For those of you who don’t follow the skeptic movement (yes, there is such a thing) it’s basically a group of people who are fans of critical thinking, science-advocates, and debunkers of “woo.” Woo being magical thinking in general, and things like homeopathy, ghosts, bigfoot, astrology, psychics, vaccine denial, moon hoaxers, conspiracy theorists, some forms of religion and so on ad infinitum. And this group has a loose organizational structure, and meets and gathers in forums, and has conventions and leaders. So, that’s the background there.
Recently, within that group, there was a minor stir when Phil Plait, former President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, made a little speech about the tone of skeptical arguments. His message, as he often sums it up, was simply “don’t be a dick.” It’s a catchphrase he borrowed from internet maven, Wil Wheaton. He is “concerned” that skeptics are engaging in “childish, demeaning behavior” and “taking the low road.” He’s afraid that people are being aggressive, and calling people “retards” and “idiots.” He’s playing the role of the tone police, for lack of a better term.Continue reading »
Polls are without a doubt one of the most dubious means of ascertaining public opinion. Especially when small, selectively or self-sampled, and biased through weasel-wording. Basically, the smaller the number of respondents, the easier it is for numbers to be blown out of proportion, and effectively make a tiny number of people represent a huge populace. Internet polls are particularly dubious, since polls are often posted on sites that are specifically geared to a certain response, thus being self-skewed in favor of a specific answer. Add to that some carefully worded questions or choices for answers, and a poll can be a great tool for driving public opinion, rather that reflecting it. Hell, politicians have been doing that for ages.
THEY LIVE!
All this builds up to my skepticism in viewing this article in the Telegraph, which basically states that a poll showed that 20% of respondents believed that aliens existed and were walking among us right here on our very own planet Earth. I mean, come on! One in FIVE?!?! The first thing I checked was the sample size…it might be tiny. Turns out it’s 23,000. That’s a pretty robust poll. But there the data on this poll ends. The article gives no information about who conducted the poll, or the methodology.
Google reveals a scant few articles about this poll, with most simply dropping the 20% number in a quick blurb along with a sensationalist headline and moving on to other things. I finally discovered that it was Reuters which commissioned the poll, and found their initial article about it. They also don’t reveal the methodology. The polling firm, Ipsos, has a little blurb about it but says nothing about the nature of the poll or how data was gathered.
So, bottom line? The information is interesting. If the responses correlate with the actual public opinion, then the findings are downright scary. Frankly, I don’t find them that hard to believe. People believe weird stuff. If accurate, then nearly 45% of Indians and Chinese think aliens are among us! They Live!! Additionally it says something interesting about relatively secular and socialist countries like Belgium, Sweden, and The Netherlands. Only about 8% of them put any stock in the idea. But all this is pointless if the poll was biased or flawed. Where is the careful reporting on this subject?
Now that I’ve blathered on about how silly polls can be, here’s one for you. Have at it….what’s your take?
Good news! The crew from one of my favorite podcasts has made the jump to YouTube! The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe is a podcast dealing with critical thinking and skepticism, and promoting science and reason. It’s one of the top rated science podcasts on iTunes, and I’ve been an avid listener for some time now.
Well, they are now taking portions of their hour and a half-long podcasts and uploading them to YouTube along with some visual aids. So far there is only one video, but it’s a great start. Check out their YouTube video after the break…Continue reading »
I don’t know how many of you frequent sites like youTube. But, if you do, chances are you might cross paths with a weird video or two. Go have a look, and you will find literally thousands of videos of ghosts, monsters, gnomes, angels, and UFOs. Cool, huh?!?! Okay, here’s an example that is extraordinary because it’s actually from a real US TV News segment!
Okay, spooky stuff, huh? I actually was first alerted to this video a few months ago, when one of my favorite podcasts (SGU) mentioned it and offered a few theories about what it is.
So… I recently ran across a guy calling himself “Captain Disillusion,” who has some excellent youTube debunking videos! Yeah, he’s a bit weird, but he knows his stuff. The vids are actually very entertaining, so I thought I would share. Here’s one about that very same “Blue Ghost” from the clip above.
If you enjoyed that, you can look at some of his other debunking videos here. Keep up the great work Captain Disillusion!
A long, long time ago, I was a God. Yes, it’s true. I was the God of the chipmunks. My college years, while educational, were mostly wasted, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be learned from them. I recently heard a scientific reason for the random credulity of my friends in school.
So, basically what happened was this: I began noticing that chipmunks were omnipresent around me in school. They often appeared randomly outside my window as I worked diligently on papers. They would run suddenly across my path as I walked around campus. Sometimes they would even stop directly in front of me, in a worshipful reverence. The conclusion, I was acting God to the chipmunk community on my college campus. As I revealed this hypothesis to my friends, they too began to notice this extraordinary phenomenon! What a revelation!
So the question becomes, what powerful effect could bring a group of educated people to believe something so whacked? The answer, I recently found, is something called “confirmation bias.” Ta daa! Okay, so confirmation bias is a very common psychological effect that basically results in people looking for data to support a pre-established conclusion. In this case, the conclusion was that I was God to the chipmunks, and people would find evidence for that and use it to support the hypothesis. So, with that hypothesis in mind, every chipmunk sighting was carefully catalogued into peoples’ memories, as long as I was around, and events involving chipmunks without my presence were forgotten. The result is that people began to notice those events, and mistakenly catalogue them as evidence of my deification.
Okay, so my friends might not have been as credulous as I’m leading you to believe here, but I’m making a point about the way people record memories and use them to support beliefs. This in turn can be linked to hundreds of real world phenomena, and can explain how people come to believe strange things. The point? I’m not a chipmunk God (go figure) and chipmunk experiences declined rapidly in conjunction with my subsequent move to heavily urbanized New York City. Perhaps the chipmunks were appearing for other reasons, and my own bias led me to my fallacious conclusions. Or, maybe the chipmunks still worship me from afar, thinking I will return someday (a second coming, if you will) to lead them to the great acorn in the sky.
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