Movie + Urban Legend = Woo

Many years ago a movie called Three Men and a Baby was released. It’s a darn fine movie! Very funny with a good heart to it. I really liked it.

Unfortunately a number of people came to the conclusion that there was a ghost in the film. No, I don’t mean some bit of SFX, I mean an actual ghost.

Needless to say this is nonsense. But some people continue to persist. So here’s what Captain Disillusion has to say on the issue (yes, I’m feeling too lazy to post a real article today):

The Search for Truth

A decade late, I have finally seen Contact. It was… ok. It wasn’t anything great. The SFX were good and the overall plot was decent, but its runtime could’ve been trimmed by a good half hour and the subplot centering around terrorism should’ve been left out. Doing that would’ve resulted in leaving out what has to be one of the largest plot holes in the history of cinema.

Towards the end of the movie one character, a religious believer, makes the comment that religion and science have the same goal; the search for truth. It’s something people, usually religious ones, say quite often, and I’d like to address that point.

BULLSHIT.

Science is about the search for truth. It’s about taking ideas, examining evidence, formulating theories, and then testing them endlessly until you break them. If you do break those theories, you then come up with a better one and keep testing that one until it breaks.

Religion, on the other hand, is about coming up with an idea, holding onto that idea, ignoring all the evidence and then saying that the testing methology and any evidence that disagrees with your faith are faulty. It is about many things, but definitely not the search for truth. It’s mostly about the search for ways to reinforce what people already think they believe.

Science is about looking for truth. Religion is about looking at science, putting your fingers in your ears and going, “No, no! I can’t hear you! La-la-la-la!”

Thank you.

PS: For the record, were I in the same situation Jody Foster is in at the end of the movie, I would’ve assumed I hallucinated due to smacking my head.

Not (Necessarily) the News

CNN.com has, once again, one of those depressingly stupid little stories that has no business being reported on through a legitimate news source. This time it’s about a woman who, in 1989, claims to have met a man from space.

*sigh*

Ok, people, one more time, this is total bullshit. I don’t know what the woman saw, but it’s highly unlikely it was an alien. She offers no evidence for this encounter and it’s far more likely that she was a: hallucinating or b: pranked by some students with more time on their hands than brains in their heads.

While it’s extremely likely there are other intelligent forms of life in the universe, it’s extremely unlikely they’ve been to Earth and even less likely they’d engage in some weird encounter like this.

And shame to CNN for reporting this “story”. Yes, it’s part of a larger story (though not much larger), about the RAF tracking down UFO reports, but it’s overly sensationalized and still isn’t something they need to be covering.

How about you guys just cover, you know, news? I know it’s a lot to ask from a news organization, but I’ll keep dreaming.

sdrawkcaB gnikroW

Atlantis doesn't exist.

A couple years ago I was watching the History Channel (a channel that is, these days, showing all sorts of programs that have little or nothing to do with history). They were showing something about Atlantis, as they are wont to do (usually around the same time they show stuff on Nostradamus and “What really happened to Jimmy Hoffa?”). They showed a couple “archaeologists” (I don’t know the names now, forgive me), who were in Bermuda, looking for evidence to support their theory that Atlantis was in Bermuda.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wonderful world of pseudoscience and its bastard cousins, pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology!

As the “pseudo-” prefix implies, these aren’t actually science, history or archaeology, just something that looks similar when viewed from a distance. Sometimes it can be used to create interesting works of fiction (The Da Vinci Code, for example), but sometimes people mistake it for reality (The Da Vinci Code, for example), and that’s when the trouble begins.

Here’s an example of how real science works: a trained professional takes a look at all the evidence available and forms a theory that is supported by that evidence (this is a gross simplifaction, mind you). That theory is then tested and retested to see if it works. If it doesn’t, the scientist in question goes back to the drawing board and comes up with a new theory that will, hopefully, work better. It’s what’s referred to as the scientific method.

This is, in fact, that exact opposite of what the people I mentioned at the start of the article were doing. They were working backwards. They formulated a theory (Atlantis was in the area of Bermuda), and then went looking for evidence to support that theory (ignoring the fact that all the available evidence points to the notion that Plato simply made Atlantis up as a teaching tool, the same thing I believe is the case with Jesus, by the way).

The scientific method is very important. It means that once a conclusion is reached, it’s done so through a great deal of verification and evidence. Things like the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar System (both still classed as “theories”, by the way, which means something different in science than you might expect), the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Relativity aren’t regarded as true simply because people say they are; they’re regarded as true because they’ve been tested, verified and found accurate.

Contrast this now to pseudoscience, examples of which abound. One of my personal favorites is ghost hunting, which I always refer to as “Hey, gang! Let’s go play scientist!”. Astrology, creation “science” and cryptozoology are also wonder examples.

As for pseudoarchaeology, let’s take the specific example of Atlantis. There is no evidence that it ever existed. It doesn’t appear in the historical record until Plato talked about it. It’s quite clear he made it up, and the fact that he made it up so long ago is part of why people believe it must be true. It makes me wonder if in two-thousand years from now we’ll have people believing Oz, Grand Fenwick, Tomania, Xanth and Middle-Earth were all real places.

Pseudohistory is a little less widely known, but still a problem. Afrocentrism (particularly the parts that claim the Greeks learned everything they knew from black Africans), the belief that Zheng He visited the New World, as well as all forms of Holocaust Denial are all forms of pseudohistory. Some are mostly harmless, like the Zheng He notion, but others, like Holocaust Denial, can be quite damaging.

This brings us to the question of what to do about pseudoscience, as well as pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory. They are based fundamentally on ignorance, of course, and the only cure for ignorance is knowledge. Only by teaching solid science, history and archaeology will we be able to overcome this kind of fundamentally wrong nonsense.

Naturally, religion completely fails any tests involving the scientific method, and while there’s archaeological evidence for the existence of, say, Pilate, there isn’t any for Noah’s Ark. Many theists out there seem to take pride in this, talking about how wonderful and noble it is to believe in something despite all the evidence to the contrary. They will tell you at length about how science and archaeology don’t matter, but you know that if science were to ever prove the existence of God, they’d pounce on that like there was no tomorrow (well, provided it was their god, and not some other).

For this reason it is vital that we don’t teach intelligent design in our schools. It’s nothing but pseudoscience, pure and simple. It doesn’t even remotely pass muster as far as the scientific method goes, and pretending it does is an insult to rational minded people everywhere. You can’t even slip by saying, “Teach the controversy!” because there isn’t really any controversy at all in the scientific community. Of course all this is moot, given that intelligent design, in addition to being bad science, is religiously-based, and so can’t be taught in public schools anyhow.

Only by fighting back against pseudo-anything can we hope for real science, real history, real archaeology and rational thought to prevail. If we don’t fight back, we deserve to live in a world where people believe in Atlantis, intelligent design and other such nonsense.

Kind of like we do now… oh, dear.

More Woo-Woo From CNN

CNN has an article up about some men who claim to have a Bigfoot corpse. Well, la-dee-da. Hands up, all of you who think it will be real. Anyone? Anyone? Hands up all people who think CNN will print a nice big story about how it turned out to be fake. Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, I thought not.

*sigh*

Look, guys, I know August is a slow-news month, but that’s no excuse for this kind of lazy reporting. Between this and some nonsense about a ghost video, CNN is losing credibility fast as far as I’m concerned. It’s enough to make me want to start watching MSNBC.

Some Thoughts on Chi

Good ole chi! About fifteen million different ways to spell it, all of which add up to bullshit. Total nonsense. Thanks! Goodbye!

…

…

…

Oh, you want more detail? Greedy bastards. Alright, here you go.

If I came up to you on the street and told you that I’d just discovered this wonderful, magic energy that controls everything in the universe, that I can manipulate it and that science can’t even vaguely detect it, you’d think I was a loon or a con artist trying to get between you and your money, and rightly so. Yet around the world millions of people believe in just such a thing, and they call it chi.

The fundamental concept behind chi (for the record, it’s pronounced “chee”), is that it’s a life-energy that flows through all living beings. It surrounds us, penetrates us, holds the universe together, etc.

The idea, according to proponents of anything involving chi, is that its an energy field that can have its flow manipulated to sort out illness (btw: I’ll be ripping apart “traditional Chinese medicine” in great detail in a future post), restore your spirit, redecorate your house, and, according to some, its even what gives martial arts experts the ability to break boards and bricks with only their bare hands or feet. From what I understand, tai chi (aka: the art of moving very slowly), makes use of this concept, and I believe yoga (aka: stretching!), uses something similar.

Needless to say, this energy field is undetectable using any sort of scientific means. I recall at least one believer of the concept telling me that it’s something you have to sense with your mind, and that science will never be able to detect it anymore than science can detect love.

Well, ok, fine and dandy. It’s true that science cannot detect emotions (though from what I understand we are able to see the changes in the brain that happen when certain emotions are experienced). On the other hand, emotions don’t generate an energy field that we can manipulate to heal people and break bricks with our heads.

See, here’s the thing: if there’s energy out there that can be manipulated, it should be able to be detected. If it can’t be, and you’re manipulating it anyhow, how do you know you aren’t causing more harm than good? Logically, if it can do good, it can also do harm, and so shouldn’t you leave it alone until we have some actual academic studies on it that show you scientifically how to use it?

I’m not entirely sure why people want to waste their time believing in this patently obviously fake concept. I know part of it in the Western world is what Terry Pratchett refers to as “the attractiveness of distant wisdom”. That’s the idea that if something as come so far across the world to reach you, it must be better than the wisdom laying around your place gathering dust. The example he cites is along the lines of saffron-robed youths leaving their monastaries, throwing out the rancid yak butter tea their ancestors drank, and going to Ankh-Morpork to study the Way of Mrs Cosmopolite. I think that very concept plays a huge role in explaining why this idea has started to take hold among people in the Western world.

But really, I think the reason it’s become popular is because it offers a fairly easy explanation (your enegery levels are out of balance), for complex things (you’re stressed out because of all the crap going on in your life and you need to deal with them). It puts me in mind of the ancient notions that all our physical problems were caused by an imbalance in our humours. Well, the people who believed that were wrong, and eventually science proved it. The people who believe in chi are also wrong, science has proved it, and they just don’t want to accept reality.

One final, off-topic note here. I don’t know why people insist on translitterating words from non-Latin alphabets in such a way as to render them unpronouncable phonetically. It’s not like English is suffering from a lack of such things to start with. Having a word like “qi” and pronouncing it as “chee” is just silly. Same with things that should be spelled as “fung shway”, “chee gung” and the like. It’s hardly limited to Chinese, either. Look at “phở”, which is apparently pronounced “fuh”.

If you’re going to translitterate things using the Latin alphabet, please do so in a way that allows us to spell them the way they are pronounced.

Mass-Media Nonsense: Vaccines and Autism *UPDATE!*

I wrote a few months back about how vaccines do not, in fact, cause autism. It got quite a few comments, which was a nice ego boost.

Well, I read online today an article from Michael Shermer who, in addition to bashing nicely on wheatgrass, has some things to say about the vaccine issue. Have a look!

Edgar Mitchell: Former Astronaut, Current Liar!

Picture stolen from Wikipedia!

Edgar Mitchell, a former astronaut who was on Apollo 14, has recently made the statement that there are, in fact, UFO’s out there, and the government is covering it up (click here for another article on this, and notice some of the comments! Sheesh)!

Now I’m a generous fellow. I assume that most people who see UFO’s are simply mistaken on what they are looking at. The Phoenix Lights are a great example of this. In that case people saw a series of unusual objects in the sky (flares on parachutes), and due to their conditioning by the media and Hollywood, many people assumed they must be UFO’s!

I’ve talked about this particular incident before, and at the same about how stupid aliens must be if they fly around, presumably not wanting us to spot them, but do it in a way that allows us to spot them. From my article:

Given that the aliens supposedly have the ability and technology to travel across the trackless depths of space, coming however many light years to get here, why are they so stupid that, upon arriving, they leave their running lights on?

I never did get a satisfactory response on that question. I suspect I’ll never get any satisfactory resolutions to any other questions I have about the UFO phenomenon, like “Why do they hide from us?”, “Why do they come here?”, “What’s up with them and the anal probes?”

I’ll at some point write up a more lengthy article on my views about the government-cover-up theory, but in brief it boils down to a: why would the government cover it up? b: why wouldn’t another government who doesn’t like us report it to the media? c: if we have dead aliens and crashed UFO’s in our custody, why haven’t other members of their species turned up and said, “Excuse us! We take a narrow view of people doing what you’ve done.” and d: again, why would they cover it up? The usual explanation is “to prevent panic”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Cause, you know, people would go nuts and civilization would fall if we turned out not to be alone in the universe. I guess. Whatever.

Anyhow, I try to remain generous with people on this issue, at least as much as possible. In the case of Edgar Mitchell, however, this is someone who, given what he’s saying, is either nuts or lying. I have to assume one of these two things is true because, as is always the case with claims like his, he offers no evidence, none, to back up what he’s saying. If he has evidence he can produce, great! But without that… no, he’s a liar. Plain and simple. I don’t know if he’s getting ready to sell a book or is simply hungry for attention, but since he has no proof for his claims, I have to believe he’s lying.

I notice from his article on Wikipedia that he also believes in things like remote healing and ESP. This from a susposed man of science. What a sad, pitiful creature. It’s a great shame, too, because the Apollo program was one the greatest things in all of human history, and it’s sad that his participation in it will always be tainted by these idiodic views and lies.

(btw: for a good article on this from a skeptical point of view, click here)

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

One can’t predict the future with any accuracy, at least not beyond the most mundane of things (ie: I’m predicting that tonight, I will eat for dinner the frozen pizza I have in my freezer). Nevertheless, may, many people are convinced that folk like Nostradamus had the ability to see into the future.

A great many folk have now managed to convince themselves the world is going to end, or at least undergo a massive transformation, in 2012. These people are what I politely call “ill-informed” and unpolitely call “fucking stupid”.

A lot of this is caused by the Long Count of the Mayan Calendar, which some people believe indicates the end or transformation of the world in 2012. These people believe the Mayans had special abilities to look into the future, or some nonsense, which I notice didn’t stop them from being wiped out by the Spanish.

I cannot stress this point enough: no one knows with any certainty exactly what’s going to happen in the future, period. We can make educated guesses, sure. I can tell you that likely Barack Obama will become president and, barring some major screw-ups on his part or a very charismatic GOP candidate, will be elected to a second term in 2012. I can tell you we’re probably going back to the Moon and then onto Mars, with both happening no later than 2040. Hell, I can even tell you I believe landline phones are going to go the way of the dodo, but I could end up being wrong on all of these, and my ability to look at current events and extrapolate into the future does not mean I know what’s going to happen for a certainty.

I understand the attractiveness of being able to predict the future, of knowing what will happen before it occurs. Forewarned is forearmed, after all. But the simple fact is that it’s just not possible, and 2012 will be a year like any other, folding gradually into 2013, and then out of our conciousness. Well, at least until the next major prophecy-related year comes along.

Mind you, if I’m wrong, and the world ends in 2012, I promise to post an apology to everyone on my blog. I also expect to see some pigs fly past as I do.

The Danger of “Psychics”

From Canada comes a delightful story all about psychics and child abuse. It appears that a “psychic” told someone who works at a school that a student there was being sexually abused. This someone then went out, found the girl he thought was being abused and reported it to her mother and the authorities.

You know, this is the kind of nonsense that can lead to crap like the McMartin Preschool bullshit. In that case a whole lot of perfectly innnocent people were basically destroyed by a whole series of false allegations about sexual abuse.

This is a perfect example of the very real harm “psychics” inflict. These people are at best delusional and mistaken in their abilities; at worst they’re outright liars and frauds, con-artists out to make a buck.

I know I’ve made this point before, but it bears repeating. There are no such thing as psychics. There is no proof of their abilities. They are wrong, wrong, wrong!