On style, Randi’s delivery is excellent – from his comedic timing to his facial expressions. On content, he provides a wonderful explanation for why we cannot empirically prove a negative – no amount of evidence and inductive reasoning will be enough to counter the infinite range of possible conditions and scenarios. Those claiming to be psychic can always claim that their psychic powers do not work when being tested by a skeptic – and we cannot prove otherwise!
You can’t just rest on your imagined laurels because I am unable to disprove the existence of a particular supernatural influence. Show me the evidence for your claim! Show me an amputee who regrows a limb, an individual who repeatedly knows the 10-digit numbers written in my desk, or a single reindeer who can fly.
If you ever wanted a find situation desperately in need of more skepticism (and who hasn’t?), look no further: The Iraqi army is spending $16,500 to $60,000 per dowsing rod and trying to use them to detect explosives. This foolishness is not only a vast waste of money for what is essentially a wobbly stick of metal, but it puts people’s lives in danger. Um… Iraq, you know the whole “security” thing? You’re doing it wrong. The rods are normally being used in place of physical inspections of vehicles and show no signs of working: (via PZ Myers)
The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of theMinistry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.
Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”
The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products that claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device. Normal remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports, weighs tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651’s clients are mostly in developing countries; no major country’s military or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer.
Whew, General Jabiri just cares about whether the wands work! I’m sure that as soon as things are explained, he’ll see the light of reason, righ–
“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.”
He attributed the decrease in bombings in Baghdad since 2007 to the use of the wands at checkpoints. American military officials credit the surge in American forces, as well as the Awakening movement, in which Iraqi insurgents turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, for the decrease.
Oh dear. Why bother with a sensible, naturalistic explanation when we can use unsubstantiated supernatural mumbo-jumbo? Oh, that’s right: because there are people counting on these devices to keep explosives off the street. I suppose bombings would go down if people believed the wands to work… but I wouldn’t want to pin my hopes on only having gullible enemies.
How can he possibly defend the use of unscientific nonsense?
Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device.
Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them.
If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth.
The James Randi Educational Foundation gets a shoutout, which is nice to see because I first learned about the phenomenon by watching James Randi videos. The rods work by the Ideomotor Effect:
Enjoy the video and either laugh or cry, whatever helps you get by.
Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News and the God & Country blog recently wrote about Ray Comfort’s attempt to smuggle Creationism into a bastardized version of On the Origin of Species.
I don’t mind that he’s reporting on that non-story, because there’s an appeal to that story from both sides of that fence — the people who prefer sound science and rational thinking… and the people who agree with Ray Comfort.
When complaints started pouring in that the article about Comfort offered “coverage but no critical commentary,” Gilgoff decided to try something else.
He posted a piece by Comfort explaining why he wrote the prologue to this book. Later, he posted a rebuttal from science advocate Eugenie Scott. They’ll do another round of back-and-forth:
Here’s the first post from Comfort, explaining his new book, which he plans to distribute in the tens of thousands on college campuses. I’ll post a rebuttal from NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott later today. Next week, I’ll put up a follow-up post from each. And just a reminder: Neither God & Country nor U.S. News necessarily endorses their views.
This is the wrong way to handle the situation.
I understand the need for journalists to not be biased. But to suggest that there are two sides to this story and that they deserve equal time is ridiculous. Eugenie Scott knows her science. Comfort doesn’t know his.
You don’t give equal time to someone who thinks Obama was born in Kenya and someone who actually knows what he’s talking about. There’s no debate there. You don’t give equal time to a Holocaust denier and someone who experienced it firsthand. There’s no debate there.
It is perfectly fine for U.S. News and Gilgoff’s blog to take a position in this case! Eugenie Scott is not some polar opposite of Ray Comfort. She’s not some minority holding a fringe viewpoint.
She’s the voice of every educated, intelligent, pro-science person whose beliefs are based in reality — she holds the only position in this fake “debate” that is tenable. Why can’t U.S. News take the side of reality?!
Why can’t they simply say that they support her views and not his?
Why can’t they come out and say Comfort makes absolutely no sense and that his views have no foundation to rest upon? (Isn’t that what an actual reporter would write?)
Why do they have to pretend like there are two sides on this issue when there so clearly are not?
It doesn’t matter that there are millions of Americans who agree with Comfort. Every single one of them is deluded on this issue. A good reporter should just acknowledge that.
Two days ago, Hemant posted the interview in which Scientologist spokesman Tommy Davis walked off set instead of answering a question about his belief. We can criticize him for being unwilling to admit his own beliefs, but it’s not as if he’ll suffer much. His stunt has gotten him and his church more attention. Most of the publicity is negative, and yet some people are still convinced.
Publicly revealing someone to be a fake/idiot doesn’t hurt them as much as we think. It’s something James Randi has discovered countless times, from his battles with Uri Geller to his exposé of Peter Popoff (who, by the way, is back to his old tricks scamming people in need). But Randi has made unique use of the dramatic insult and walk off technique, and his “Carlos Hoax” came to my mind.
In 1988, James Randi and 60 minutes hatched a plan to show how easy it is for con men to exploit the media. Randi created a fake spirit-channeler named Carlos and pitted him against the Australian media – a group known for their harsh interviews and skepticism. In one week they had gained a following and booked a packed show at the Opera House. During an interview in which Carlos’ methods were being challenged, his manager threw water on the host and stormed off. That in turn sparked more media attention. This is a long video and I’m starting it at the most relevant part, but if this sounds interesting to you (I was fascinated) I recommend the whole thing:
[Around 8 minutes, before I started this clip] One of the roles the Australian media prides itself on is to protect the public from frauds and charlatans. But it does give rise to a problem: in pursuing a questionable character like Carlos, do you end up playing into his hand by giving him too much free publicity? After all, even if you do the best job you can in exposing him, there will still be people vulnerable enough to be taken in.
[end of clip] Why should such a phony care if he had to go through such grillings on TV? He was able to gain access to vulnerable minds who otherwise wouldn’t have heard of him.
I worry that Tommy Davis won some people over by storming off with an outraged air. Creating a “controversy” can give people the impression that there must be something to the argument. That’s why so many scientists refuse to debate creationism – the very debate will lend undeserved credibility to nonsense. Of course, if a topic isn’t publicly debunked, it can fester in the dark.
I tend to come down on the side of public skepticism and scrutiny of ideas, but I’m young and idealistic. I believe that honesty is the best policy and open conversation will tend to expose the truth. I do, however, see the argument for the other side. What do you think?
South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June, they said on Friday.
Zolani Mkiva, chairman of the Makhonya Royal Trust, a grouping responsible for co-ordinating cultural activities, said the tournament, the first to be held in Africa, needed to be blessed in true “African style.”
“We must have a cultural ceremony of some sort, where we are going to slaughter a beast (cow),” said Mkiva.
…
“We believe that from the start we’ve got to do things in accordance with our own traditions,” Mkiva said.
Wait, what?!
Even if this is part of their culture, screw their traditions. How does animal sacrifice do anything for the soccer match? What does it mean to bless the stadium, anyway? Is someone afraid it’s going to collapse?
I suppose we can be thankful that their traditions don’t involve human sacrifice and female circumcisions…
When people arbitrarily select which indigenous traditions they’re going to highlight for outsiders, that’s a choice. We’re not talking about religion here. We’re talking about a bloody manufactured spectacle across 10 soccer stadiums –- both soccer and stadiums already being a departure from Africa’s “own traditions” –- done to emphasize “style.”
Personally, I don’t think it’s any different from religion. It’s superstitious ritual that has no actual effect on the stadium (or the world).
I hope the World Cup Local Organizing Committee has the good sense to put a stop to this before it gets anywhere.
If you’re not convinced how ridiculous this is, Grahame L. Jones of the LA Times suggests how this scenario would look in another part of the world:
Imagine that it is 1994 again and that the opening game of the World Cup is about to take place at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Or perhaps it’s the first game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, or at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, or at any of the other six venues used during the ‘94 tournament.
Now, imagine the crowds outside the stadium, the fans in a festive and anticipatory mood, children among them. Now imagine a cow being led on a rope to a designated spot outside the stadium and having its throat cut and its blood drained as part of the pregame ritual.
Unthinkable? You bet. Sickening? Absolutely.
It wouldn’t be allowed here and it shouldn’t be allowed there.
A couple months ago, I posted about Susan Hutchison, a former news anchor from Seattle, Washington who is running for King County Executive (sort of like a mayor). This is a position that has given rise to future governors of Washington state, so it’s not a seat to be taken lightly.
What was weird was that her bio said the following:
Since leaving KIRO Hutchison has been very, very busy. She has her own consulting business. She is the executive director for the Charles Simonyi Fund for the arts and sciences which among other things, supports the work of atheist Richard Dawkins. She’s also served on the board of the Discovery Institute, which promotes the idea of intelligent design…
So is she for good science or against it? Who knows.
One thing’s for certain: She isn’t a fan of Dawkins. There’s video of her telling a story of Dawkins getting “unglued” as she testifies about how God created everything and how Jesus let us know about him…
A few students made an ad showing the video of her talk, adding in a few dramatic reenactments
I think it makes for a more entertaining campaign ad, to say the least.
She’s obviously conservative — a Sarah Palin in waiting — but in this context, I’m concerned about her views on science.
She doesn’t accept it. That alone should make her unqualified to run for public office.
I don’t care so much about her faith — plenty of Christians accept evolution — but King County residents should publicize her anti-science views as much as possible. Someone ask her how old the Earth is. Ask her why she worked for the Discovery Institute. Ask her what she plans to do for science education in the Seattle (and surrounding) area. Get it on videotape.
There’s plenty of time to make sure Hutchison doesn’t get elected to the position she wants.
The famed author and skeptic Simon Singh has been encountering setback after setback in his case against chiropractics.
This all began when he wrote an article saying that the British Chiropractic Association “is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”
That led to a semantics battle over the meaning of the word “bogus.” Is Singh saying BCA members are liars? They say yes, and they’re suing him for libel.
Singh’s defense is that he believes chiropractors are sincere about wanting to help people, however the treatments they offer have no healing power whatsoever. That’s what he was referring to in his article.
[Singh has] been granted leave to appeal following a hearing before Lord Justice Laws at the Court of Appeal.
…
The ruling means Singh will now be able to mount a full appeal against the British Chiropractic Association’s libel suit.
In short, Singh is allowed to file an appeal if he wishes.
Excellent. I hope he wins the case and forces the BCA to lose money and lose business. Their loss is the patients’ gain. Singh may be getting sued for it, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be silent.
Many of the treatments provided by chiropractors are shams, and those who practice it are charlatans whether they know it or not.
You’d be wise to warn your friends and relatives against wasting their money.
Reader Doug happens to be on the mailing list for Answers in Genesis. So he’s been getting their newsletter for a little while now. A recent article stood out to him. It was about Camp Quest, the summer camp for children of atheist parents.
It’s notable that the article contained some glaring errors. (Some of which have since been rectified in the online piece with footnotes.)
For example, the article mentions this:
So these children, whose worldview is helping to be formed by those who teach them at the camp, are supposedly “encouraged to think for themselves”? Is that why the young people are given a free T-shirt that states “It’s Okay To Be An Atheist”? And why a “nine-year old Camp Quest camper, who after being De-Baptized [using a hairdryer], raised her arms skyward and loudly proclaimed, ‘I can see!’”?
Of course, they were not being taught to think for themselves, as any “bright” “free-thinker” can easily see. These children were being indoctrinated against Christianity, especially with their adult-led mockery of Christian baptism. They were explicitly taught to reject God!
I shot the video of that nine-year-old girl saying what she did. You can see it here:
Does that look like an outdoor camp? Of course not. It took place at a party last year during which participants could voluntarily get in line for a de-baptism
AiG eventually realized this and issued this clarification:
Since this article was posted, we learned that the “mass de-baptism” did not occur at Camp Quest but at a different venue in Ohio. We inferred from a statement in the American Atheist article referenced above — that a “nine-year-old Camp Quest camper who, after being De-Baptized, raised her arms skyward and loudly proclaimed, ‘I can see!’” — that the sacrilege occurred at Camp Quest. This belief was fostered by noting that the AA article featured a photo of the founder of the Camp Quest movement conducting the de-baptism and also because photos depicted a rustic camp-like setting — all suggesting that this event was held at a camp that Camp Quest has become known for hosting. So, even though the young girl was described in the article as a Camp Quest camper (and thus we took the article to say that the de-baptism happened at Camp Quest), we made a logical yet inaccurate inference, and, so, we regret that in a fallen world, fallible people can make inadvertent mistakes like this. For this reason, we wish to retract the inference we had made that the incident took place at Camp Quest.
Good for him for issuing a retraction.
But that’s the crux of the entire piece. They claim that Camp Quest is all about childhood indoctrination into atheism, yet the primary examples they give are all wrong. There’s no mass de-baptism at the camp — not even in jest. Nor did Camp Quest issue shirts reading “It’s Okay To Be An Atheist” as the AiG piece claims.
This is typical of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis. They latch onto something minor which can easily be explained by those with more knowledge on the subject and stretch it into some major condemnation of non-Christian belief. And it’d be laughable if it weren’t so serious.
What AiG needs to do is print the footnote explanation in their next newsletter.
(I’m still looking forward to the clarification which states they were wrong about the entire Creation Museum.)
For the record, Amanda Metskas is the director of Camp Quest. Here’s what she told me about the camp in response to Ham’s article:
We definitely do not debaptize children at Camp Quest. We don’t label the campers of Camp Quest with a worldview, and that includes avoiding rituals like debaptism at camp. Besides, if you know anything about our demographics, a fair number of our campers were never baptized in the first place, so debaptism isn’t only inappropriate at camp, but also largely unnecessary!
I personally think that both baptism and debaptism are more appropriate for adults. One of the problems with baptism is that it is a decision often made by parents for children before the children are old enough to consent or understand the ritual they are participating in. Debaptism is a humorous response to that very problem by letting people revoke their participation in a ritual that they never consented to in the first place.
Ken Ham also claims that we have shirts that say “It’s okay not to believe in God,” which is not true. That sentence was a comment written by an anonymous camper in 2004 on his/her camp evaluation form in response to a question asking “What have you learned at Camp Quest 2004?” Note that the camper didn’t write that there isn’t a god, just that it is okay not to believe. We aren’t trying to convert campers to a particular worldview at camp, but we are trying to send them the message that there is nothing wrong with them or with their parents for not believing in a god. In our pervasively religious culture, this is something that a lot of our campers really need to hear, and that is exactly the message that this camper got from the Camp Quest experience.
Answers in Genesis has a history of mischaracterizing Camp Quest. I think they like to make us the bogeyman to scare their supporters into donating more money or buying more products from them. In the future, I encourage them to contact us when they are writing an article, or at least do some basic fact checking before going to press. I’d be happy to be interviewed for a future AiG newsletter article that would correct some of the errors they’ve made in this article.
It’s an eloquent response from the head of the organization. I imagine she’d have even more interesting thoughts to share with Ham’s followers if he took her up on that last line.
Will he do that? I doubt it. But I’d love to be proven wrong here.
The last time dating website OKCupid released data about its users, we discovered that saying you’re an atheist can help you get a date!
Recently, they released a few more charts that are revealing both for what they tell us and don’t tell us.
For example, a lot of people put their astrological sign on their dating profile. You would assume that some of them take it seriously enough to actively seek out people with whom they’re “compatible.”
So what happens when you take a random sampling of 500,000 users and check out the “match percentages” between users with different signs?
Just for some background:
A match percentage between two people is a condensed, yet statistically valid, expression of how well they might get along. 75% is very high, 45% is very low, and 60.2% is the site-wide average.
So people whose stars are “correctly” aligned should see a higher-than-average match percentage, right?
Let’s find out:
I know what you’re thinking: two Aquarians should never date.
But let’s be clear: there’s no statistical difference when it comes to compatibility regardless of your zodiac sign!
If people ask you for your sign, tell them you’re not interested in breeding and move on. You’ll be doing us all a favor.
Another interesting chart is the one below, regarding how adamantly you take your belief system. Are you very serious about whatever you believe? Or are you laughing about it because you don’t take it that seriously at all?
The summary explains it well:
As it turns out, people who hold their beliefs lightly are much better liked, even by people who are themselves serious. Weird huh? While it’s true that the most serious women believers slightly prefer their men to not be “laughing about it”, every other slice of this data indicates that the less serious (or more flexible?) you are about your religious beliefs, the better you get along.
This applies to atheism, too. The more serious you are about it, the less people are interested in you. You’re just not as fun to be around as someone who simply brushes religion aside like it’s a whim of the masses.
I was also amused by the stat that Jewish guys get along with people from all religious faiths — in fact, they have higher compatibility with Muslim woman than Muslim men! (There’s irony for you.)
Have these trends played out in your personal life at all?
Would you prefer dating someone who took their belief system super-seriously?
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