Skeptico

Skeptics’ Circle

The Skeptics’ Circle has just been posted at Peter Bowditch’ excellent The Millenium Project.

(That’s a direct link to the site – I don’t see how to get the link for the post only)

Bingo Tonight?

Larry King’s site again says that there will be psychics on tonight:

Some see dead people, others have a sixth sense! Wait until you see what they can do! Plus, John Edward and Char Margolis. It's gonna be a great show. They're predicting it!

… unless there are unforeseen circumstances.  Like the last time these psychics predicted the same thing but were bumped for a story about some boy scouts who they didn’t predict would be killed.

Anyway, if they do appear (6.00 pm US Pacific time), we might be able to play Psychic Bingo.  Print out the cards at the link.  Descriptions of the squares, and the techniques these cold readers use, also at the link.

July 3rd - Edited to add:

Well I missed the show, but according to the transcript the "psychic" show was bumped for the story about the hostages who just escaped from the jungle in Colombia - ANOTHER STORY THE PSYCHICS DIDN'T PREDICT!  Sheesh - I'm beginning to think these psychics can't predict anything.

Victor Senchenko – Time Does Not Exist

I received an email last week from Victor Senchenko (website: VictorSenchenko.com).  He has written the book Revelations of a Human Space Navigator that appears to make some pretty bold claims, such as:

• Proves that god – any god – does not physically exist.
• Proves that “time” does not physically exist.
• Reveals who and what humans are, and why they behave as they do.
• Reveals of what everything that is physical is physically made of.
• Reveals why there are human male and female homosexuals.
• Explains what gravity actually is.
• Explains the “meaning of life”.
• Provides an equation for “everything”.
• Explains the ONLY method by which “happiness” can be experienced.
• Reveals many other factors that are currently unknown or    misunderstood.

Wow - the meaning of life and an equation for everything.  Everything!  I say again – wow!

Generally speaking, we should be wary of anyone making grandiose claims, especially ones that appear to contradict much of established science.  In addition, such grandiose claims presented in a book rather than in peer reviewed scientific journals, should be subject to extra skepticism.  The scientific method, with its critical questioning, peer review and replication, tends to weed out nonsense before it gets taken too seriously.  There are exceptions, of course, but even so, most false ideas get found out reasonably soon.  By contrast, the lone iconoclast, working in isolation, rarely has his ideas questioned seriously before publication the way real scientists do.  This means that errors are more likely to be built into the theories that are developed, and therefore they are more difficult to dislodge from the mind of their inventor when he has finished.  The above problems don’t necessarily mean the ideas presented are wrong, but they should at the very least make you skeptical of what you are being told.  Victor’s website and email had all the outward signs of the crank, especially the grandiose claims, and I did wonder whether it was worth trying to discuss it with him.  But I decided in the end to give it a try, to see if there really was anything behind what Victor was selling.  The email exchange below shows the result, and I think you’ll find they say quite a lot about Victor and his “theories”.  In any case, I hope you’ll find it entertaining.  I know I did.

In what follows, I have edited Victor’s emails down considerably.  In total, his emails amounted to over 5,000 words, most of which didn’t add anything of substance, and I thought I’d lose most of you if I published the lot.  (I’m trying to make this interesting.)  However, to be fair to Victor, I have published the full email exchange on a separate page: Email exchange with Victor Senchenko.  If you have the time, I encourage you to read Victor’s complete emails and my complete replies and form your own opinion about whether I have been unfair to Victor in what I left out of this main post.

Here goes then.  From Victor’s initial email, I decided to focus on his claim that time doesn’t exist, and an experiment that he said would prove it.

1) Original email from Victor’s “Media Team”

[Snipped 1,000 plus word preamble.]

Were ‘time’ to physically exist, then, a simple experiment would have long ago provided physical proof to physical existence of ‘time’. That experiment would consist of a refrigerating unit standing exposed to the Sun and the elements of the weather, and of two leaves being removed from the same branch of a tree. One of the two leaves would be placed on top of the refrigerating unit, exposed to the Sun and the elements. The other leaf would be placed inside the refrigerating unit. Were ‘time’ to exist, then the two leaves, few centimeters or inches apart (one on the outside and one on the inside) would be affected at a similar rate by the surrounding-them same speed of ‘time’. As ‘time’ does not exist, but the physical process of change does, the exposed leaf on top of the refrigerating unit would soon disintegrate – disperse – while the leaf incased in the refrigerating unit would remain virtually unchanged indefinitely, for as long as the refrigerating unit continues to function, despite that the refrigerating unit itself is exposed to the Sun and the elements.

[Snipped 500 words on the flaws and delusions of science and sales patter for book.]

2) Skeptico’s reply #1 (In full)

Victor:

You wrote:

Were ‘time’ to exist, then the two leaves, few centimeters or inches apart (one on the outside and one on the inside) would be affected at a similar rate by the surrounding-them same speed of ‘time’.

Surely this doesn't show that time doesn't exist?  Surely this just shows that organic matter takes less time to rot in sunlight than it does in the fridge?

Best regards,

Richard aka Skeptico

3) Victor’s reply #1

According to Einstein’s “theory of relativity”:

A. nothing, supposedly, moves faster than light.

B. A body or an object is supposedly experiencing a slowing down of “time” with increase of speed

[Snip]

Now then, if the speed of light is a benchmark to “time”, then light itself must be the point of the slowest “time”. Therefore, if light is a physical entity with the point of slowest “time”, then, were “time” to exist, anything that light would physically cover with itself would be subject to experiencing slower “time”. To experience slower “time” would mean to retain its contents for a longer duration without loss (that is, not to age). After all, if each and every physical atomic particle, chemical, nerve, muscle, organ and tissue of a human body is supposedly dependent on “time”, and if the region of slowest “time” is the physical light itself, then light - as THE source of slowest “time” - would need to physically slow down the process of growing and aging of all life forms it shines upon. That would mean that all that the sunlight contacted on Earth during daylight hours would be slowed down in growth and deterioration during that period, and accelerate their growth and deterioration only at night.

[Snip]

Let that sink in for a minute.  Now, I’ve noticed before that when debating cranks, woos and pseudoscientists, they frequently don’t define their terms.  Quite often, certain words or phrases they use can have specific meanings to them that are not obvious to others, and these definitions can often be self serving and/or circular.  Part of the skill in trying to discuss things with people like this is in getting them to define their terms in ways that do not assume their conclusions and cannot be subsequently shifted with a bit of equivocation.  In any case, it’s certainly a good idea not to assume you know what special definition that are using in their argument.  With this in mind, I needed clarification of a couple of terms Victor was using, so I wrote back:

4) Skeptico’s reply #2 (in full)

What does “the speed of light is a benchmark to time” mean?

And what does “light itself must be the point of the slowest time” mean?

Admittedly short, but not, I thought, rude.  Victor’s reply was quite telling about how familiar he is with being questioned on his work:

5) Victor’s reply #2 (in full)

Oh, yes! Richard by name; skeptic by self-presumption; child by choice with a typical childish behavior: anything explained to be questioned "why?", without any conscious intent to work out for oneself the information presented. Simply continue to ask "why", or "what does that mean?", as a substitute for reasoning.

Well, Richard, I shall quickly indulge your whim for questioning. But after this assistence from me you may have to read the book to obtain all the answers to your questions.

Your question 1: What does “the speed of light is a benchmark to time” mean?

A. "speed of light" - relates to the presumed speed at which light travels. If I were you, I would have hundreds of critical questions - and I do - as to current understanding of light, such as:

all that physically moves in space and vacuum space has an impetus of physical casting off - which is a cause for an instant of acceleration. In vacuum space this acceleration is ongoing and neverending, as vacuum space has no physical restrictions of any kind, by being a nothingness. So then, why does light not accelerate from a standing start: that is: incrementally increase its velocity, rather that being always constant at its speed?

(This is explained in the book).

B. "benchmark" represents a standard or point of reference against which things or functions may be compared or assessed.

C. "time" represents averything that humans currently relate to an unexplainable entity that supposedly has a physical effect on all that physically exists.

Ergo: "What does 'the speed of light is a benchmark to time' mean?" means that according to the 'theory of relativity' light is the standard or point of reference of speed, against whose speed speeding objects and bodies are presumably affected by experiencing the slowing down of 'time'.

Your question 2: And what does “light itself must be the point of the slowest time” mean?

Well, Richard, let's reason out this question together. If in trying to reach the speed of light supposedly means experiencing slower 'time' then that would equate to: the faster the speed the slower the 'time'. So if the fastest physical entity is light, then light, by all reason, should be expected to possess the slowest 'time' from possessing the fastest speed.

Quite a meltdown.  Remember the context: I hadn’t contacted Victor and questioned his book or his website; he had contacted me, out of the blue and with no solicitation on my part.  And yet he blew up at only the second, mildly questioning, email from me.  Any real scientist reading this will probably be shaking his or her head in amazement now, considering the questioning that they have to endure every step of the way in their work.  Also, Victor’s protestations that I would have to “read the book” if this explanation wasn’t enough was as lame as it was disingenuous – he had started this communication with me, and if he was incapable of explaining the basic concepts in his email then I see no reason his book would be any better.  He wrote, in total, over 5,000 words in these emails remember?  If he had concentrated some of these words instead into explaining his ideas rather than in blowing up and insulting me, perhaps he would have been able to actually answer my questions.  Or perhaps not. 

Also, I began to see where his argument was coming from.  He had started from Einstein’s insight that for objects traveling at light speed, time stands still, and (I think) concluded that somehow light “possesses” the property of stopping time.  Therefore, anything bathed in light must be experiencing stopped time.  Therefore time doesn’t exist.  Or something.  It’s hard to be sure, and if he hadn’t made it clear that no more questions were to be allowed, I might have prodded him further.  However, I realized based on this initial meltdown, that further discussion would not elicit any rational response.  I replied:

6) Skeptico’s reply #3 (In full)

Oh dear.  I guess you're not used to being questioned on your brilliant, new, earth shattering theory then?  Of course, a mark of the crank is that he develops his ideas in isolation, away from critics or anyone who would ask awkward questions, and so his theory, untested, is usually garbage.  As I am afraid yours is.  In asking my two questions, I thought maybe I was missing some profound point that would justify the conclusions that followed, and so instead of dismissing your wording as sophistic drivel, I asked you to explain what you actually meant.  In other words, I gave you the benefit of the doubt.  But your petulant response showed my instinct was right - your words are just empty drivel.  All you were doing, in the bits I questioned, was restating a conclusion of relativity, namely that time slows down as speed approaches light speed.  That you were unable or unwilling to do this in clear and unambiguous language is hardly my fault.  But even then, you misstate relativity.  What you should have said is that for objects traveling at light speed, time stands still.  (Or, the objects experience the slowest time, if you like.)  But saying this is the "point" of slowest time is meaningless.  Time is not a point.  Nor is light.  Of course, an open minded person would ask you what the "point" of time means, to see what you really meant by that, but as that would probably elicit another meltdown from you, I'll content myself by just saying it means nothing.

I also see now the error in the rest of your logic.  You think that if light "covers" an object then that object is somehow speeded up to near light speed and experiences slower time.  But that is nonsense.  Light bounces off us or is absorbed, and we stay at the same speed.  (Well, with no measurable difference, anyway.)  Light is not the source of the slowest time, does not "possess the essence of the slowest time"  (which is more meaningless sophistic drivel anyway), nor does light slow things down.  Time just slows down for things that approach the speed of light.  And that would be true even if there were no light present.  Light doesn't make it happen.  And unfortunately this rather obvious blunder you have made invalidates everything else that follows. 

And you found a publisher for this drivel?  I hope for your sake it sells well and you make enough money to purchase the psychological help you so obviously need.  If not though, it hasn't been a complete waste of time - your flawed arguments and spectacular meltdown will at least provide me with material for one new blog post.

Victor sent me a further two emails, totaling nearly an additional 2,000 words.  In those emails he complained about skeptics, called me an intellectual coward, indignant, abusive and threatening, and wrote that I only want to listen to myself and that I did not have the ability to apply logic.  In the process he also managed to compare himself to Copernicus, Galileo and Columbus, while comparing me to Mugabe.  (A new one, even for me.)  He called Nobel Prizes “bullshit”.  He also accused me of savaging his book without reading it, although I had in fact just pointed out the errors in his emails to me, and had not referenced his book at all.  However, in all of those 2,000 words, there was nothing to clarify or justify any of his claims.  Although he found the time to repeat many of them.  There was a frantic and barely comprehensible defense of his “point of slowest time” wording, but that was it.  Again, please read the full Email exchange with Victor Senchenko for the verbatim account, to see if you think I missed anything of value.

I was reminded of some common characteristics of cranks, who generally:

1. Overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts,
2. Insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important,
3. Rarely if ever acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial,
4. Seriously misunderstand the mainstream opinion to which they believe that they are objecting,
5. Compare themselves with (sic) Galileo or Copernicus, implying that the mere unpopularity of some belief is in itself evidence of plausibility,
6. Claim that their ideas are being suppressed by […] groups which, they allege, are terrified by the possibility of their allegedly revolutionary insights becoming widely known,
7. Misunderstand or fail to use standard notation and terminology,
8. Ignore fine distinctions which are essential to correctly understanding mainstream belief.

We saw all of those from Victor, even the Galileo and Copernicus comparisons.

One more thing.  As I wrote in Why I won’t read your book, I don’t have to read every book someone tells me about if I don’t think the book’s premise makes sense.  Victor had his chance.  In over 5,000 words he was incapable of expressing in any coherent fashion, any reason why his book would be worth considering.  On the contrary, he exhibited virtually all the signs of the crank with nothing worthwhile to offer.  It is not intellectual cowardice to refuse to waste any more time investigating further what is clearly worthless.  But don’t take my word for it – read the book if you want.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ll end with a delicious quote from Ben Goldacre, who wasn’t writing about Victor, but who could just as easily have been:

We should be glad that there are individuals out there with such esoteric views. We should respect and admire their tenacity and self-belief, if not their ability to provide us with actual data.

Quite.

PostScript

After writing the above, I Googled Victor.  Imagine my surprise to learn I was not the only blogger to have benefited from Victor’s spam mails.  Victor I’m hurt – I though I was special.

Egnor Attributes Scientific Progress to Religion

OK, so I’m a little late to this one.  But I still  think I have something to add.  Well I would.

PZ wrote a piece extolling the virtues of science over religion in curing diseases such as cancer, and bemoaning the shortage of funds to support research.  (And also bemoaning the money wasted on useless woo projects such as homeopathy and creationism.)  The Discovery Institute’s pet brain surgeon, Michael Egnor, then penned what he probably imagined was a decent rebuttal - Cancer Research, Prayer, and St. Jude.  A snippet:

I take exception to his claim that prayer and religious faith had nothing to do with the improvements in the treatment of cancer.

The remarkable progress in the treatment of cancer in the past several decades had a lot to do with faith and prayer. Myers misunderstands the origins of modern medical science and the history and nature of cancer treatment.

[…]

Advances in science and cancer treatment emerged, not from science in isolation, but from a culture that made science possible and that directed the fruits of scientific work toward good and compassionate goals. The culture from which science has emerged is Judeo-Christian culture, and modern science has arisen only in Judeo-Christian culture.

PZ responded, as did Orac and Steven Novella, so I don’t need to repeat all their points in detail.  Obviously scientific discoveries took place in other cultures apart from Judeo-Christian ones, and even more obviously, the main contribution of religion to scientific discovery has been to suppress it and deny reality, rather than to encourage any new discoveries.  Opposition to stem cell research on religious grounds is an obvious example.  As is Egnor’s support of the Discovery Institute, a body that wants to deny evolution and instead promote the pseudoscientific idea of Intelligent Design.  Egnor even denies that knowledge of evolution has any bearing on medical research – a view that if accepted by researchers, would without doubt hinder new discoveries.  Egnor’s views are decidedly anti-science.

Steven Novella also noted that Egnor’s argument was a diversionary tactic.  PZ had argued that science, not woo or prayer, has resulted in improvements in treatments for cancer; Egnor shifted the argument to claim that only faith and religion motivated those scientific discoveries.  Well OK, he can think that if he wants, but hasn’t he just admitted that it is only through science that these discoveries can actually be made?  If you examine Egnor’s almost 2,000 words, you won’t find anything that suggests science is not the best (or only) method for making new discoveries in medicine.  And yet this is the man who would bypass the scientific method to teach pseudoscience in schools, and have researchers ignore the implications of evolution in their work.  His best argument is that, well, er, science was motivated by religion.  Really?  That’s the best you got?

OK then.  So my question to Michael Egnor is this: now that you have apparently conceded that only science will result in progress, will you publicly admit that we should consider only scientific ideas about how we got here, and disavow quasi religious ideas such as ID?  No?  I don’t think he will either.

I want to comment on one additional point he made:

The application of science to care for the sick presupposes the view that we have an ethical obligation to help the weakest among us. The atheist view of metaphysics — that the universe has no purpose and no designer and no transcendent ethical code — provides no impetus to scientific inquiry or to the compassionate application of scientific knowledge.

An example he uses is the claimed higher rates for survival of epidemics in early Christian communities, compared with those in pagan communities.  This, he claims, was due to the care that Christians provided for the sick, and their refusal to flee when an epidemic struck.  (In pagan communities, healthy people fled.)  Assuming this is true, all this shows is that early Christians were better than early pagans.  Or, if you like, Christian irrationality was better than pagan irrationality.  Of course, preferable to both is rationality.  By now we should have progressed beyond the world view of second century pagans, with or without religion. 

Of course, Egnor’s argument is just the old “no morality without Jesus” drivel we have all heard and debunked many times before.  Good people do good things and bad people do bad things, religion notwithstanding.  But as someone once said, only religion can make good people do bad things.  Egnor shows here that his opposition to evolution is not based on rationality, but on his religious beliefs.  Which is great for him, I guess.  But not something anyone else need take seriously.

Skeptics’ Circle

The latest Skeptics Circle is posted at Ionian Enchantment.  And there’s something about a meeting in Las Vegas.  What’s that all about, I wonder?

Bad Psychic

This is why we dislike so-called “psychics”.  When Larry King has these cold readers on his show, and believers complain about skeptics, bleating that the psychics are doing no harm and that we should leave them alone, this is the reason they are wrong.  From Jim Downey today I learned of how a mother of an autistic child was investigated under the Child and Family Services Act because some lame-ass “educational assistant” who worked with the child visited a “psychic” who guessed the letter “V” (the first letter of the child’s name), and (following validation by the mark) suggested the child was being sexually abused.  And the dumb as a rock school officials felt this was enough to report the family:

Colleen Leduc already had a lot going against her. The Barrie woman was holding down a job while struggling to raise her autistic 11-year-old daughter. She couldn't afford to give the child the intensive therapy she needed, and was forced to send her to a public school in the area.

So she was completely unprepared for what happened to her and the youngster, an almost unbelievable tale of red tape involving a strange claim from a teaching assistant, a bizarre decision by a school board, a visit from the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and most improbably of all, the incorrect pronouncements of a psychic.

[…]

"The teacher looked and me and said: 'We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of "V." And she said 'yes, I do.' And she said, 'well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

The family were able to avoid prosecution and the family being split up, probably only because the mother had fitted the child with a GPS unit that provided audio records of everything that was going on around her.  Yes – she was able to prove herself and her family innocent.  Lucky.  How many other families would have been able to do the same? 

And consider the quote above, “the psychic asked the educational assistant … if she works with a little girl by the name of "V."  As those of us who watch these cold reading frauds know, it is highly unlikely that that is what transpired.  What most likely happened is that the “psychic” offered numerous guesses, and the “V” was the one that stuck.  And the psychic probably didn’t even say the “V” was “a little girl…” – the dumb mark most likely provided that for her too.

The psychic isn’t even the worst villain in this case.  The real idiots are in the school board who didn’t just dismiss this piece of idiocy out of hand, but who took it upon themselves to take this piece of nonsense seriously.  These events took place Monday, but by yesterday the school board are still refusing to even consider they did anything wrong:

The board has admitted the issue could have been handled better, but notes under the law they had to file a report regardless of the source.

Then the law is an ass.

This reportedly cash-strapped mother is extremely fortunate that she had the proof that the allegations were wrong.  Most others would not.  Remember this case the next time Larry King, and other credulous media types, mindlessly promote psychics are real in an effort to increase ratings.  Shame on you people for validating this crap.

Another Credulous Reporter

My local paper last week printed a typically clueless piece from one Amy Moon, about the pseudoscientific Q-Link pendant that I wrote about nearly three years ago - Q-Link if you want.  The maker of this device claims it is “the most advanced personal energy system available today” and that it can “tune your being for optimal living and performance”.  Pretty big claims for something that is just a few, small, random, cheap electronic components  that are not even connected to each other.  But to be fair, it cures imaginary problems so perhaps it makes sense to use an imaginary method.

The article was one of the worst of its kind, offering no critical appraisal at all, instead repeating the Q-Link maker’s crap verbatim.  Here are some examples:

A random pick from the alphabet led to the Q. Only later did the founders attach meaning to it.

Because of course, that’s how science works – picking stuff at random and then shoehorning meaning into it.

"We started to think about the Q-Link as being the 'Quantum Link,' " said Gray over the phone from his Larkspur company. "Quantum means an 'indivisible unit of energy,' something that supports the notion of the whole or holistic body."

“Quantum” actually means the smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist.  I suppose that, strictly speaking, this also means “an indivisible unit”, but only indivisible because it is the smallest possible - hardly the same as “the whole body”, which obviously can be divided.  I am reminded again how woos love equivocation – using the same word in different meanings in an argument, implying that the word means the same each time.  With sleight of hand, “quantum” becomes the same as “woolistic” “holistic” – a veritable masterpiece of equivocation to imply that the smallest unit possible is the same as a whole body.  But top marks for use of the word “quantum”.  (See the woo credo, #10.)

According to Gray, inside the Q-Link is crystalline matter imbued with frequencies that exist outside of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This just makes no sense.  If it is electromagnetic radiation then it must by definition be inside the electromagnetic spectrum.  In fact, surely all frequencies must be within the electromagnetic spectrum?  In what sense is the electromagnetic spectrum limited to certain frequencies?

This realm of subtle energies is a new area of science and controversial because there is no way to prove the energies exist.

So, how do you know they do exist?  And how do you know the Q-Link can affect them?

"What's so interesting is if you look back over the last 20 years at anyone who ever talked about chakras, meridians, 1,000 years ago it was the basis of science."

I think he’s claiming that 1,000 year old thoughts about chakras and meridians, as repeated by current new age bozos, is science.  Unfortunately, no.  Chakras and meridians were just made up by ancient people who had no knowledge of how the body actually works.  Science has moved on from these nonsensical made up entities.

Although there has been some independent research on the supposed effects of the Q-Link that are listed on the Clarus Web site, the scientific evidence is scant. Gray said the company hopes to do more research.

Surely they should do the research before they sell the product?  Because if they haven’t done the research yet, how do they know it does anything?

But even ignoring this logical error, I find Gray’s claim that he “hopes to do more research” to be bogus.  Their website lists ten studies on the device.  As far as I can tell these are the exact same ten studies I wrote about three years ago, with the exact same flaws I wrote about then.  Three years and no new studies?  No follow up?  I suppose they don’t really need to bother.  With uncritical free publicity from credulous twits like Amy Moon, why would they need to do any actual science?

Psychic Bingo Again

Tonight, Thursday June 12, Larry King is hosting some more pretend psychics:

Psychic kids! Some see dead people, others have a sixth sense! Plus, John Edward and Char Margolis. It's gonna (sic) be a great show. They're predicting it! What do YOU want to ask them?

Well, I’d ask them how they have the nerve to keep playing this cold reading game as though they really were talking to dead people.  But that’s just me.  I’m not sure who these “psychic kids” are, but we’ve all seen John Edward and Char (“do you have a C?”) Margolis before, playing their cold reading guessing game.  Last time they chickened out, but perhaps this time they will actually take some calls and pretend to be talking to dead people, so that we can play bingo.  

Click here for the printable psychic bingo card:

The explanations for the squares can be found at the same John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo post from last year.  Read the full explanations (and explain them to your woo friends who may be watching with you), to get the full benefit.  Char doesn’t employ the exact same routine as van Praagh, but I think it’ll be close enough that I don’t need to change any of the squares.  I expect Edward to be the same as usual.

Click the “Randomize” button for cards with different sequences.  Or print the same card twice and see if Edward or Margolis gets bingo first.  (My money’s on Edward.)

Thursday evening – Edited to add:

Well, the psychic show was called off.  It was still advertised on CNN last night but had gone by sometime today.  Apparently they wanted to cover four boy scouts who were killed by a tornado yesterday, instead.  I don’t know what to think – if you can’t trust Larry King…  Also, and this is really puzzling, why didn’t any of the psychics predict this?  To quote Larry’s website yesterday, “It's gonna be a great show. They're predicting it!”  Bzzt – wrong again, they missed, but thanks for playing.

We’ll get to play bingo one day though.  I’m determined.

Skeptics’ Circle

Well, two weeks went by and I didn’t even notice.  But I’m sure they did because there’s another Skeptics Circle posted today at Jyunri Kankei. 

Woo at Stanford

The San Francisco Chronicle has an uncritical article today about a supposed test of “energy healing” at Stanford University:

Anne Broderick believes she can use her hands to alter the energy fields of others to help them heal, taking away fatigue, stress and nausea.

A clinical trial at Stanford University aims to prove it.

And there, perhaps unknowingly, the writer demonstrates the problem with this test.  A clinical trial should be designed to determine if something is true or not.  A test that is designed to prove something true, will probably do so regardless of whether it is true or not.  This is an un-blinded test, and so is uncontrolled for placebo.  The allocation to treatment or placebo groups is non-randomized.  Regardless of the result, this “clinical trial” will prove nothing except that Stanford supports quackery.

Let’s recap.  Ten years ago a study published in JAMA demonstrated that Therapeutic Touch (TT) practitioners couldn’t even detect the energy field they claim they can manipulate, when they don’t know if a person is there or not.  This was a true blind test – the (TT) practitioners didn’t know if the experimenter’s hand was there or not (see drawing).  If they can’t even detect the energy field, how can they manipulate it to make people well?  Or as the JAMA study concluded:

Twenty-one experienced TT practitioners were unable to detect the investigator's "energy field." Their failure to substantiate TT's most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence that the claims of TT are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified.

Unjustified.  But they keep doing it anyway.

 





This does not make it a blind study!

Skeptics’ Circle

The latest Skeptics Circle has just been posted at Action Skeptics.  It’s too early in the morning for me to think of a limerick, but there’s plenty at the link.

They Seized Control of Wikipedia

That’s according to attorney Clifford J. Shoemaker, in his response to the Order to Show Cause. He states that Kathleen Seidel’s “principal co-conspirator” (ie her husband), has “seized control” of Wikipedia. Apparently this eminent attorney is unaware that Wikipedia is written and updated collaboratively by more than 75,000 active volunteers from all around the world. Or, as Kathleen put it:

These documents offer a remarkable exposition of the grandiose, cartoonish conspiracy fantasies entertained by advocates of the concept of autism as toxicity and tort, and the arguments of those who seek to justify the perversion of legal processes in order to oppress their critics.

Kathleen has nine days to respond to Shoemaker, if she wishes.

Damned Aliens

So the Vatican’s chief astronomer thinks extraterrestrial life might exist:

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

[…]

Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.

Um-Kay. But didn’t God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son? So all those aliens must be headed for hell, since they’ve never been given the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. Seems rather harsh. Not to mention bad planning – creating all those life forms for them all to be damned to an eternity of fire and brimstone. (Apart from those who are free from original sin, of course.  But surely that can't be all of them?) 

I can’t help thinking that God didn’t think this through very carefully.

Skeptics’ Circle

A real bitching edition of the  Skeptics Circle has just been posted at The Skepbitch. Don’t be put off by the name – she’s actually a friendly and polite person. Or so she says.

Poor Babies

The Expelled nitwits apparently set up a MySpace page to promote their silly mocumentary. On it they had an online poll to ask readers if they thought Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. It seems no one was moderating the page over the weekend because up until this morning, 98% of those voting (over 400,000 people) voted “NO”.

Sometime today one of the Expelled twits finally woke up to this embarrassment and… (you know what’s coming) deleted the poll.

Aaah – the poor babies. Boo hoo. Couldn’t stand any dissent so they took their bat and ball and they’re going home so there. Wankers.

I took a screenshot of it Saturday when the “no” vote was only 273,000. I wish I’d taken another one Sunday now, but as PZ reports, the poll is still available here. And you can still vote.

Typical creationist liars and cowards. They make a film about how dissent is not allowed, and yet they’re the first ones to censor anything that dissents from their little fairy story world view. Expelled is right.