Skeptico

Anomaly noticed on Skeptico’s birthday

The people at Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) are fond of spotting “anomalies” in data and suggesting they may have detected global human consciousness acting in concert. I recently detected an anomaly in the site traffic for this blog, timed exactly at its birthday, February 3^rd, as you can see from the following chart:

Could my sensors have detected the global joy and happiness experienced by the peoples of the world at this blog’s anniversary?

Actually, no. Just as PEAR are really just seeing shapes in the clouds, the blip in visitors on February 3^rd was actually due to the excellent plugs for my anniversary post Why did the chicken cross the road? by Pharyngula and others. Thanks to all who linked that day and made it such a success. As it was obviously so popular, I have started collecting victims contributors for my February 3^rd 2007 post.

If you believe this you must be dreaming

Reader Colleen sent me a link to this story about an Alabama man just arrested for the 1998 murder of his wife. The story was interesting because in 2000, another man, Rod Spraggins, claimed the murdered woman appeared to him in a dream saying her husband had committed the crime:

In 2000, Spraggins, a bail bondsman, stunned a crowd of 100 when he accused Waites of killing his wife and dared the man to sue him for slander if he was wrong.

Waites was not at the forum, never responded publicly to the accusation and never sued.

In an otherwordly turn to the saga Friday, Spraggins disclosed that he never had any evidence to make the accusation and that it was based entirely on Mrs. Waites' appearing to him in a series of dreams.

"She started appearing to me within the first weeks of her death," said Spraggins

The implication, reported without any skepticism, is that Sparaggins had a psychic experience. Of course, you don’t need to be psychic to know that the husband is always going to be a prime suspect in his wife’s murder. Actually I think this tells us more about Spraggins and his fantasies about Waites’ wife than it does about any supposed psychic experience. Spaggings may well have dreamed it. So what? It was on his mind; he was suspicious of the husband – why wouldn’t he dream something like that? The only remarkable thing about this story is that anyone would think it worthy of reporting.

Waites was investigated by the police after the murder – an investigation that turned up some other wrongdoing:

Waites was sentenced to six months in jail in 2002 after he pleaded guilty in an ethics case that was uncovered during the investigation into his wife's killing.

He was given a five-year split sentence, with six months to be served in the Chambers County Jail and the remainder on probation.

Psychic forces were not reported to be involved in that arrest though. And psychic forces were not at work in the murder arrest either, just routine police work:

Police Chief Ron Docimo would not comment on exactly what led to the arrest, saying only that it was a "culmination of years of following up on leads and tips."

So far there are no reports of Spraggins predicting the verdict in the upcoming trial. I have one prediction though – Spraggins won’t be called upon to testify.

Skeptics’ Circle

The 28^th Skeptics' Circle is now up at Unused and Probably Unusable. Go there your skeptical reading for today – it’s the law!

Aarrr, it’s a pirate in a pancake

It’s happened again – this time someone has seen Jesus in a pancake, according to this report by KTVU TV:

Mike Thompson was making pancakes last weekend for his family when the pattern on one of the flapjacks caught his eye.

Upon closer inspection, he saw what he thought was the face of Jesus. He showed his wife, and she agreed.

That's when the couple decided to do what anyone who discovers such an edible artifact does these days -- they put it up for sale on eBay.

I don’t know. To me it looks more like Captain Pugwash:

But then I guess Captain Pugwash wouldn’t sell too well on eBay. Even if they really did have the characters Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger the Cabin Boy (which they didn’t).

At least they didn’t say it looked like Mohammad!

Feb 12 – Edited to add:

Currently bidding at $16K on eBay:

Feb 15 – Edited to add:

It has now been removed by eBay.

Randi has heart surgery

James Randi had heart bypass surgery last week:

James Randi underwent bypass surgery last Thursday. He is currently in stable condition. He is receiving excellent care, but will need quiet time to recover. We will release more information as it becomes available, and we ask everyone to please respect the family’s wishes for privacy at this time.

For those who feel a need to help, please consider donating blood at your local Red Cross or Community Blood Center. Cards may be sent to Randi in care of JREF, 201 SE 12 Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316.

I wish you a speedy recovery Mr. Randi. I won’t be praying for a recovery because as you know, prayer is useless. I’m also sure you’ll be shunning any nonsense such as Therapeutic Touch or Reiki (although I would pay to see one of those altie nitwits try any of that quackery on you if you’re conscious and alert). I know you won’t be trying any psychic surgery either, since you made it your mission in recent years to expose those quacks. No, I’m sure you’re availing yourself of the best modern medicine can offer. Get well soon, the rational world misses you.

Islam for dummies

If you need another reason why we shouldn’t appease these Muslim thugs, read the Salon interview (translated from a Der Spiegel article) of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch MP whose film "Submission" led to the assassination of film director Theo van Gogh in 2004.  Ali knows a thing or two about Muslim threats, living as she does under 24 hour police protection because of her anti-Islam views. A couple of snippets:

Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?

Once again, the West pursued the principle of first turning one cheek, then the other. In fact, it's already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when [Dutch comedian] Rudi Carrell derided [the Iranian leader] Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit. In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was canceled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don't notice how much abuse we're taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch.

What should the appropriate European response look like?

There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can't boycott goods from every country. They're far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.

Sadly, the western press did no such thing, they caved. It’s worth repeating Ali again: “Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch”. Of course they didn’t. They have the religion virus.

Just for the hell of it, another cartoon - my favorite:

Loony toons

And by that title I refer to the demonstrators as well as the cartoons they are demonstrating against.

The picture on the right is apparently one of the most offensive of the cartoons. (See the rest here btw, in the unlikely event you haven’t already.) Not only does it portray a forbidden picture of the prophet (peace be upon him – just not upon anyone else), but also it suggests that Muslims might sometimes be connected with planting bombs and terrorism and stuff. What a thought. Everyone knows Islam is a peaceful religion, and if you want proof just look at this crowd peacefully protesting:

 

 

So they’re offensive to Muslims. And the State Department agrees this is bad, according to Reuters:

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,… We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.

Well you know what – I’m offended too. I’m offended that the government presumes to suggest that ridiculous fairy tale religious beliefs should be protected from criticism. Religious beliefs, remember, are the ones not backed by any reliable evidence. And these are the beliefs we are not supposed to criticize? But why not? Surely, those beliefs not backed by evidence should be the first in the line for criticism? Of course, I can see why the religious would want their religious fairy tales protected from ridicule. They are, ridiculous. The major tenets of most religions are so utterly and inherently ludicrous you would not under normal circumstances expect a ten year old to believe them. However, I rather see that as their problem, not mine.

Ophelia at Butterflies and Wheels puts it more eloquently. Read this piece on the idea that these cartoons represent a battle between religious extremism and freedom of speech:

That's not how I would draw them, actually. That is a little too predictable, and it's also not quite the point. It seems to me the battle is between the idea that religion should be immune from criticism and the idea that it should not be. Or, perhaps, it's between the idea that 'sensitivities' and feelings of being 'offended' and desires for 'respect' should receive great deference and attention and loving concern and the idea that grownups are supposed to have learned how to take being 'offended' in stride and move on. Or it's between the idea that 'the sacred' should be inviolate and the idea that it should be subject to scrutiny. Or it's between the idea that 'blasphemy' is strictly forbidden and the idea that 'blasphemy' is a meaningless word referring to an empty category and should be drummed out of our vocabulary, let alone our laws. Or all those, and a few more.

She follows this with a reply to this idea that images of Muhammad are not allowed:

Not allowed to whom? Interesting that she neglects to include the necessary qualifier. Interesting and revealing, and of course she's not the only one who's been using that trick. There's an authoritarian little move going on by which people try to pretend that taboos apply universally as opposed to only the people who accept them. We can all draw pictures of Muhammad if we want to, and the Sarah Josephs don't get to tell us it's not allowed.

Right. That is exactly the point. I don’t mind if religious people want to practice their silly beliefs on their own, just as long as they don’t bother me and as long as they don’t tell me their silly made-up rules apply to me as well. But that’s never enough for these people. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Religious nuts everywhere, if they could get away with it, would make damn sure their rules applied to all of us.

Don’t believe me? Check out this report from the Bad Astronomer. A religious twit appointed by President Bush to work at NASA as a public affairs officer used his position to instruct a NASA web designer to make changes on the NASA web page about the Big Bang, because:

The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion… It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.”

This is how the government, if we let them, will meddle in the scientific process. It’s hardly surprising that the administration supports the view that the Mohammad cartoons are “not acceptable” – they are fellow travelers. This is why it is important not to buckle to the pressure from these Islamic thugs, but to criticize religion wherever it tries to get out of its box. Or as Ophelia writes:

Religion is in need of constant vigilance and interrogation and steady unrelenting pressure, so that maybe someday in some other happier time, it will stop being a source of misery and deprivation and oppression for so damn many people, especially women. So bring on criticism, mockery, cartoons, robust discussion, and whatever else it takes.

Right again. And for an even more extreme view, read Morpheus’ Millitant Atheist Declaration. Also right.

Make no mistake, these cartoons are not “racist” as some have claimed, nor do they compare to comments made by the Nazis about the Jews in the 1930s (this is just Orac’s Hitler Zombie again). This line of reasoning is a false analogy. Racism is the belief that a whole race of people is inferior to another race, despite evidence to the contrary, and actual discrimination based on this belief. Cartoons making fun of religion are just making fun of a belief – a belief that is not backed by any evidence, is patently absurd, and that adults are free to choose or reject. (In free countries anyway.)

The reaction to these cartoons are an eloquent example of the basic problem with religion. If I disagree with someone on, say, what is the best make of car, or on whether psychics are real or not, for the most part we can agree to disagree and get on with our lives. If I disagree with someone about what God wants, no compromise is possible. How can you disagree with what some fundamentalist thinks God revealed to him? The logical conclusion is the firing of newspaper editors, torching of embassies and death threats to bloggers and others. Agreeing with them that their religious beliefs should not be mocked will lead to self-censorship and will only embolden them to demand more next time. If we don’t stand up against religious intolerance now, it will only get worse.

More good reading on this subject:

The Two Percent Company’s Welcome to the Asylum. Population: Way Too Many

Christopher Hitchins’ Cartoon Debate

Orac’s reply to a Moslem mass emailer

PZ Myers with a slightly more sympathetic view of the Moslems themselves

Intelligent Design Society of Kansas FAQ

Via Pharyngula I learn of The FAQ the Discovery Institute ought to use. 

A sample:

How do you recognize when something is Irreducibly Complex?

Something is Irreducibly Complex when proponents of Intelligent Design can't imagine how natural selection could have produced it

Pretty funny – and so true.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Skeptico is one year old today! Hard to believe, but my first post, Drivel from Chopra, was on February 3^rd 2005.  (Some things never change, it seems.)

Anyway, I’m not going to bore you with details of how many posts I’ve made, how many visitors, etc etc. You don’t care. Instead, I started thinking about all the people we’ve met over the past year, and wondered how they might answer the age old question of this post’s title. So, in celebration of Skeptico’s first birthday, and for (what I hope will be) your Friday amusement, I present the various answers to the question…

Why did the chicken cross the road?

James Randi

I have a million dollar prize for the chicken if it can cross a road as it claims. It is now 225 weeks since the chicken agreed to be tested, and so I ask the chicken, when will you fulfill your promise?

(Sound of crickets…)

Loyd Auerbach

If the chicken crossed the road, the skeptics wouldn’t believe it; they would just believe that Randi was simply scammed out of his million.   It wouldn't change the prevailing attitudes towards poultrypsychology.

Gary Schwartz PhD

I have proven that chickens cross roads in the afterlife. I don’t need to publish my data: I have a PhD from Harvard.

Victor Zammit

I have a million dollar prize for anyone who can prove to a team of judges I appoint that invisible chickens that cross invisible roads don’t exist.

I’m a lawyer.

Sylvia Browne

Randi ran away from the duck crossing the beach test in Bali, so why should the chicken bother?  Quack quack.

James Van Praagh

Just because I can’t prove the chicken crossed the road doesn’t mean it didn’t.

Char Margolis

Do you have somebody who is a “C”?

John Edward

They’re showing me feathers. Wings.  A beak. Do you know an eagle?

A hawk?

A turkey?

A sparrow?

A duck?

A bird of some kind?

Caller: I know a chicken

Edward: You know a chicken that crossed? I thought so because they’re showing me a plate of scrambled eggs.

Larry King: Wow! That’s amazing! How does he do it?

Allison Dubois

There are a lot of chickens that just pretend to cross roads. Beware of these fake chickens – mine really can cross roads.

Jackie Stallone

Send me a close-up photo of the chicken’s ass and a check for $125, and I’ll tell you.

Nostradamus

At the sign of the APAC
Great beasts howl through the night
Two blazing eyes a long time will make war
The Chicken & the Eagle, France the three brothers.

Gregg Braden

“Chicken” in Hebrew is “Tarnegolet”. Using Gematria - the ancient Hebrew system of numerology – “Tarnegolet” converts to 372 = 3+7+2=12 = 1+2=3. Eggs are sold by the dozen. A dozen is 12 = 1+2=3. Could it be that chickens and eggs were created at the same time (which answers the age-old question)? God’s signature is in our DNA which is also 3. So God put it in the DNA of chickens to cross roads.

A baker’s dozen is 13. The next Fibonacci number after 8, the target frequency of the Schumann Resonance, is 13. Can it be just coincidence that these two numbers are the same? Surely not.

I’m a scientist.

Bill O’Reilly

There is a war on chickens crossing the road - part of the secular progressive agenda to get chickens and crossing roads out of the public square. Because if you can question why chickens need to cross roads then you can pass secular programs, like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will and compulsory gay marriage for everyone.

Pat Robertson

I’d like to say to the good chickens by the side of the road: if you are crossing the road and a car is about to run you over: don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him.  And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when the car hits you: you just voted God out of your lives. But don’t forget, Jesus loves you.

Doreen Virtue

Chickens are really angels with very real messages for us about when to cross roads.

Prince Charles

We farm using the principles of biodynamics, a form of farming in which chickens are treated with homeopathic remedies rather than antibiotics, and the signs of the zodiac determine when to cross roads.

David Icke

It wasn’t a chicken; it was a shape shifting lizard.

Deepak Chopra

The interesting thing about the tsunami was, no chicken died.  They were so tuned in to the forces of nature that they crossed the road to the high level mountainous area on the other side where the tidal waves could not reach (quantum mechanics quantum mechanics).

Dr. Jay Gordon

The American Academy of Poultry has a very cozy relationship with the chicken industry. Most speakers in the crossing roads controversy are paid consultants to the chicken industry; this means their conclusions are wrong.

PsiTech

Since the commencement of this project, PSI TECH has worked diligently on the first objective: to find the chicken. It was determined within the first few hours that it was deceased – it had been run over by a milk truck while crossing the road. The driver of the milk truck was a white male with short cropped hair – here is a picture of the driver.

…

DID WE SAY DECEASED? Nooooooooooo, we meant it crossed the road safely. It isn’t that remote viewing doesn’t work; we just misinterpreted the data (er, we didn’t see the chicken safe on the other side, but we see it now).

Robert F. Kennedy Junior

In June 2000, a group of top government veterinarians and poultry officials gathered secretly for a secret meeting at an isolated broiler farm in Norcross, Ga.  Convened by the Centers for Chicken Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), the meeting was held at this remote retreat to ensure complete secrecy. All of the scientific data under discussion, CCDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “secret”.

Did I say “secret”? Does it sound like a conspiracy yet? According to the following out of context quotes from the transcripts (obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – aren’t I great?), the officials spent the whole of the two days just conspiring how to cover up the damaging revelations about how salmonella would affect the poultry industry's bottom line. This proves thimerosal causes salmonella.

I’m a lawyer.

Michael Behe

A chicken crossing a road has:

eyes

legs

a road

the other side

If any one of those irreducibly complex parts is missing the chicken will be unable to cross the road, so if it looks, walks (across roads) and clucks like a chicken, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, it's an intelligently designed chicken. Its legs are molecular machines, literally outboard motors. Look at Mount Rushmore… (Continued)

William Dembski

While evolution is able to explain small scale changes within species, it has completely failed to explain the sudden explosion of life forms during the Cambrian Explosion, where the chicken appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no trace of evolutionary ancestors (eggs).  Since Darwin’s theory can’t explain precisely how this particular chicken crossed this precise road at this precise spot at this precise time, any life of any kind, anywhere, is evidence of design.

The Dover School Board

The theory of crossing roads is a theory not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.  If you wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent crossing”, you should consult a book called “Of Chickens and People” in the school library.

Kansas Board of Education

An unknown supernatural entity made the chicken cross the road at an unknown time in an unknown way for an unknown reason. Intelligent crossing is a scientific term.

Hugh Ross

According the 322 parameters and the probabilities for each that I have made up, there is a less than 1 chance in 10²⁸² that a chicken could cross a road without a divine miracle.

Terrell Owens

It was part of God’s plan to give the chicken an even bigger platform during Super Road Crossing Sunday than it otherwise would have had, thus proving God's greatness.

Bill Maher

The vaccine won’t protect you against chicken flu. Louis Pasteur renounced that theory on his deathbed and said that Beauchamp was right: it’s not the mosquito, it’s the terrain; it's not the chicken, it’s the inhumane battery conditions they’re kept in where they don’t get to run around happily in the sunlight, pecking freely at the ground and crossing roads at will.

I’m a board member of PETA.

Greenpeace

The genetically modified chicken crossed the road to contaminate the non-GM chickens on the other side of the road with genetically modified DNA. This has created a “superchicken” that can cross roads at will without ever being hit by a truck.

Alien abductee

The chicken awoke to find it was paralyzed and surrounded by aliens that teleported it out of its bedroom, over the road to the mother ship where they performed experiments on its eggs.

Susan Clancy

What you have is a chicken that is predisposed to believe it can cross roads. Here's a chicken who reads maps and travel guides. It watches “Martha Stewart” and other cookery programs.  Then one night it has a sleep-paralysis experience. It doesn’t mean it really happened.

Ramtha channeled by JZ Knight

The chicken can create its own crossing roads reality just by thinking about it (quantum mechanics quantum mechanics).

Scientologist

The chicken crossed the road to receive auditing. The auditing will reveal a need yet to cross additional roads for more auditing. The additional auditing will reveal a need to cross even more roads for even more auditing. This will reveal… (continued).

Penny Thornton (astrologer)

We can only make assumptions as to why chickens cross roads. But given that these ancient civilizations saw omens in the flights of birds and sheep’s entrails, why not chickens?

Robert Hand (astrologer)

Although I study chickens for a living, if you wish to get the answer you are going to have to do the research yourself.

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (astrologer)

As post modernity impacts on all epistemological levels to link eidos with telos in a hermeneutic perspective, science acknowledges that it is no longer the sole custodian of why chickens cross roads.

Now for some commenters on this blog…

Boney

What’s wrong with asking if the chicken is channeling Ramtha when it crosses the road? Did gravity exist before Newton discovered it?

Grace (and others)

Chickens have been crossing roads for 5,000 years. What makes you think that the tools of science, only a few hundred years old, will be adequate to prove or disprove this?

Karl

If you question why chickens cross roads you must be a grinding a political axe. I bet you disagree with Michael Moore too. If you don’t immediately tell me your political affiliation that proves chickens can cross roads.

Diathermic

Why does Skeptico need to appease his ego by asking for evidence that chickens cross roads? Allopathy kills 225,000 people per year and Stephen Barrett has lost his license and needs a toupee, so chickens can cross roads.

TSK

Skeptico called Auerbach an “idiot”. Skeptico’s use, once, of this single word refutes all of Skeptico’s argumentations and means chickens can cross roads.

I’m an engineer.

Edit (Added on request):

Bronze Dog

Logical Fallacy/Propaganda Tactic: Changing the subject / Red herring: the reason the chicken crossed the road is irrelevant to the issue. The only purpose for questioning the chicken’s reason for crossing the road, at least in this case, is to distract people from the issue.

And now, some of my fellow skeptical bloggers…

Autism Diva

Autism Diva awards the chicken four tiaras, her highest award, for outstanding effort at crossing roads on behalf of autistics everywhere.

Autism Diva
Cluck Cluck

Pharyngula

Here is an explanation of how invertebrates evolved the ability to cross roads…

Butterflies and wheels

Yes why indeed?  It was suggested that the crossing was caused by a supernatural being. Well, yes, it might, it might. But is it likely? I mean, is it? Seriously. Think about it. Is it likely? At all?  Does it seem even remotely plausible? That “some all powerful conscious being” (but who? oh, who? who might it be? Colonel Sanders?), powerful enough to “produce” perhaps the entire universe and some conscious beings with free will - would cause a chicken to cross the road?

Bob Park

NASA terminated the chicken’s road crossing expedition so it can concentrate on the useless Space Station and its new priority of sending chickens to the Moon.

The Bad Astronomer

The chicken crossed the road to see these really cool pictures of the egg nebula taken by the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) on the Hubble Space Telescope. Science is really cool. I love this stuff.

Rockstar Ryan

I'll go out on a limb and say it was probably to get to the other freaking side you moron.

Respectful Insolence

This will be the last article I write about the chicken and the crossing the road case for a while. This post is definitely the last one. If something new comes up, certainly I'll think about addressing it, but there are only so many times and ways one can debunk the chicken "rebuttal" to the crossing roads report without starting to bore people (although the sheer number of howlers that the chicken included in his report did provide a lot of blogging material to handle them properly). So I’m not going to write about this much more.

But, before I move on, I just wanted to write this one more post about the chicken’s rebuttal. That’s what this post is going to be about. Once I get to it it will be, anyway. Honestly. So here I am, writing my last post on the chicken and the crossing the road case.  My last post for a while anyway. OK. It’s going to be good. Here goes.

When the chicken… (Continued.)

And finally…

Skeptico

The question is not, why did the chicken cross the road? Before I answer that question you will first need to demonstrate if the chicken crossed the road. So if you have any evidence that the chicken did actually cross the road, please present it.

^{Sorry to those I missed}

Skeptics’ Circle

The 27^th Skeptics' Circle is now up at A Photon in the Darkness.

Organized with military precision, this is your skeptical reading for today.