Skeptico

Crystal method

“What’s this?” she said, holding up a piece of purple Amethyst crystal I had lying on my desk. (She was a guest at my house during a recent party.) I just laughed and said it was given to me as a joke by a scientist (a geology professor presenting at “The Amazing Meeting 2”). “Huh?” says she. Well, I said, some people believe crystals can focus “energy” for healing, or some such nonsense. The scientist joked about how people could believe such crap, and then explained some real properties of crystals, minerals, etc. But woos pop up everywhere, including my house apparently. Turns out she believed in all sorts of woo: crystal therapy, Reiki, you name it.

We had a discussion about “energy” (that all-encompassing new age term that explains any mysterious supposed healing or psychic force that no scientific instrument can detect). Then she came out with this old chestnut:

Before we had tools that could detect atoms, atoms still existed.  So how do we know that science won't develop tools in the future that will show crystals have healing properties we can’t measure now?

This is a common piece of drivel woos parrot when forced to admit there is no evidence for their fantasy stories. Regular readers will recognize this as Five Apples No. 11.

I told her, the answer is – you don’t. There are almost certainly things we don’t know about now that will be discovered in the future. But you draw the wrong conclusion from this. You think this means anything you like the sound of, is worthy of consideration. But it’s not. Something is only worthy of consideration if there is a reason to suppose it is true.

The scientific method is based on this philosophy. It has served us well, preventing many wrong ideas from gaining foothold (for very long, anyway) and providing all the amazing discoveries that surround us. The people who did discover atoms (radio waves, etc), were all scientists applying this method, not new agers with “open minds”. An earlier version of this woman would have said, “How do you know science won't develop tools in the future to show that humors exist?” to justify bloodletting. By focusing uncritically on bloodletting she would never have discovered germ theory any more than a crystal healer today will discover anything useful. Germ theory was discovered by science.

Or as I said at the end of Five Apples: I actually have four apples and an orange. These people are so busy making up stories about a fifth apple, they’ll never realize the orange even exists.

Skeptics’ Circle #7

Is now up and running on Thoughts From Kansas.

Support your local skeptic – visit the circle, click on the links. Some good skeptical reading there from the usual suspects.

Great intelligent design quote

From Pharyngula I learned about this really terrible Intelligent Design (ID) piece in the journal Nature, of all places. The best part was this quote from Salvador Cordova, a major ID proponent. Explaining why he arrived at a belief in ID, he says (and I’m not making this up):

The critical thinking and precision of science began to really affect my ability to just believe something without any tangible evidence

To which the only reply is “Duh!”

I really think that quote should be the motto of the ID movement. Remember it next time you hear of their insistence that ID should be taught as science.

Burden of proof

The guys at the Two Percent Company have apparently been getting some grief over their Allison Dubois week articles. (Dubois is the supposed psychic the TV series “Medium” is based upon.) Specifically the complaint is the old chestnut that they can’t prove Allison Dubois is not a psychic. Well of course they can’t, but they don’t have to. It’s always up to the one making a claim to back up their claim with evidence. If Dubois wants us to believe she is psychic, it is up to her to convince us she is; a claim is not accepted by default if no one can prove it false. So far, the evidence Dubois has presented to support her claim, is very thin.

If Dubois had any psychic powers, she would easily win Randi’s million, but she has made it clear she won’t even discuss taking this test. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so far Dubois hasn’t provided any.

Evolution write-in

Following from yesterday’s link to PZ Myers’ op-ed pieces, PZ tells us the Star Tribune is soliciting letters on the evolution ID debate:

An invitation to readers on ID/evolution.

We're interested in your thoughts on intelligent design, evolution, and their proper places in school curricula. Write us an e-mail of no more than 150 words and send it to [email protected], with the word "evolution" in the subject line. Be sure to include your name, address and telephone number so we can contact you if we decide to publish your response. Please reply by Monday, May 2.

Here’s a reply I just sent:

ID is not science. If it were, ID proponents wouldn’t be introducing legislation or appealing to the public to have ID taught as an alternative to evolution. They would be finding evidence for ID and presenting it in science journals to convince their peers of the validity of their ideas. In other words they would be doing science. But they aren’t doing science. They are doing theology and politics. They don’t have evidence so they seek to influence scientifically ignorant or religiously motivated parents and politicians to have their pseudo-science taught to school children who lack the grounding in science to tell the difference.

Science is done and evaluated by scientists, not by judges, lawyers, parents, schoolchildren or politicians. If ID proponents disagree with that they should stop pretending to be scientists.

Here’s another I might send:

A scientific theory such as evolution is an explanation for some observable facts; ID is just a series of criticisms of the theory of evolution.

A scientific theory does not consist of a series of criticisms of another theory even if those criticisms are valid (which they are not). For ID to be a theory, it would have to explain something about the designer. For example, who or what is the designer? Where are his (her?) designs and how did he produce them? How did he implement these designs? And most importantly, what does all the foregoing tell us about how the designer will behave in the future: what predictions can we make; what use can we make of the theory? ID tells us nothing, it’s an admission of defeat. That is not science and it should not be taught in science classes.

Feel free to click on the email link above and paste in any or all of one of those replies, although I believe individual replies will have more impact.

ID just is not science

PZ Meyers writing in the excellent Pharyngula (and an op-ed in the Star Tribune), explains simply and clearly why ID isn’t science.

Unfortunately the Tribune also has a piece by a cretinist (not a typo) in the interests of “balance”. Fortunately PZ takes that apart too.

If you want to understand the vacuousness that is ID compared with real science like the theory of evolution, and the dishonest arguments put forward by the ID proponents, I highly recommend reading these two items.

They’re good even if you already understand these issues.

What the (Bleep) – a flying pig

Yesterday James Randi recommended my review of “What the (Bleep) Do We Know!?”. Thanks for the plug Randi. (I didn’t know the big guy reads this blog.)

Randi writes a weekly column – worth checking out every Friday if you don’t already.

Anyway, I forgot to mention, the JREF gave “What the (Bleep)” a Pigasus Award this year. And well deserved it was too.

Wheatgrass madness

I was at the Jamba Juice looking at their menu. Some people are apparently big on wheatgrass. I wonder why. Perhaps it’s:

…due largely to its chlorophyll content (chlorophyll is the pigment that gives plants their green color. It absorbs sunlight necessary for photosynthesis, hence the term "liquid sunshine").

But according to the DeKalb Medical Center:

Only cud-chewing animals with multiple stomachs can properly digest grass to absorb its nutrients. Even though we can decide to liquefy wheatgrass into a juice we still can not benefit from it.

(My bold.)

Humans can’t digest grass: you need multiple stomachs like a cow. Can’t be that then. Perhaps it’s the:

… enzymes wheatgrass juice delivers. Enzymes are complex protein compounds produced by living cells that speed up biochemical reactions required for proper and normal functioning of every organ system and have also been found to aid digestion!

Enzymes have been found to aid digestion? Well, of course they have – but not the enzymes in stuff you eat! From the National Council Against Health Fraud:

Enzymes are complex protein molecules produced by living organisms exclusively for their own use in promoting chemical reactions. Orally ingested enzymes are digested in the stomach and have no enzymatic activity in the eater.

(My bold.)

The plant produces enzymes to help it (the plant) digest the nutrients it needs. The human body produces enzymes to help it (the human body) digest the nutrients it needs. But they are not the same enzymes – they’re different molecules! Plant enzymes in stuff you eat do not aid your digestion.

Perhaps it’s all the other stuff it contains, for example

…all amino acids … essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, vitamins A, C and Bs… iron and vitamin K.

But according to Jamba Juice’s own nutrition facts table, a 2oz shot only has 15% of the daily requirement of vitamin C and 20% of iron, with no mention of vitamin K, etc (0% vitamin A - not even a rounding error). Can’t be that then. You could eat a banana, drink some orange juice and get more benefit. They taste better too. (Oh yeah, it can’t be the taste either.)

Getting even deeper into the woo:

It is said a shot of wheatgrass juice can help cleanse the blood and other tissues

I’m sure it has been said. It’s still complete crap. Also:

wheatgrass proponent Piter U. Caizer, known as the "wheat grass messiah," argues that there is literally an energy, a life force eastern healers call "chi," present in fresh-squeezed wheatgrass

Of course! It’s the “chi”. It contains something no scientific instrument has even been able to detect. Wow!  How do they know? I’m convinced.

Anyway, I found one thing that Jamba Juice and the National Council Against Health Fraud do agree on. First (all emphasis mine) the National Council Against Health Fraud

…it is conceivable that enzymes present in rectally-administered wheatgrass juice could have chemical activity

And Jamba Juice:

For the more dedicated enthusiast, wheat grass can be taken as an enema!

So it’s official. For all the good this stuff does, you might as well stick it up your ass.

Edit: August 12, 2008

See my follow up post: Wheatgrass - Still Can't Digest It.

It’s only rock and roll…

Jesus Christ on a tortilla! The faithful are flocking to a salt stain on a Chicago underpass that they say is a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary. Wow, I’m convinced. “This will help someone have faith” says one creduloid. Listen lady, if you believe this image is a miracle you don’t need help with your faith, you need help. I guess these people don’t know how to say pareidolia. (Actually, I don’t know how to say pareidolia. No one does.)

I’m not sure about this image though. I originally thought it looked more like a giant upright lizard. Perhaps it’s a message from David Icke.

But when I looked at the stain from a different angle, the real image was revealed. It’s Keith Richards:

Left: Keith Richards

Right: The Virgin Mary

61 years old and he’s touring with the Rolling Stones. Hey, he’s still alive – if that isn’t a miracle I don’t know what is. Hallelujah, we’re saved.

What the (Bleep) Were They Thinking?

I decided to see “What The (Bleep) Do We Know!?” (sic!). I had avoided this film, as it looked like what Murray Gell-Mann calls quantum flapdoodle - distortions of quantum physics to support a mystical viewpoint. But the “what the bleep” meme is growing, so I decided I should see it for myself. Now I’ve seen it I can confirm that it does distort quantum physics to support a mystical viewpoint. But it is much more than that. Much worse. Hilariously so, in fact.

This post is rather long, but please read it to the end – there is a surprise there that will astonish you, I promise. But I should start with the science. Or, I should say:

The “science”

The premise of the film is that quantum mechanics proves a conscious observer is necessary to create reality. The conclusion is we literally create reality with our thoughts.

Unfortunately the theory of quantum mechanics does not say this. The film makers are confusing the theory of quantum mechanics with an interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is an explanation to help understand what might be going on, but it is not part of the theory because it is not falsifiable: it cannot be tested in such a way that, if it were false, it would fail the test (without falsifying the whole of quantum mechanics, and therefore all the other interpretations too).

To falsify this interpretation you would have to see what would happen without a conscious observer monitoring the experiment. But that’s Catch-22: you need a conscious observer monitoring the experiment to see what happens. You can’t look at the experiment without looking at it so no one can ever know if this interpretation is true. Even if it were true, extrapolating to “we literally create reality by out thoughts” is applying reductionism to an absurd level.

Don’t believe me? You don’t have to because David Albert, the professor from the Columbia University physics department who was featured in the film, is quoted in Salon.com saying:

I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film ... Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.

(My bold.)

The ironic thing is that the film makers tell us quantum mechanics is oh-so-mysterious and can’t be explained - and then they explain it. I am reminded of Richard Feynman’s famous quote, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics". These film makers think they understand quantum mechanics. They don’t, but that doesn’t stop them from making a film explaining it. But it’s just a consciousness-of-the-gaps explanation: we can’t explain it so it must be consciousness.

Any one of the many interpretations could be correct. Or none of them might be correct, and the correct explanation is something not yet thought of. Quantum mechanics is not telling us this is the way the universe necessarily is.

Baaaad examples

So they have the theory wrong, but they must have some good examples, right? Wrong. They have three bad examples. Appallingly bad, actually.

The first was the claim that when Columbus arrived in the West Indies, the natives were literally unable to see his ships. Why? Because they had never seen ships before, so ships did not exist in their reality.

I had to rewind the film to make sure I hadn’t missed the part where they said this was just a fable. But they were stating it as fact. This idea is just too dumb to be considered seriously. Even if true, how could anyone verify it? I have searched the web for the source of this story to no avail, and conclude the film makers just made it up.

The second example was of the supposed “Maharishi Effect.” John Hagelin of the Maharishi University, described how in 1993, violent crime in Washington D.C. was reduced over a two month period, by 4000 people practicing transcendental meditation (TM).

There were many problems with this experiment. One was that the murder rate rose during the period in question. Another was that Hagelin’s report stated violent crime had been reduced by 18% (in the film he says 25%), but reduced compared with what? How did he know what the crime rate would have been without the TM? It was discovered later that all the members of the “independent scientific review board” that scrutinized the project were followers of the Maharishi. The study was pseudoscience: no double blinding, the reviewers were not independent, and the experiment has never been independently replicated. Hagelin deservedly won an Ig Nobel Prize in 1994 for this outstanding piece of work.

The third example was the work of Masura Emoto, who tapes words to bottles of water. The water is chilled and forms into crystals descriptive of the words used. For example, if the word “love” is taped to a bottle, beautiful crystals form; if the words “you make me sick” are used, ugly images appear.

What the film makers didn’t say is that Emoto knows the word used, and looks for a crystal that matches that word (biased data selection). To demonstrate a real effect, Emoto would need to be blind to the word used. James Randi has said that if Emoto could perform this experiment double-blinded, it would qualify for the million dollar prize. (He has never applied.) Such a protocol would show there is no correlation between the words taped to a bottle and the crystals formed within. These experiments have not been performed to a scientific protocol and have never been independently replicated.

Pert scam

The next segment was about neuro-peptides, how they are created in the brain, and regulate other cells in the body. This was presented as another example of how the human brain (consciousness), creates reality. None of this would be new to anyone who has read Candace Pert’s “Molecules of Emotion”. Pert is a talented scientist who went woo woo many years ago for reasons I don’t have time to go into here. (Edited to add: see my May 2005 review of Molecules of Emotion.)  Suffice to say she has made many dubious claims, including this in the film:

Each cell has a consciousness, particularly if we define consciousness as the point of view of an observer.

I think what she saying is that when one cell interacts with another, it fulfills the role of the “observer” in quantum mechanics. Well OK, but by that definition my toaster is conscious. It’s such a general definition of consciousness as to be meaningless: consciousness has to include some degree of self-awareness.  There is no evidence I’ve heard of that individual cells are conscious.

This was followed by someone claiming he literally creates his day with his thoughts, plus some feel-good drivel about god and self that almost put me to sleep. At the end, the main character in the film throws away her prescription meds because, since she creates her own reality, she doesn’t need them. (Don’t try this at home.) And that was it.

Channel No. 5

One thing that puzzled me was who were all the talking heads? I recognized a couple, but who was the bizarre guy who claimed he creates his day just by thinking about it, and who was the heavy-set blonde woman in the boxy red suit making the weird pronouncements in a funny accent? Normally in a documentary, the experts are introduced when they first appear. But here they introduced them after the end of the film. I was amused to see the guy who creates his own day, was a chiropractor. But when I found out the identity of the blonde woman, my eyes nearly popped out. I figured you wouldn’t believe me if I just told you, so I took a screenshot of it:

In case you can’t read the text, it says:

Ramtha

Master Teacher – Ramtha School of Enlightenment

Channeled by JZ Knight

They are stating as a fact, that one of the people you have been listening to for the previous 90 minutes, a main authority for the information being presented, is a 35,000 year old warrior spirit from Atlantis, being channeled by this Tacoma housewife turned cult leader. The woman pictured is JZ Knight, but you are not listening to JZ Knight. You are literally listening to Ramtha. There were people who saw this film and didn’t say, “That’s just a woman putting on a funny accent”. Scary, huh?

At this point the film lost any remaining pretence of being based on any kind of science or facts.

I did a little digging on Ramtha:

Ramtha is a 35,000 year-old spirit-warrior who appeared in J.Z. Knight’s kitchen in Tacoma, Washington in 1977.  Knight claims that she is Ramtha’s channel. She also owns the copyright to Ramtha and conducts sessions in which she pretends to go into a trance and speaks Hollywood’s version of Elizabethan English in a guttural, husky voice.  She has thousands of followers and has made millions of dollars performing as Ramtha at seminars ($1,000 a crack) and at her Ramtha School of Enlightenment, and from the sales of tapes, books, and accessories (Clark and Gallo 1993). She must have hypnotic powers. Searching for self-fulfillment, otherwise normal people obey her command to spend hours blindfolded in a cold, muddy, doorless maze.

Upon further investigation I find the films’ producers, writers, directors, and a number of the featured “experts” are members of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. The film is a propaganda piece for a cult.

What the (Bleep) Were They Thinking?

I can answer that now. They were thinking that if they made a film using the word “quantum” a lot, plus plenty of feel-good drivel they would (a) make a ton of money (not that they are short of the stuff), and (b) gain more recruits to their loony-tunes cult. This is probably one of the few things they got right.

References

Some further reading if you’re interested.  First a good expose of the film as infomercial for Ramtha, by Salon.com.

A site with masses of information about Ramtha.

A blog with information about some of the talking heads.

A blog with some comments about Hagelin. Read the comments section.

An amusing review of the movie by Orkut Media.

CSICOP’s review of the film.

Skeptic Magazine’s review of the film.

A really good explanation of the real science involved, as opposed to the fanciful "what The Bleep" version of it. 

Bloggingheads interview with David Albert about his role in the film and how they edited his piece to distort his views.

And for the other side of the story, read the film makers’ reply to their critics. If you have any remaining doubt about the criticisms of this movie, read this. It is an (unintentionally) hilarious martyr piece where they blame the media for “publicly crucify(ing) people with new ideas”, and where they say the US government and way of life, not Ramtha, is a cult. All the usual fallacies are in evidence: scientists were wrong before so they are wrong now, we only use 10% of our brain, the film’s critics feel discomfort in their mindset (ie it is not the film makers’ fault the film makes no sense, it is our fault).  Plenty of fallacies and playing victim. Nothing to refute the criticisms.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Tez for reviewing and making suggestions about the quantum mechanics section.

Heaven scent

I just heard on CNN that someone is selling the “scent of Jesus”. I immediately thought, cripes, someone has a 2,000 year old fart in a bottle! Keep the cork in Judas.

But no, apparently it is a candle called “His Essence”. 

Light up the candle called "His Essence" and its makers say you'll experience the fragrance of Christ.

Hope it smells good. If not, you might need some of this stuff.

Skeptics' Circle

Socratic Gadfly is hosting the Skeptics’ Circle right now. Follow the link for some good skeptical blogging.

Suzanne Somers is well

Suzanne Somers was on Larry King this week to declare she is free of breast cancer. This was news partly because of the alternative cancer medication she was taking – Iscador, an extract of mistletoe. And Somers certainly believes she is cured, as she told Larry:

And you get an inner intelligence. You know, you have now been diagnosed, you know what I mean. You get a sense of it in your body. And I just have this sense that it's gone. I don't know how else to explain that.

(Full transcript.)

I certainly hope it is true that she is free of cancer, and I wish her well. But is Iscador really a help in the fight against cancer? Well, it’s possible. The website lists some studies they claim support that view. Without going into those studies in detail, I have three points:

First, a large, if not the main part of her recovery, can be assigned to conventional medicine. Due to the latest screening techniques, Somers discovered early on that she had cancer, and if cancer is discovered early the chances of recovery are much higher than if discovered late. Following this discovery, she was treated by surgery (removal of the tumor) followed by radiation. Without these conventional treatments she wouldn’t have survived. To her credit, Somers did attribute much of her recovery to the conventional treatments she took, and does not appear to be against conventional medicine in general.

Second, no conclusions can be drawn from one case like this, no matter what the outcome (good or bad). We can only draw conclusions from the results of a much larger clinical trial, with double-blinding and placebo controls.

And third, despite what Somers believes personally, her own belief in this treatment means nothing. Trials have to be double-blind for a reason – people can easily fool themselves. So her personal view that her “inner intelligence” tells her she is free of cancer counts for little, as does her view that the Iscador injections have kept her free of all other illnesses while she has been taking them.

Iscador may help fight cancer. Or it may not. But we can learn very little or probably nothing about it just from Suzanne Somers’ experience.

Angel came down…

I thought I would write just one more item following from the “I Can Do It®” seminars. I just had to comment on Doreen Virtue, the woman who runs seminars on how to talk to angels. And yes, there are apparently adults who are not in mental institutions (yet) who believe in this.

From Doreen’s bio:

As a child, Doreen was a natural clairvoyant, seeing and conversing with, what many people call, "invisible friends" (which are really angels and deceased loved ones).

No, they are really invisible friends. Most people get over it when they get older. People that don’t either are diagnosed schizophrenic or (apparently) get PhDs and become best selling authors.

Look what comes next: wow, an unverifiable anecdote:

…when an angel warned Doreen that her car was going to be stolen on that fateful July afternoon, Doreen ignored him. After all, her habit of arguing with and ignoring the angels was deeply ingrained by then. Despite this, the angel did not abandon Doreen in her most dire moment ­ as she was parking, two armed men, intent on a car jacking, brandished weapons and physically accosted the unsuspecting Doreen. The voice spoke to her again ­ it was loud, distinctly male and it instructed her to scream with all her might. This time she listened, she screamed, and her life was saved by passersby who became alarmed and sent her attackers running.

Well, I’m convinced. And just look at the number of books this woman has published. There is obviously money to be made by simply making up stupid crap for the credulous. Just look at this book description:

"Why do I always see the numbers 444 (or 111, 333, etc.) everywhere I go?" is one of the most frequently asked questions that Doreen Virtue receives at her worldwide workshops.

(Snip)

Angel Numbers provides an interpretation of more complex number sequences than was previously available in Healing with the Angels. This new book focuses on numbers such as 123, 337, 885, and so on.

Whether you’re seeing these numbers on license plates, telephone numbers, the clock, or other locations, they’re very real messages from the angels.

(My bold.)

It’s impossible to know where to start with this much stupid. But I think it’s fairly safe to say, if you ever meet anyone who actually believes in this stuff, don’t even bother trying to reason with them: they are way too far gone for that.

What do you call alternative medicine that works?

- Medicine. An old joke, but true. Any “alternative” therapies that can be shown to work are soon adopted by real doctors, and so are not “alternative” any more. “Alternative medicine” should really be named “alternative to medicine”, since if you don’t want to try the medicine that has been shown to work you will try an alternative – one that has not been shown to work. (Or in many cases, one that has been shown not to work.)

Today Orac describes what happened to a patient who rejected the proven therapies for an alternative, with horrific consequences. 

Zero Point to Gregg Braden

Reading about the “I Can Do It®” seminars, I was amused to see that Gregg Braden is still inflicting his nonsense on the credulous. I read his book Awakening To Zero Point several years ago after a friend said, don’t criticize it if you haven’t read it. Well, fair enough. I’ve read it now and I am free to say with some authority, it’s bad. In fact, it’s astonishingly bad. Not only is it just plain wrong, but Braden’s blatant manipulation of his readers shows he must know it’s nonsense.

Braden is typical of a lot of Newage authors in that he starts with science but distorts it to draw unwarranted conclusions. Braden also makes up stuff and says it is science too. In this book, Braden starts with the Schumann Resonance, a low frequency radio signal caused by lightning strikes in the upper atmosphere. How many times do radio waves travel around the globe in a second? 7.8 times. This frequency, 7.8 times per second (7.8 Hz), is the Schumann Resonance frequency. Braden says it’s speeding up (it isn’t). To justify this he quotes a range of Schumann harmonic frequencies: 14, 20, 26, 33, 39. But anyone who has ever strummed a guitar will know what harmonic frequencies are. And they do not mean the base frequency is changing.

Braden needs to confuse his readers further, so with much fanfare he introduces Fibonacci numbers: 8, 13, 21, 34, 55. Note they are close to the Schumann harmonic frequencies. Braden hopes you will think Fibonacci numbers and Schumann frequencies are the same, because for no reason at all, he then states the Schumann Resonance is about to change from 7.8 Hz to the next Fibonacci number of 13 (Hz).  Even if it’s true (it’s not), so what? Well, the Schumann Resonance is electro-magnetic radiation (radio waves). Braden says the Earth’s magnetic field is about to flip. See the connection? No? That’s because there isn’t one.

Why would this matter (even if true, which it isn’t)? Because only those “tuned in” to this change (ie those clued in by Braden), will be able to move to the necessary higher state of consciousness when all this happens. It’s typical New Age nonsense.

I wrote a much longer review of this book for Skeptic Report - Zero Point to Gregg Braden – where I expose Braden’s technique in more detail. Read it to learn how someone could write a 200 page book based on such little substance.

His more recent work includes The God Code, where he claims our DNA sequence, when read by assigning Hebrew characters to the base sequence, spells out God’s signature in Hebrew.  He justifies this with quotes from a Kabbalah text, and heavy use of numerology combined with biased data selection. And if you think this makes any sense you’re reading the wrong blog.

You can still get tickets for Las Vegas. Only $350 to hear Braden talk you through this crap. What a deal.

What would Jesus say?

He would recite five Biblical verses at the push of button on his back, according to the manufacturer of these dolls:

A talking Jesus doll is due to go on sale in May, along with versions of Moses, the Virgin Mary and David, as a teddy bear maker tries to find a market with churches and religious families.

The foot-tall Jesus doll will be able to recite five Biblical verses at the push of button on its back, while the Moses doll will recite the Ten Commandments. The Mary doll will recite a long Bible verse.

The company expects to sell about 50,000 of the Biblical dolls by the end of the year, with the Jesus doll -- not surprisingly -- expected to be the top seller. It hopes to also bring out an Esther doll by the end of the year and hopes to have other Biblical character dolls introduced in future years.

Jesus is the one on the left. Not sure why Moses has blue hair. Or why the both of them look like they just emerged from a Turkish bath together.

They’ll need to introduce a Mary Magdalene doll though, if they want to compete with Ken and Barbie. If you believe in the Da Vinci code, anyway. Although it looks like they’ve been beaten to it with this GI Jesus® action figure which comes with a “Marine Magdalene®”. Who said religion isn’t fun?

You could do it, but why would you want to?

In a local paper, I saw an ad for these “I Can Do It®” seminars, the next one being this weekend in Las Vegas. (Don’t worry if you can’t go – there are several more, later in the year.) Anyway, these are truly conferences of supreme woo – just look at some of the speakers:

Terah Kathryn Collins – “an internationally recognized Feng Shui author, consultant, speaker, and teacher”. Regular readers will know what I think about Feng Shui.

Gregg Braden – “considered a leading authority on bridging the wisdom of our past with the science, medicine, and peace of our future”. Having read some of Braden’s work I can vouch that he is a leading authority on making stuff up and making it sound like science.

Sonia Choquette – “a world-renowned intuitive and spiritual teacher who specializes in helping others recognize that we are all endowed with a sixth sense that we can count on”. She no doubt counts on her sixth sense to make lecture fees. Apparently she holds a Ph.D. in metaphysics. You learn something new every day – I didn’t know you could get a Ph.D. in metaphysics. But then I haven’t learned to count on my sixth sense yet.

Gary R. Renard – “In 1992, a mysterious couple, claiming to be Ascended Masters, appeared from out of nowhere to Renard in his living room. Over the next decade, Renard had numerous conversations with these beings”. I’ll just bet he did. The question is: why would anyone be interested unless their job was treating schizophrenia?

Sylvia Browne - who really needs no introduction. According to the blurb, “(m)illions of people have witnessed Sylvia Browne’s incredible psychic powers on TV shows such as … Larry King Live”. Must have been a different LKL from the ones I saw. I only saw Browne’s lame demonstration of cold reading. I also saw her agree to be tested for James Randi’s million dollar prize, although she continues to avoid being tested. I’m sure this avoidance is not because she has no psychic powers. Oh no, that’s not the reason. No way.

If you think that lot is nuts, get a load of:

Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. – “a spiritual doctor of psychology and fourth-generation metaphysician who works with the angelic, elemental, and ascended master realms”. Yes, this woman holds seminars where you learn to talk to angels. I didn’t make that up. Oh, and did I mention, she has a PhD.? If I didn’t, she did. Every time her name is mentioned.

I count 19 speakers in all. All but a couple are in a similar vein.

Anyway, I got to wondering, does each of these nut jobs uncritically accept the claims of all the others, or do even these people have limits on the amounts of idiocy they will believe in? For example, Braden claims to be some kind of scientist. Does he secretly look down on the psychics and feng shui people as being unscientific? Do Gary Renard’s voices in his head (sorry, “Ascended Masters”) tell him the others are all frauds? Does Sylvia Browne know the others are as full of crap as she is? (Whatever else you think about her, she’s pretty smart – she must go to bed rolling her eyes just a little bit.) And does everyone get together in the bar before dinner to talk about the angels woman? (“I thought we were crazy until I heard Doreen Virtue. She thinks she can talk to angels!” …sounds of laughter.)

Just a thought.

Ionic Breeze

I’d often wondered about those Ionic Breeze air purifiers sold by The Sharper Image. Apparently they work by ionizing (electrically charging) dirt particles in the air which are then attracted to the oppositely charged collection blades in the unit. The charged particles stick to the blades and can be just wiped off. This always seemed too good to be true to me. And according to Consumer Reports magazine, it is:

Sharper Image’s Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifier and four other similar machines fail to significantly clean the air — but also release potentially unhealthy levels of ozone.

The article is being published two months after San Francisco-based Sharper Image agreed to pay the magazine’s publisher, Consumers Union, $525,000 in legal costs after a judge dismissed its libel suit. The failed lawsuit alleged that earlier magazine articles highly critical of the Ionic Breeze’s ability to reduce airborne particles were false and malicious.

Apparently the “air ionization” process creates ozone as a by-product. Sharper Image’s attorney hit back with this hilarious appeal to popularity:

It is astonishing that Consumers Union would continue its misguided efforts to attack the judgment and experience of millions of Americans who are satisfied with the performance of the Ionic Breeze products

(FYI, Sharper Image’s full response.)

So this is an air purifier that not only doesn’t purify the air, but actually releases dangerous levels of poisonous ozone. Perhaps it should be renamed the Ironic Breeze.

God's total quality management questionnaire

On a lighter note - some weekend humor.

God would like to thank you for your belief and patronage. In order to better serve your needs, God asks that you take a few moments to answer the following questions.

Astrology Challenge Redux – The Director’s Cut

I introduce part six (mercifully the final part) of the Astrology Challenge – my attempt to see if any astrologer can explain how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use.

The astrologers’ replies to this question can be summarized as:

1. Don’t know
2. It’s complicated
3. You go figure it out (here, read these books)
4. Myth, legend, divination could be true
5. Science doesn’t know everything
6. Er… yeah that’s it.

At first, when I started all this, I wondered if I was being too hard on these people. After all, they replied in fairly friendly terms when they needn’t have replied at all (although only three out of seven replied with any thoughts – a fourth just gave book recommendations). But as I read back through their dopey replies, I think if anything I’ve been too generous with them. To say that something imagined could be true, and to equate the writings of myth and fiction with truth, is just absurd. If you think anything imagined could be true, you have no way to judge the truth or otherwise about anything, and no basis to reject any idea no matter how ridiculous. You are in complete freefall. You will never learn anything new with this approach.

And to suggest that we need a different “paradigm” from science is just nonsense cloaked in pseudo-intellectual language. Of course science doesn’t know everything, but that doesn’t mean there is a better method. And the idea that some things require a different approach from that of science is idiotic. Science just means we test our hypotheses against external reality. If something has an effect, this effect can be measured and compared with what was expected – ie it can be tested scientifically. If science cannot test something that just means that the thing has no measurable effect. And what is the difference between something with no measurable effect and something that doesn’t exist? - Nothing!

This week’s Guardian Unlimited life asks several scientists the question, what is the one thing everyone should learn about science? Antony Hoare (senior researcher at Microsoft Corporation), gave this answer:

I would teach the world that scientists start by trying very hard to disprove what they hope is true. When they fail, they have a good reason for believing what they hope is true, and can even convince others of its truth.

Do you think any of these astrologers ever tried to test their magic fairy tale pictures in the sky fortune telling system this way, to see if they could prove it wrong? Of course not; they’re too busy looking for “other paradigms” that will not challenge their silly beliefs, to gain any real knowledge. That’s why they’re pseudo-scientists, not scientists. And they basically admit it – are even proud of it! It’s disheartening to realize that certain people are beyond reasoned discussion. Disheartening, but instructive. The astrologers essentially admitted  astrology really is just made up, and furthermore this OK by them. And these people are allowed to vote and drive on the public roads. Their arguments are an insult to the intelligence.

Anyway, there you have it: made up crap that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t work. Astrology is ludicrous crap, every part of it from top to bottom, inside out, every way you care to look at it. There can really be no doubt any more.

Astrology Challenge Resurrection

I introduce part five of the Astrology Challenge – my attempt to see if any astrologer can explain how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use. Today I’m just listing the recommended reading the various astrologers gave me.

Just to be clear, I’m not rushing to read any of these selections; in fact, I may not read any of them. Some might find this a little closed minded. It’s not, though: if I really thought one of these books even partially answered my question, I would buy it straight away. But I know they don’t, because the astrologers recommending them specifically said that the books explain the different way I have to look at things, why science doesn’t know everything, etc.  I’m showing this list for the sake of completeness. And if anyone has read any of these books and wants to comment, please do so.

Here’s the list:

Francesca Rochberg’s The Heavenly Writing, “details the way astrology developed in Babylonia from astral omens to horoscopic astrology, and the dovetailing of divinatory practices to what might be called Babylonian science”. Might be interesting as background, but honestly I’m not that interested to lay out $70. I would borrow a copy to read it, though.

John Anthony West’s The Case For Astrology “which also discusses the origins of astrology” - might be almost worth the $8 to find out what he thinks. Almost.

On a more surreal level we have:

Fritjof Capra The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, is “about the ever expanding concept of ‘approximate knowledge.’  These are the kinds of paradigms in which astrology functions.”

Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (Although an Amazon reviewer writes: “We may see it as the history of the replacement of religious-based dogmatism by what physicists today call the Galilean approach: the discovery and consequent mathematical description of nature thoroughly repeated, identical experiments or observations” - which sounds to me more like a refutation of astrology.)

Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity “The development of this kind of thinking in ecology and networks”.

Ralph Abraham, Chaos, Gaia, Eros “An amazing professor of physics who happily goes beyond the known limits of the mechanist-materialist universe.”

Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Physics “This is a seminal work by a Nobel Laureate in physics”.

Anthony Mansueto, Cosmic Teleology and the Crisis of the Sciences “A paper presented at the Boston Congress of Philosophy in 1998” - I found it virtually unreadable

Allan Chapman's Gods In The Sky.

Francesca Rochberg, The Writing of Heaven.

And of course there was also this list. If anyone can make sense of that I’d be interested.

Tomorrow I’ll summarize.

The Astrology Challenge IV – Just when you thought it was safe…

I introduce part four of the Astrology Challenge – my attempt to see if any astrologer can explain how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use. Featured astrologer today is Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, the Research Director of the National Council for Geocosmic Research.

Reading Greenbaum’s reply I was reminded of the phrase, “be careful what you ask for”. I’m sure her replies were genuine and meant something to her, but I have to say that even with a dictionary I couldn’t ascertain meaning from large parts of it. I have reproduced some of her reply and commented on it below, not to ridicule, but to illustrate the rather special way of thinking being employed here. She certainly makes things much more complicated than they need to be:

I sense that perhaps you have an underlying question that you have not yet fully articulated. 

Er, you sense wrong, the question was actually quite simple and fully articulated. (I thought I had articulated my question pretty well, but that’s just me.)

If I may borrow a page from Aristotle, I don’t think your question has reached its final form – you have not quite linked eidos with telos. Or, to say it from a hermeneutic perspective, you are still at the literal stage in your investigations.

Eh? (Here I am reminded of the admonition, write to express not to impress. Again maybe that’s just me.)

In fact, I (and many others in fields from mythology to fiction) would take issue with your assertion that the imagined is “highly unlikely” to be ‘right’ or ‘true.’

(My bold.)

Aha, I finally understood something. She believes the stuff the ancients just made up, could be true.

As I’m sure you are aware, even science would now acknowledge that there are other paradigms than the scientific one; even science recognizes that it is no longer the sole custodian of truth, as post modernity impacts on all epistemological levels. 

But what other methods are as consistent and reliable as science, for revealing the truth? Anybody? (Sound of crickets.) 

…suggest a paradigm which requires a totally different set of questions to be asked about astrology and the nature of reality itself. 

Translation – your questions should be designed so as not to require evidence in support of the answers.

Reading Greenbaum’s reply I realize that some people will never be persuaded by any kind of reasoned thought. It’s depressing, but instructive.

I realize this dismissal of Greenbaum’s reply is a little one-sided. I could have replied to her, questioning and debating each point and getting her responses, and then I would perhaps have had more of her side of the story. But my purpose was not to badger these people – I provided a link to this blog where she could leave comments if she wished. Clearly she doesn’t wish to. I was honest about my question to her, and I gave her the opportunity to answer it any way she wished. That was, I believe, her best shot. I don’t think I need to comment further.

Tomorrow I will give you a brief look at the reading lists the astrologers gave me.

Tangled Bank XXV

Tangled Bank, the carnival for science bloggers, is live now on the famous “Orac Knows” blog. Famous, of course, for his highly original presentation of these blog carnivals. 

It’s worth reading just for the presentation, but there are also some highly recommended science and medical posts.

The Astrology Challenge III – With A Vengeance

I introduce part three of the Astrology Challenge – my quest to see if the astrologers can explain how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use. Featured astrologer today is Penny Thornton.

Penny was good enough to write me a very friendly and fairly lengthy email with her thoughts on the subject. She seemed very genuine and helpful, and I don’t want to be too hard on someone who undoubtedly means well, but I have to say her email was long on words but short on hard information. I will quote just a few relevant parts:

You pose a salient question. And, of course, as a practicing astrologer, I wish I had a neatly prepared answer.

…

we can only make assumptions as to how and why they derived any meaning from the planets and constellations. But given that these ancient civilizations saw omens in the flights of birds and sheep’s entrails, why not the stars?

…

from the beginnings of man, when his entire survival was based on nature and the elements that, without TV to enlighten him, the starry sky at night gave him plenty to look at and to derive meaning from. And somehow across the millennia an intricate system of knowledge developed, in part through empiricism, in part psychic guesswork and a mish-mash of myths and legends.

(My bold.)

Summary – she doesn’t know but it’s similar to reading sheep’s entrails… er, they made it up.

Tomorrow – the Research Director of the National Council for Geocosmic Research. Now she must know the answer.

Astrology Challenge week

Who could have predicted this would be astrology challenge week? Seriously, who could have predicted this would be astrology challenge week?  I’d like to know. Not astrologers. That’s for sure.

Yesterday, Phil Plait posted an anti-astrology item to his Bad Astronomy blog, and so today I’m just providing a link to Phil’s Bad Astronomy page debunking astrology. Phil is an astronomer, and so naturally he says astrology irritates him greatly, “because it distorts and perverts the natural wonder and beauty of the Universe”. And, I would add, because it promotes stupidity.

Read Phil’s piece on astrology. Tomorrow I will return with an analysis of a second astrologer’s reply to my Astrology Challenge.

The Astrology Challenge Part Deux

My Astrology Challenge was to the proponents of astrology – tell me how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use. I raised this issue because I don’t think anyone can tell me how they worked it all out, because they didn’t work it out – they just made it up. And if they just made it up, I contend it’s highly unlikely to be true. Even more so when you remember that astrology fails when tested (ie it doesn’t even work).

Still, I’m always willing to have someone prove me wrong, and so I emailed seven reasonably high-profile astrologers to see if they could do so. After all, you would expect someone who makes a living doing this stuff to have some idea about its origins. I indicated I was skeptical of astrology and provided a link to the “Astrology Challenge” article, inviting them to respond on the blog if they wished. None did, but four of the seven emailed me personally. They were all aware I was blogging a series of articles skeptical of astrology.

A summary of their replies would be that yes, astrology really is just made up. Of course, that’s not how they articulated it, although their actual replies are an interesting window into a rather strange way of thinking. I present some of their comments here, with my analysis. My intention is not to ridicule their beliefs, but to examine how their beliefs stand up against reasoned analysis. I have quoted some relevant bits, with my comments, and am genuinely interested to see how many people think their replies make any kind of sense. To prevent these posts from being too long and boring, I’m just going to write about one astrologer’s reply per post. I’m going to start with Rob Hand. 

Hand’s reply started with an evasion followed by a red herring:

Unfortunately there is an entire academic discipline built around the study of the history of astrology and there are no snappy answers that one can give a skeptic or anyone else for that matter. It is (seriously) a bit like asking a physicist to give a quick answer to the question how strong theory works.

“No snappy answers”? Real science can usually come up with some “snappy answers” for a lot of how we know what we know (see my original Astrology Challenge article for examples). He then tries to confuse us with a reference to string theory (I presume that’s what he means by “strong theory”), because if real scientists can’t explain string theory how can he explain astrology? Unfortunately for Hand, there are numerous accessible explanations of the origins of string theory (note, not how it “works” – which was not what I was asking), as there are for any scientific theory you care to mention. Never mind. His next point gets to the crux of it, though:

The shortest answer that I can give is that rules were probably not derived in a manner that we would regard as scientific. The problem is that it is not clear to many of us that the scientific method is the only source of truth.

Following this, you would expect him to describe some other method that is a source of truth, with some evidence that it is. Also, how this other method was used to derive astrology. No such luck. What I did get was this list of texts to consult. I replied, asking if the listed items would, in fact, answer the question, and if he could give me a brief summary of the method used. He replied:

if you wish to get the answer to your questions, you are going to have to do the research.

Regular readers of this blog will recognize this gambit as Five Apples, number 5 – the classic redirection of the burden of proof. Of course, the burden of proof is upon the claimant. If Hand or anyone else wants me to believe astrology is real, it is up to him to demonstrate it is real, it is not up to me to research his subject for him. That’s how real scientists work, anyway. Of course, I recognize he doesn’t have to reply to me at all, but suggesting that I will have to do the research is fallacious reasoning. What follows though, is a surprisingly candid answer to the question:

Astrology represents a very different way of looking at the world and reality from what you are probably used to. Part of the process is getting familiar with that way of looking at things. If Science is for you the only possible way of getting at any sort of truth, then it is unlikely that you will find anything in this that will satisfy you. If I tell you that astrological ideas are closer to revelation than to scientific theory (closer does not mean "the same as"), then you will probably dismiss the idea that there could be any kind of truth in it.

I am not aware that any method “closer to revelation” has ever revealed anything true or useful. I am aware that the scientific method is the most consistent and reliable method so far discovered for revealing the truth. I would tend to say, “the only” such method.  As with a lot of pseudo scientists, Hand is trying to discredit science by implying it is the wrong way of looking at certain things. But science doesn’t mean lab coats and test tubes. Science just means that results are tested against reality to see if they work. If a thing has a real effect, it can be measured and tested by science. If it has no real effect, then it might just as well not be real.

Hand’s method “closer to revelation”, sounds to me like “making stuff up based on pictures in the sky”. Which, if you recall, is where I came in.

I’ll write about the other replies later this week.

New study fails to detect Psi

A major US research institution has just released details of its lengthy investigation into psychic and telekinetic phenomena, and has concluded that “psi” probably doesn’t exist.

This result, which conflicts with that claimed by many parapsychologists, seems unambiguous. The trial was possibly the most comprehensive, most well regulated and undoubtedly the best funded on psi phenomena to date. The study took place over a period of more than 50 years, and was funded to the tune of 50 billion dollars. Over 5 million people were tested for “psi” abilities, and although some exciting hits were occasionally reported, none of them could ever be reliably replicated.

The first part of the trial was to see if telekinesis could be observed. The experimenters tried to see if people could affect the results of mechanical random number generators (RNGs), to produce particular non-random sequences. According to Professor Alison Lo of the Nevada University:

Our first test method used a machine with spinning metal disks sealed in a glass and metal box. It was hypothesized that numbers were uninspiring to the testers’ psi abilities, so we painted target symbols (bells, cherries, etc.), instead of numbers on the disks. The testers tried to make the disks stop so that 3 identical target symbols were showing through the glass (or predict which of the thousands of machines we have was about to do so).

To motivate the testers to perform at their best, whenever they succeeded at this task, we rewarded them with cash - sometimes very large amounts of cash, up to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The RNGs were calibrated before and after each experiment, to determine and verify the results expected by pure chance. To make sure people were invested in the test, the experimenters required them to pay a small fee (usually a quarter) for each test. Due to this financial element, the experiment was overseen by government regulators. Here is Prof. Ali Lo again:

We were required by law to return a certain percentage of the test fees. Because of this, our machines are always constructed so as to return 92% of the money they take in.

When the financial data were analyzed, the experimenters found that the RNGs produced data that matched pure chance: they paid out exactly the same mathematical percentage as they were set to pay out. The calibration of the RNGs and the percentages paid out were confirmed by the government inspectors to be correct.

The second part of the trial was to test psychic abilities to predict future results. For this part of the trial, Professor Alberto Sciocco designed a different type of RNG based on a spinning wheel with 38 numbered and colored “slots” on the rim into which a rolling ball would be introduced. A. Sciocco tried to see if the testers could predict which slot the ball would randomly end up in, or sometimes just which color (red or black), would be randomly selected. Again the results were no better than chance. This is despite the potentially even larger cash rewards for correctly predicting the result on this type of RNG. These results were also confirmed by the government inspectors.

The results of this trial have been successfully replicated at similar research institutions in Atlantic City, Europe (mainly Monte Carlo), and the Far East. More recently, Native American researchers around the US have performed the same trials, with the same results as those of the Las Vegas institution. After 50 years, 50 billion dollars, and 5 million people (most of whom were tested continuously for at least a weekend), no one has ever found any individual who could successfully perform these experiments better than chance without cheating. (And the cheaters were “taken care of”, if you know what I mean, so fuggedabowdit.)

The researchers haven’t given up, however. They are ready and willing to test anyone who believes they have “psi” skills. In fact, the experimenters are determined that these experiments will continue for as long as there are punters testers who still believe they can “win”. Unlike much of academic research, continued funding for these experiments doesn’t seem to be a problem.

References:

Full Study

Background information

Skeptico, April 1, 2005. Thanks to Yahzi for the original idea.