Skeptico’s earlier writings

In the rather egotistical belief that you might be interested in my earlier (ie pre-Skeptico) articles, I have added a list of “Skeptico’s earlier writing”, in the column on the left. There are four items:

A book review of Gregg Braden’s “Awakening to Zero Point” – Braden’s rather bizarre attempt to link the Schumann Resonance, Fibonacci Numbers and the Book of Revelation to show a huge change is coming to planet Earth. This book really is the Sewage of Newage.

A book review of Ian Stevenson’s "Children Who Remember Previous Lives, A Question of Reincarnation", in two parts. Part one discusses the cases presented by Stevenson, examines their weaknesses and provides alternative explanations. Part two examines Stevenson’s apparent pre-conceived beliefs and exposes the logical flaws in his arguments. Stevenson’s work is often quoted as some of the best evidence there is for reincarnation. I argue that if this is the best evidence there is, we have no reason to believe in reincarnation.

Finally, a brief piece explaining Occam’s Razor – a key tool for critical thinking.

I hope you enjoy them. They all appeared in Skeptic Report – a monthly publication well worth a visit in its own right.

Comments

[James Redekop]

Concerning your "Zero Point" review: I think the author is right -- after a fashion -- when he says

"Only 10% of the human brain is utilized, and only 10% of the mass of the universe can be accounted for. Is it by chance that these percentages correlate so closely? Possibly not." (Page 62)

He's just wrong in the correlation he's hinting at. The values *are* correlated, because 10% is a nice round number that people like using when they make up Newage facts. "10% of the human brain is utilized" and "10% of the mass of the universe can be accounted for" are correlated simply because "10%" is an easy number to quote.

[Skeptico]

I’m sorry James but Braden is wrong all round.

First, the “only 10% of the human brain is utilized” is a complete myth - it’s just not true. See:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_028.html ">The Straight dope

http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth ">Brain connection

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html ">University of Washington

http://www.csicop.org/si/9903/ten-percent-myth.html ">CSICOP

The correct figure is 100%. The figure for the known mass of the universe is about 4% so Braden is wrong there too. So no correlation at all.

But even if they were correlated, Braden tries to make you think it is not “by chance”. He says “Is it by chance that these percentages correlate so closely? Possibly not”. This is his technique:

1)Invent a connection (that doesn’t exist)
2)Imply this invented connection is causal, with emphasis on the imply. He’s slippery and dishonest.