Skeptico

Sylvia Browne Wrong / Psychics Useless Again

You will have heard the good news about three missing women - Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – who just escaped captivity after 10 years locked up in a house in Cleveland. Here is something you’re less likely to hear in all the excitement and good cheer – in 2003 supposed “psychic” Sylvia Brown told the Mother of Amanda Berry that she was already dead.

“Can you tell me…Is she out there?” Berry’s mother Louwana Miller asked. “I hate when they’re in the water,” Browne said. “She’s not alive honey.”

Ugh! - “She’s not alive honey.” Honey! Stop Sylvia Browne has a more detailed analysis of the reading: Montel: Amanda Berry Reading.

Once again this old fraud played the odds guessing game and lost. Just like with Shawn Hornbeck dead. I mean, alive, and Sylvia Browne - Miners are alive! (oh, sorry, no they're not). And yet she continues as though nothing has happened, and dopes such as Montel still allow her on his show.

And also of note, once again, none of the professional “psychics” (Allison Dubois, John Edward James Van Praagh etc) were any use at all in finding these women (just girls when they were kidnapped) who had been held captive for 10 years. 10 years and nothing. Ditto remote viewers (eg Psi Tech, that still offers courses on remote viewing despite their confident prediction of where Elizabeth Smart’s dead body would be found). As always, all the psychics in the world were completely useless, in an area where, if psychic powers were real, they would have been able to make a huge difference.

Dr. Phil Doesn't Understand Psychology

Or he put his knowledge on hold for this show.

After all these years, it still surprises me that people have the same old fake psychic cold readers on their TV shows. From Orac, I learned last week that Dr. Phil was going to have John Edward and Char Marglois on his show January 10. Can the producers of this show not have heard of the lame cold reading tricks these people use to fool their marks? It’s not as if they couldn’t have contacted the JREF for a detailed explanation of how it’s done (along with the information that Edward and others refuse to be tested for Randi’s million dollar prize, under controlled conditions). It’s also not as if there aren’t a number of skeptical web sites that have also explained this in some detail. Six years ago, I wrote John Edward Re-revisited - a detailed analysis of one of John Edward’s appearances on Larry King. In it I explained the psychology of the scam – for example, how the mark will feel the need to “help” the fake psychic, by suggesting answers and accepting misses as hits. And yet this is Dr. Phil. Isn’t he supposed to be some sort of psychologist? Surely, of all people, Dr. Phil should recognize the psychology of the shell game being played. Shouldn’t Dr. Phil, with his expertize in psychology, be the one to expose this racket rather than promote it? Well, except that his wife is obviously a credulous believer (more of that later). And ratings were also a factor – he showed a huge pile of emails from people wanting to get on the show. (Note to the producers – you don’t have to print out emails.)

Still, this would be an opportunity to play Cold Reader Bingo – to see how many regular cold reader tricks are used in a short period of time. Now, I’m sad to report that I didn’t get a complete line with the chart I randomly chose to use, but I did get hits on 12 out of 25 squares – not bad. And although the bingo card is obviously meant to make fun of these cold readers, its purpose is also serious – it exposes the lame tricks that they use again and again to fool their marks. Click on the Cold Reader Bingo link. In addition to the (randomizable) card, each of the cold reader tricks are explained in more detail in that post.

Against my better judgment, I decided to watch the show with a view to breaking down the techniques used. Doing this, I realized how much I miss Larry King. Yes, he would have these bozos on his show but at least CNN would publish a transcript so you could easily compare the guesses with what the mark actually agreed to. Well, there is no transcript that I could find, so I had to transcribe my own version – not word perfect, but good enough to demonstrate what was going on.

I’m going to focus on just three segments in the show:

1. Three sisters who were on first
2. Reading for Dr. Phil
3. Several reading by Edward on the whole audience (although we were only shown readings on two groups of people).

I’m not going to comment on the readings on Dr. Phil’s wife, or the reading on the producer – there was only so much I was prepared to watch, and Dr. Phil’s wife was, well I’ll be polite and say credulous. Also, there was also a numerologist, for some reason, and I didn’t watch that.

In the sections below I bolded the cold reader guesses, transcribed by me – not blockquoted as they’re not exact quotes (I only have so much time to waste on this nonsense, and as it is I had to watch each section at least five or six times to be sure I caught everything), but they are accurate in principle, if not verbatim. My summary of the marks’ answers and analysis, follow the bolded cold reader quotes.

Three Sisters

Three similarly looking, and similarly dressed women who want a reading, are called up to the front.

Margolis: Your Mother is with you, she says you brought something of hers  (with Margolis holding out her hands to mime the thing that was being brought). This is a standard cold reader guess. Most people bring some jewelry, or a watch. One of the women says “yes” and shows a tattoo of her Mother. So this was a MISS, since a tattoo is not something of her mother’s. However the woman accepts this as a hit. Standard cold reader / mark relationship, where the mark will accept a miss as a hit.

Margolis guesses they came together, and they confirm they are sisters.

Margolis (staring at the woman, trying hard to read a reaction): Did she die in an accident… [pause to look for response] a car accident or impact… [pause to look for response] er, er, er, er, er… I did write that piece down verbatim. Watched it five or six times to count the “er”s. Interesting to see the concentration in Margolis’s face as she stares at the woman and tries to guess what happened, expecting the mark to fill in the details. Unusually, the woman just shakes her head, but doesn’t say what happened.

Margolis Who else is Joseph [pause to look for response], Joe.. [pause to look for response], or John? [pause to look for response], John? Straight in with the “J” bingo square. Any name beginning with a J would count as a hit here. Woman confirms John is their step father. Note that the first guess, “Joe” is wrong. (As before, Margolis looking hard at woman to try to read any response.) The important thing to remember here is that any J name would have been accepted by the mark as a hit, and they had forgotten the initial wrong “Joe” guess. (HELLO – psychology 101, Dr. Phil.)

Margolis: He’s living, right? WRONG – he’s dead. (How can they constantly get this basic fact wrong and still have people believe them?)

Margolis: I get the feeling, he is looking up, while she is looking down. Interpreted later to mean that he is in hell, she in heaven. And yet it’s funny how Margolis would know he was in hell, when 10 seconds before, she thought he was alive. Either way, impossible to verify.

Here Edward jumps in and says is there a murder suicide connection? Strange wording. A “connection”? Why not just say, “was it a murder suicide? Lucky Edward: this is a hit.

Edward: Did she get you out of the house? Another MISS. One of the sisters was outside giving horse riding lessons, but the mother did not “get her out of the house.”

Edward: I don’t know if he shot himself, but I’m getting an impact, a blunt impact. Very WRONG. He actually slit his wife’s throat, and (hard to believe, but this what the woman said) slit his own. You don’t slit someone’s throat with a blunt instrument – you need something sharp. Edward was unlucky here – gunshot would probably have been the most likely thing.

Edward: Did you have an intervention to try to get him out? Another MISS. The sisters had moved out a year before, but there had been no intervention.

At Dr. Phil’s prompting, the sisters then explained in detail what had actually happened (ie the bits that Edward and Margolis couldn’t guess, which was most of it).

Summary of hits versus misses:

1. You brought something of hers – WRONG
2. Who is Joe – WRONG
3. He’s living, right? – WRONG
4. Did he die in an accident… a car accident or impact… er, er, er, er, er – WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, and five “er”s also WRONG
5. Murder suicide? – CORRECT a HIT!
6. Got you out of the house first – WRONG
7. Gunshot – WRONG
8. Blunt force – couldn’t be more WRONG – very sharp force, actually
9. You had an intervention – WRONG

Eight wrong and only one right.

Now, I understand that many people will be impressed by the murder-suicide guess. “How could he have guessed that?” they would say. But you have to understand that Edward frequently makes outlandish guesses, for example who died in a plane or car crash? / who has a leg or arm missing? / who committed suicide? / who was shot in a robbery? – I’ve heard all of those and more. It’s always presented as a question (as it was this time), so when no one fits the bill (and it often does not fit) he can quickly move on to the next guess. And the mark will rarely remember the wrong guess. But on the rare occasions he is correct it will look as though he must be real. This is why “Wild Ass Guess” is a bingo card square. But you have to compare these lucky guesses with the more numerous completely wrong ones, to see the pattern of what is really happening. Initially I was quite impressed with the murder/suicide guess; it was only after watching this section about 10 times (I’m not kidding – Edward speaks very quickly) that I realized that everything else they guessed was wrong. Confirmation bias in action: remembering the hits and forgetting the misses.

Dr Phil reading

Char Magolis’s reading of Dr. Phil consisted of names from Phil’s Wikipedia page and a few other articles you can find online, plus a few wrong guesses accepted as hits by Phil and his wife Robin.

First, we have the “hits” that can all be found on Wikipedia:

Do you have a J, Joseph or John connection? Phil confirms his father's name was Joseph. Information available on Wikipedia.

Is there a Steve? Phil confirms Stevens is his mother’s maiden name. Information available on Wikipedia. Although Margolis said Steve, not Stevens. And why would his mother would refer to herself using her maiden name? Would your mother, if she wanted you to know it was her, call herself by her maiden name? Has your mother ever referred to herself, when speaking to you, using her maiden name? Mine never did. Why would Dr. Phil’s mother do that? Why not just say “it’s your Mom, Jerry”? Or some other means of identification only Phil would know?

Who is Jerry or Gerald?  Er, that’s his mom too – Jerry. Information also available on Wikipedia. But why does Margolis not know that this is also his mother? Wasn’t she just talking to her? (There’s a lot of mumbling by Phil about his mother’s brother, who was also Gerry, or something. Not sure why, since it was already a hit with Jerry.)

Who worked with tools? Apparently no one. Although later Robin (Dr. Phil’s wife) is determined to make this obvious miss a hit, by reminding Phil that his father used to be a butcher. “Worked with tools” means a butcher? Quite a stretch. (Note again the psychology of cold reading – the mark is determined to convert the misses to hits. Again Dr. Phil HELLO, are you a psychologist or not?) Also, why would Phil’s father communicate with his son that he worked with tools (meaning he used to be a butcher), rather than just say, “hey, remember I used to be a butcher?” MISS.

Were you in an airplane and there was an engine problem?  Phil confirms a hit, but then we can easily know this would be a hit from this interview:

Dr. Phil has been a pilot since he was 16 years old. He has been through a number of instances on airplanes where his life was in jeopardy... [My bold]

Did you make a go-kart as a child? Robin later confirms this as a hit, because their son had an accident in his go cart. But this is actually a miss, because the question was “did you make a go-kart as a child,” not “did your son have a go-kart accident?” Also we know that Phil and his family used go-karts from this article:

“[Dr. Phil] showed the audience some pictures of his family enjoying ATVs and go-karts…

There is a guess about a cemetery that is a hit, and another one about railroads that is a miss, although Dr. Phil desperately tries to link to someone in his family who might have worked on the railroad.

• Hits from Wikipedia – 3
• Hits from other online articles – 2 (being generous)
• Real hits – 1
• Misses - 1

Useful information – zero.

Audience Readings

John Edward read two groups of women.

First one

Is there a male energy who has passed? Note that “male energy” has now replaced the “father figure” from the bingo card, that he used to use. And of course, someone has a male who passed.

Sagittarius connection? Well, Sagittarius is one star sign out of 12. Edward was talking to three women together, so I in 4 chance of a hit with just these three. Add all their friends, parents, children, almost a racing certainty someone knows a Sag. Turns out, a hit for one of the women. But, why did this woman’s dead husband ask about Sagittarius? Unless he was an astrologer, a strange thing to mention right up front. Why not just say, “I’ve got a message for Judy”? (Or whatever her name was.) The vague “Sagittarius” is preferred by the cold reader because it can fit so many more “hits” than a specific name would.

They tell me to talk about Robert or Michael, or “R” “M”? LOL – two bingo squares in one sentence.

Brain tumor, or something “brain related.” Do you understand? Edward’s favorite trick. He calls on his “Do you understand?” bingo square to get a confirmation (she understands what he said) when it was actually a miss (there is no Brain tumor, or anything “brain related.”) The woman responds with “I am a Sagittarius,” therefore making this section a hit, although Edward has missed completely with “brain related” which is now forgotten.

I repeat – the “brain related” miss is now forgotten by everyone. Only the “Sag” hit is remembered.

“You have my liver.”  This is accepted as a hit, as “a cousin of my husband” donated his liver to someone. Actually it’s a miss, since Edward was talking to the woman’s father. He said “my liver” remember? (A “cousin of my husband”? That’s not “my” liver.) Also, he said “you” have my liver. “You,” while talking to the two women being read (wife and daughter of the dead guy). Edward was trying another wild ass guess. Imagine if the dead guy had actually donated part of his liver to his wife or daughter – wouldn’t that look completely convincing, just like the “murder suicide” wild ass guess of earlier? Of course it would. But when it turns out wrong, Edward salvages it by saying that her father is now with this cousin of her husband. Edward, as always, the expert in turning misses into hits.

Edward talks about the dead guy having left a crucifix down the back of the chair he used to sit in at their home. On Dr. Phil’s website it says they checked when they got home and found a pen under the cushion. The miss of “pen” is accepted as a hit for “crucifix.”

Second Reading

Someone passed during open heart surgery, or in reaction to a surgical procedure.

The mark confirms her grandmother died during kidney surgery – actually a miss for “heart surgery” although he had left open the “a surgical procedure” to make sure he covered all options.

Is there a Sam, Sammy, something “S”. I actually did laugh out loud at this bingo square. Please note two things here:

1. We have now had all four bingo squares for initials: R, M, J and S
2. No other initials (or names, apart from Wikipedia ones) have been called, just the bingo square initials.

This is really so obvious – how can anyone think this anything but just guessing the most statistically common initials?

Something about month of May, or 5th. Bingo again – number 1 to 12. The mark confirms her daughter is Samantha and was born in May. To which I ask, so what? What is the point, why would this woman’s grandmother draw attention to her daughter and her birth month?

Summary

Hits on bingo squares (in no particular order):

1. J name
2. Male Energy (now used in place of “father figure”)
3. S name
4. Wild Ass Guess
5. Any number from 1 to 12 (“5”)
6. R name
7. Accepts miss as a hit (several of these)
8. M name
9. Multiple fishing questions
10. Head Area (I’m counting “brain related” – it’s funny how Edward has evolved different phrasings of these questions. It’s almost as if he has seen the bingo card.)
11. Dead relative is “OK”
12. Do you understand?

Plus numerous wrong guesses. Many accepted as hits; the rest forgotten. Dr. Phil, you need to go back to psychology school.

Baseline Killer Guilty / Allison Dubois Wrong And Useless

After a five-month trial, and seven days of jury deliberation, Mark Goudeau was convicted yesterday in 68 out of 72 counts including all nine “Baseline Killer” murders in Phoenix, AZ. He was caught in December 2006 through the use of DNA evidence.

Also residing in Phoenix, AZ is pretend psychic (some redundancy there – all psychics are pretend) Allison Dubois, of the TV series “Medium” (and more recently “Housewives of Beverly Hills”) fame. Of course Allison, back before Goudeau was caught, couldn’t resist getting in on the act, playing the usual guessing games in the hope that her guesses would be close to the actual person they would eventually catch. As I wrote in July 2006 in Medium guesses about serial killer, Dubois’s guesses were generic, just playing the odds and utterly useless in helping the police catch the killer. Five months later they caught Goudeau, and as I wrote in Allison Dubois no help in catching killer, her guesses also turned out to be totally wrong. Allison Dubois told dumb reporter Bert Sass in July 2006 that the Baseline Killer:

• Is not from Arizona
• Is ready to bolt.. “I would look in California”
• Didn't have a father in his household growing up
• Had a mother he didn't respect but that he, on a strange level, loved and is a little protective of when somebody says something about his mother. It's a love-hate which he has for her…
• Tucks his long hair up in his hat to hide it
• Was in and out of juvenile detention as he was growing up

All completely wrong. (Read Allison Dubois no help in catching killer for the details.)

It is true that an earlier composite police sketch of a possible suspect showed a man with a hat and long hair. But I’m sure Allison didn’t see the newspaper reports of that, oh no.

Also, although Dubois was apparently able to see Goudeau’s non-existent juvenile detention, she completely missed the fact that he had spent 13 years in adult jail, in trouble for a variety of things including charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and aggravated assault in the beating of a woman – information that might have been useful to the police in chasing down a killer/rapist. Assuming you knew such things using your awesome psychic powers.

It is clear we can now say with extreme certitude that Allison Dubois was totally wrong and completely useless in capturing this high profile killer who terrorized her home town for over a year before he was caught.

Now of course, I know that prosecutors sometimes get the wrong person and that innocent people are occasionally found guilty. (And some still claim he is innocent.) But, the thing is, I’ve watched several episodes of that dreary “Medium” TV program that is supposed to be based on Dubois’s actual life, and one thing that happens on the TV show is that if the cops have the wrong person, the TV “Allison Dubois” provides accurate information so that the real culprit is caught and the innocent person freed. In fact, that happens regularly. If Goudeau really were innocent, now would be the time for the real Allison Dubois to lead police to the real killer. But of course, she won’t as she has no such abilities. Her website has no mention of either Goudeau or the Baseline Killings, despite her eagerness to be quoted before Goudeau was caught. And, fortunately, police don’t pay any attention to her anyway, despite what she claims. What a waste of space she is.

More on Allison's awesome psychic abilities

Skeptico on Allison Dubois:

Allison Dubois Reads Newspaper, Tells Police

Medium guesses about serial killer

Allison Dubois no help in catching killer

A walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke

Secretary to the dead

Burden of proof

The Two Percent Company on Allison Dubois

Allison Dubois Week

Allison DuBois - Even More of a Hypocrite Than Previously Thought

Polar Opposites

Allison Dubois Reads Newspaper, Tells Police

On April 8, 2009, eight year old Tori Stafford of Ontario was abducted and murdered.  Her body was found in a field by a police investigator, just over three months later on July 21st.  A sad and too common story.  But not too sad for the vultures to use it for their own ends.

The vulture in question is (yet again) Allison Dubois.  Eager to gain publicity from this tragedy, she is claiming she helped the police working on the case, as reported in Medium depicted Tori's fate to cops:

“It was amazing — Tori had been missing about three weeks, and I was standing, facing her school, noticing things like the senior’s building next to the school and it was at that moment ... that I told the police officer she had met someone whom she had met before, through her mother, and that she had been lured to her death.”

Dubois recalled she described the terrain where they would find the girl’s body and that two people were involved, including a woman who had been used as the lure.

“That’s the only reason Tori went with her, because she was familiar with her,” she said.

[My bold.]

Dubois’s story wasn’t that far off.  Two people – a man and a woman – were later arrested for the alleged murder of the little girl, and are currently facing trial.  No wonder Dubois is talking about it.

Funny thing though.  On April 22, 2009 (for those playing at home, that would be two weeks after the little girl had gone missing and therefore a full week before Dubois supposedly gave her information to the police) - police released a sketch of a woman who was suspected of having been involved in the little girl’s abduction:

This composite image of a woman sought in the abduction of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, based on the unidentified woman seen in a surveillance video leading Stafford by the hand shortly after she went missing.

The father of an Ontario girl who vanished more than two weeks ago said he “strongly believes” he knows the person in a composite sketch of a woman caught on surveillance video with his daughter, but the girl’s mother says she doesn’t recognize the woman.

So a week before Dubois reportedly told police that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction, the local papers reported that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction.  Hey, you don’t supposed Dubois saw the picture of the alleged abductor in the press, and simply regurgitated the information to the police, do you?  Nah, couldn’t be.  She must have used her awesome psychic powers.  Because only someone with psychic powers could have known that a woman might have been involved.  Well, either that or someone who had, you know, read the local paper the previous week.

Another funny thing, given Allison’s awesome psychic ability, is that it isn’t all that clear that the abductor was “someone whom [the little girl] had met before,” as Allison claimed.  For example, read this report from CTV Toronto:

Although the suspects know Victoria's parents, police don't believe they knew who their daughter was at the time she was kidnapped, sources say.

Admittedly it's not totally clear, but it does appear that the little girl didn’t know her abductors, and so it seems unlikely that “the only reason” the little girl went with the woman was “because she was familiar with her,” as Dubois claimed.  Also, it doesn’t appear that Allison was much help in finding the body, as she implied.  From the National Post:

Stafford's remains were found Sunday by a veteran police investigator searching on his own in a rural field about 500 metres off Concession No. 6, just east of Mount Forest, Ont., about 130 kilometres northwest of Toronto.

The detective, acting on a hunch, found the bones down a lonely dirt track in a secluded, heavily bushed area across the road from a grey, brick house surrounded by rolling, green farmland.

Just regular police work then.  I guess Allison, despite her undoubted psychic abilities, was no help at all to the police.  Just as Allison Dubois was no help in catching the Baseline killer either.  Well, you can’t say she’s not consistent.

Considering this happened a year ago, I wondered why we are only just in the last few days, hearing about Allison's invaluable help in not catching the perpetrators or finding the body.  So I checked and – funny story - I discovered that this story broke just before Dubois is due to visit Canada for a series of speaking engagements starting Monday May 17th - Toronto, ON - buy tickets VIP almost Sold Out!  $150 a pop (“No one attending the event is guaranteed a reading.”)  Obviously a coincidence.  Interestingly, if you Google "tori stafford" "allison dubois" you get four pages of stories, most of which include the line “come face to face with the image of Tori Stafford” – ie it’s all the exact same story reprinted by different media.  A cynic might almost think that Allison’s publicist had done an excellent job with this non story.  In reality, the only remarkable thing about this is how unremarkable Dubois’s supposed psychic predictions actually were.

Thanks to reader Dean for the original link.

More on Allison's awesome psychic abilities

Skeptico on Allison Dubois:

Medium guesses about serial killer

Allison Dubois no help in catching killer

A walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke

Secretary to the dead

Burden of proof

The Two Percent Company on Allison Dubois

Allison Dubois Week

Allison DuBois - Even More of a Hypocrite Than Previously Thought

Polar Opposites

James Van Praagh Missed Barbara Walters' Heart Valve Disease

Pretend-psychic James Van Praagh is claiming success in predicting Barbara Walters’ recent medical problems.  Get a load of this:

Two years ago, psychic James Van Praagh privately warned Barbara Walters about her health, only to be called out later on the TV icon’s daytime talk show, “The View” – and now, with Barbara headed for heart surgery, he has come forward to Access Hollywood to explain what happened.

“I felt very, very bad for her as anyone would,” James told Access’ Tony Potts of Monday’s announcement that Barbara would undergo heart surgery for a faulty valve. “A horrible thing to happen to anybody.”

However, he explained that he felt the news was “a validation of what I got for her at that time.”

[…]

“I tuned into her and I said, ‘Something is bad with your blood,’” James said of their backstage discussion. “It’s not moving correctly… you have to watch it. It might not be right now, it could be in the future.”

He also told her he sensed issues with her white blood cells and her back.

[…]

“She owes me an apology,” he continued.

Let’s review the facts.  Van Praagh predicts that a 78 year old woman has something other than perfect health – specifically “something is bad with your blood.”  Note: her blood.  She immediately had medical tests done that showed there was no problem with her blood – so Van Praagh was wrong.  Here is Walters from two years ago, explaining exactly why Van Praagh was wrong:

Two years later, doctors tell her that she needs surgery for a faulty heart valve.  Note: heart valve.  Something different.  Van Praagh claims success.  This wouldn’t have been an especially impressive guess even if he’d correctly predicted that a 78 year old had problems with a heart valve.  But he didn’t even guess that.  Check out this list of Blood Diseases and Disorders from the National Heart Lung and Blood institute – nothing about heart valve problems.  And you wouldn’t expect to.  Heart valve problems are not caused by bad blood:

There are a number of possible causes of heart valve disease. These include:

• rheumatic fever during childhood - this disease is no longer common in the UK but still affects people in developing countries
• a congenital deformity which means you were born with a defective valve
• ardiomyopathy - if your heart muscle becomes thickened or dilated, it can obstruct blood flow
• age - as you get older, your valves become less flexible, and more stretched or torn

Van Praagh was wrong.

What we have here is the typical situation where the “psychic” retroactively tries to fit his prediction to what actually transpired.  In Van Praagh’s opinion, he was close enough to claim a hit because (presumably) the heart pumps blood and he saw problems with the blood.  He’s also revising what he originally said – see how he now claims that he said “It’s not moving correctly…”  Check out any source from two years ago and there is no reference to the blood “not moving correctly.”  It’s all “problems with blood” and “an abnormality with her white cell count.” 

Now Van Praagh claims Walters owes him an apology.  Really?  An apology?  Let’s review what Van Praagh actually said about Walters two years ago:

"You don't have to be a psychic to know why Star [Jones] and Rosie [O'Donnell] left the show!

Meow.  Nor do you need to be psychic to predict that a 78 year old woman might have some health problems.  Although I do give him credit this time at least for not scoring a hit on Psychic Bingo – a rare occurrence for Van Praagh, to be sure.

Would Deepak Chopra exist if no one looked at him?

Michael Shermer and Sam Harris recently debated uber woo Deepak Chopra and someone called Jean Houston – the subject being “Does God Have a Future?”  I haven’t seen that debate yet (click the link for a video), but I have read Shermer’s brief description and his account of an exchange (between Shermer and Chopra) that took place afterwards.  Read Shermer’s initial blog post My Debate Date with Deepak (and friends), which includes this:

During the debate Deepak claimed that the moon is nothing more than a soup of teeming quantum uncertainty. No. Subatomic particles may be altered when they are observed, but the moon is there even if no one looks at it.

Deepak apparently read this and replied.  Shermer posts Chopra’s replies in Does the moon exist if there are no sentient beings to look at it?  See if you can spot the equivocation / moving of goalposts:

[Quoting Chopra] When you see an object, the moon being the example you chose, your eyes are not really “seeing” the moon. Your eyes are responding to photons that follow all the rules of wave-particle duality.  […]  There was no moon till it was an experience in your consciousness.

Chopra just can’t be honest.  In the first paragraph, he is claiming the the Moon literally isn’t there (it’s just “a soup of teeming quantum uncertainty”) if no one looks at it.  Shermer calls him on this nonsense.  Chopra, slyly moves the goalposts and replies that now it’s the photons that enter your eyes that exhibit the quantum uncertainty.  He hopes you won’t notice the switch – that he is now talking about photons hitting your eyes (and creating the image of the Moon), and not the Moon itself that is subject to quantum uncertainty.  He has, effectively, conceded that the Moon is still there (and of course it must be – otherwise, where would the photons have been reflected from in the first place?), although he hopes you won’t notice that he actually just disproved his own point. 

Of course, even if we are just referring to photons following all the rules of wave-particle duality, there is still no reason to suppose that consciousness is necessary.  Chopra has a longer piece up on the huff Post - Which Is Real, the Moon or God?, where he makes this claim (if you can be bothered to wade through over 2,000 words some of of the most dense woo I have ever read).  According to Chopra, everything is quantum, which means everything is consciousness, therefore god exists, or something:

The basic understanding of the collapse of the wave function is called the Copenhagen Interpretation,

No, the Copenhagen Interpretation is just one way of looking at the situation.  It may represent reality, it may not, but it is not the “basic understanding” of QM.

in which a non-material observer is involved in quantum measurement.

Except for the “non-material” wording, that is (rather trivially) correct.  Clearly something (could be a human; could be a measuring instrument) has to “measure” something.  There is no evidence that that thing has to be “non-material.” 

John von Neumann demonstrated that an understanding of the collapse of the wave function requires consciousness.

No he didn’t.  As I wrote in my review of What the Bleep Do We Know, the theory of quantum mechanics doesn’t say this. Chopra is 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.  So although von Neumann may have believed such a thing, he never demonstrated it.

Without an observer, there is no collapse, no particle, no matter, no measurement.

Maybe, but the “observer” can be something non material – a scientific instrument, say.  There is no reason to suppose that consciousness is required.

Alternative quantum theories such as transactional interpretation and many-worlds theory try to get around the need of consciousness or an observer, but fail in the end. Essentially they don't fulfill the requirements of quantum physics because any quantum measuring device still must be physical and ultimately exist as quantum wave probabilities. One set of measuring waves superimposed on other waves to be measured, only leaves more waves, not particles, not a quantified measurement. And as Niels Bohr makes clear, in quantum mechanics, if it isn't measureable it isn't real. So in spite of these newer quantum speculations, no one has been able to successfully dispense with a non-material observer.

Well, of course no one has been able to dispense with an observer.  But it does not have to be a “non-material observer” as Chopra claims.  In fact, Chopra has not even demonstrated that such a thing as a “non-material observer” even exists.  Someone, ultimately, has to look at the measuring instrument to see what the result was.  Obviously.  Someone has to open the box and look at the cat.  But until that person does that , there is no way to know what the result was without consciousness, and so there is no justification for saying that consciousness is necessary.  Sorry Deepak, you don’t understand what you’re talking about.

(Sigh.)  Anyway, back to the original question raised in the post title - if we all ignored Deepak Chopra, would he cease to exist, would he disappear in a soup of teaming teeming quantum uncertainty?  Although we might perhaps wish this to be true, I have to say that, no, even if we all ignored him, Chopra would still exist to spew out more quantum drivel tomorrow, the next day, and the next day ad infinitum.  At least it gives me something to blog about. 

Celebrities Say the Darndest Things

But “psychics” say even dumber ones.

If you don’t know who Heidi Montag is then (1) you haven't missed much and (2) you obviously don’t watch E channel’s The Soup as much as I do.  Anyway, she’s apparently some sort of reality TV star who has has numerous cosmetic surgeries (see picture).  A couple of weeks ago she hired a “psychic” to be her manager, as MSNBC reported in Heidi dumps Spencer as manager for a psychic:

After the incredible experiences I have had healing my life and truly connecting to my dreams with healer intuitive Aiden Chase, I have officially asked him to become my manager," Montag says. "Having an intuitive psychic leading my team gives me an edge no one else has.

Wow, a celebrity doing something dumb – dog bites man, in the parlance.  Funny thing though – two days ago, she fired him:

A week after hiring Malibu psychic Aiden Chase to replace Spencer Pratt as her business manger, Heidi Montag announced she'll go it alone.

"I have decided to part ways with Mr. Chase both as a manager and as a psychic…

Celebrity shows (albeit temporarily), some sense – that’s man bites dog!

Hum – the psychic got fired after one week.  I decided to check out the website of the psychic, Aiden Chase, and he claims:

my psychic gifts include clairvoyance

Clairvoyance.  And in this interview with Chase, he explains further what this means::

4. He Can See the Future:
"First and foremost I'm intuitive. I'm using that gut instinct, that third eye that we all have. I just have a heightened sense of intuition."

He can see the future.  (You know where this is going.)  But not only did this psychic douche bag not see his imminent firing, he still even now (that’s after the event, for those playing at home) doesn’t believe it’s happened:

"At this time, I am not aware of any change in my business relationship with Heidi Montag"

I guess he can see the future but not the past.

Look into my eyes and repeat after me, I have not been fired!

Chopra - as bad as ever

Deepak Chopra doesn’t seem capable of expressing anything in a simple, straightforward manner.  And after reading (and trying to unravel) his latest piece of drivel, Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World, I think I know why – it’s only with excessive flowery verbosity that he can hope to disguise the fact that he has absolutely nothing of value to say.  See if you can fathom what he’s getting at here:

Before addressing the importance of spirituality in modern times, we should first define it. Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t define universality, so his definition of spirituality is pretty empty.  I’ll have a go.  Merriam-Webster defines universality as “the quality of being universal” – the quality of occurring everywhere (among several definitions of “universal” – see if you can find a better one.)  Which rather begs the question – since Chopra hasn’t shown that we are everywhere.  In fact, I’m pretty sure we’re not.

He does wax more on the “domain of awareness” bit though:

This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego.

Really?  Where is it then?  And, again, does it even exist?  (And how does Chopra know?)  But OK, I’ll play: the domain of awareness is a core consciousness.  And the core consciousness:

In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God.

Jesus, why didn’t he just say that at the start?  Let’s break down what (I think – but who really knows?) he’s saying:

1. Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality
2. The domain of awareness is a core consciousness.
3. So spirituality is the experience of a core consciousness.
4. This core consciousness is referred to as […] God.
5. So spirituality is the experience of God.

As Chopra apparently had to put it:

Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality. This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego. In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God.

Which breaks down to “spirituality is the experience of God.”  Six words.  It took Chopra 70.

When we have even a partial glimpse of this level of awareness we experience joy, insight, intuition, creativity, and freedom of choice. In addition, there is the awakening of love, kindness, compassion, happiness at the success of others, and equanimity. As the turbulence of our mind settles down, our body also begins to heal itself because it also quiets down. The body's self-repair mechanisms are activated when the mind is at peace because the mind and body are at the deepest level inseparably one.

Pure assertion backed up by nothing.  Even by Chopra’s standards, this is weak.  I have to say, I think he’s phoning it in.  Probably PZ had the right idea – he asked Chopra one question: how?

Just to name a few problems of the world: overpopulation, famine, resource depletion, water scarcity, war, and disease. Deepak Chopra, quick, 30 seconds: how will you solve any one of those problems with spirituality?

But if he even knew (and of course, he doesn’t), would he be able to explain it?  Clearly not.  Why does anyone still think this bozo has anything of value to add? 

Chopra - Gets Snippy but Still Misses

Deepak Chopra has a surprisingly antagonistic article up (at the usual place) entitled Woo Woo Is a Step Ahead of (Bad) Science.  In it he calls out Michael Shermer for… well take a look.  Chopra is referring to a recent Larry King Live show where the two clashed:

Afterwards, however, I had an unpredictable reaction. I realized that I would much rather expound woo woo than the kind of bad science Shermer stands behind. He has made skepticism his personal brand, more or less, sitting by the side of the road to denigrate "those people who believe in spirituality, ghosts, and so on," as he says on a YouTube video. No matter that this broad brush would tar not just the Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, and countless scientists who happen to recognize a reality that transcends space and time. All are deemed irrational by the skeptical crowd. You would think that skeptics as a class have made significant contributions to science or the quality of life in their own right. Uh oh. No, they haven't. Their principal job is to reinforce the great ideas of yesterday while suppressing the great ideas of tomorrow.

At least he admits he expounds woo – by definition, extraordinary beliefs for which there is insufficient extraordinary evidence.  He also claims Shermer stands behind bad science, except he gives no evidence that Shermer supports bad science.  (In reality, he just doesn’t support Chopra’s pseudoscience.)  Chopra follows with a lame appeal to authority (the Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, etc), and the claim that skeptics, by rejecting false ideas, are somehow suppressing great ideas.  Seriously.  Chopra’s grasp of logic clearly hasn’t improved any.

For we have reached the state where Shermer's tired, out-of-date, utterly mediocre science is far in arrears of the best, most open scientific thinkers -- actually, we reached that point 60 years ago when eminent physicists like Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger applied quantum theory to deep spiritual questions. The arrogance of skeptics is both high-handed and rusty. It is high-handed because they lump brilliant speculative thinkers into one black box known as woo woo. It is rusty because Shermer doesn't even bother to keep up with the latest findings in neuroscience, medicine, genetics, physics, and evolutionary biology. All of these fields have opened fascinating new ground for speculation and imagination.

[My Bold.]

Yes – speculation.  Chopra gets close, but then misses completely.  Speculation is great for forming hypotheses to test.  Chopra, though, treats these speculations as though they were already successfully tested and were now proven facts.  They’re not.

Skeptics feel that they have won the high ground in matters concerning consciousness, mind, the origins of life, evolutionary theory, and brain science. This is far from the case. What they cling to is 19th Century materialism, packaged with a screeching hysteria about God and religion that is so passé it has become quaint. To suggest that Darwinian theory is incomplete and full of unproven hypotheses causes Shermer, who takes Darwin as purely as a fundamentalist takes scripture, to see God everywhere in the enemy camp.

I don’t think that any evolutionary scientist would argue that the the theory of evolution is complete – if it were, there would be no need for anyone do do evolutionary science any more because we'd already know everything.  (So that’s a straw man, for those who are counting.)  But “full of unproven hypotheses”?  Really?  “Full” of them?  If there are so many, why doesn’t Chopra list a couple?  Talk about “screeching hysteria.” 

Anyway, this shrill screed made me want to see what he was talking about – so I looked up the transcript of the Larry King show in question (which also included Dinesh D’Souza – so you know it’s going to be good.  And by “good,” you know I mean “bad”).  Here are some examples:

CHOPRA: First of all, there's a lot of interesting science now that is suggesting -- and by no means is this clear. There's a lot of controversy of -- about this. There's a lot of interesting science that our consciousness, which is the place where we perceive, think, emote, imagine, have insight, intuition, choice-making -- that this part of us is not a product of our brain.

Chopra admits the science just “suggests” this, and that the evidence “by no means is this clear.”  You wouldn’t believe this though from what follows, or from his HuffPo article.  Note how all the “not clear” and only “suggesting” references disappear in what follows:

Yes. The -- the -- the mind, that consciousness, the one I'm talking to right now is not a product of the brain, but is localizing itself through the brain, just like people who are seeing us right now on their screens, you know, we're not in their television boxes. We are coming through these airwaves and they are perceiving us. But if they open the box, they wouldn't find Deepak or Jeff or anyone there.

So if I look inside you, I won't find your soul because it's not there. In fact, your body is experienced in your consciousness. Your mind is experienced in your consciousness. And the evidence is pointing out that this consciousness is non-local, which means it exists outside of space-time and therefore, mathematically, it's impossible to destroy this consciousness.

Typical Chopra bait and switch.  The doubt from the bait section is gone, and the switch is in to “…is not a product of the brain.”  No doubts, no suggestions, no unclearedness – the mind just isn’t a product of the brain any more.  Period.  It is now also “impossible” to destroy consciousness.  Note – impossible.  No doubt any more, no mere “suggesting.”  And it must be so because Chopra tells us it is.  Even though (also according to Chopra) the science is by no means this clear and is only suggesting of these things. 

Also note another favorite argument of the woo – argument by analogy.  I’ve heard this analogy to the TV set before – our brain is like the TV set but our mind is somewhere else (by analogy, the TV signal).  But the analogy fails.  In fact, it’s more than that, if anything the analogy demonstrates the mind is not like the TV signal.  We know that if you damage part of the brain, the functions associated with the damaged sections of the brain will be reduced or disappear altogether. This is not like a TV at all.  If you damage part of your TV set you won’t find that you now only get the commercials but not the programs, or that you get game shows but not documentaries.  That would be a true analog of what happens when the brain is damaged.  No.  If you damage your TV set, either it still works (you didn’t damage anything significant) or it stops working altogether. 
(For the most part, anyway.)  And if you disrupt the signal, by disconnecting the cable box, or by shielding the aerial, again the TV again stops working completely.  You don’t find that you now get the programs but the remote doesn’t work any more.

Chopra follows this with an old chestnut you will recognize if you have ever tried to debate idealists or dualists:

But if I ask you to imagine the color red or look at the color red, there's no red in your brain. There's just electrical firings.

True but irrelevant.  Yes, your brain interprets certain visible light wavelengths as “red” and yes I don’t know if what you see as “red” is what I see as “red.”  But show me a red card and (in a separate room) show Chopra a red card and we’ll both say it’s “red” (assuming neither of us is color blind), and we’ll do that because there is a real external phenomenon in the physical world that our brains see and interpret as “red”; it doesn’t mean there is a non-material mind signaling the brain.

Well, I have to say of Michael that he is very superstitious. He's addicted to the superstition of materialism. The first thing he said about the brain, you know, that you destroy a certain part of the brain and that function will not come back -- he hasn't kept up with the literature. There's a whole phenomenon called neural plasticity. There's gene regulation.

Chopra massively overreaches.  Yes, neural plasticity means the brain can re-wire itself, given time, to perform some of the functions it lost when it was damaged. But it takes time, and while it’s doing so the brain doesn’t have the functions it lost.  This is not evidence for a non-material mind; it is evidence that the physical brain can eventually repair itself to some limited extent.  I’m not sure what gene regulation has to do with this, but that also has a material explanation and doesn’t require a non-material mind to function.  As Steven Novella wrote:

…all the evidence we have suggests that the mind is a product of the brain. There is no mind without the brain (despite the unsubstantiated claims of paranormalists). If the brain is not biologically active, there is no consciousness. If the brain is damaged, the mind is altered. As brain function changes through drugs, lack of sleep, fever, or some metabolic derangement – so changes the mind. No reliable observation or experiment has been able to separate the mind as a phenomenon from the brain.

Throughout this whole thing, Chopra keeps asking Shermer what he clearly thinks is a killer question:

CHOPRA: ...are we talking to you, Michael, or to your networks right now?

CHOPRA: OK. When you said you'd like to believe in an after- death, was that your synaptic network speaking or was it you?

CHOPRA: OK. So what -- you know, when you say I'm skeptical about this, who's the "I" that's skeptical?

CHOPRA: I know it doesn't work for you. Who's the you that's talking to me right now?

CHOPRA: You are saying that's the way our synaptic networks should -- who's you?

I could ask Chopra the same question, and Chopra wouldn’t know the answer either.  Although that wouldn’t stop him making one up.  Of course, the sensible answer is that as far as we know, the “I” that we all feel we are is an emergent property of the neurons firing in our extremely complex brains.  Or as Steven Novella wrote:

I would describe the subjective sense of self, of existence, as the real-time processing of the brain that is constantly taking in external stimuli while engaging in an internal conversation – generating thoughts and feelings and comparing those processes to memory and sensory input. We know that in order to be awake the brain needs to be constantly activated (a process of the brainstem activating system), which suggests that this constant brain activity is necessary for consciousness, probably because it is consciousness.

Admittedly, Chopra’s brain might not be complex enough to accomplish that task, but that’s no reason to suppose the rest of us need a non-material mind to get the same feeling.

The host (who despite the name of the show, was not Larry King) asked one sensible question (although he also tried to answer it himself in a less sensible way):

PROBST: Why not believe?

Why -- why are you focusing so much -- because if you're wrong...

The answer is, that we should reject ideas that are wrong, because it is only by rejecting ideas that are wrong that correct ideas will flourish.  I was reminded here of the words of Antony Hoare (senior researcher at Microsoft Corporation), who explained what he though was the one thing everyone should learn about science:

…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 imagine that Chopra has ever tried (very hard or even not so hard) to prove that the mind is not a separate entity from the brain?  Would he even consider doing that?  He gave us the TV set analogy – the brain is like the TV set but the mind is like the signal.  Do you think he has ever thought of testing this to see if he could prove it false – by shutting off the signal (analogous to disconnecting the cable box) or disrupting it (by analogy, putting the TV aerial inside a Faraday cage), to see if the brain stops providing consciousness when the signal from the mind is disrupted?  Has he even thought of doing this?  You know the answer – of course he hasn’t.  He never would.  He isn’t interested in trying to prove his pet theory wrong; he’s only interested in posturing on the Larry King Show and on the pages of the Huffington Post.

Chopra called for a formal debate with Shermer, a debate he claims Shermer has avoided.  Funny, I seem to remember they already had a debate, and that Chopra’s arguments were the usual weak logical fallacies that he always trots out.  (Click that link and you’ll see that Chopra’s arguments haven’t improved any.)  Should Shermer agree to debate him?  Well, that’s up to Shermer, but science isn’t decided by debates, even among scientists (which Chopra isn't), and we know from debating creationists that the woo side has the advantage in that they don’t have to restrict themselves to facts, good scientific evidence or valid logic.  Still, if he does, Chopra’s side of the debate is sure to give me material for some more blog posts.

Lame Pet Psychic Tricks

Of all the fake psychics (some redundancy there), the lamest has to be the pet psychic. Think about it.  If a psychic deals with people, at least they have to have some basic skills in cold reading, they have to be able to read the person to some extent, and know the sorts of guesses to throw out and how to follow them up.  Most importantly, they need to know how to extract themselves from the inevitable wrong guesses, and leave the victim still thinking they guessed right. But the pet psychic doesn’t have to bother with too much of that.  After all, Rover is hardly going to sit up and say, “no, I never thought of chasing rabbits,” now is he?

Even lamer than the pet psychic is the reporter reporting credulously and with no skepticism at all about the pet psychic.  For evidence of this, see what somebody called Julia Lyon wrote recently in The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah pet psychic would 'rather talk to dogs'

"I'll go to a barbecue and people will have their dogs there -- I'd rather talk to the dogs,"

Yeah, I’ll bet the other people there are happier that way too.

Raider, a Jack Russell terrier, loves his name but doesn't want to wear dog clothing. And that big black dog he sometimes visits? Yes, that's a friend.

A black dog?  Four of my neighbors have dogs and three of them are “black.”  Well, they are black enough and big enough that they would fit the description “big black dog.” I guess that’s the dog equivalent of “do you know an ‘M’ or a ‘J’ name?”

With each passing "communication" between Davis and Raider, she looked hard at the dog and then looked away. Raider didn't seem in the zone at all. He was busy straining at the leash and watching all the excitement from a neighboring dog racing course.

But Mary Tuttle, his owner, was not disappointed.

"You hit many things right on the head," the Cottonwood Heights resident said. "I'm very open to that."

And as with the psychic who reads humans, the pet psychic is also given a free pass by a credulous human – this time the pet owner.  The dog quite clearly doesn’t want anything to do with the crazy lady; the dog owner wants to believe anyway.

The pet psychic does say one thing I agree with though:

"If I can do it, anyone can do it,"

Yeah, probably true.  Most people just wouldn’t.

Rrrrrough, get me away from the crazy woman!

Qi is a Human Construct

Qi is a Human Construct.  It’s also an assumption.  That is to say, it’s just made up.  Of course, we always knew that.  But now we’ve had it confirmed by Howard Choy, a Feng Shui practitioner, and practicing Feng Shui Architect.

Howard turned up in the comments to my last Feng Shui post - Feng Shui Hooey.  (Yes I know that doesn’t really rhyme.  It rhymes the way I pronounce Feng Shui.)  Howard joined the thread at comment #11.  His defense of FS consisted of the usual fallacies (not “western” science, been around for a long time, you need to do more research before you understand it, yada yada), and didn’t get any better throughout the remainder of his 54 comments in that thread. But at least he eventually did one thing very few woos actually ever get around to doing, namely he admitted that Qi (and therefore the basis of Feng Shui) is just an assumption and a human construct. 

By all means, read the whole comment thread.  I just want to highlight the end of the discussion, where we finally managed to pin Howard down.  It started with Howard making comment # 133 and the comment after it, #134:

FS is about how to take advantage of life enhancing forces (jue sheng qi) which science is a part. So it is part science by using it.

[…]

We use things that have evidence and we use things that don't have evidence, as long as it is useful, we use them.

[…]

Some parts of FS can be tested by science, like why the Chinese preferred a courtyard house, Some parts can't, like the assumption we make that everything has qi.

I asked him (comment #135) how he knew these things.  How did he know that life enhancing forces of jue sheng qi even existed or what effect they have?  How did he know they were useful if we don’t have evidence for them as he admitted?  How did he know (as he claimed) everything has qi if (as he said), they can’t be tested?

His response in comment 135 was (with my bold):

Qi is an assumption and even science uses assumptions and in mathematics as well. An assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, that is, as if it were known to be true. 

“As if”?! 

There are quantifiable qi like tianqi(weather) and qixi (breath), etc. The there are also unquantifiable qi like gua qi which is a human construct but we still use them because it is a useful tool by experience, like art, philosophy and religion.

So there you have it.  Qi is just pretend.  It was made up by humans.  We just act "as if" it's real.

And remember, Howard is not just any new agey woo, angry that I don’t support his favorite piece of magic.  He has studied this extensively.  He is part of a team that designs buildings using Feng Shui, he teaches seminars and workshops in Feng Shui, he has a Feng Shui blog.  In short, he is an expert in Feng Shui:

Howard has written 4 books on Feng Shui and Qigong and numerous articles for various magazines and journals worldwide. He has worked as the principal consulting Feng Shui Architect on the capital upgrading of the Chinese Garden in Darling Harbour, after having successfully completed the Feng Shui urban renewal for Sydney’s Chinatown in 2001 for the Sydney Olympic Games.

And this is the best a real expert can do?  It’s all made up, a human construct, an assumption?

And then this evening, after two weeks of silence, Howard came back and left a final "goodbye" comment #163. Apparently “Feng Shui is not working here” and it’s all our fault for not just believing in Howard’s drivel. But real science doesn't care whether you believe in it or not - it works regardless.

As an expert in Feng Shui, Howard is like the expert on fairies at the bottom of the garden - in both cases, the expertise is worthless.

Distant From Science

Reader Kate sent me a link to the HuffPo article by Srinivasan Pillay, The Science of Distant Healing, that everyone’s talking about this week.  Apparently a study showed remote “intention” could act as a therapeutic intervention.  I originally wasn’t going to bother with this, as the article was in my view rather confused and poorly written, and several skeptics in the comments seemed to be doing a pretty good job of taking it apart already anyway.  And then on Friday both Orac and Steven Novella wrote posts critical of the article.  But then I got a hold of the full study, and a little light went off in my head that told me I had something to add even to what those two luminaries had written.

First, I’ll do what Pillay didn’t do, and link to the abstract.  I managed to click on the Elsevier link in the abstract and obtain a temporary log on ID to read the study.  It’s entitled “Compassionate Intention As a Therapeutic Intervention by Partners of Cancer Patients: Effects of Distant Intention on the Patients' Autonomic Nervous System”.  An odd title since the authors clearly state in the study, “we did not test for distant healing” (more on that below).

The study supposedly measured the effects of intention on the autonomic nervous system of a human "sender" and distant "receiver".  Well, not really.  What they actually measured were changes in skin conductance level, or as Pillay wrote, “a measure of the ability of sweat to conduct electricity”.  PAL called that “measurements from glorified Scientology E-meters”.  Ouch!  No illnesses being cured then (as they admitted – see above).  The paired senders and receivers were divided into three groups:

1. Trained in directing intention, one person in each pair had cancer
2. Untrained in directing intention, one person in each pair had cancer
3. Untrained in directing intention, neither person in each pair had cancer

In group 1 and 2, the healthy person directed intention at the sick person.  In group 3, a healthy person directed intention at another healthy person.  Members of group 3 were not randomly selected – they were (obviously) non-randomly allocated to the group with no cancer.  And yet, group 3 was claimed to be the “control group”.  However, all three groups were instructed to direct intention – ie, even the “control group” directed intention.  This is important when you consider the hypothesis being tested, which was:

The principal hypothesis was that the sender's DHI [distant healing intention] directed toward the distant, isolated receiver would cause the receiver's autonomic nervous system to become activated.  A secondary analysis explored whether the factors of motivation and training modulated the postulated effect.

To test the principal hypothesis you obviously need a control group which is not sending intention, to compare with the intention group.  Otherwise, how do you know if the intention had any effect?  But there was no group without directed intention, which means there was no  control group to test the actual principal hypothesis the authors of the study specifically said they were testing.  So what were the results?  Did the receiver's autonomic nervous systems become activated, and did training and motivation make a difference?  Take a look at Figure 6 from the study, and the note under it, and see what you think:

Figure 6   Comparison of sender and receiver effect sizes (per epoch) measured at stimulus offset (with ±2 standard error confidence intervals) for all sessions, motivated sessions (trained group and wait group combined), and trained, wait, and control groups separately. EDA, electrodermal activity.

You’ll note there is no significant difference between the receivers in the different groups.  (The senders differ, but then they knew they were sending.)  The receivers all register an effect, but since there is no control group to compare these results with, these data tell you nothing about the principal hypothesis.  Again I say, you need a control group to test this hypothesis, and they didn’t have one.  There was no significant difference between the trained / untrained groups or between the motivated (ie including sick people) / unmotivated groups.  So the secondary hypothesis failed.

So, end of story. Study failed, yes?  Write it off, study something new next time?  Well, no of course not.  Not with woo.  The study authors weren’t satisfied with that.  Here, Steven Novella noticed something I initially missed.  It was this, from the abstract:

Planned differences in skin conductance among the three groups were not significant, but a post hoc analysis showed that peak deviations were largest and most sustained in the trained group, followed by more moderate effects in the wait group, and still smaller effects in the control group

Translation: the study didn’t show what we wanted it to show (clearly – see Figure 6), so we data mined it to find something we could say was an effect.  So what did they find with this bit of ad hoc activity?  They produced several other graphs, of which (to keep it simple) I will reproduce just Figure 7:

Figure 7   Normalized comparison of receiver skin conductance levels in the three groups. EDA, electrodermal activity.

What they want you to look at is the difference between the three groups during the “intention” period.  Group 1 (the “trained” group), showed the largest increase during the ten second burst of “intention”.  (See the timescale on the bottom – seconds 0 to 10 is when the intention is being directed.)  OK, but what I want you to notice is the 5 seconds before the intention (-5 to 0 on the bottom axis).  The normalized EDA is actually higher for one group (group 2 – the “wait” group), when no intention is being directed at all!  So for those not trained, it appears distant healing effects are higher when the sender does nothing.  Even with group 1 (“trained”), the “doing nothing” period has a higher measurement than roughly 50% of the “sending intention” period.  Then it struck me what we are missing – we are missing readings from all the “doing  nothing” periods – since the intention sessions were all 10 seconds long, and the non-intention sessions were from five to 40 seconds long, we are talking about probably 60-75% of the total time.  Was the EDA measurement higher or lower during those periods?  Were there other peaks in EDA during those periods?  They don’t say.

And I’m pretty sure they didn’t even look.  Tucked away just before the “results” section of the report, they state this:

To avoid multiple testing problems, the preplanned hypothesis examined the normalized deviation only at stimulus offset.

I’ve read that section about ten times now, and the only sensible interpretation of that sentence is that they only looked at EDA changes during the intention sending sessions – they didn’t look at them during the non-intention sending periods (unintentional periods?).  This sounds like the sharpshooter fallacy – shooting a load of bullets at the side of a barn and then painting a target where most of the bullets landed.  But they ignored the larger clusters of bullets fired at different times.

Why This Is Significant

The study’s lead author is Dean Radin.  Radin has a history of fitting statistical anomalies to temporal events, while ignoring the same anomalies that occur at other times that he doesn’t want you to know about.  An example would be Radin’s interpretation of the now defunct (correction - it's still going) Global Consciousness Project’s (GCP) output from a series of random number generators – data that supposedly showed global consciousness spiked at certain major global events.  If you want to see how credulous Radin can be, and/or how determined he is to find a correlation whether one exists or not (you decide), read this account by Claus Larsen, who attended a talk by Dean Radin in 2002:

Radin gave several examples of how GCP had detected "global consciousness". One was the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double-murder. We were shown a graph where - no doubt about that - the data formed a nice ascending curve in the minutes after the pre-show started, with cameras basically waiting for the verdict to be read. And yes, there was a nice, ascending curve in the minutes after the verdict was read.

However, about half an hour before the verdict, there was a similar curve ascending for no apparent reason. Radin's quick explanation before moving on to the next slide?

"I don't know what happened there."

It was not to be the last time we heard that answer.

Does that remind you a little of figure 7 above, and does it make you ask what happened during the “no intention” periods?  It should. 

And then there was 9/11:

Another serious problem with the September 11 result was that during the days before the attacks, there were several instances of the [random number generators] picking up data that showed the same fluctuation as on September 11th. When I asked Radin what had happened on those days, the answer was:

"I don't know."

I then asked him - and I'll admit that I was a bit flabbergasted - why on earth he hadn't gone back to see if similar "global events" had happened there since he got the same fluctuations. He answered that it would be "shoe-horning" - fitting the data to the result.

Checking your hypothesis against seemingly contradictory data is "shoe-horning"?

For once, I was speechless.

Did Radin check to see if there were similar fluctuations in the data in the “down” periods of this recent study?  I don’t know, but we know for a fact from the above that Radin has selected data to fit his hypothesis in the past, and so I’m not going to trust him not to have done it this time.  We know he performed some additional manipulation on the data, as Orac also noticed from the study:

To reduce the potential biasing effects of movement artifacts, all data were visually inspected, and SCL epochs with artifacts were eliminated from further consideration (artifacts were identified by [Dean Radin], who was not blind to each epoch's underlying condition).

So Radin admits he un-blinded the study and eliminated data he didn’t like. 

Throughout this post I avoided any personal attacks on Radin’s (or Pillay’s) credibility, and concentrated instead on the actual study.  However, when considering a study that claims a statistical effect like this (and the study authors admit the size of the observed effects were very small), on such frankly dubious grounds, it is relevant to consider where the author has in the past ignored contradictory data when forming conclusions.  Clearly he has in the past, and he may well have done so here.  The most generous conclusion I can draw about this study would be that it would  need to be replicated by  independent experimenters before I would even consider that there might be some basis in what it  is claiming.  (Randi’s $1 million test, anyone?)  A more realistic interpretation is that Radin has been known to select data that fits his hypothesis and ignore that which doesn’t, and so there’s no reason to think that hasn’t happened here.  Radin even admits he un-blinded the study to eliminate some data he didn’t like.  Add the fact that there was no control group, the null hypotheses were not even rejected, and the only interesting thing they found required some (admitted by the authors) post hoc rationalization, and there really isn’t much left worth looking at.

The study ends with the words “This study is dedicated to Elisabeth Targ.”  That would be the Elizabeth Targ whose study of intercessory prayer was also fraudulently un-blinded so it could report a success when in reality it had failed.  And this study is dedicated to her?  I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I Claim My Government Cash

The Telegraph is reporting Psychics given £4,500 government funding to teach people to communicate with the dead. 

Paul and Deborah Rees, who are both self-styled mediums, have been awarded the cash under the Government's Want2Work job creation scheme.

The couple, from Bridgend, south Wales, will use it to instruct people on how to contact friends and relatives "on the other side".

Critics are astonished that the award was approved by the Department of Work and Pensions bureaucrats, and now the Welsh Assembly has launched an investigation.

The mediums themselves confess to being "surprised" at securing the grant. But they insist that the "mere £4,500" of public money will be put to good use at their centre, the Accolade Academy of Psychic and Mediumistic Studies.

The psychics themselves were "surprised" at securing the grant?  Well, they can’t be very good psychics then, can they?  I have to say, I’m not that surprised at anything that happens when the government is involved.  Remember how two years ago UK Ministry of Defence spent £18,000 ($35,000) on experiments to discover if psychic powers exist?  And don’t forget how the US government wasted $20 million on Stargate.  Against that, £4,500 is small change.  But hey, if the UK government is throwing money at this, perhaps I can get in on the act.  I already have a proven method to make it appear you are communicating with the dead.  It’s a list of proven techniques that includes a handy bingo card to make it more fun.  Where do I apply for my cash?

I can’t believe we got money for this crap

Feng Shui Hooey

From this thread at JREF I learned of a recent post at a blog called Fengshui Forward (“We aim to gather fellow Chinese Metaphysics enthusiatics to discuss and promote Chinese 5 arts”), entitled United we stand, Divided we fall!.  The author, ken, is bothered by the Penn & Teller Bullshit episode on Feng Shui – the one where each of the three Feng Shui experts comes up with completely different recommended colors and arrangements of furniture at the exact same house.  Unfortunately ken has completely missed the point of the P&T program, and criticisms of Feng Shui in general:

It is very easy to discredit a practice like Feng Shui because Metaphysics is defined by Wikipedia as “investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science”. 

No, that’s not how to discredit Feng Shui, although I agree it is  easy to discredit.  P&T discredit Feng Shui not by reference to a definition in Wikipedia (which would be an absurd way to do it anyway), but by simply showing that three so called “experts”, all using the exact same “science”, come up with completely different recommendations for the same problem.  Let’s face it – they can’t all be right.  The fact that they’re all different just demonstrates to any rational person that it’s nonsense.  How would you tell which of the recommendations was right and which wrong?  If Feng Shui had any actual real effect then it ought to be possible to tell by testing.  But according to ken, you can’t test Feng Shui:

Feng Shui is not superstitious.  It merely looks superstitious because it is beyond science and hence science cannot explain it and neither can humans.  How do you expect a kid to explain the action of his parents?  Since Feng Shui transcends science, one cannot get a satisfactory explanation of Feng Shui using scientific principles.

“Beyond science”?  Science is just an organized way of testing hypotheses against reality.  The phrase “beyond science” just means “can’t be tested to see if it works”.  But why not?  If it has any real effect surely that effect must be measurable (ie it is testable).  If it’s effects really aren’t measurable, then what is the difference between Feng Shui and something that doesn’t exist?  (Clearly, nothing.)  In reality, what ken means by “beyond science”, is “can be tested to see if it works – we just won’t admit it doesn’t”.  This is just science doesn't know everything combined with an appeal to other ways of knowing – a smokescreen to hide the fact that Feng Shui is made up nonsense that has very little correspondence with reality.

The lack of any basis Feng Shui has in reality is hilariously (and unintentionally) exposed in ken’s appeal for unity among fellow woomeisters:

If even Feng Shui enthuasiasts (sic) and practitioners can be going all out to discredit someone with the same beliefs, what more outsiders who are like Penn & Teller?  Sometimes I wish fellow enthusiasts in Chinese Metaphysics wisen (sic) up and not be the proverbial “divided loose grains of sand”.  If we help each other in this interest group or profession, Chinese Metaphysics & Feng Shui as a whole stands to gain.  We as enthusiasts and practitioner of the same field stand to gain too.  After all, one famous Chinese saying by the victimized Cao Zhi in the Romance of the 3 Kingdom goes “Why cannibalize one that is of the same family?”

How can we help each other?  By treating fellow practitioners and enthusiasts as allies and suggest areas of weakness as points to consider for improvement.  By not treating fellow practitioners and enthusiasts as rivals and going all out to attack one perceived point of fallible practice or advocate.

Translation: “don’t criticize someone else’s woo even if it makes no sense, because they might criticize your woo for making no sense.”  Of course, in actual science, scientists do criticize each other.  It’s only by criticizing and dismissing weak ideas, that the good ones can flourish.  But then with actual science, they have a way to determine what is real and what isn’t – they look at evidence.  This is of course a problem for woo such as Feng Shui, since with no evidence and no way of testing it (it transcends science, remember), there is no way to determine what is real and what isn’t.  Consequently woomeisters such as ken have no option but to accept uncritically everyone else’s woo.  And that’s the problem (one of them, anyway) with woo.  With no rational way of testing your hypothesis against reality, you are in freefall – you have to believe in everything.  Ken really is in danger of being so open minded that his brains will fall out.  If they haven’t already.

Secret Write Off

File this one under, if I made this up you wouldn’t believe it.

I was reading “The Secret” promoter Joe Vitale’s recent blog post What To Do When the Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work, and it struck me how his blog posts all seem to have the same format:

Short sentences.

All starting on a new line.

Have you noticed that many are questions?

That he then answers.

When you read his answers, are they in the form of rhetorical questions?

When he writes these rhetorical questions, why are they in blockquotes when he’s not actually quoting someone?

He repeats mantras, such as:

LOA is always working.

LOA is a law like gravity.

- that have been debunked before.

And makes grandiose claims, such as:

I’m a neurometaphysician. I created the field of neurometaphysics. This goes beyond neuroscience, which is the study of how your nervous system affects your life. Neurometaphysics is the science of how your thoughts create your life.

It struck me that his posts are all so similar in both style and content, they could have been written by a computer.  Of course, that would be ridiculous.  Except it’s not.  Announcing: Dr. Joe Vitale's Hypnotic Writing Wizard!:

This amazing breakthrough new software almost magically helps you write sales letters, ads, news releases, articles, speeches and entire books easily, effortlessly and even hypnotically - Guaranteed!

[All bold in original.]

So now you know.  That’s how he does it.  A computer writes his copy.  And you can write just like Joe for a mere $99 ($277 with “Swipe File”).  Or I guess you could just want it really badly and it would appear for free (your mileage may vary). 

Hey Joe, I don’t need a “writing wizard” to write my posts - with this kind of classic comedy from you, my posts just write themselves.

Hat tip to Cosmic Connie for emailing me the two Joe Vitale links.

Psychic Joe Power Wrong

Yesterday, English woman Karen Matthews was jailed for eight years for faking the abduction of her nine year old daughter Shannon.  Matthews had arranged for a relative to kidnap and hold the little girl prisoner, drugged and bound, so that later the relative could “find” the little girl and claim the £50,000 ($68,000) reward money they would both share.  What a scumbag.  And well deserved jail sentences for both of them. 

But she wasn’t the only scumbag involved in this case.  Enter so called psychic Joe Power (pictured right, with the mother), who gave a psychic reading to the mother and who now is claiming accuracy in his psychic predictions.  The  Paranormal Review is typical of the credulous reporting:

When psychic Joe Power gave a reading to the mother and stepfather of English schoolgirl Shannon Matthews, he made three statements that have since proved to be accurate.

Before I start to deconstruct in detail these so-called predictions, I should point out that the “psychic” missed what was without doubt the most important factor in this case, namely that the child’s abductor was sitting right in front of him!  How anyone can report that this psychic was accurate or that he helped the police in any way, when he apparently couldn’t tell that the criminal responsible was sitting right opposite him, just beggars belief.  In my view that should be enough for any rational person to ignore anything else this bozo has to say, ever, but apparently it’s not.  In fact, Power is actually using this case as evidence that his psychic readings are genuine and that the police should consult him in future cases.  Seriously.  Here’s what he is now saying he got right:

Reporting the safe return of Shannon, The People (16 March) said he came up with vital clues “which could have led to her discovery”. It confirmed he had told the newspaper:

Shannon knew her abductor, who was a relative possibly named Michael or Paul.

She had sat on this man’s knee at a family funeral.

These are mostly generic playing the odds guesses.  She “knew her abductor” is a reasonable statistical possibility.  Even the names Michael or Paul are not that impressive – fairly common names.  But from this report, we know that Power didn’t just give these names, he got them using a standard cold reading technique – ie he asked questions:

“I said to Karen, ‘Do you know a Mick or Michael?’

Paging John Edward to the house courtesy phone - an “M” name wants to talk to you.  Of course, we don’t know how many other names Power guessed that were wrong.  Or even if he really said “Mick or Michael”, or if he just guessed a series of letters and the mother or the stepfather jumped in to supply the missing name. Without this information the “Mick or Michael” would be useless even if these weren’t common names.  In any case, we know this is just standard cold reading.

The next bit is my favorite.  Or alternatively the sleaziest bit of rewriting history.  You decide.  It’s this:

An area named Batley is involved in her disappearance.

The child was eventually found in a flat in the town of Batley, and so this would look like a hit.  The Batley connection was reported in numerous places, for example read this, dated March 16, 2008 - after the child was found.  However, if you check reports such as this one dated March 9, 2008 – ie before the child was found, the story is less impressive:

[Joe Power] later identified the region as the Ossett and Batley area in West Yorks. "Shannon was taken there," he added.  [My bold.]

See the map below (from Google maps) of the area.  The family is reported to be from Dewsbury.  I have marked Dewsbury on the map as well as both Ossett and Batley. 

Clearly “the Ossett and Batley area” would include most of this section of map – approximately 3 to 4 miles square.  So guessing this area is not especially impressive, and certainly of no use to the police (as Power claimed it would have been) who were already searching this area anyway.  But apart from the obvious guessing the nearest towns gambit, notice how the “Ossett and Batley area” guess before the child was found, became “Batley” after the child was found in Batley.  Nice.  And if she had been found in Ossett, it would presumably have become "Ossett."  Anywhere else on the map, and it would still have been a hit.  But I'm sure Power didn't have access to Google so he must have obtained this information psychically.  How else could he have done it?

There were numerous other guesses that Power wants you to forget about too.  For example, this lot:

Joe Power claimed the spirit world told him that the girl got into a car near her school.

And he told Karen, 32: "The car had a baby seat and a brown cushion in the back, and a religious card hanging from the rear-view mirror."

He said it stopped near a church Shannon knew - and the driver used a Texaco garage.

Power, who has appeared on Living TV's Psychic Investigators and worked with police on the Sally Anne Bowman murder case, told Karen: "I can see a lay-by near farmland."

None of which was true, as far as I can tell.  (Or is completely unverifiable anyway – eg “the driver used a Texaco garage.”)  The abductor’s car is described as a “silver Peugeot” – no mention of a baby seat, which would have been unlikely for this man who lived alone with no children. 

The Actuality

What we have here is a so called psychic sleazing his way into this unfortunate situation, applying his well honed cold reading techniques to an unsophisticated family, and making the usual vague guesses that can later be finessed and honed to agree with the actual circumstances.  Vague “Ossett and Batley area” guesses become “Batley.”  Wrong guesses are discarded, and are forgotten by the credulous media.  Apparently no one cares the psychic missed the mother as the perp.  The psychic uses the free publicity provided by a gullible press to further his own dishonest career.  And we know this isn’t the first time that Joe Power has used free publicity in this way.  He claimed to have contacted John Lennon's dead spirit.  He claimed to have helped solve the Lynsey Quy Murder case, although clearly he did no such thing, as the police Detective Superintendent involved in the case made clear:

I wish to state, categorically, that as the Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case."

It should go without saying that the little girl was found not from psychic impressions or profiles, but as a result of routine police work – a neighbor told police that a child’s footsteps had been heard in the flat of Shannon's captor, a man who lived alone with no children. 

I'll say again, Joe Power had no idea the child's mother, to whom he gave a reading, was also the child's abductor.  He had no idea. Joe Power is not psychic.

Imaginary Illness? Try Imaginary Therapy

A wireless internet network in the UK is being blamed for all sorts of illnesses, from headaches to pneumonia, according to the Telegraph newspaper:

…the residents of Glastonbury, which has long been a favoured destination for pilgrims, are at the centre of a bitter row in which many blame the town's new wireless computer network - known as wi-fi - for a spate of health problems.

Some healers even hold that electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) generated by the wi-fi system are responsible for upsetting positive energy fields of the body, which are known as chakras, and positive energy fields of the earth, which are known as ley lines.

Oh noes!  Wi-Fi is messing up “ley lines” and “chakras” – things that are entirely imaginary!  And how do they know?  Because “some healers” think so.  But wait, it’s not just the healers:

Meanwhile soothsayers, astrologers and other opponents of the wi-fi system have resorted to an alternative technology - known as "orgone" - to combat the alleged negative effects of the high-tech system.

Well if soothsayers and astrologers think it’s a problem then case closed.  Well, almost.  I would just like to hear where dowsers stand on this issue before I give my final verdict. 

What to do about this?  Fortunately, a local man who “campaigns against EMFs” has the solution:

Matt Todd, […] has started building small generators which he believes can neutralise the allegedly-harmful radiation using the principles of orgone science. The pyramid-like machines use quartz crystals, selenite (a clear form of the mineral gypsum), semi-precious lapis lazuli stones, gold leaf and copper coil to absorb and recycle the supposedly-negative energy.

That’s what I like about new agers today.  They don’t just want to get rid of the negative energy, they want to recycle it.  This is sustainable woo!

But what is this “orgone science” solution, exactly?  The Skeptics’ Dictionary has a piece on Orgone Energy and its creator, Wilhelm Reich:

Reich claimed to have created a new science (orgonomy) and to have discovered other entities, such as bions, which to this day only orgonomists can detect. Bions are alleged vesicles of orgone energy which are neither living nor non-living, but transitional beings.

Reich died on November 3, 1957, in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was sent for criminal contempt. The criminal charge was levied because Reich refused to obey an injunction against selling quack medical devices such as the Orgone Accumulator and orgone "shooters," devices which allegedly could collect and distribute orgone energy, thereby making possible the cure for  just about any medical disorder except, perhaps, megalomania and self-delusion.

Also, read The Straight Dope’s What's the story on Wilhelm Reich and his orgone energy?

Orgone Away

[Note: the above headline should really have been “Orgone Conclusion,” but Connie beat me to it.]

So there is there is no such thing as Orgone energy.  You have an imaginary illness.  Don’t worry, it can be cured by an imaginary therapy.  Perfect.  Good woo cancels out bad woo.  Well, recycles it, anyway.

On a more serious note, there’s no good evidence that Wi-Fi networks like this can cause any of the illnesses suggested.  On the contrary, there have been several studies that show supposed Wi-Fi sensitive people can’t even tell if there is a Wi-Fi signal present or not when tested double-blind.  Which would tend to support the Nocebo hypothesis (a placebo in reverse – giving the appearance of harm rather than the appearance of good).  Plus there is no known scientific reason why such illnesses should result from Wi-Fi, which is a relatively low power signal.  TechSkeptic’s article on DECT scares, although written to cover a slightly different aspect of microwave scares, is a good primer on the general issues, and includes links to the double-blind studies I mentioned.  You could also read the World Health Organization’s Electromagnetic fields and public health article.

Let’s get real.  Quoting soothsayers and astrologers as authorities to support these claims is a bit like getting in a Feng Shui practitioner to tell us if a bridge is safe or not. 

… for pyramidiots.

Psychics Fail

That’s the only conclusion a reasonable person could make.

Over two months ago I wrote Psychics Make Firm Predictions – about how some “TV psychics” had information about Madeleine McCann, the four year old English girl who disappeared in Portugal in May 2007.  As I wrote back then, the information they came up with included:

• What the abductor looks like – with a drawing
• The abductor’s first name
• The actual address of an apartment where the abductor was supposed to have stopped
• The location of Madeleine’s body.

They supposedly gave this information to the Portuguese police.

So far, nothing has come of this information.  Although they gave the police the location of Madeleine’s body, no body has been discovered in this high profile case.  There has been no report of searches of the apartment where the abductor supposedly stopped with Madeleine (and the actual address was given, remember). 

I wrote two emails to the Express reporter, Mike Parker, who wrote the story I cited, requesting more information.  Lacking an actual email address for him, I wrote to the general news desk email, asking it be forwarded to Mike Parker.  My first email, sent Oct 26, was:

Regarding your story about the "psychic" pictures etc of Madeleine McCann's abductor:

You state in your report that the address of an apartment and the location of Madeleine's body have both been given to the local police.  Can you tell me, have the police searched these locations?  Clearly Madeleine's body hasn't been found otherwise we would have heard of it by now.  Do you know why not?  Didn't the police search the area given by the psychics?  If they did, what do the psychics have to say to explain why the body wasn't found?

Also, could you please tell me who at the FBI told you that "all three members of the Haunting Evidence team have been used in major criminal investigations"?

Thank you.

I tried again on December 21:

Mr Parker:

In light of the continued lack of progress in finding Madeleine, and the parents' new video appeal issued today, I wonder if you had thought about my questions that I raised some eight weeks ago (see below).  I understand that you have pressures to write a story, and that "psychic" stories sell copy, but don't you think it's time for another story following up on the psychics' success (or lack thereof) in locating Madeleine and/or her abductor?

I received no reply to either email.  So we have a reporter, who wrote a fluff “psychics are real” piece, who isn’t interested in following up to see if his facts were correct,  Sadly, no surprise.

Perhaps more significantly, I also tried to contact the TV so-called psychics.  They have no published email address, so I used their contact page.  My second message to them, also sent December 21, was:

In light of the continued lack of progress in finding Madeleine, and the parents' new video appeal issued today, I was reminded by the claims made in your TV program some months ago.

As I recall, you stated that that the address of an apartment and the location of Madeleine's body had both been given to the local police.  Can you tell me, have the police searched these locations?  Clearly Madeleine's body hasn't been found otherwise we would have heard of it by now.  Do you know why not?  Didn't the police search the area you gave them?  If they did, how do you explain why the body wasn't found?

Of course I only received their canned “thank you for taking your time to submit comments…” reply.  A message left on their forum on October 25 also went unanswered.  And I wasn’t the only one asking for evidence that they had actually solved any crimes. 

This is the blurb they have about themselves on their website:

Psychic profiler Carla Baron, medium John J. Oliver and paranormal investigator Patrick Burns take a terrifying descent into the heart of evil, as they see murders through the killer’s mind and the victim’s eyes.

These people make me sick.  They make a living and get fame based on made-up claims of using Psi powers.  When asked reasonable questions about why nothing came of their lame pretend-psychic drivel, they hide behind automatic reply emails.  Their enabler in the mainstream press is no better.  “TruTV” (sic) and The Daily Express should be ashamed of themselves.

Three liars, too scared to reply.

Stop Sylvia Browne Stopped

The Stop Sylvia Browne website appears to have been taken over by someone selling psychic services. For now, no one is sure exactly how this happened, except that it is possible the domain registration expired (expiry date was August 21), and so the registrar (Go Daddy) put the domain up for auction. For example, see the stopsylviabrowne.com auction page, and Go Daddy’s policy for handling domains that are not renewed:

On the 25th day following your domain registration's expiration date, we place your domain for auction on the Domain Name Aftermarket (TDNAM).

That would make the auction start date September 15^th. The close date would therefore appear to be ten days later.  Admittedly though, things are a little unclear. Anyway, it seems likely someone took advantage of Rob Lancaster’s current serious illness to take over his site. 

This is a great shame. Some skeptics are working with Go Daddy to try to get the domain back (read the discussion over on JREF), but it doesn’t look good. Clearly, Robert would be able to restart the site with another domain name, when he gets well (the website data will not have been lost). But until then I’m removing the link to the site. More importantly, I think we all would wish Robert a speedy recovery from his illness.

November 1, 2008 - Edited to add:

The real Stop Sylvia site has been reborn at a new location - click Sylvia Browne to see the new site with all the old good stuff.  All skeptical bloggers and owners of skeptical websites are being asked to change their links to the new url. If you're not familiar with search engine optimization, please read Tim's post, Skeptics! Load your google bombs!.  Short version - link the new url to the words "Sylvia Browne" and not "Stop Sylvia Browne".  For example:

Preferred: Sylvia Browne

OK, but not as good: Stop Sylvia Browne

Psychics Make Firm Predictions

Psychics working for the TruTV (“Not Reality. Actuality.”) network claim to have some very specific information about the abductor of little Madeleine McCann, the four year old English girl who disappeared in Portugal in May 2007. The “Haunting Reality” program apparently features “psychic profiler Carla Baron, medium John J. Oliver and paranormal investigator Patrick Burns” who, I imagine, make the usual guesses about the nature of various unsolved crimes. But here they have gone further than the usual vague guesses. Get a load of what they claim to know:

• What the abductor looks like – and they have released a drawing of him
• The abductor’s first name,
• The actual address of an apartment where the abductor was supposed to have stopped
• The location of Madeleine’s body.

From the British Sunday Express newspaper, you can read the usual vague guesses that are either trivial or impossible to verify (“He took her to his car. There were people walking who saw him but he just looked as if he was a father carrying a sleeping child and they didn’t take any notice.”) But some of the more specific information was also published. Sensibly, the actual addresses given to police were not reported. The supposed abductor’s drawing was published though (which is irresponsible in my view. I refuse to do so, although I have saved the drawing for such time as the actual abductor is caught.) But there were some more specific pieces of information that I want to put on record:

…the man has a pronounced accent and looks and sounds Middle Eastern, possibly Egyptian, and drives a mid-sized dark silver car with a parking permit or some other identifying sticker inside the windscreen on the driver’s side.

[…]

…the man is known as Steve or Stav and took the child to a summer rental apartment in the nearby village of Lagos.

[…]

[The abductor had a] dark silver car, which may have had even darker or black trim.

Mr Oliver said he believes that the abductor may have stopped briefly at a deserted farmhouse east of the town before driving to his eventual destination – a ­furnished room rented out during the summer in nearby Lagos.

(“May have”? How can they say “may have” if they have given police the actual address?)

OK, here we have a fairly clear cut case with some fairly specific information given by the psychics. A name, a picture, even supposedly two addresses. Let’s see how useful this psychic information turns out to be. Let’s see if “Steve or Stav”, looking like the drawing, is actually found. Let’s see if Madeleine’s body is found where the psychics say it is. Shouldn’t take long. This is a high profile case where this lead will be investigated pretty quickly.

Additional Information

The Independent Investigations Group on Carla Baron.  Summary – “every case we investigated was either solved without Baron’s involvement or remains unsolved. Either way, her claims of being a “psychic detective” are completely unsubstantiated.”

Hope these predictions don't come back to haunt us.

Subjective Idealism

Reading through Wednesday’s You Get Mail post, it struck me that Coburn's position was closer to Subjective Idealism, rather than Solipsism as a couple of people had suggested. Although Subjective Idealism and Solipsism share at least one weakness.

Subjective Idealism, popularized by Bishop Berkeley, is the philosophical view that there is no such thing as physical matter. Only the mind or spirit, and not physical matter, constitutes reality. From PhiloSophos.com:

Idealism, in terms of metaphysics, is the philosophical view that the mind or spirit constitutes the fundamental reality. It has taken several distinct but related forms. Among them are Objective and Subjective idealism. Objective idealism accepts common sense Realism (the view that material objects exist) but rejects Naturalism (according to which the mind and spiritual values have emerged from material things), whereas subjective idealism denies that material objects exist independently of human perception and thus stands opposed to both realism and naturalism.

You might recognize some of Coburn's arguments there (although mercifully not his verbosity or pomposity).  OK, but why would we care? Well, it provides cover for a whole host of woo beliefs, for starters. For example, it’s perfect for believers in The Secret.  If everything really is just the mind, then it’s a small step to believe that really really wanting something badly enough can actually make it happen.

So could it be true? Could it be that everything that we think of as physical, is actually just thought? Well, Samuel Johnson famously refuted Berkeley by kicking a rock and stating "I refute it thus." His point being that his toe hurt, so it must be real. (Or maybe the rock didn’t move because it was too big – take your pick.)  Jimmy Blue has his own refutation: "Find a busy road, step in front of a speeding bus. If you live, tell us how 'real' it felt."

The thing is, strictly speaking, those arguments don’t refute Idealism. Your toe hurts when you kick the rock, but that could be because your mind imagines your non-material toe hurting.  What these arguments do show is that there really is no difference between the Subjective Idealistic and the Materialistic worlds: your toe hurts (or you are killed when you jump in front of that bus), regardless. Or to put it another way, Subjective Idealism is unfalsifiable - if it were false, there is no test we could perform that it would fail.  So the argument is essentially a waste of time.

Gravity again

Here’s another example that shows why it makes no difference. The Secret proponents such as Joe Vitale like to say that the law of attraction (LOA) is a law just like gravity. OK, let’s think about that. NASA uses the law of gravitation and Newton’s equations to calculate velocity and trajectories to get its rockets to go where it wants them to go. Let’s say they want to send a probe to Mars, to send back pictures of the Mars surface and other scientific data. Perhaps they’ll get the calculations correct. Or perhaps they’ll get them wrong (for example by confusing imperial with metric units).  Of course, getting the calculations right or wrong means different results:

1. If they get the calculations correct, then the probe will land safely and they’ll get back the nice pictures and other scientific data they want. And that’s true whether there really is a physical planet Mars all those millions of miles away, or whether Mars is really just a product of our minds. We either get actual pictures of an actual physical planet, or we get what our minds construct as physical pictures of a physical planet. To us, there appears no difference.  Either way we learn the same things about the planet Mars.
2. If they get the calculations wrong then the spacecraft will crash on the planet’s surface (or miss it altogether), and they’ll get nothing back. And that is true whether there really is a physical planet Mars all those millions of miles away, or whether Mars is really just a product of our minds. Either our physical selves don’t get the pictures of the physical Mars and so we learn nothing, or our non-physical minds don’t get back any images of what looks like a planet. Either way we learn nothing.

So with real scientific laws, like gravity, it makes no difference whether what we see is real matter or whether it is all a product of a minds. The results are the same and repeatable both ways. Likewise with non laws, like The Secret's LOA, it makes no difference either. Wishing for that bike won’t make it magically appear. And that is true whether it is a real physical bike or a construct of our minds that we just think is a physical bike. We won’t be getting the experience of riding that bike either way.

Ancient Code

I just received an email publicizing an upcoming movie Ancient Code:

The Ancient Code team are currently filming throughout Europe for their project tipped to be bigger than 'The Secret', 'What The Bleep' and 'The Da Vinci Code' combined

Wow, really? Bigger than The Secret? A load of made-up nonsense about a law that isn’t a law.

Bigger than “What The Bleep?”? A film full of pseudoscience and huge distortions and misinterpretations of real science.  Plus more made up stuff.

Bigger than “The Da Vinci Code”? Really? A fictional novel, which was loosely based on the pseudo-historical book Holy Blood Holy Grail that has been roundly debunked as based on a hoax.

The film’s provenance is not encouraging. But what is it about? The email and website provides an answer – sort of:

At the moment the content as well as the two directors names are being kept secret, but it has been leaked that warfare, end times and natural disasters are going to be examined in relation to the history of civilisation itself, apparently presenting new answers that will affect everyone.

Just like 'The Secret' but with a twist, the key to this film appears to lie in our distant past and have been carried, through conspiracies and secret societies, into the present, coded into sacred symbols and the landscape itself.

Our ancestors knew all about this and gave us an answer – a master key to unlock the mysteries of existence and our own mind – a code to bliss for real, not imagined.

This film will challenge everything we thought we knew, whether it is God, Aliens, Ghosts or Politics.

Ah yes, another film about an ancient secret and/or code that was lost and is now found and will change your life.  Didn't we just have another one of these?  Oh yes, The Moses Code.  That was supposedly “The Most Powerful Manifestation Tool in the History of the World”.  So is The Ancient Code more "ancient" that The Moses Code, and if so would that make it more powerful?  How would we tell - which of these "codes" should we give more credence to, and why?  Quite a puzzle.

Anyway, I signed up at their website for "a guaranteed FREE copy of the film in DVD format".  Hey - it's a FREE master key to unlock the mysteries of existence!  Take that, The Secret.  Must keep an open mind, etc etc. 

Bet you can't wait for my review.

Negative Energy Research

Beware of skeptics - we wield amazing powers!

From last week's Skeptics' Circle and Hyphoid Logic I found this story from the St. Petersburg Times, reporting on our awesome ability to wield negative energy:

Virginia Levy walked into the library downtown to prove she was psychic. A group of doubters called the Tampa Bay Skeptics questioned the claims of people like her and had set up a challenge. Levy came to meet it. There sat a row of boxes. Could she guess which contained crystals? She was given seven chances. Seven times she failed. It wasn't inability that did her in, she said recently, the bitterness still evident in her voice. It was the bespectacled host of the project, Gary Posner, an unbeliever who she said patronized her, creating an atmosphere filled with negative energy. She purposely chose the wrong box each time, she said, then left in a huff. [My bold.]

She also explained exactly how we do it:

"What they're doing is using the laws of attraction," Levy said. "They're actually using the same powers that psychics use, except in reverse."

Of course – we’re using The Secret. It all makes sense now.

There have been numerous claims by psychics and parapsychologists, that skeptics’ negative energy causes psi experiments to fail, but as far as I know, there has been no actual research on this subject.  This is an “anomaly” that I believe urgently needs rectifying.  So, I hereby propose a new avenue for psi research - testing skeptics’ ability to wield negative energy.

The Protocol

Here’s an idea of how it would work. We start with some standard psi tests – talking to the dead, remote viewing, Ganzfeld-type judging of target pictures (Zener cards are so 1950s), Rupert Sheldrake’s staring experiments - you name it. These tests are performed in a room in front of a one way mirror. Behind the mirror, either there is a skeptic watching the experiment or there isn’t, but double-blind controls insure none of the experimenters or subjects know which. The objective is to determine whether or not the skeptic’s presence (and therefore negative energy) influences the results of the experiment.

If the test is successful, we would move to Phase 2.  This could include answering the following additional questions:

1. Does the skeptic still negatively influence the test if he is behind the mirror but not observing the test (he’s reading a book, say, or listening to his iPod)?
2. Does the skeptic still negatively influence the test if he watches the experiment on a closed circuit TV on a different floor in the building?  What about is he's across town?  Or in another city?  Does the effect stay constant regardless of the distance?
3. What if the skeptic and his negative energy is shielded in some way – for example, inside a Faraday cage?
4. Does the skeptic still negatively influence the test if he watches it later on a videotape? In other words, does watching the experiment on tape retroactively alter the success of the test?  (Some have claimed psi works this way.  Seriously.)
5. What if two tests are made and taped, and only one is viewed at random by the skeptic? Will the experimenters able to predict which tape is randomly selected in the future based on the psychic’s test results in the present?
6. If multiple psychics are performing the same test at the same time, will their combined psychic abilities overwhelm the skeptic’s negative energy?

All important questions and the answers could be groundbreaking. And if successful, it could be a legitimate way for skeptics to apply for Randi’s million, or at least receive some payment from psi researchers for taking part in their experiments.

Sheldrake, Schwartz – I’m available.

Over-Imaginative Kids

After two false starts (bumped twice due to unforeseen circumstances), Larry King finally had his “Psychic Kids” episode Thursday (Transcript). There were hardly any calls, and so little chance to play Bingo (although there was one chance and it was pretty funny – I’ll get to that at the end). But no evidence of any psychic powers either.

The episode was apparently inspired by the A&E TV show “Psychic Kids” – a show I have avoided watching. With good reason, it turns out. Three children were featured, each one claiming to see dead people, “spirits” or “shadows”, or have dreams where they experience these things.

The first child started experiencing these visions just after she:

“…had just moved into a new house”

The second child’s mother described how her child:

…wasn't able to sleep through the night. She'd wake up about three or four times a night. She said that she heard footsteps following her to bed and she would see things.

And when my mother died, it seemed to increase.

The third child described when her experiences started:

I was six or seven and my parents got divorced and I moved. And a lot of things went on. And then all of a sudden I was starting to see shadows.

Now, I’m not an expert on child psychology or anything, but it seems to me these are just normal reactions from an imaginative and perhaps overly emotional child. Note that the “psychic” experiences all start or get much more vivid immediately after an emotionally stressful event such as their parents’ divorce or the death of a grandmother. Probably not that unusual. The problem is that the adults, instead of dealing with what is really going on, are determined to encourage these children in their fantasies by telling them they are actually seeing the spirits of dead people. Or as Michael Shermer was shown saying in a short video clip (the only sensible piece of the entire program):

These children are just extremely imaginative kids who are just having the normal fantasies and stories in their heads that so many of us had when we were kids. I think the show, the series has more to do with what adults want to make out of these stories than what the kids are making out of them. Having psychics proclaim the kids to be psychics is meaningless, because the psychics themselves have never been proven to be psychic.

True, true and true again.

They brought on one Dr. Lisa Miller, “psychotherapist, professor of psychology at Columbia University Teacher's College”, and co-host of the A&E show. Dr. Miller made a big deal of stressing that these children are not “psychotic”. But it seems to me she was proposing a false dilemma: either the kids are psychotic or they’re psychic. But surely there’s another possibility – they’re just highly imaginative and perhaps over emotional due to stress in their lives? Whether it really is good for these children to encourage them in their fantasies, rather than getting them to deal with their actual problems, is something I’m not qualified to judge. But it’s clear what’s driving Dr. Miller’s actions. A believer in psychics, she sees her role as encouraging and reinforcing the children’s fantasies. Or as she put it:

…I think it's our job to listen to [the children] and support them in really integrating their experience into their on going growth and development.

Listen to them and support them, yes. Tell them their fantasies are real – I don’t think so. Remember, the adults are telling these kids they’re psychic! Not only that - they’re putting them on TV! What kid wouldn’t respond by playing along? I was reminded of the story of little James Leininger, whose nightmares about being in a crashed World War II fighter plane started just after his parents took him to a World War II air museum. In that case, the adults around him decided his dreams meant he was a reincarnated WWII pilot. And in this case too, a woo therapist was brought in to validate the little boy’s experiences and encourage him to fantasize more. With similar results to what this A&E program shows.

I don’t know if any harm is being done to these kids by encouraging them to believe they really are seeing dead people, although I find it hard to believe it’s the best approach. But I am sure we saw no evidence these kids actually have any psychic ability.

Bingo

And that brings us to the Bingo. Click the John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo link to see the explanation of the Bingo game. There were only three calls, at the end of the show. The first two calls were just vague questions eliciting vague answers. The third call and Edward’s answer was short, but it made me laugh:

CALLER: I had a second trimester miscarriage recently and it's my second miscarriage. And I was just wondering what the future might hold for me in terms of fertility and bearing a child.

EDWARD: I don't know if you've had three pregnancies already or if you already have three children, but they're showing me the number three

BINGO! – “Any number from 1 to 12”

…which to me would indicate there has either be three pregnancies, there will be a third, or there will be three children,

Or three anything. Something happened in the third month (March), or the third of a month. There’s got to be a “three” connection somewhere you will validate as a hit.

but that's what is being shown.

CALLER: I have two living children and I then had the miscarriage, and then just the recent second trimester.

Note TWO children and TWO miscarriages – ie it was a MISS. But she’ll take it as a hit because she wants a third child.

KING: Do you think she'll have a third child?

EDWARD: I think there will be a third. I know this might sound strange, but I see you getting a dog or I see a pet

BINGO! – “Dog or Cat”

It's almost making me feel like there's an opportunity for a new addition to your family with fur.

CALLER: I have one that's like a child.

EDWARD: I feel like there's something new that comes up around that as well. You have a lot of people actually draining on your energy. That's the feeling I have. You're giving out a lot of your time.

She has two kids and a dog, and has had two miscarriages. Yeah, I’ll bet this woman feels like she’s giving out a lot of her time. Thanks for the insight.

In less than about 30 seconds, Edward makes three guesses and a full TWO OUT OF THREE were hits on the Bingo card. Hilarious. Larry – PLEEEEAAASSSSEEEE have Edward on for a full hour. Please. Pretty please.

Bingo - Third Time Lucky?

It's there again - 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!

… Except they predicted it twice before, but there were unforeseen circumstances. Like the last time the psychics predicted the same thing but were bumped for a story about the Colombian hostage release they didn’t predict would happen.  Or the previous time they 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 this time 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.

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.

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.

The Moses Code

From PZ I learned about a new movie called The Moses Code – apparently it is the next stage after What The Bleep Do We Know and The Secret. I know, I know, you didn’t realize we needed a next step after those two wonderful pieces of science and inspiration drek. Didn’t they already cover everything we need to know about life the universe and everything? I guess not, because the Moses Code book is billed “The Most Powerful Manifestation Tool in the History of the World”. Note: in the history of the whole world! Wow! And they left this out of The Secret? No fair!

The list of featured speakers include some names I recognized, although not in a good way:

Dr. Michael Beckwith

Founder and Director Agape Spiritual Center, Minister, Speaker

One of the dopes featured in The Secret – although there he was billed as a (and I quote) “Visionary”. So no false modesty there. Although I did wonder about him being billed here as “Speaker”. What kind of title is that? Aren’t they all “speakers” by definition?

James Van Praagh

Medium, Author, Executive Producer “Ghost Whisperer”

Actually, fraud, and really piss-poor and obvious cold reader. Also total moron.

They’ve got James Van Praagh in this movie and they think this is a good thing.

Gregg Braden

Best-selling Author, Scientist

Haaaaaaa hahaha – “Scientist”? No, pseudoscientist and manipulator of the truth extraordinaire. Maker-up of bullshit while pretending it’s science. A real clown. Although I agree his books do seem to sell well to the credulous.

Dr. Joe Dispenza

Neurological Doctor, Author

Actually a chiropractor. I guess “Neurological Doctor” sounds better than “pseudoscientific back-cracker”. He appeared in "What The Bleep" where he pretended he literally creates his day with his mind.  I guess if he does that it's only a small additional step to pretend he's a doctor.

Yeah, this film promises to be a real gem.

Better Than Sylvia

… That would be my 2007 Predictions. With only two weeks left in 2007, I can confidently state that my predictions for 2007 were more accurate than those of Sylvia Browne and just about every other professional “psychic” in the business.

Click the link and read for yourself what I predicted for the year, back on January 1 2007. I haven’t edited the post since it was published as you can confirm if you check with the Wayback Machine (from February 4th 2007 – the earliest I can find).

Let’s run through some of the correct predictions I made.

I correctly predicted Cyclone Sidr that caused so much damage to Bangladesh:

There will be a major typhoon causing much damage and loss of life in SE Asia.

I correctly predicted that Tiger Woods would have a daughter:

Tiger Woods and his wife will announce they are expecting a baby […] and it will be a girl.

I also correctly predicted Christina Aguilera’s pregnancy:

Christina Aguilera will also announce she is expecting a child.

As much as I have looked, I haven’t found even one psychic who predicted either of these two celebrity pregnancies.

I correctly predicted that John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would announce their candidacies for President.

I correctly predicted that Tony Blair would step down as British Prime Minister and that Gordon Brown would replace him.

I correctly predicted that Snoop Dogg would get probation but not jail time.

I correctly predicted that “Brangelina” would stay together and adopt another child, but that they would not get married.

I correctly predicted that Lady Bird Johnson would die of natural causes.

For a comparison of how much better I was than the professional psychics, just look at this list of Sylvia Browne’s predictions. She was wrong about TomKat’s baby. Wrong about Brangelina. Wrong about J Lo and Marc Anthony. Wrong about Bush bringing the troops home. Wrong about property prices being “back up”.  Wrong in just about everything she predicted. Unlike me.

And I don’t see any psychics as accurate as I was on the celebrity predictions. For example, see the daily mantra’s Psychic Prediction for Christina Aguilera that somehow missed the pregnancy that I spotted. Then we have Marlene Lombardi’s celebrity predictions that completely missed, as did California Psychics and Psychic Nikki.

Also, see these predictions from Jeffrey Palmer "The Psychic Detective." Funny, I don’t remember the “very strong earthquake centered near Los Angeles on March 13th 2007” or the “outbreak of a rare virus near or in the city of Boston in May 2007”. Admittedly we haven’t got to December 27th yet, so we still await the “event of global proportions [that] will occur on this date”. Mark your calendars.

So I beat all of these so called psychics. Congratulations to me.

Now, the cynics among you will probably say I ignored the predictions I got wrong and just concentrated on the hits.  Well, I never claimed to be 100% accurate. And as Sylvia Browne said, only God is 100% accurate. Others may say that some of the predictions weren’t really that surprising. Well, at least I didn’t predict that Tiger Woods would win a golf tournament.

Of course, making obvious predictions, and then counting the hits and not the misses, is all that professional psychics do anyway. And I still think I did better than them. Remember that when, this year, we get the same bunch of lame playing the odds guesses, reprinted uncritically by a gullible media. And although these “psychic predictions” might look like just a bit of fun, remember that uncritically reporting this nonsense as if it were real gives cover for vultures like Browne to prey on the recently bereaved.  They also waste police time by forcing them to follow up their made-up psychic “impressions”. I did better than any of them by just guessing.

If you’re still not convinced, I am available for psychic readings. I charge just $500 a pop which is still less than Sylvia. Just click the email link in the left hand column.

Oh, and I have a bridge to sell you:

Quick, before it sells. Call me now.

From The Sublime to The Ridiculous

This Saturday I was watching a repeat of the Larry King Live with Criss Angel – the one where Angel says he doesn’t think people have psychic powers or can talk to the dead. The one where he says he will bust anyone on live TV if they claim psychic powers.  (And of course, a few days later he did bust Jim Callahan for doing just that.) I had missed this interview originally. Anyway – irony time – it was immediately followed by a repeat of the November 16th Larry King with all the phony psychics, mediums, ghost hunters etc. The one that was advertised as “taking your calls” but in fact didn’t. (So we couldn’t play Cold Reader Bingo. Maybe next time.)

And what a waste of an hour that was.

The star of the show was celebrity nutter Shirley MacLaine, who was given a whole segment to espouse her made-up nonsense about reincarnation and the afterlife. It also featured cold reader James Van Praagh, cold reader Lisa Williams, professional twit Jason Hawes (an investigator on the Sci-Fi program "Ghost Hunters", who believes for no rational reason I can think of that EMF signals are ghosts), someone called Chris Fleming at the site of the filming of the fictional film "The Shining", (again for no rational reason I could ascertain), plus Mary Ann Winkowski, upon whose life the TV show "The Ghost Whisperer" is supposedly “loosely” based. Very loosely actually, since the TV “Ghost Whisperer" has detailed conversations with dead people where names of murderers etc are clearly given. (No “I’m getting an R”.)

It’s not worth deconstructing the drivel from this show line by line, but here are a few samples to give you an idea (full transcript):

VAN PRAAGH: There is no such thing as death. There is no such thing as death.

VAN PRAAGH: The spirit. You're first and foremost a spirit. The spirit doesn't die. You're a spirit encased in a physical body. The physical body will shut down, break down and be, you know, decompose. But the spirit will not. The spirit remains -- lives on.

WINKOWSKI: OK. All children can do this. Children are so innocent. Their imagery friends are not imaginary.

MACLAINE: The whole question is the question of consciousness, to me. That's why science exists. That's why people like Steven Hawking and the Dalai Lama agree with each other -- that energy never dies, it just changes form. So when someone, so-called, dies and the soul leaves the body -- which is not to say the mind. The mind is different from the soul in my studies.

I think we're suffering now with the confusion of the paradigm blindness. I mean once we understand the paradigm of this other dimensional reality, we won't be so blind to what's happening.

MACLAINE: I'll tell you what it means mostly to me. You don't kill when you kill somebody. The mind dies. The body dies. War is stupid, because nobody gets killed. The souls get all screwed up and karma is incurred. So war is stupid.

MACLAINE: I see -- not like these other gifted people you have. I see, every now and then, out of the corner of my eye I see, oh, and that's a spirit.

MACLAINE: Karma. And it maybe not happened in one lifetime because remember, there's no time.

Einstein wrote about that, Hawking writes about that. So all time is happening concurrently now.

MACLAINE: Stephen Hawking came to his presence and to this place of proof and said, I know there is an afterlife and the soul never dies because I understand energy. What would he say?

I’ll just point out again that this stuff is made-up by these people. You should also note the misuse of science: the huge leaps made from what the actual science says to the unwarranted metaphysical conclusions they want to foist on us.

And then there was the token skeptic. Once again it was Dr. Bryan Farha, the guy who in May 2003 actually managed to get in a call on Larry King, to Sylvia Browne, to ask her why she was avoiding taking Randi’s million dollar challenge as she had promised. On this week’s show he was one against many, and was only given a few minutes to express doubt at all the extraordinary (and frankly absurd) claims being made by everyone else. And for part of those few minutes, it has to be said, the camera panned to the smug grins on the faces of the frauds sitting around the table. It’s at times like this when I wonder if there really is any value to skeptics appearing on such a show. In a written forum (such as the JREF forum, or comments posted to skeptical blogs), the woomeisters have nowhere to hide: their rhetorical tricks and lack of evidence for their claims can be easily exposed. On Larry King, they can get away with smug comments about closed-mindedness etc, before Larry moves on to his next credulous question.

Also, I was a little disappointed in Farha. I don’t want to criticize him too much, because at least he is prepared to put himself on the line on TV (something I’ve never done), and I’m sure it’s more difficult than it looks. And without him there would have been no voice expressing any doubt at all. However, I wished he had not talked so much about needing “proof”. Scientists don’t usually talk about “proof” – they usually ask for “evidence”, for the very good reason that you can’t really “prove” anything outside of math. Asking for proof opens you up to all sorts of rhetorical counter-attacks. Fortunately, none of the twits in the studio were smart enough to take advantage of that, and van Praagh even said he had proof of life after death. Still, you can’t rely on that every time.

I was also a little disappointed in Farha’s reasons why skepticism here is important:

KING: Do you see any harm in believing it?

FARHA: Well, there's harm in believing anything that could fall into the category of being hocus pocus. If you don't think critically -- this is about critical thinking. This is not about ghosts and haunted houses.

If you don't learn to think critically, you might wind up suffering in all kinds of other areas. You might not send your kids to the best school if you don't think critically. You might find a love interest that is a wife-beater, a batterer. You have to think critically in order to get along in the world, and this doesn't lend itself to critical thinking.

Which is all very well in general, but not a specific reason to be against cold readers like van Praagh. And, probably not a very convincing reason for anyone watching the show. I would have said that these so-called psychics waste a lot of police time chasing false leads in missing child and murder cases. Time that could have been spent following up legitimate leads. Also, I would have said that people can be falsely accused of crimes. And finally, I would have said that parents of missing children are manipulated and taken advantage of at their most vulnerable time. To understand what I mean, you should read what Mark Klass has to say.  Tragically, his daughter Polly was abducted and murdered in 1993, and numerous “psychics” took this as a cue for their moment of fame. Klass writes:

In truth, that psychic detectives contribution to the case was counter productive. As always seems to be the case with psychic predictions, her interference created distraction. Law enforcement resources are diverted toward useless endeavors as phantom leads disappear into thin air. One cold and dark November evening many of us were lurking around somebody’s property because the psychic said that it held the key to my daughter’s disappearance. With the heightened sense of paranoia that already existed in the community that property owner would have been well within his rights to blow us away on the spot for trespassing. We were very fortunate that night, because although he did angrily confront us, he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime we were investigating.

In the end, and despite their protests, there is not even one case of a psychic truly assisting or solving a missing child case. It’s just smoke and mirrors. Their references do not support their claims and law enforcement cannot acknowledge their existence. Instead, their wishful thinking collides with your desperate hope and leaves you diminished.

Unfortunately, the next time a little child is kidnapped and mom and dad reach the end of their emotional string the vague, empty promises of the psychic detective will rebound off the stark walls of the missing child’s bedroom and a photo or toy will be palmed as the negotiations are engaged.

That’s the real problem with these frauds. And it’s this admittedly more emotional argument that I believe might get through to those on the fence, rather than Farha’s rather dubious concern about sending kids to the wrong school. It’s really quite a simple response that we should all have ready when asked such a question.

I want to end with a comment on skeptics, from the “Ghost Hunters” guy:

HAWES: Well, I think what the skeptics need to do is stop throwing insults at the self-proclaimed sensitives or the people investigating claims of the paranormal and really meet in the middle, start trying to figure this out together. If we work together, we can come to an answer, but if we're going to spend all our time attacking each other, we're not going to get ahead

Wrong, jackass. It’s not the job of skeptics or anyone else to “meet you in the middle”. That’s not how science works. If you want us to accept your “hypothesis” (in scare quotes, because I don’t really believe he has one), you need to support it with evidence. To be clear – that’s your job, not ours. Then (and this is the bit you want to avoid), you need to let other people examine your evidence for holes, to try to prove it false. What’s left standing after this process has a reasonable chance of being true. That’s how real scientists do it. That’s what Einstein did and that’s what Hawking did. In fact, Hawking had to change his views at least once after others proved him wrong. Einstein was also shown to be wrong on some things. They didn’t whine about being “attacked”. (Hey, if woos can invoke these intellectual giants, so can I.) Until you do this Hawes, you’re just a whiner who wants special treatment for his silly claims. That may be good enough for the Science Fiction channel, but it’s not how science works in fact.

The Missing Revenue Source

That would be Joe Vitale’s Missing Revenue Source. But not missing for much longer.

Reader FP emailed me with this latest piece of Joe Vitale made-up nonsense:

Have you ever had one of those days where gravity just isn’t working for you?

Where you can’t seem to keep your feet planted on the ground and you wind up sort of floating around in the atmosphere?

Of course not.

Why not?

Because gravity is a LAW.

It doesn’t work some days and not work other days.

It’s always working, and you are experiencing the effects of it all the time, at every moment.

But you probably never spilled a cup of coffee and said, “Damn that Law of Gravity!”

Instead, you realized it was your actions coupled with the exiting law that caused the accident.

Well, the Law of Attraction is exactly the same.

Except it isn’t. It does not work “every time” like the law of gravitation that Vitale wants to compare it to. And if you don’t believe me, Vitale proves it himself later on in his own words, when he reveals that to benefit fully from the law of attraction, you will need to:

… order a copy of my new audioprogram “The Missing Secret: How to Use The Law of Attraction to Attract What You Want — Every Time.”

… for (get this) a mere $119.95.

And right there is the proof the law (sic) of attraction isn’t like the law of gravitation. I don’t need an audio (or any other kind of) book by Joe Vitale to tell me how to make the law of gravitation work for me. My computer monitor stays firmly on my desk thank you very much regardless of what my “subconscious thoughts” or “deep-seated collection of beliefs” might be attempting to the contrary. And it really does work “every time”. The law (sic) of attraction, on the other hand, is just a made up marketing gimmick. And I have to say, marketing is one thing Vitale is pretty good at. Unable to make any money on The Secret, he is selling (wait for it)  “The Missing Secret”.  Pure genius!  Send Joe $120 (plus tax and shipping) and he’ll send you a load of drivel that was missing from The Secret.  The only puzzling thing is why it took him so long.  I guess he didn't want it that much.

Remember that Joe says, in his article:

You can’t “do” the Law of Attraction wrong.

If you can’t do it wrong, why would you need any instructions on it from Vitale? 

Don’t buy this snake oil from Vitale. He doesn’t need your money.

Bingo Night!

Tonight is Bingo Night – John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo. Except it looks like John Edward has pulled out – Larry King’s site now advertises “Psychics (sic) James Van Praagh & Lisa Williams take your calls”. I wonder if John Edward discovered that a few thousand people would be playing Bingo with his cold reading guesses, and decided he didn’t want to be made a fool of. But he’s a psychic, so he must already have known that. Must be some other reason then. It’s a pity, because the card was designed primarily around Edward’s style. Still, perhaps it won’t matter. Perhaps the card will work just as well with Lisa Williams, thus demonstrating all cold readers use basically the same techniques. We’ll see.

I was contacted by Brett, who wrote some software to randomize the Bingo card. That way, if you want to play with some friends, you can each have a different card. They all have the same items in the boxes, but they’ll just be in a different order. The winner is the first one to get a straight line. Brett did a great job and I’d like to thank him immensely.  Click on my original post, John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo, for the actual card and explanations for the squares. Thanks again to Brett for the card, and to James Randi and Rob Lancaster for the additional comments and examples. Check out Randi’s video featuring some of van Praagh’s tricks. And have fun playing Cold Reader Bingo!

26 November 07 - Edited to add:

I just posted about the actual program (which was not as advertised) - From The Sublime to The Ridiculous.

Criss Angel / Phenomenon

I wasn’t going to comment on the Criss Angel / Phenomenon videos, since it seems almost everyone else already has. But Randi is hosting the videos on his site and, now I’ve seen them, I had to post briefly on this.

If you haven’t heard, there is a reality TV show called “Phenomenon”, with Uri Geller and Criss Angel judging conjuring acts. Except that there was this bozo called Jim Callahan who pretended he was not a conjuror but that he really was doing something paranormal by channeling a dead person. Or something. Angel had already promised he would bust anyone who claimed paranormal skills, and so the result was, to some extent, inevitable.

Anyway, go to Randi’s site and watch the video of Angel busting Callahan – it’s short, just over a minute. It ends with Angel and Callahan apparently having to be held apart by the two other hosts.

Then watch the other video (longer) with interviews with the three players. First up is Geller, with a load of drivel about how you can’t disprove the paranormal (channeling James van Praagh), and ending with the lame argument about how energy can’t be destroyed, so “where does it go” when we die? Oooohh – good point. Except it isn’t. Dipshit: the live human body is at a temperature of 98.6 F, so my guess would be when you die, the energy is given off as heat. No paranormal explanations required. Oh well - at least we didn’t have to witness him bending spoons “with just the power of my mind”.

Then comes Angel with a fairly level headed and reasonable explanation of why he did what he did. Angel is irritated that Callahan is passing off something that he (Angel) could do when he was 14, as if it must be paranormal. I don’t know how that trick was done but I’m guessing Angel does. As does Randi, Penn & Teller… and any number of professional magicians.

The best bit though is Callahan, with a long sorry rant about Angel – how he’s trying to prove Jesus is not real (he does a walking on water illusion), and how he’s “hiding” behind his clothes and jewelry.  (Someone’s been watching Dr Phil. Actually, I think Callahan would have more luck on Oprah.) And loads on how Callahan “doesn’t like being questioned”. All in all though, it was a load of whining about Criss Angel, but nothing about why anyone should believe that Callahan actually has any paranormal powers. The truth is though, it was really about Callahan, and not Angel, despite Callahan's attempts at misdirection.

But the funniest bit was where he rambled on about how Angel needed “people between me and him” – a reference, presumably, to how the two other hosts kept Angel and Callahan apart, although Callahan gave the appearance of wanting a fight. If you want to know why it’s funny, you have to go back and watch the first video. Right near the end (13 to 14 seconds left on the counter), you see that Callahan accidentally breaks free of his minder, and could actually get to Angel if he wanted. So what does he do? He quickly goes back and links his arm with the host – because he just had to make sure he had someone holding him back. Even the losing his temper / wanting a fight was a lame act. What a loser.

John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo

Note to new readers: this post is about the pretend-psychic and cold reader John Edward (pictured right), and not anyone with a similar name who is currently was running for President of The United States. It’s also about James van Praagh (pictured below left). This coming Friday November 16, the credulous Larry King (CNN) is featuring “psychics (sic) John Edward and James van Praagh”. No doubt they will be playing their usual guessing game with callers.

My ID Creationist Bingo card proved popular, so I decided to produce a John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo card. It’s based on the numerous times I’ve seen Edward perform his lame cold reading act, as well as my detailed analysis of the transcript of an earlier Edward appearance on Larry King. Although it’s based on Edward’s technique, most of the bingo squares will apply to van Praagh too. If you want an analysis of Edward’s cold reading technique, then read my earlier post John Edward Re-revisited. That’s a long post, so I’ve summarized below, the meanings behind the different bingo squares. If you have any friends or family members who believe in this nonsense, I suggest you watch the show with them and play the bingo game. It will help if you explain in advance what the squares mean, and how Edward and van Praagh will manipulate the callers to believe they are really talking to dead people. From personal experience in doing this, I can say that saying in advance what Edward and van Praagh are going to do, is a powerful persuader. Playing Bingo just adds to the fun. Here’s the Bingo Card:

Both Edward and van Praagh use a technique called Cold Reading – where the “psychic” makes a series of guesses and the caller tries to make them fit his or her situation. The following is an explanation of the different squares, and a summary of the main cold reading techniques:

J, M, R and S names

Why the dead can only remember their initials, and not their full names, is never adequately explained. Anyway, guessing initials is the bread and butter of the cold reader. J, M, R and S are common initials in America. (For crying out loud, both these cold-readers’ names are “J” names.) And they’re flexible - for example R includes Bob as well as Robert. A “G” will count as a hit for the “J” guess, and so on . M is common especially among older women. Also Mike is a fairly common male name. “M” can also be “Mom”. Notice how often (ie not very often) they guess other initials.

“Yes You Do!” or “Write This Down” or "Keep That"

"Yes you do" is a specific Edward technique. When he guesses wrong, he will insist the caller, not he (Edward), is wrong. The caller just doesn’t realize he had the older brother that Edward incorrectly guessed he had. Edward’s technique is to be very aggressive and supremely confident – so much so that the callers often think their knowledge of their own family is incorrect.

The instruction to “Write This Down” will also give the impression that Edward is right and the caller wrong, since Edward is obviously so sure he is right, he wants the caller to write it down to verify it later. Of course, no one ever follows up to see if what the caller wrote down was actually true. 

Van Praagh version of this will be to say "Keep That" - to imply the caller will eventually recall what van Praagh has guessed.  Again, no one can check to see if the missing connection is ever recalled.

The thing to note is that “Yes You Do!”, “Write This Down” and "Keep That" are just techniques to recover from the completely wrong guess.

Father Figure / Older Male and Mother Figure / Older Female

This is sufficiently vague that it covers a multitude of possible dead people, including older brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles as well as parents and grandparents. The caller will supply the actual answer that Edward can then pretend he got. This approach is so much more likely to produce a hit than, say, “I can see your Father” (who might not actually be dead).

Larry King goes “Wow!”

Not strictly an cold reading technique – but notice how Larry will credulously accept even bad guesses as a hit. It’ll happen at least once during the one hour show, and serves as additional validation.

Chest Area / Head Area / Cancer

Most deaths can be assigned to either the “head area” or the “chest area”, so either of these guesses has good chance of being correct for somebody the caller knows.  “Chest area” covers all heart disease as well as lung cancer.  Either head or chest could include car accidents and the like.  Also asking about "Breathing Trouble" will usually result in a hit - what person didn't have "breathing trouble" when they were dying?

Also, there will be several guesses of “Cancer”, because who doesn’t know someone who died from cancer?

Birthday / Wedding / Dog or Cat / Child / Toys

Questions such as “who had a birthday recently” will usually result in a hit – who doesn’t know someone who recently had (or soon will have) a birthday? Likewise, “Wedding” is likely to be a correct guess for someone the caller knows.

Most families had a loved pet that died, sometime, and so asking about the dog is a reliable standby.

Asking about a dead “Child” may be less reliable, but will be an strongly emotional hit if the guess is correct. If not, Edward may claim he is right anyway (see “Yes You Do!”, above). 

Van Praagh often asks about "Toys".   This is  really the same as asking about the child, but is in my view much more emotionally manipulative in that it conjures up an image of a child "on the other side" still playing with her toys.  It also allows him to pretend he knows more that he initially did, as in this example:

VAN PRAAGH: Did she have a toy that she loved so much, she nearly wore it out?
CALLER: Yes! She had a stuffed Pink Panther that she carried with her everywhere!
VAN PRAAGH: Because she's showing me a Pink Panther.

Boxes

Edward or van Praagh will ask, is someone moving? And lets face it, who doesn’t know someone who just moved or is about to? (Think about your own friends. I moved recently and two of my friends did also.) If this is a good guess, Edward will always say something like “I thought so because they’re showing me boxes”. It’s his way of claiming this rather obvious guess was told to him by the dead people.  "Boxes can also be a hit for any other kind of gift, such as a birthday (coming soon or just gone).

Wild-Ass Guess

Occasionally Edward will make an outlandish guess – who died in a plane or car crash? / who has a leg or arm missing? / suicide? / shot in a robbery? – you name it. It’s always presented as a question, so when no one fits the bill he can quickly move on to the next guess. And the mark will rarely remember the wrong guess. But on the rare occasions he is correct it will look as though he must be the real deal. “How could he know my grandfather lost his arm in the war?” Of course, you need to carefully count the number of guesses he gets wrong that the callers forget. Which can be difficult at the speed that Edward spits out guesses.

Numbers from 1 to 12

As well as initials, they will at some point guess a number. The number chosen will usually be from 1 to 12. That way, if the number is (say) the actual date the relative died, (or was born, graduated – anything will do), he can claim a great hit – he got the date right. If not, then someone will have a birthday, death (etc) in the numbered month. So when the number guessed is between 1 and 12, there is always the fallback to claim it relates to a month. The guess is therefore much more likely to be a “hit” than a number over 12. In fact, see if either of them ever guess a number over 12. And see how many times they guess a number from 1 to 12.

Jewelry

Van Praagh will often ask about "Jewelry" - because most elderly relatives will have left some jewelry, or perhaps a watch to their children or grandchildren.  The caller will supply the details.  This is, of course very manipulative, emotionally, to remind the caller of precious items their dead relatives left them.

Caller Accepts a Miss as a Hit

These can sometimes be hard to spot at the time, and frequently they only become clear when looking at the transcript. For example, see this exchange from the reading I linked above:

EDWARD: OK, Linda, the first thing I want talk about is, I know you're looking for your mom but I'm getting an older male who's also there on the other side. I feel like this is somebody who would be above you, which means it's like a father-figure, or an uncle, and he passes from either lung cancer or emphysema, tuberculosis; it's all problems in the chest area. OK, that's the first thing. And I feel like there's a J or a G-sounding name attached to this.

CALLER: That's my mother.

EDWARD: She's got a very dominant personality.

CALLER: That's my mother. Her first name starts with G and she had emphysema.

Edward had said the “chest area” person was the “older male”. Caller recollects this ailment is her Mother. The caller has accepted this obvious (wrong) guess as a “hit”.

This one is more obvious:

EDWARD: Is there a Katherine or Kathleen connected to you?

CALLER: My brother's name was Keith.

This is a big part of the psychology of cold reading – the caller feels it is his or her fault if Edward guesses wrong and so the caller, if possible, will try to turn Edward’s miss into a hit.

Multiple Fishing Questions

Edward especially relies on speaking very quickly and on multiple rapid-fire fishing questions. From the transcript again:

What is coming through is a younger male figure, who is passed over, and I feel like he passes because of a car accident, or because of an impact to his body-something that impacts his body. He's telling me, "He's connected to R"-like Rich or Richie or Robbie; and he's connected to somebody beneath you. So I don't know if you have a son, and this is a son's friend who's trying to come through to his family. But there's somebody younger coming through like this; and it's in your area, it's not out-of-state. It's not far away-

It’s hard from just reading the above, to appreciate the speed that Edward can get through something like that. I’m pretty sure the idea is that with enough guesses, something is likely to be right, and with the speed that Edward whizzes through them, the caller will forget all the wrong guesses. 

Complete Miss on All Guesses

Despite all the above techniques, Edward or van Praagh will sometimes miss completely on every guess for a caller. When this happens, they will simply say that the reading (ie the dead person he was talking to) was for a different caller. It’s the perfect “out” – when he’s right he’s right; when he’s wrong he’s still right (but for a different caller). Of course, this result is indistinguishable from someone just making guesses.

Badge / Flag

Edward will sometimes ask about the “Badge”. This is an over riding guess that can work for a dead relative in the military, police force, fire department, etc. It will normally go along these lines:

EDWARD: I see a badge. Who wore a badge?

CALLER: My Dad was in the police!

EDWARD: Yes, because they’re telling me he was in the police.

Edward claims specific knowledge although his guess was initially much more vague. The caller supplied the details that Edward pretended he got.

A similar guess is “Flag”. Edward sees them waving a flag – that can mean someone patriotic (in the military), or someone born (or died, etc) around the fourth of July, or a warning sign – the caller supplies the answer.

Dead Relative is “OK”

The sum total of most of these validating guesses is usually that the dead relative is “OK”. There’s never any useful actual information given – “the gold coins are buried _________”, or “the number of the Swiss bank account that you didn't know I had is ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________”, or “the name and address of the person who murdered me is __________”. Instead we always hear that the dead people are “OK”. Worthless. And, most importantly, totally unverifiable.

Do you understand?

Edward’s favorite. After a series of guesses that are clearly wrong (the caller hasn’t agreed with any), Edward will ask, aggressively “do you understand?” The caller will usually reply “yes” – ie they do understand what Edward is saying. But “I understand” is not the same as “you are correct”.  It can appear that even just a nod here can mean verification.

That covers all the squares. If anyone knows any of van Praagh’s specials, please add them to the comments. And have fun playing bingo. Usually the game is to get a straight line marked out. With these two bozos I think it should be possible to get the whole card marked off.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to The Amazing Randi for supplying the van Praagh techniques I included above .  Also thanks to members of the JREF  Forum, and  especially  Rob Lancaster for the "Pink Panther"  example.  And a huge thanks to Brett who built the randomized bingo card you see above.

Update - Friday November 16, 2007

The show was a total let down - no cold reading  despite the promise that the psychics would "take your calls" - just a load of vapid claims from a bunch of dopes that included Shirley MacLaine.  I'll leave the post up so that it's there for the next time they actually do have Edward doing his cold reading act.

26 November 07 - Edited to add:

I just posted about the actual program (which was not as advertised) - From The Sublime to The Ridiculous.

Ooh – it says Quantum

So it must be true. Today, Bad Science reports how an ex-cop from South Africa (pictured right) has a magic quantum box that can locate anyone in the world. And he’s been “helping” find missing British child Madeleine McCann (although rather strangely, she hasn’t been found yet). Read the Bad Science link for the details.

Anyway, this bit sounded like a testable claim:

Krugel, of the University of Bloemfontein, claims that his technique is able to locate a missing person anywhere in the world using only a single strand of hair.

Sounds like just the thing to win Randi’s Million, wouldn’t you think?  A fairly simple test would work. Give Krugel one strand of hair from each of (say) ten people randomly distributed throughout the world. Krugel is blind to who the hair comes from. He says he is 90% accurate – I say he just has to be right in the location of five of the ten people. Something like that anyway, depending on how accurate (within one mile?) he says he can be.  The guy should ace the test. And that would only be the start. The Nobel Prize would surely follow, after all, according to Krugel:

“…this is science, science, science! That is what is so fantastic about it. It is tied to the science we hear but people didn’t realise it… it’s just science. That’s it.”

So I decided to Email Danie Krugel to see if he was going to apply for the million. I wrote:

Mr. Krugel:

I was fascinated to read today of your quantum device that can locate a missing person anywhere in the world using only a single strand of hair. This ability would easily win the million dollars offered by James Randi (details here), and I wondered if you had applied. While I am sure you are not motivated primarily by money, winning this prize would prove to the world that your device works, and would open the door to further beneficial uses of the product in law enforcement and elsewhere. Could you advise me when and if you plan to apply for this challenge?

I’ll let you know if he replies. Of course, there’s nothing stopping anyone else clicking the link and sending him an email too.

Other reading from Moonflake blog

Midweek Cuckoo: Danie Krugel

Danie Krugel: First Contact – Krugel phones Moonflake and promises “some big event regarding his device”

Danie Krugel: Officially a Liar? – Krugel fails to make good on the promise detailed in the above link

Pseudoscientists, Psychics, and Pop Psychologists: Danie Krugel resurfaces on Carte Blanche – a skeptical review of Krugel’s recent appearance on South African TV.

Edited to add:

Commenters below gave me two additional links. First, it seems that James Randi has already offered Krugel the million if his device works.  Funnily enough, he never replied to Randi. Or to me.

Also, see Danie Krügel Facts (sic).

October 13, 2007 – The Observer apologizes for its credulous article on Krugel. Apparently some bloggers had introduced them to the actual facts about Krugel and his device.

And The Mirror on the parents of a missing man who were considerably less than impressed by Krugel.

Dr. Purr-vorkian I presume?

Several skeptical bloggers have commented on the story of Oscar the nursing-home cat who can apparently predict who is going to die next. Orac thinks this is just confirmation bias – the nursing home staff remember the hits and not the misses. The Bad Astronomer points out that we need more information – specifically how much time the cat really spends with the dying as opposed to those who live. All this is true.

I remember this cat from a TV program about a year ago, and I thought then that the cat probably just preferred to sleep with people who were really quiet and didn’t move much.

I don’t really have anything to add to this story. I’m only posting to show off the brilliant punning headline I thought up.  

Straw Men and Circular Reasoning

Several friends of mine are getting terribly excited about a new crop circle formation in England (shown above) that apparently couldn’t possibly have been produced by human hoaxers. You can read the details and eye witness reports online. Part One gives the meat of the claims regarding this new circle while Part Two focuses on the rather hysterical claims of “black helicopters” seen over the circles a few days later. I’m going to focus on the part one commentary, as this is the only section that contains any actual evidence (and I’m being generous) about the formation of these circles.

This New Circle

From the above link, this is what we know happened:

Several crop circle enthusiasts went to Knap Hill in England to do a “night watch” – ie look out for crop circles being formed.

They had a number of cameras, including some they claim were “light sensitive” (aren’t all cameras “light sensitive”?), and one they claim was infra-red.

No record is given of what time they got there, but the following picture was taken with the “light sensitive” camera at 1:35 am.

Nothing can be seen in this “light sensitive” picture. Nothing. And by that I mean there is no way to tell if there is a circle there already or not, or if people are there or not.  (Note: this picture is not a joke. It is the actual picture published on the website I linked, that supposedly proves there was no circle in the field at 1:35am. Seriously.)

There is no record of anything that might have taken place in the field before this 1:35am totally black photo.

There is no record of anything photographed with the infra-red camera, at any time.

At 3:08 am (approximately 90 minutes after the completely black photo), there is a big flash – presumably lightning.

There is no evidence at all that the lightning flash had anything to do with producing the circle.

At shortly some time after 3:20am the above photo was taken, showing an outline of the circle formation in the field. There is no similar photo taken earlier without the circle formation – just the totally black picture. Consequently we have no idea when this circle was produced, other than that (presumably) it was produced since sunset the previous day. Consequently we have no accurate idea of how long it took – and we certainly can’t conclude it was produced in under 90 minutes.

That’s it. That is the “incredible” information I was sent. Pretty underwhelming.

Further Nonsense

I want to highlight two other nonsensical claims made for this circle. The first is this:

[The crop stems] were just gently bent and people who have been doing crop circle research over the years, they have found this is how it usually is in genuine formations – that the stems are not broken.

They are referring to the pseudoscientific work of W.C Levengood (he’s the “L” in the crop circle research group BLT), who claims that only the stalks in “genuine” circles (ie those not produced by human hoaxers) show “abnormalities” not present in those produced by humans. How does he know which stalks come from “genuine” circles? Because they are the ones with the abnormalities only found in genuine circles. How does he know the abnormalities are only found in genuine circles? Because only genuine circles have the anomalies. How does he know….. er, you get the picture. Classic circular reasoning. (Make your own jokes.)  For more, read Joe Nickell on problems with Levengood's Crop-Circle Plant Research.

The second nonsensical claim is this:

The East Field is not a totally flat pancake field. It actually curves up and down. When you look at the formation from up above from an aerial photo, you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles. To make circles look 100% from the air in a field that has up and down hills, you cannot create 100% perfect circles on the ground. You have to create ovals. And that’s the case here. All the circles that are lying on a hill more than flat surface, they are ovals. To construct 100% correct oval in total darkness – everything you do is extremely difficult because you can’t see anything.

Really? From an aerial photo, “you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles”? Really? Well I took the “aerial photo” from the website and cropped one of the bigger circles to a rectangular shape and got this:

Note: it’s rectangular. I’m pretty sure an “absolutely 100% correct circle” would be cropped by a perfect square, not a rectangle. Take a ruler and measure the sides of the rectangle above if you don’t believe me – it contains nowhere near a perfect circle. Of course the believers might state that this picture isn’t directly above the circle and so wouldn’t show a perfect circle, but that’s not really my fault is it? If they’re claiming it’s a perfect circle from the air it’s really up to them to show an aerial photo that demonstrates a perfect circle. In reality, the field (as you can see from the early morning picture above) is close enough to flat that I doubt it makes any difference.

Flawed Logic

Crop circle believers the world over are all making the same logical mistake when they claim circles were not produced by humans. The logical fallacy can be demonstrated by this quote:

Under those dark conditions, I would consider that impossible and everyone I have spoken to among the researchers down here and also civil engineers who are used to land surveys – they say that to do that under those conditions and also within that limited time frame (90 minutes), they regard it as absolutely impossible for humans to do.

Here is the anatomy of their argument.  The believers don’t know how this circle was made in the time, and so they draw the conclusion it couldn’t possibly have been made by humans. The flaw in this way of thinking is this – you can’t draw any conclusion from a lack of knowledge. All we know is that these believers can’t figure out how it was done. But we can’t conclude from that that no one could have figured it out and done it. It’s the old Argument From Ignorance fallacy - the same fallacy employed by Intelligent Design proponents who claim something is too “irreducibly complex” to have evolved. But just because they can’t figure out how it evolved doesn’t mean it didn’t evolve. I’m sure some people do “regard it as absolutely impossible for humans” to have made this circle, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible for humans to have made it.

Here’s the thing: if you want to show that something other than humans produced these circles, you have to actually show some evidence that something other than humans actually produced these circles. It’s a pretty simple concept. Of course, for the believers to be able to do this they have to (1) have some idea (or hypothesis) of what produced them and how, and (2) find a way to falsify this hypothesis – test it in such a way that if their hypothesis is false it would fail the test. That’s how real science is done. Until they do that they’re just humans who aren’t smart enough to figure out what a different group of humans have actually done. And that’s true whether this circle was really made in 90 minutes, or not.

I’ve about done with this subject, but I wanted to quote the opinions of one of the credulous people interviewed in the report, to give you an idea of the mindset of these people and the beliefs that continue to fuel this crop circle nonsense:

I think there are other intelligences in this universe visiting and monitoring us. And I have a very strong feeling that our governments know a lot more about this than they will tell us. So, I think it is either something projected on the ground from an alien source. Or it is projected on the ground from an inter-dimensional source that we are not able to perceive with our senses. But definitely, this source has decided to present itself in a way that is so beautiful and that is not hostile that creates the most thrilling feelings within us and invite us to explore the unknown and invite us to start discussions about realities, consciousness … and it is an invitation to start growing as people again because we have for so long been stuck in our materialistic world view and it’s probably time to take the next step in the evolution of humankind. That’s my opinion.

This is what he’s saying. There are super intelligent aliens telling us we need to “grow” in unspecified ways and for unspecified reasons. Also, we need to abandon our “materialistic world view” (for no logical reason I can ascertain) and “evolve” to some unspecified higher level (although this is not how evolution works). Everything is being covered up by the government. And all this is being revealed in a way that only these crop circle believers (and the government, presumably) can understand.  I hope that isn’t what is happening, because if it is, these aliens aren’t nearly as smart as people think.

Some references

CSI Special Report by Joe Nickel

Crop Circle Confession in Scientific American

Levengood's Crop-Circle Plant Research by Joe Nickel

CircleMakers – the website of some of England’s actual crop circle makers – and they’re not aliens (as far as I know).

Note: photographs shown above are by Winston Keech and Lucy Pringle.

The Secret Exposed by The Chasers

I wrote earlier this year about the scam that is The Secret, and how The Law of Attraction is not an actual scientific law. Of course, I wrote using logic and facts. Boring! Anyway, reader Martin sent me a link to this You Tube clip.  These two Australian guys know the right way to do it – with humor. Brilliant humor. Worth watching all seven minutes.

I especially loved it at the end where they are in the dry cleaners and they “visualize” the clothes as being theirs. Unfortunately the shop owner had obviously also been watching The Secret – and she visualized them back.

Even More Drivel from Deepak Chopra

Via Pharyngula I learn of some more drivel from Deepak Chopra. He’s whining about skeptics and materialists again. It’s the same old rubbish:

Skeptics have a rigid mind-set, skeptics suppress new ideas, science is a religion, materialism is false, science isn’t the only way of knowing, science can’t understand spiritualism, yadda yadda…

I was going to deconstruct it paragraph by paragraph, but it all started to look a little familiar, and then I remembered how I wrote Is Deepak Chopra a negative or a positive for science and humanity? in Sept 2005, and responded to More Chopra drivel in January 2006. Click the links – I think I covered his lame arguments then, so I think I’ll save my time now.

Well, if Chopra can recycle his drivel I don’t see why I can’t recycle my debunking of it.

11th Annual Pigasus Awards

Randi has announced the 11^th Pigasus awards.  As always, the awards were announced via telepathy, winners were allowed to predict their victories, and the Flying Pig trophies were sent via psychokinesis. Randi sends; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of paranormal talent.

Here are the winners, with commentary by Randi:

Category #1, to the scientist who said or did the silliest thing related to the supernatural, paranormal or occult:

For 2006, it goes to UK biologist Rupert Sheldrake, for his "telephone telepathy" claims related to “morphic resonance. This man’s delusions increase as time goes by, and he comes up with sillier ideas every year.

Category #2, to the funding organization that supported the most useless study of a supernatural, paranormal or occult claim:

This year, it was earned by the Templeton Foundation, who spent $2.4 million and ten years on yet another ridiculous study, and no doubt will keep repeating this because they can’t get the message, that prayer doesn’t work.

Category #3, to the media outlet that reported as factual the most outrageous supernatural, paranormal or occult claims:

U.S. TV host Montel Williams, for persisting in promoting “psychic” Sylvia Browne, in spite of knowing exactly what she’s doing. Williams has shown, over the years, that his ratings are far more important to him than his integrity and his trusting audience.

Category #4, to the “psychic” performer who fooled the greatest number of people using the least talent:

Uri Geller – remember him? – who used the most tired old schoolboy trick in the book – moving-a-compass-using-a- magnet – on an Israeli TV series, thus garnering the most negative media reviews.

I’m not 100% sure I would call Sheldrake a “scientist”, although I could be wrong. He’s certainly said plenty of silly things. I’m also not 100% sure many people are fooled by Uri Geller any more, although I think we can all agree he has very little actual talent. I’m 100% behind the Montel nomination though – he’s someone who certainly deserves the award.

You just might be a Secretard if…

What are Secretards? Why the blind robotic followers of The Secret and its idiot child The Law of Attraction (LOA).

Note: I think the pronunciation should be Sec-REtards (the “sec” rhyming with the first syllable of “secretary,” and the emphasis on the “re” of “retards”) – although I’m open to discussion.  Edit:  It's been suggested the pronunciation should be "Secrete-Tard," in that they are secreting retarded arguments.  I'll leave the final decision to the individual reader.

Most believers use fallacious arguments, but the Secretards are the most illogical, immature, vindictive and gratuitously offensive commenters I’ve met in all my years debating with believers on the Web. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind people with differing views who are prepared to defend those views, even vigorously at times. And I don’t even object too much to believers who sometimes get a little rude, or who occasionally use bad language. We can all get carried away at times in debates, especially on the Web. But the Secretards take this to another level in their complete inability to acknowledge contradictory arguments, combined with a nastiness and vindictiveness that is the equal of the anti-vaccination groups. With the degree of vitriol they spit, you have to wonder if they aren’t a little too invested in something that perhaps, deep down, they know isn’t true.

The purpose of this post is to summarize the fallacious arguments used by the Secretards. Admittedly some of these arguments are generic to all woos, but the majority are Secret specific. So with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy and his “You just might be a redneck” shtick, and to Orac and his You just might be an altie post, I give you, you just might be a Secretard if... Here goes:

1. If you repeatedly state that skeptics are negative people, you just might be a Secretard.
2. If you claim that the burden of proof is with the skeptics to prove The Secret is not valid, you just might be a Secretard.
3. If you start your comment by saying “skepticism is healthy” and then spend the rest of the comment, and numerous comments that follow, arguing that skepticism is unhealthy, you just might be a Secretard.
4. If you claim the LOA “always works, every time, no exceptions,” you just might be a Secretard.
5. If you claim the LOA is a scientific law just like gravity, and yet cannot produce one citation showing the LOA is a scientific law, you just might be a Secretard.
6. If you misrepresent what the laws of gravitation actually say and ignore all explanations about how the laws of gravitation are different from the LOA, you just might be a Secretard.
7. If you say you never said the LOA always works, every time, no exceptions, and yet you still support The Secret, you just might be a Secretard.
8. If you state that when the LOA doesn’t work for someone it’s because it was IMPROPERLY APPLIED (bonus points for using ALL CAPS as in the example), you just might be a Secretard.
9. If you state that God (or the universe) answers all prayers (or requests), but sometimes the answer is "No", you just might be a Secretard.
10. If you equivocate by arguing that being positive, confident etc will make people react more positively towards you, will tend to make you more successful etc. and then sneakily use this as an argument in favor of the “thoughts become things” and “it always works every time” woo version expressed in the film, you just might be a Secretard.
11. If you state that the observer, in the act of observing, changes the observed, and/or reference Schrödinger’s Cat as though it proves something, and/or parrot any other poorly understood Quantum Mechanics, you just might be a Secretard.
12. If you try to support the above by copying and pasting definitions from quantum mechanics sites you just found with Google in an attempt to show that you really do understand quantum mechanics, you just might be a Secretard.
13. If you state that for hundreds of years nobody could prove the presence of atoms, electricity or radio waves, or that people used to think the Earth was flat, or that for years we couldn’t get to the Moon, as if these were actual valid arguments in favor of The Secret, you just might be a Secretard.
14. If you claim The Secret is a radical paradigm shift that skeptics are just not ready to hear, you just might be a Secretard.
15. If you cite What The (Bleep) Do We Know!?, in all seriousness, as a reference, you just might be a Secretard.
16. If you state this cannot be “New Age Garbage” since the technique has been practiced for thousands of years, you just might be a Secretard.
17. If you state that we only use 10% (or some other randomly chosen percentage) of our brain, you just might be a Secretard.
18. If you later claim you meant the “mind” not the “brain”, you just might be a Secretard.
19. If you fail, when asked, to produce evidence that we only use 10% of our brain mind, although this was your claim, you just might be a Secretard.
20. If you state “recently absolutely everything I’ve put my focus on has come to pass,” and then as evidence for this produce a detailed list of your recent successes in getting a better job, better health, better sex etc, you just might be a Secretard.
21. If you state that a little girl who was brutally raped attracted the rape because in a past life she was possibly, herself, a rapist, you just might be a Secretard.
22. If you Suggest that the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust attracted their fate, and/or the ones practicing The Secret were the ones who survived, you just might be a Secretard.
23. If you ask skeptics “what contributions have you made to society” as if this were a valid argument for your position, you just might be a Secretard.
24. If you state that skeptics are being skeptical for skeptic sake (whatever that means), you just might be a Secretard.
25. If you ask “where did they say that you can solve a traffic jam just by thinking about it?” although this was part of the film, you just might be a Secretard.
26. If you say that if thoughts cannot create reality this means we can’t own or possess anything that is man made, as if you thought this argument actually made any sense, you just might be a Secretard.
27. If you claim that this concept of the universe has flown over skeptics’ heads, you just might be a Secretard.
28. If you call skeptics sad, sad sacks, a sad lot, unsuccessful, pessimistic, incomplete, frustrated, little boys, pitiful, losers, dumb, misfits, negative, should have beens, drones, sad (again), who “deserve each other”, or any combination of the above, you just might be a Secretard.
29. If you include all of the above insults in one long content-free rant after all your arguments have been debunked, and right before you flounce off for good with the final line ‘I’m gone and I leave you with your angst forever’, you just might be a Secretard.
30. If you post silly, childish, vulgar comments on this blog under the names of several other regular commenters, as though this tactic somehow strengthened your position, you just might be a Secretard.
31. If you start your own pseudo-blog where you complain that skeptics don’t allow you free speech to comment exactly as you wish, and yet on this “blog” of yours you don’t allow anyone to comment at all, you just might be a Secretard.
32. If you state that skeptics are negative thinking people (yes, I know this is a repeat), you just might be a Secretard.
33. If you continue with any of the above arguments even after they have been debunked three, four or five times the same day in the same thread, you just might be a Secretard.

The comments are open, in case I missed any.

Secretrons? Secretoids?

Connie calls them Secretrons. I think I prefer Secretoids. Who am I talking about? Why the blind robotic followers of The Secret and its idiot child The Law of Attraction (LOA).

Maybe there is an even better name. I’m writing up a new article specifically about the blind followers of this new cult/scam – the ones who are beyond rational discussion and examination of evidence (or lack of it) - and wondered what name you think I should use to describe them. A kind of "The Secret" equivalent of "Altie".  Ideas in the comments please by Thursday night.

April Fool’s Day

I got nothing. So I’m going to be lame and link to my April 1 2005 post - New study fails to detect Psi. As far as I know, this study is still in progress, although it still has no success to report.

I’ve Been Dug!

Or is it Digged? Not sure what the kids are calling it.

This blog’s been running for some time at about 1,500 visitors a day – occasionally rising to 2,000 or just above. That’s not bad although clearly not in the same league as Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy or even Respectful Insolence. Anyway, last Sunday The Bad Astronomer linked to my How do you prove photography to a blind man? post from two years ago.  That link gave me a boost to just over 3,000 visitors last Sunday – quite a lot for a weekend.

Someone obviously liked the post and it was submitted to StumbleUpon, Reddit and especially Digg. The SiteMeter tells the story:

A lot more people than normal (approximately 110,000 more) were exposed to the skeptical view of psychics and parapsychology. And perhaps some will stay around, read the “Classic Skeptico Posts” linked in the right hand column. I hope they enjoy it. And  thanks for the plug, Phil.

One problem though – as you can see, March is now a very impressive month for visitor numbers compared with previous months. April’s going to have its work cut out to keep up!

Schrödinger’s Cat

What have you done to the cat, Erwin? He looks half dead."

- Mrs. Schrödinger.

The above quotation is attributed to Erwin Schrödinger's wife – apparently an early animal rights activist. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was reminded of Schrödinger’s Cat after reading this comment and this comment recently. Each of these commenters enlisted Schrödinger’s Cat to prove some facts woo they were promoting. Unfortunately for them it does no such thing.

First, for those unfamiliar with it, a summary of the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment:

Schrödinger imagined that a cat is locked in a box, along with a radioactive atom that is connected to a vial containing a deadly poison. If the atom decays, it causes the vial to smash and the cat to be killed. When the box is closed we do not know if the atom has decayed or not, which means that [the cat] can be in both the decayed state and the non-decayed state at the same time. Therefore, the cat is both dead and alive at the same time...

Note: the cat is both dead and alive at the same time. The woo’s argument goes: this is really weird and counterintuitive, therefore __________ (insert preferred brand of woo) is real. There are several flaws in this line of reasoning.

First, from this translation of Schrödinger's original "cat paradox paper", we know that Schrödinger was deliberately presenting this dead and alive scenario as a “quite ridiculous” case. In other words, since a cat obviously cannot be both dead and alive at the same time, the extreme version of the Copenhagen interpretation (the version that says consciousness is necessary), must be wrong. This could be because “observation” really means “measurement” (ie the Geiger counter measuring the atomic decay is the “observer”), or because Copenhagen itself is wrong. Either way, it is amusing when woos throw Schrödinger’s Cat into the debate, quite oblivious to the fact that is was designed to show the exact opposite of what they think it shows.

But there is a more fundamental reason Schrödinger’s Cat doesn’t support the woo position.

I Taught I Taw A Puddy Tat

Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment only. Thought experiments can be useful to explain a complex idea, or to get people to question assumptions, but a thought experiment cannot by itself prove or disprove anything. To prove or disprove something, you have to perform a real experiment. Schrödinger’s Cat has never actually been performed as a real experiment, and in my view could never even in principle be performed as a real experiment. The reason should be obvious. Schrödinger’s Cat says the cat is both dead and alive until we look at it. But we cannot tell if the cat is dead or alive until we look at it. It’s Catch-22: to perform Schrödinger’s Cat we’d have to look at the experiment without looking at it. Clearly impossible. So it proves nothing.

Of course, this also means that Schrödinger’s point wasn’t proven either: since we can’t say for sure that the cat isn’t both dead and alive, we can’t say if Copenhagen is right or wrong. The “consciousness is necessary” interpretation of QM is unfalsifiable.

But even if the experiment could be performed, and the dead and alive at the same time position confirmed, that still wouldn’t support the many woo claims made for quantum mechanics. If you want to demonstrate that something is true, you need to show some actual evidence that the thing actually is true. Just because quantum mechanics is weird and counterintuitive yet true, it doesn’t follow that any weird and counterintuitive woo is also true.

Poor Puddy Tat!

Oprah's ugly secret

Powerful piece in Salon today criticizing Oprah’s support for The Secret. The final page has what I though was the best stuff:

[The Secret is] indistinguishable from, and inextricably bound up in, the Oprah idea of self-esteem, the kind of confidence you get not from testing yourself, but from "believing" in yourself. This modern idea of faith isn't arrived at the old-fashioned way, by asking questions, but by getting answers. Instead of inquiry we have born-again epiphanies and cheesy self-help books -- we have excuses for not engaging in inquiry at all. Let other people schlep down the road to Damascus; we'll have Amazon send Damascus to us.

[…]

Not that any of this is new. Aimee Semple McPherson, "The Power of Positive Thinking," Father Coughlin, est, James Van Praagh -- pick your influential snake-oil salesman or snake oil. They were all cut from the same cloth as Oprah and "The Secret." The big, big difference is, well, the bigness. The infinitely bigger reach of the Oprah empire and its emissaries. They make their predecessors look like kids with lemonade stands. It would be stupidly dangerous to dismiss Oprah and "The Secret" as silly, or ultimately meaningless. They're reaching more people than Harry Potter, for God-force's sake. That's why what Oprah does matters, and stinks. If you reach more people than Bill O'Reilly, if you have better name recognition than Nelson Mandela, if the books you endorse sell more than Stephen King's, you should take some responsibility for your effect on the culture. The most powerful woman in the world is taking advantage of people who are desperate for meaning, by passionately championing a product that mocks the very idea of a meaningful life.

The writer reminds us that Oprah publicly humiliated James Frey for claiming that his book "A Million Little Pieces" was the truth, when in fact he had made a lot of it up. Oprah publicly exposed Frey’s dishonesty. It’s a pity she doesn’t apply the same high minded standards to everything else on her show. Although perhaps if she did, she wouldn’t have much of a show left.

Aliens Ready to Help?

A Canadian ex-defense minister, who claims he saw a UFO in 2005, wants the world’s governments to disclose secret alien technologies (presumed to have been obtained from captured UFOs at Roswell and the like), to prevent global warming:

Paul Hellyer, 83, is calling for a public disclosure of alien technology obtained during alleged UFO crashes -- such as the mysterious 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- because he believes alien species can provide humanity with a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

[…]

"Climate change is the No. 1 problem facing the world today," he said. "I'm not discouraging anyone from being green conscious, but I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet."

I’m sure the aliens could provide the advanced technology we need to eliminate the need for fossil fuels. Just as soon as they’ve finished their experiments abducting hillbillies, mutilating cattle and scaring people at Chicago Airport. Expect them any day now.

(Thanks to reader Tyler for the link.)

Warning: cattle mutilations ahead!