 the
Skeptic's Dictionary Newsletter
42
June 7, 2004
Evolution "is a scientific theory only, and
it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not
yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it was once
believed."*
--Ronald Reagan
In this issue: A few updates;
some book recommendations;
evidence of another direct hit 250 million years ago;
The Skeptic's Toolbox; The Scientific Evidence for
the Paranormal; Pranks, Frauds, and Hoaxes from Around
the World; Enlightenment Hoaxes;
the Royal Navy hires some ghosthunters;
the Swiss Bank Scam; and more on
passive smoking.
Changes in The Skeptic's Dictionary
and The Skeptic's Refuge
I updated the vampires
entry. Thanks to Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula: Sense & Nonsense
(Desert Island Books, 2000) for noting that Bram Stoker did not base his
vampire Count on Vlad the Impaler. He borrowed Vlad's nickname (Dracula) for
a vampire character he had already conceived (and tentatively named Count
Wampyr).
I posted
another report on a study that failed to find a link between vaccines and autism.
I've posted several such reports now.
I updated the Aleister Crowley entry to include a link to an excerpt from
Alex Owen's The Place of Enchantment British Occultism and the Culture of
the Modern. The excerpt is Chapter Six,
Aleister
Crowley in the Desert.
I updated the lunar
effects entry to include a link to an
article from space.com about a recently published study that found no
significant relationship between the full moon and epileptic seizures.
I posted some
comments about Daniel Wirth and the possibility of fraud in an
intercessory prayer study published in the Journal of Reproductive
Medicine.
I updated the alternative
medicine entry to include a link to an
article about a report on alternative medicine in Australia that found a
large number of quacks in the business. What a shock!
I updated the astrology
page to include a link to
Ivan
Kelly's response to the reviews in the Guardian and The Sunday
Times of Percy Seymour's The Scientific Proof of Astrology
(2004). (Ivan's response is posted on a great site:
Butterflies and Wheels.
Their motto is "fighting fashionable nonsense." Try it. I think you'll like
it.) Seymour, for those of you who haven't followed this item, is a
respected astronomer who also dabbles in the paranormal and astrology.
I posted comments from readers critical of my entries on
Rolfing and
Slick 50. I also
posted some of my typically benign and carefully worded responses to those
comments.
***
Books
Edward Larson's
Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory is one of
the best reads I've had in a long time. This is history of science at its
best. Larson doesn't get bogged down in all the minute details that
polemicists love to focus on. Nor does he seem to have an agenda. He seems
to present a
fair and balanced account of the ups and downs of Darwin's theory (as well
as of other theories of evolution) until a consensus is reached in the
twentieth century when enough is known about genetics to seal the deal for
natural selection. Seeing the intelligent design (ID) movement in the
historical context of the scientific debate that has raged ever since Darwin
may awaken a few fence-sitters to the philosophical/religious nature of ID.
Some of the fence-sitters might appreciate what Larson has to say about
altruism, since it seems that many anti-evolutionists think that altruism
shouldn't occur if Darwinian natural selection is real. They seem to think
that since nature is cruel and wasteful, and genes are selfish and care only
about replication, altruism shouldn't have evolved. "If nature selects
solely for traits leading to an individual's survival or reproductive
success, as classical Darwinism suggested, then self-sacrifice (except to
aid one's own descendants) must have a supernatural source" (271). However,
[William D.] Hamilton proposed a purely Darwinist account for altruism by
shifting the level of selection to the gene. Take social insects, he
proposed. Because of the peculiar way they reproduce, female ants, wasps,
and bees share more genes in common with their sisters (75 percent) than
with their own children (50 percent) or brothers (25 percent). Thus, from
the gene's point of view, female ants achieve greater reproductive success
by aiding their sisters than their offspring...all sterile worker ants are
female....(272)
Kin-based and reciprocal altruism are found in several types of social
animals. It provides an enormous adaptive advantage (281).
***
I also recommend Susan Blackmore's
Consciousness: An Introduction. Unlike evolution, where one hundred
and fifty years of debate, observation, experiment, and argument have led to
a consensus among biologists regarding neo-Darwinism (natural selection in
light of genetics), the same can't be said for consciousness. Blackmore
reviews dozens of theories of consciousness, each with its reputable
proponents. Even though this is a textbook, I think it will have great
appeal to the general reader. The exercises alone are worth the price of the
book. She will have you asking yourself questions you've probably never
thought of asking before. It is a shame she has quit her university post.
One can tell by her enthusiastic writing that she loves to teach.
***
Young Earth
Here's a story you won't find at Dinosaur Adventure Land (the young earth
creationist theme park mentioned in the last newsletter):
Signs of Crater Linked to Mass Extinction Said Found. The journal
Science reports that some scientists think they have found evidence of a
250 million-year-old crater off the coast of Australia known as the Bedout
High. Core samples show a melt layer like that which forms when a meteor
crashes into earth. And material from the core samples dates to about 250
million years ago, a time when 90 percent of the planet’s marine life and 80
percent of life on land had gone extinct.
***
Skeptic's Toolbox
CSICOP has announced the dates and topic for
its next Skeptic's
Toolbox. The topic is going to be "the unconscious" according to the
latest research in cognitive science, social psychology, and neuroscience.
The dates are August 12-15, 2004, at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR.
The faculty
are the same great folks who put on the workshop that
I raved about last
year: Jim Alcock, Barry Beyerstein, Ray Hyman, Loren Pankratz, and Wally
Sampson. Throw in Jerry Andrus and his wonderful world of illusions and you
have the makings of another don't-miss program. I've sent in my
registration. What are you waiting for?
***
The Scientific Evidence for the
Paranormal
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I've
posted my course outline for
Critical Thinking
About the Paranormal and the Occult. The course will examine the
evidence and arguments in Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe and
Gary Schwartz's The Afterlife Experiments, among other things. I've
prepared a PowerPoint presentation that critically examines Radin's claim
that “Scientists have essentially proven that psi exists.” I presented a
version of this talk to the Sacramento Skeptics and will be presenting a
revised (a very, very revised) version of the talk in
Dublin, Ireland, on June
23rd. I'm being hosted by the Irish Skeptics, which pleases me greatly
but which would probably have my father, my grandmother Kennedy, my
great-grandmother Kelly, and my great-great-grandmother Dugan all turning in
their Catholic graves. If you're in Ireland on the 23rd, stop by the
Davenport
Hotel at 8 PM.
Pranks, Frauds, and Hoaxes from Around the World
I've been asked about getting a copy of my
talk at the CSICOP conference on
Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias presented last October. Look for it in an
upcoming issue of the Skeptical Inquirer.
Enlightenment Hoaxes
Enlightenment hoaxes are generally benign hoaxes meant to enlighten
people by first deceiving them and then revealing the deceit. (I got the
name from Jose Alvarez who explained the goal of his continued use of the
Carlos hoax in one word:
enlightenment.) I've given a couple of talks where I compare the value of
such hoaxes with other methods that skeptics use to cast doubt upon
paranormal claims. Some examples of enlightenment hoaxes are the
Steve Terbot hoax
(Bob Steiner), Michael Shermer's
psychic for a day, Ian
Rowland's
Primetime appearance where he used
cold reading techniques
to appear to get messages from the dead, and
Project Alpha.
How effective are such hoaxes? That is one of the questions I explore in my
talk. I also note that not all skeptics are in agreement on the ethical
justification of playing with people's emotions by pretending to get
messages from dead relatives.
Joe Nickell, for
instance, questions this practice. My view is that even the morally
questionable hoaxes had to be done to demonstrate the claim made by skeptics
that there are non-paranormal ways to get the same effect as John Edward,
for example. Until somebody actually did what Ian Rowland and others have
done using cold reading techniques, the claim that so-called mediums are
using cold reading techniques remains empty. I am well aware that the common
response to such hoaxes is the same refrain that true believers have been
bellowing since the first fake psychic was exposed: Just because he can
cheat doesn't mean he does. Or, just because you caught him cheating,
doesn't mean he always cheats. Nothing Ian Rowland does can prove
that John Edward is a phony. But the claim that anyone good at cold reading
can get the same results is testable and, in my opinion, should be tested
even if it upsets a few people.
Now, to the point for mentioning all this. A live TV hoax of a séance
using a ouija board by
illusionist Derren Brown became
one of the most complained about shows in history, according to
BBC news. More than 700 complaints were lodged, most of them before
the show even aired on Channel 4. During the show, Brown assembled 12 students and told
them he would be contacting the deceased using a Ouija board. They were told
that the house they were in was the scene of a mass suicide. His goal was to
show how easy it is to convince susceptible people that séances make contact
with spirits. According to Brown's website, the complaints came "mainly from
Christians who felt that such a show would usher in demonic forces." Here is
his commentary on the complaints:
One doesn't want to attack anyone's personal beliefs, but having been a
Christian myself, I remember how wonderful it was to decide one was
'offended' by something: Such a feeling allows one to hold one's head up
high when one might feel otherwise outcast, and to bewilder others into a
kind of apologetic stupor. Certainly much more rewarding than trying to
take an objective look at the 'offending' matter....
I'm on Brown's side and hope I get a chance to see him perform someday.
Ghosts in the Hangman's Closet?
The British Royal Navy has allowed a group
of folks calling themselves paranormal investigators to "scientifically"
examine a hangman's cell at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth, the Royal
Navy's largest naval base. According to the
Scotsman.com,
the cell is allegedly haunted. The team of experts, including a couple of
psychics, found proof of the haunting. They not only measured a change in
temperatures (which would be proof enough for me), they also found evidence
that spiritual beings are rampant in the place. They'll undoubtedly file a
full report with the Queen in due time.
Old Twist on the Nigerian Bank Scam
I realize that just by mentioning this scam many subscribers will not get
this newsletter because the AOL filters will find it offensive.
Nevertheless, I must tell you about the revival of a variant of this virus,
the Swiss Bank Scam. I recently received an e-mail telling me of my good
fortune ($14,000,000 is all mine). It came from someone calling himself (or
herself) Sylva Tommel, Ph.D. with an e-mail address at
tommy7o@uymail.com
Sylva identifies himself as a member of Independent Committee of Eminent
Persons (ICEP), Switzerland. He claims that "ICEP is charged with the
responsibility of finding bank accounts in Switzerland belonging to
non-Swiss indigenes, which have remained dormant since World War II." Most
belonged to Holocaust victims, I'm told. Here's the pitch.
The Claims Resolution Tribunal (CRT) handles processing of all claims
on accounts due non-Swiss citizens. A dormant account of ORDNER ADELE with
a credit balance of 35,000,000 US dollar plus accumulated interest was
discovered by me. The beneficiary was murdered during the holocaust era,
leaving no WILL and no possible records for trace of heirs.
Being a top executive at ICEP, I have all secret details and necessary
contacts for claim of the funds without any hitch. The funds will be
banked in the Cayman Island, being a tax free, safe haven for funds and we
can share the funds and use in investment of our choice.
Due to the sensitive nature of my job, I need a foreigner to HELP claim
the funds. All that is required is for you to provide me with your details
for processing of the necessary legal and administrative claim documents
for transfer of the funds to you.
All I have to do to collect my share of the stolen loot is provide my
name, address, and telephone number. A numbered account will be set up in my
name in the Cayman Island. And to relieve me of any concern I might have,
Sylva writes in caps: THERE IS NO RISK INVOLVED. I feel better already.
The really tricky part about this scam is that the mark is told
You can find additional information about unclaimed funds through the
internet at the following websites:
www.swissbankclaims.com
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9902/09/germany.holocaust/
www.avotaynu.com
www.icheic.org
www.livingheirs.com
www.wiesenthal.com
I'm sure some people will go to these sites and think, hey, this might be
legitimate after all. I'm not psychic but I predict that this scam has
netted and will continue to net a few victims worldwide.
Anyone wishing to collect my share is welcome to it. Write to
tommy7o@uymail.com Let us know how
things work out.
Secondhand smoke (passive smoking, ETS or environmental
tobacco smoke)
Jasen writes:
I am a casual reader of the Skeptic.com newsletter, but an article
regarding Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode regarding the risks of passive
smoke caught my eye. As a non-smoker and a rational thinker I was forced to
admit that the evidence of the EPA studies is damning to any case that
passive smoke contributes measurably to the prevalence of lung cancer.
However, this conclusion brings into question other statements made
regarding the practice and toxicity of tobacco smoke in general. If one were
to believe the experts in the medical industry, my physician for example,
one would believe that the practice of smoking has a negative impact on the
health of the smoker. Many physicians believe that this habit leads to a
greater probability of disease onset such as lung cancer, emphysema and
certain types of heart diseases.
So am I to believe now that on the one hand exposure to high
concentrations of tobacco smoke in the smoker's lung leads to increased risk
of disease, while on the other that same smoke at lower concentrations in
the air does not increase the risks of the same diseases?
comment: It's not just the concentration, Jasen, but the depth of
inhaling, the amount of inhaling each day, and the number of years of
inhaling that differentiate the smoker from the passive smoker.
Since I have seen physical evidence to suggest that the practice of
smoking is damaging to the lung tissue of the smoker (the lung tissue
comparisons are quite an obvious tell of this damage), I must question the
motives of those seeking to defend the public practice of such a destructive
habit. The fact that economic gain even enters into this question puts
further doubt onto the objectivity of one making a defense out of negating
the relevance of the EPA study. The facts remain quite plain. Tobacco smoke
destroys lung tissue. This is not a question, supposition or hypothesis that
is to be debated. It is a fact that is irrefutably found to be true in the
biopsy or autopsy of smokers. So the question is can that same damage can be
done to those in the vicinity of the poisons exhaled by that smoker? The
laws of gas expansion state quite clearly that particles in the air will
spread evenly until equilibrium is achieved unless acted upon by another
force. Given this understanding of physics one can safely say that the gases
and particles exhaled by the smoker will dissipate through a large area
rather quickly until they are acted upon by some force (gravity, etc). I see
no mention of these basic physic's principles in the negating observations
mentioned and I find this peculiar to say the least. How is it that a
particulate mixture trapped in the air can be harmful going into one lung,
but not the next? Two answers come to mind and again, I find these
suggestions conspicuously missing from the pro-smoker's repertoire.
1. The concentration of poisons is less when the smoke is exhaled
(dissipated into the air) 2. The lungs are different (some are susceptible
to lung disease and others are not regardless of concentration)
Either of these being the case, begs the same argument. Why are we
opposed to controlling a harmful practice's effects on those who do not wish
to participate in that practice?
The bottom line here to me is that I did not see any of these questions
being explored by opponents of the ban. Rather the issues were the financial
impact that bans have on bars, restaurants, etc. These are entirely
unrelated phenomena. We are not studying whether the ban should be in place
or its effects. We are studying if, when, and how smokers are a hazard to
public spaces because of their use of a substance known to cause lung tissue
damage. The financial health of a bar is a moot point here.
Lastly, I must say that it is irresponsible of those pushing this ban to
use studies that fall apart under scrutiny to justify their opinion, but it
is equally irresponsible of the "right to smoke" peddlers to justify their
opinions by the negation of said study and some irrelevant issues about
financial hardship complaints of business owners. Simply because there is no
statistical significance found in one study, does not mean that the
variables in question have been concretely understood. I am an advocate for
more detailed and more accurate studies of these effects because in the end
we may find that there is a specific condition that must be met first in
order for smokers to be hazardous to public health. If we understood that
condition, we may yet find a compromise for both parties thus bringing to
rest this issue in an equitable manner for all concerned. Unfortunately, it
is the issues that I see being debated which are irrelevant to the facts. An
individual does not have the right to threaten the group. Therefore, what we
should be studying is if the one is truly a threat to the many. If so, the
one has no rights. If not, the many have no case against the one.
Jasen raises many interesting issues. I don't intend to get into a
debate over the merits of smoking or of smoking in public places. When I
brought up the issue of passive smoke, it was in the context of checking up
on a claim made by Penn and Teller that there is no scientific evidence that
passive smoke causes lung cancer. I found that P & T are correct.
[I NOW (OCTOBER
29, 2005) REALIZE P & T WERE WRONG. SEE RETRACTION IN
NEWSLETTER 41.] Furthermore, I found that the health agencies that warn against the dangers
of passive smoke all base their claim on the questionable 1993 EPA study
mentioned in the last newsletter. My concern was with finding out who is
telling the truth. This, however, now leads to the question as to why the
EPA either lied or distorted the truth, and why so many other health
agencies went along without questioning the EPA's argument. I agree that
issues such as the cost of the ban are red herrings.
[I NO LONGER
CONSIDER THIS STUDY QUESTIONABLE. THE LYING AND DISTORTION HAS COME FROM THE
TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND ITS CRONIES IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WHO HAVE INTRODUCED
STANDARDS WHOSE AIM IS TO PROTECT SUCH INDUSTRIES FROM THE COSTLY EFFECTS OF
REGULATIONS RATHER THAN TO PROTECT THE HEALTH OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. THE
STUDY IS QUESTIONABLE ONLY TO THOSE WHO USE THE STANDARDS ADVOCATED BY THE
TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND THEIR REPUBLICAN ALLIES BEHIND SUCH THINGS AS THE
DATA QUALITY ACT. (SEE CHRIS
MOONEY'S THE
REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE). I ADMIT IT: I WAS DUPED.]
I also mentioned that a California legislator had proposed a bill that
would make it a crime for any adult to smoke in a car when a minor is
present. That bill is now dead. However, we now have Assembly Bill 1808,
which would ban smoking on all California state beaches. Stay tuned.
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