the size of your prints. In these cases I used black, acid-free board, cut to the size of the sleeve, and used acid-free mounting corners to fix the photos to the card. Card goes into the sleeve, and your photo looks awesome.

A word on sleeve materials. There are four main materials that plastic sleeves can be made of, polyester (PET), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride

• PET – Also known as Mylar or Melinex, it is the most stable and inert plastic and should last hundreds of years. Very clear and the most expensive option
• PP – Cheaper than PET, not as clear but still very inert. May not last as long as PET
• PE – Cheaper again, thinner but still inert and long lasting. Ziploc bags are usually made of PE
• PVC – AVOID – Stiffer, heavier, smelly and greasy feeling. These products are not archive safe and may damage your prints.

Make sure any backing paper or card you use is acid-free. Most scrapbook suppliers have acid-free paper and card. I started off buying mine from the archival materials supplier but then found the same stock at Officeworks much cheaper.

Self-adhesive dots, stickers, removeable tapes etc. are not recommended for holding prints onto backing cards. Even if they are labeled archival or acid-free, these adhesives may still leech onto your prints over time. Indirect mounting techniques are preferred, such as photo corners. With corners the adhesive touches the card only, and the print is held in place without ever touching adhesive.

Cataloguing and Restoring

Once you have your prints scanned and stored, it’s time to catalogue them and touch up and faded or damaged prints. I’m going to leave this for another post (or two) for the time being.

Some examples of restored images:

Hope somebody finds this information helpful.

TL;DR:

• Use a scanner, not a camera
• Scan in lossless format – as high resolution as practical
• Scan photos one at a time
• Use only archival quality storage materials

One of the most important things to consider when evaluating the legitimacy of information found on the internet is context. The original context of a piece of information includes vital details about its creation or distribution, such as who created it, and why. It’s common for information on the internet to be distributed without its original context. This results in the information being misinterpreted and misattributed, as people try to fill in the gaps for themselves. This is often how urban legends get started. A story with a small grain of truth to it is distributed without context, new contexts are invented.

Information distributed without context is prone to misinterpretation

Haiti UFO

As an example, lets take a look at some viral footage that appeared on the Internet in 2007. The footage became known as the “Haiti UFO”, and appears to depict several elaborate spaceships flying over a Caribbean city. The video was actually created as visual effects test footage for an upcoming film by a French animator who goes by the Youtube handle of barzolff814. Without this context, it was interpreted as supposedly real footage.  Some people were wowed by the footage, believing it to be remarkable evidence of extra-terrestrial visitors, whereas some were more skeptical, and proceeded to analyse the footage for evidence of fakery. If the context of the original video was known, ie that it was a piece of test visual effects footage, then less people would have believed it was real and the “debunking” wouldn’t have been necessary.

Occupy Wall Street

A more recent example is an image that I recently blogged about, which reportedly shows massive turnouts at the Occupy Wall Street protests. As I stated in the subsequent follow up to this post, the origin of this image was a digital artist by the name of Scott Lickstein, who created it to represent a “virtual turnout” of the supporters of the movement. However this context was quickly lost as the image was disseminated on various social networks, and so people started believing it was real. The addition of captions which further propagated the idea that the image was real furthered this misinterpretation, and resulted in the viral dissemination of misinformation.

I stated in a comment on the original post that when it comes to viral images like this, the original context is irrelevant if it is unknown by the people distributing it down the line. What I meant by this is that when the intentions of the original creator are not known, then the invented contexts that are attached onto the information down the line override the original context. Whilst I’m sure Lickstein had the best intentions when he created his art piece, as it was distributed without this information it became accepted as a factual representation, therefore his intentions are irrelevant.

Voynich Manuscript

A much more ancient example of this is the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. This strange book contains hundreds of pages of strange illustrations and illegible text which has to this day not been decyphered. The book is exquisitely detailed and carbon dating of the paper reveals that it was made (at least the paper was) sometime in the 14th century. Exactly when it was created, by whom and for what purpose is still a mystery, though there are a number of theories.

Brian Dunnings favourite theory is that a botanist, astrologer or alchemist wanted to produce marketing material indicating that he had mysterious knowledge from the east. He commissioned a scribe to produce a text filled with indecypherable information in a made up language and script. As a result the professional had a convincing piece of marketing material which suggested some mysterious source of knowledge, similar to the lab-coat worn by a naturopath.

Whilst this theory may or may not be true, in terms of the subject at hand its another example of how context is vital to the understanding of knowledge. We don’t know who created the book or why, therefore theories have to be invented. Perhaps it’s a hoax, perhaps it really is lost knowledge from an ancient civilisation, but without the original context we have no idea of its true purpose.

Naturally, May 21st came and went, and nothing happened. In a statement made by Camping on May 22nd, he was “flabbergasted” that the Rapture did not occur, and was seeking answers as to why. On May 23rd, he made a statement on his Open Forum radio program, saying that May 21st was actually an “invisible” judgement day, in which all humanity was judged spiritually. The “true” date of the rapture is October 21st, today.

He has already started the backpeddling. He’s gone from “May 21st is definitely the day”, to “May 21st was the spiritual rapture, the end of the world is in October”, to, in a recent statement “The end is going to come very quietly, probably in the next month”.

Camping was awarded the 2011 IgNobel award for mathematics, “For teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations”

Its easy to dismiss guys like Camping as harmless, delusional crackpots. He clearly believes what he is saying is true, and probably thinks that he’s helping people by warning them of imminent apocalypse. However doomsayers like Camping are dangerous. Camping spent an estimated $100million promoting the May 21st event, purchasing thousands of billboards across the US and several caravans painted with warnings of the Rapture. His radio show reaches millions of listeners across the country, and a good number of them trust his predictions.

Aside from the massive waste of money spent on advertising (how many homeless people could $100million have helped?) there are more dire consequences of the words of doomsday prophets like Camping. In March, 2011, Californian mother Lyn Benedetto told her daughers to lie down on their beds, then cut their throats with a box cutter, before attempting to cut her own. All three survived the incident. When questioned why she did it, Benedetto said that the Tribulation was coming, and she wanted to prevent her daughters from suffering. The children are now in the care of child services, and will likely be psychologically scarred for life from the incident.

On the predicted day of the Rapture, 14 year old Nastya Zachinova, terrified by the predictions of Camping, hung herself after school.

The predictions of guys like Camping affect lives. No matter how crazy they may appear to the majority, there will always be some people who believe them. Some of the believers will already been in an unstable state, and the confident predictions of an influential person like Camping may be enough to push them over the edge. After the failed prediction of May 21st, Campings followers have been declining, however there are some who still believe. When his October prediction inevitably falls through, more and more of his followers will start to realise that they’ve been conned.

Which brings me to my own prediction. Today will come and go, the world will NOT end, and in the next few days and weeks we will see a statement from Camping explaining how he must have made a miscalculation and the actual date is X, or that perhaps God has spared the earth for another millenia. What we will NOT see is Camping admitting that he’s wrong, apologise for wasting millions of dollars on spreading fear and propaganda, and announce that he will no longer try to predict the end of the world.

Firstly, the origins of the image itself. The original photoshopped image was produced by digital artist Scott Lickstein, who intended it to represent a “virtual 99% turnout”, ie what the OWS protests would look like if all of the people supporting the movement online could turn up at the protests in person (thanks Terrance for the info). Whilst Lickstein’s other work certainly has a political bent to it, this piece was never intended to mislead people into believing it to be a real image. I mention this because it appears that Lickstein has had accusations levelled at him of deliberately faking the image to misinform the public and/or discredit the movement. To the best of my knowledge this is not the case.

The crowd in the original Google maps image along the south-east side of  Broadway is real, and captures a protest of New York City fire fighters against the cutting of twenty fire companies by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in June, 2011 (thanks Erik for the link). Lickstein expanded the crowd to fill the streets around City Hall to represent all the online supporters of the movement.

The image was picked up on the web by some people believing it to be real, and several individuals added their own captions to the image implying that the image is a real representation of the protests, and that the mainstream media was covering it up. This was when it came to my attention, and I decided to demonstrate that the image is fake and try and prevent it from being further disseminated as truth. I was not the first person on the internet to point it out as a photoshopped image.

Secondly, the rumours. A number of people have made insinuations against myself, and the photoshoppers who produced the image which I’d like to try and set straight.

Its been suggested that the people who photoshopped the image and spread it around are in fact right-wing counter-protesters seeking to discredit the Occupy Wall Street movement. I have seen no evidence of this and am of the opinion that those people are indeed trying to generate support for the movement.

It’s also been insinuated that I am a paid Wall Street shill who faked the whole thing to discredit the movement. As evidence of this some people have pointed to the fact that my blog has ads (as many blogs do) which sometimes include ads from banks. Yes, my site has ads (one ad to be precise). Yes sometimes these may be ads for banks. However despite more than 100,000 hits in the past few days, these ads have generated a pittance in revenue, barely enough to buy a cup of fair trade coffee. The ads are an experiment, to gauge Adsense’s viability for a future project. They are untargeted, unoptimised, and random. They are selected automatically based on the content of the page they are on, so naturally a page discussing Wall Street will at some point have ads for a bank on it.

In the last couple of days my site has suffered numerous outages due to the enormous amount of traffic coming in. This culminated in my site being temporarily suspended due to the unprecedented load on the shared hosting on which it sits. Some people encountered this suspension message and concluded that my site had somehow been censored by the powers that be. This is patently false, and once I moved the page to an external site my account was reactivated and traffic resumed as normal.

When I wrote the original post about the image, I didn’t know the full story of its origins. I was just pointing out that it was a fake. In that post I suggested that the organisers of the Occupy Wall Street protest may have had some involvement in the creation of the image, a statement which turned out to be false. However the image was being distributed by supporters of the protests, including on the official OWS website and on the Daily Kos (the image has since been removed from both sites). I believe that these people had the best intentions, I was just disappointed to see people distributing such an image without questioning its authenticity. Whilst I respect the protesters for what they are doing, I stand by my assertion that lying to support your cause, whether intentionally or inadvertently, does more to help those whom you oppose.

A fellow skeptic (President of the Granite State Skeptics Travis Roy) recently posted a request on the Skeptoid mailing list regarding an image that has been making the rounds on Facebook. The image is an aerial shot of a supposedly huge turnout for the Occupy Wall St protest against corruption and greed. What appears to be thousands of protesters clog the streets of New York near the City Hall, with a caption stating:

Occupy Wall Street Turnout: My TV says nothing. The only thing I hear is its [sic] a small 100 person turn out. Turn off your TV. Ask your friends. Dont [sic] trust the media they lie!

After a request from Wettstein (and a warning from my hosting provider) I have removed his plagiarised propaganda image from my site. However the original can be found on Google Image Search.

My skeptical colleague saw this image and immediately smelled something fishy. Travis noticed that the image was an aerial photo of New York City Hall, whereas the protests were happening several blocks away at Liberty Square. He sent the image to the mailing list for other opinions. To my eyes the mass of protesters looked out of place, the crowd looked too uniform and dense to be real. I took the image into Photoshop to see if I could pick up any pattern to the image. My original thought was that they had used the clone tool to make a smaller group of people look much larger. Not being able to find anything obvious, I started to wonder where the background plate may have come from. Immediately Google Maps came to mind. I looked up the location featured in the image, and then I saw it:

Look familiar? How about now:

According to Google Earth, this particular aerial photograph of City Hall was taken on the 3rd of June, 2011, one month before the Occupy Wall Street initiative even began.

I have no strong opinions regarding what these people are protesting about. I’m sure they believe their cause is just and I respect their right to make a stand. I do however find it supremely ironic that a group who is supposedly protesting about corruption and lies would produce such a blatant piece of propaganda. Especially one so readily falsifiable. I respect that people have their own opinions and beliefs, however I have no respect for those who blatantly lie to defend their beliefs.

“Don’t trust the media. They Lie!”

Indeed.

Update: I have had a request to produce an overlaid version of the image to better demonstrate the similarities. Never wanting to disappoint my fan, here’s an animated gif.

Update#2: The eagle eyed among you will have noticed I have disabled the comments. Everything that needed to be said has been said, and the comments were getting nasty on both side of the fence.

1. How did life with specifications for hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?

Insert obligatory “That’s not evolution, that’s abiogenesis” comment.

Truth of the matter is we don’t know yet. There are a number of theories and there have been promising laboratory studies done which have successfully produced organic molecules like proteins from inorganic chemicals.

2. How did the DNA code originate ?

DNA developed from a simpler, self-replicating complex organic chemicals, probably RNA, which in turn developed from simpler organic chemicals such as amino acids.

3. How could copying errors (mutations) create 3 billion letters of DNA instructions to change a microbe into a microbiologist?

Billions of years of selection. Genes are replicated, mutated, recombined, replicated again. Successful replicators survive, unsuccessful mutations die out. Given enough time, and enough generations and enough selections, you have human beings. Any decent book on evolution will explain this better.

4. Why is natural selection taught as ‘evolution’ as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life?

This is a terribly worded question. Natural selection never tries to explain the origin of life. Natural selection is about the origin of species, not life itself. The origin of life is a completely different field of research, for which there are several promising theories. Diversity on the other hand is one of the natural byproducts of selection. Changes in environment and food chain drive selection in a particular direction and offshoots in selection produce speciation.

5. How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate?

From complex organic chemistry over billions of years.

6. Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed?

First, define what “looked like they were designed” means. I look at the biology of certain animals and I can’t help but think that if someone designed this they did a pretty crappy job. The recurrent laryngeal nerve for example, or the female human pelvis (clearly not designed for ease of childbirth), the pharynx, or the defective gene in humans for synthesizing Vit C. “Designed” is simply a term used by creationists to try and crowbar God into the equation. I can tell you, if I was an omnipotent creator, I would have taken my time and come up with something better than the scrotum (probably involving confining the testes to the body cavity, possibly with some sort of liquid cooling system to maintain the optimum temperature).

Organisms have adapted the way they have due to their environment, and natural selection rewards successful “designs”. Sometimes these “designs” will come with flaws which are often an artifact of the evolutionary path it took to reach this point. Creationists will try to come up with explanations for these flaws, saying “its intelligent design, not optimal design” or trying to justify them with faulty evidence. Often in the end they resort to the old “God works in mysterious ways” argument.

7. How did multi-cellular life originate?

We don’t know yet, but probably from single cellular life. There are many examples of individual cells operating as a single organism, such as sponges and slime molds. These colonies can form a membrane around them, creating a single organism, made up of multiple cells. This processes has been reproduced in a lab with yeasts.

8. How did sex originate?

This is one of those ones that is still under debate. There are several theories around, however I am not knowledgeable enough to go into them. Any decent modern evolution book will contain some answers.

9. Why are the (expected) countless millions of transitional fossils missing?

First off there are a hell of a lot of transitional fossils. The fact that there are some gaps is merely indicative of how rare the process of fossilisation actually is. It requires a very special set of circumstances in order for remains to be fossilised, the vast majority of remains are destroyed by decomposition, weather, scavengers, and other geological processes before they get a chance to be fossilised.

10. How do ‘living fossils’ remain unchanged over supposed hundreds of millions of years?

So called living fossils are merely creatures who have adapted well to conditions which have not changed in millions of years. For example crocodiles and alligators developed in swamps and marshlands, similar to where they live today. Subsequent mutations may change them superficially, but as their environment remains constant, there is nothing driving selection which will alter their physiology.

11. How did blind chemistry create mind/intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality?

Altruism and morality come from the development of animals as social beings. They can be seen demonstrated in the communities of apes, and even in certain types of social insects. In a social community, traits such as greed, selfishness, violence etc are not favourable. Morality as defined by humans comes from an innate knowledge stemming from our earliest days as social beings.

Mind and intelligence are very ephemeral subjects, without any concrete definition. Our increased brainpower and ability to reason is the result of changes to our environment and social structure over several million years.

Meaning is a philosophical question, and really has nothing to do with science.

12. Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated as ‘science’?

Because it has evidence to back it up. The evidence is consistent both internally and when combined with other sciences (evolutionary timeframes fit in with what we know about the age of the solar system, for example). Creation is by its very definition a “just-so story”, as it provides an unverifiable, non-evidence based explanation for our origin.

13. Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution?

Understanding where we come from is one of the most important questions mankind has ever tackled. The original concept of evolution was a huge breakthrough in its time, and remains one of the greatest ideas in human history. Just because it hasn’t produced fantastic machines or wonderous miracle drugs does not mean that its not worth studying, and certainly does not make it false.

14. Why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it is the same as the operational science?

Operational science is a buzz word invented by creationists to define aspects of science with which they have no problem. In reality no such differentiation exists. Many sciences involve studying historical data, it doesn’t make them any less scientific. Evidence gathered after the fact is still evidence. Our knowledge is based on observable effects; speciation has been observed in a lab, organic chemicals have been observed developing into complex amino acid chains in a beaker, radiometric dating has been precisely calculated and calibrated using mulitple methods and shown to be consistent and accurate, molecular biology provides evidence of genetic evolution.

15. Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes?

Nice leading question. Evolution is not a religious idea. Evolution is based on evidence. Multiple dating mechanisms all produce consistent results when applied to dating fossil evidence. Molecular biology provides evidence which links species to one another through DNA sequences. Evolution is the best explanation that we have to explain how life developed to the point that it is at today. Intelligent Design (ie Creation – you’re not fooling anybody with that by the way), an idea based in the three thousand year old writings of Jewish nomads, doesn’t come close to having the same level of evidence supporting it, and has absolutely no place in a science class.

As I stated in the introduction, I obviously haven’t answered all the questions. This is because there are some details of evolution and abiogenesis that science simply doesn’t know yet, and even more than is outside of my own knowledge. The creationists know this and try to use these examples as proof that all evolutionary science is false. When in reality, we just haven’t found the proof yet. Science never claimed to know everything, there are certain aspects of our universe which scientists acknowledge are mysteries *. The goal is to gather evidence, test hypotheses, reject faulty ideas, and eventually come to a better understanding of how things work. Creationists tend to work the other way; “This science doesn’t match our theory of creation, therefore the science must be wrong” and then try to find holes in the existing knowledge to back up their beliefs.

In the end, “we don’t know” is an infinitely more scientific answer than “God did it”.

I am clearly not an expert on these matters. There are better and more complete answers to these questions to be found in the scientific literature on evolution, and in the books of evolutionary biologists. I am simply providing my rudimentary explanations where I can, and admitting ignorance where the answers are beyond my knowledge.

To misquote Socrates, “True wisdom consists of knowing that you know nothing”. Or to put it another way “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'” (Shakespeare – As you like it)

* Gravity for one. Physicists are currently unable to explain why the force of gravity is so incredibly weak when compared to the other fundamental forces. There are theories of course, but the fact that we can’t explain it yet, does not mean that the theory of gravity is false, it’s just incomplete, and we’ll figure it out eventually.

Alternative medicines in Australia not receiving proper testing and approval by TGA – “A report released last week by the Australian National Audit Office found that up to 90 per cent of alternate medicines on sale in this country failed to comply with health and safety rules.”

Comment: This is hardly surprising. Its been well known for years that so called “alternative medicines” are not subject to the same rigorous standards as conventional medicine. The mere fact that treatments like homeopathy are still stocked in many pharmacies is evidence that the industry monitoring is pitiful.

Tribunal bans ‘smash’ doctor – “A Bankstown GP who called himself the “Spinalmigrainologist” has been banned from practising medicine after using a dangerous “smash through” technique to try to heal patients…Among the grievances were that Dr Gorman forcefully adjusted the back of a five-year-old boy and supplied drugs to a morphine addict.”

Comment: This sounds like chiropractic on steroids. Not only are his treatments based on no scientific evidence but his actions are clearly unethical (supplying opiates to an addict? – nice job)

Vatican admits ‘grave failures’ in Ireland abuse scandal – “The Vatican today acknowledged “grave failures” over the handling of a child sex abuse scandal involving priests in southern Ireland.”

Comment: I’d say that’s an understatement. The mere fact that the Vatican has a document which issues orders of secrecy when it comes to sex abuse accusations indicates that these “failures” are in fact deliberate and institutionalised.

Is awe still possible in a secular age ? – “In a Nietzschean world without God or gods, is enchantment still an option? In a world bereft of the Platonic forms of beauty and goodness, in a world where we “know” that love and wonder boil down to brain chemistry and synaptic firings, is it pure superstition to hold on to a sense of transcendence? In other words, can a secular world be re-enchanted?”

Comment: An interesting discussion on the idea of awe and non-belief. I completely agree with the author’s opinion. Awe and wonder are certainly possible in a secular world; the existence or non-existence of God doesn’t detract from the beauty of a sunset, the delicate dance of the planets, and infinite depths of the cosmos, or the intricacies of the processes of life.

What is less well known about Jim Henson’s characters is the fact that nearly all of the seemingly innocent, loveable characters hide a darker, more serious aspect. They all suffer from some form of mental illness or personality disorder.

Kermit the Frog – Battered Person Syndrome

Kermit is everybodies favourite talking frog. From humble beginnings as one of 3266 siblings, he was the first of his family to move out of the swamp and in a stroke of luck was noticed by a talent agent and was shot to stardom in  Hollywood. Since that time he has worked as a television new reporter, a theatre stage manager, host of the Johnny Carson show, and he has his own star on the Hollywood  Walk of Fame.

However underneath his success and happy-go-lucky attitude lies the tortured soul of an abused spouse. For years he was actively pursued by Miss Piggy, who attentions swung wildly from inappropriate affection to violent rage. One minute she should be smothering him with kisses, the next she would be karate chopping him into the next room.  Eventually Kermit begun to return the affection, and eventually in the film Muppets Take Manhattan (unwittingly) marries her. The wedding was short lived, however Kermit continued to allow himself to be subjected to Miss Piggy’s unwanted attentions. The relationship is a classic example of an abusive partnership; short bursts of violence would be followed quickly by apologies and affection. Kermit always forgave her, and he never chose to leave.

Miss Piggy – Narcissism

Miss Piggy is destined for stardom; just ask her. She knows what she wants and she wont let anything stand in her way. She puts on a feminine and charming exterior in public but is capable of violent rage when things don’t go her way. She is vain, conceited, egotistical and prone to bouts of selfishness. In an appearance on Dolly Parton’s musical variety show in 1987, Miss Piggy was intend on stealing the limelight from the show’s host, even to the extent of sabotaging Dolly’s musical performances. She is obsessed with Kermit the Frog and becomes frustrated and violent which he does not return her affections.

Count von Count- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

The Count’s background is mysterious, however it is widely believed that he’s from Romania. He exhibits one of the classic signs of OCD, namely a compulsion to count things over and over. His need to count is so powerful that he has developed mind control techniques to hypnotise people who try to interrupt his counting. Once he has finished counting something, he experiences a burst of joy which manifests as maniacal laughter. He will even count something again immediately after he has just counted it. He even counts his cat (“ONE cat AH AH AH!”).

The Count’s condition may be genetic, as many vampire myths describe the creatures as being obsessed with counting small things. The Count has been able to make the most of his condition, as it has allowed him to get a job teaching children basic mathematics.

Big Bird – Schizophrenia

Big Bird is another favourite childhood character. His childlike innocence has helped children learn and feel better about themselves for 40 years. However for years Big Bird has suffered from an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia. Big Bird’s best friend is a large brown ear-less woolly-mammoth-like animal named Mr Aloysius Snuffleupagus. However Snuffie (as BB liked to call him) is invisible to everyone but Big Bird himself. Snuffleupagus appears to be a complex auditory-visual hallucination caused by schizophrenia. Being the only person to see or hear Snuffie, and having no one else believe that he exists, creates feelings of paranoia and persecution.

Elmo – Peter Pan Syndrome

Elmo has been part of the Sesame St troupe since the early 1970’s, and yet during that time his language and mannerisms have remained those of a 3 year old. He speaks in a very childlike manner, always referring to himself in the third person, and is often seen carrying an orange monster doll he calls  “David”. Despite being over 40 years old, Elmo has never matured beyond the level of a small child. Though not officially recognised as a mental illness, Peter Pan Syndrome is often used to describe adult individuals who exhibit childlike behaviour.

Animal – Mania/Pica

The highly energetic drummer of the Muppet Show band Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, appears to suffer from an unknown mental disorder which manifests itself as manic episodes, characterised by high energy levels, irritability, outbursts of aggression and verbal exclamations. He also exhibits symptoms of an eating disorder called Pica (typically characterised by the compulsive eating of non-food objects), as he constantly needs to be reminded that he needs to “beat drums” and not “eat drums”.

Oscar the Grouch – Anti-Social Personality Disorder

The trash-can living Oscar is clearly a sufferer of ASPD, exhibiting many of the symptoms including irritability and aggression, a lack of empathy for others, disregard for social norms, and a low threshold for frustration and anger.

Images Source: Muppet Wiki

I’d like to lay out some of the main arguments that have been put forth by opponents of gay marriage, and explain why I believe every one of these arguments is flawed and without merit.

The Marriage Act

marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

The Marriage Act 1961

One of the most common arguments against gay marriage is that the Marriage Act defines a marriage as between a man and a woman, therefore it should not be allowed. There is a kind of circular logic at work here; the Act says that marriage is only between a man and a woman, therefore we cannot change the Marriage Act to allow gay marriage. When asked directly why we can’t change the Marriage Act, nobody seems to have a straight answer.

The solution here is simple, if not exactly easy: Change the Marriage Act.

In recent years there have been attempts to alter the wording of the Marriage Act to include homosexual marriage. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in particular has pushed hard to get an amendment bill through the Senate which would change the Marriage Act wording to allow gay marriage. She has not yet been successful, but recent reforms in some Australian states allowing gay civil unions and parenting rights are certainly cause for optimism.

The Bible

The other argument that comes up a lot in this debate is the “homosexuality is an abomination” argument. Admittedly, the Bible is very clear on this point:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.(Leviticus 18:22 KJV)

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.(Leviticus 20:13 KJV)

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. (Romans 1:26-27 KJV)

The issue with using the Bible as a justification for the refusal of marriage rights for gay couples is clear. It means imposing the moral beliefs of the one group of people upon others who do not share the same beliefs. The question becomes what makes your sense of morality automatically superior to others ? Why should other people have to comply with your personal beliefs ? I’m sure gay people don’t feel that their sexuality is an abomination, so who are you to decide ?

There are a lot of things which the Bible says are sins, among them are eating shell-fish, tattoos, wearing mixed fibre clothing, women teachers, even trimming your beard. Yet these abominations are largely ignored by the Christian community, which focusses instead on condemning the consensual, loving relationship of two willing human beings.

Its Unnatural

Following closely behind the “homosexuality is an abomination” gambit is the “homosexuality is unnatural” argument. This is tied very closely to the Biblical perspective, that sexual intercourse should be used solely for the purposes of procreation. However occasionally gay marriage opponents will try to argue that homosexuality is bad for the species, as it is not in tune with the perpetuation of the species.

The answer to this one comes from nature itself. Many animal species engage in homosexual behaviour; the classic example being the Bonobo Chimpanzees from the jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Bonobos are one of the closest living relatives to humans. These chimps often engage in homosexual behaviour, seemingly using it as friendly greeting ritual, a conflict resolution technique and conflict reconciliation method. The Bonobos are also one of the least aggressive, seemingly “happy” groups of chimps on the planet.

Naturally the opponents of gay marriage probably don’t appreciate being compared to chimps, however the argument stands. “Unnatural” is inaccurate, as homosexuality occurs in nature. The core of this whole argument stems from the Biblical notion that homosexuality is an abomination, which as discussed above, isn’t relevant.

The Slippery Slope

Another argument that gets put forth a lot is the “slippery slope”. The idea that allowing gay marriage would suddenly mean that anything goes; soon we’ll be allowing polygamy, and underage marriage, and animal marriage, and inanimate object marriage etc.

In terms of polygamy, I say why not? So long as all parties involved are consenting adults and are entering into the relationship willingly and without coercion then I have no problem with polygamous relationships. Each to their own. But that’s a discussion for another time.

In terms of the other stuff, it all comes down to consent. Consenting adults should be allowed to enter marriage if they wish, but children, animals and inanimate objects are not able to give consent, hence they will not be able to marry. This particular argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum; the attempt to disprove an argument by carrying its consequences to an absurd conclusion.

Up until 50 years ago in the United States, it was illegal for a white person to marry a non-white person in many states. I wonder when the anti-miscegenation laws were finally repealed in the 1960s whether people employed the “slippery slope” argument then as well.

The Sanctity of Marriage

This one is also usually a Biblical argument, however some non-religious people use this argument as well. The idea is that allowing gay people to marry somehow cheapens marriage for the rest of us. This one is simply absurd. Allowing two loving adults to prove their devotion to each other in a formal and legal way in no way threatens the “sanctity” of marriage, simply because they happen to be of the same gender.

Gay marriage opponents sometimes say “call it a ‘civil union’  but not ‘marriage'”. I’ve a better idea; Why not just call it “marriage” and get over it ? The idea that straight people should have a monopoly over the term “marriage” is conceited and short-sighted.

Children need a mother and a father

The idea that somehow children in a family with two same-gendered parents somehow lose out on parenting has no evidence whatsoever. Some studies have shown that gay couples have no more domestic abuse than straight couples, and children growing up with two gay parents are in no way adversely affected by the lack of a mother or father.

Saying that all children NEED both a mother and a father is almost like saying that all single parents NEED to get remarried, otherwise they are depriving their child of valuable parenting from the opposite gender. I’m sure a lot of single parents out there would take an exception to that statement, just as no doubt many gay couples take an exception to the idea that they are incapable of providing a loving and stable environment for their children.

Conclusion

I’ve yet to see one convincing reason why gay marriage should not be legal in this country. The right to marry should be universal and all-inclusive, and the fact that in 2011, in a democratic society, a large number of people are denied this right purely because of their sexual orientation is deeply disappointing.

Image Source: Big Picture

Phil Plait gave this talk at The Amazing Meeting 8 in Las Vegas on July 8^th, 2010. The talk attracted a lot of criticism from members of the skeptical community. Some ironically called it a dick-​​move on Phil’s part, due mostly to the fact that he did not provide specific examples of dickish behaviour, despite his claim that it’s becoming common amongst the community. Many renowned and highly respected skeptics are known for being overly terse and a little bit dickish when it comes to debating their opponents, and it seems that it is becoming fashionable to follow in their prodigious footsteps.

I’ve become increasingly frustrated with the skeptical community due to the behaviour of some members. In recent few months there have been numerous accusations of bullying, harassment and abuse on the part of skeptics. These accusations have ranged from harassing emails to “death threats*” and hacking of websites. Naturally these accusations have to be taken with a grain of salt and I have no doubt that many of them are being blown out of proportion by the “victims” in order to gain sympathy for their cause. However the accusation itself is enough to damage our reputation and I personally have witnessed examples of rudeness and abuse against certain individuals. Hell, I’ve been guilty of it myself on occasion.

Skeptical podcaster and musician George Hrab said in his podcast a few weeks ago that as skeptics and atheists it’s our duty to be the smartest and most moral people in the room. We’re supposed to be the good guys, and resorting to bullying tactics does nothing to help our cause. All it does is tarnish the reputation of the community as a whole and destroy our image as a rational, intelligent group seeking to disseminate the truth and protect the public from woo-​​merchants and crackpots. Our work is too important to jeopardise by lowering ourselves to the level of those people pushing phony pharmaceuticals and misinformation.

I’m aware that this is a touchy subject and no doubt will hit a nerve with some readers. Some of you may call my posting of this a dickish move and probably tell me to die in a fire. Please note that I am making no direct accusations against any individual, and I harbour no ill-​​will towards the community at large. I simply believe that we need to take the moral high ground if we’re going to win the war against woo.

Stick to your guns, be passionate about your position, be a shining beacon of rationality and skepticism, but don’t be a dick.

(* Yes…“Die in a fire” is a meme and not meant to be taken literally. However not everyone is going to interpret it that way.)

This article was originally posted on the Young Australian Skeptics site on Sept 8th 2010.