2560 lines
111 KiB
Plaintext
2560 lines
111 KiB
Plaintext
From: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson)
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Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,news.answers
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Subject: sci.skeptic: The Frequently Questioned Answers
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Message-ID: <skeptic-faq_724518324@gec-mrc.co.uk>
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Date: 16 Dec 92 15:10:41 GMT
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Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, Essex
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Lines: 2158
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Archive-name: skeptic-faq
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Last-modified: 92/12/16
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Version: @(#)skeptic-faq.text 1.5
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The Frequently Questioned Answers
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=================================
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Introduction
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============
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This is the sci.skeptic FAQ. It is intended to provide a factual base
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for most of the commonly discussed topics on sci.skeptic.
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Unfortunately I don't have much time to do this in, and anyway a FAQ
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should be the Distilled Wisdom of the Net rather than just My Arrogant
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Opinion, so I invite submissions and let all the net experts out there
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fill in the details. Submissions from any point of view and on any
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sci.skeptic topic are welcomed, but please keep them short and to the
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point. The ideal submission is a short summary with one or two
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references to other literature. I have added comments in square
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brackets where I think more information is particularly needed, but
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don't let that stop you sending something else.
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In general it is not very useful to criticise areas of the FAQ as "not
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explaining it properly". If you want to see something changed then
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please write a submission which explains it better. Grammar and
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spelling corrections are always welcome though.
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If you are reading this with a newsreader and want to follow up on
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something, please copy the question to the subject line. This is more
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informative than a reference to the entire FAQ.
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Please mail submissions and comments to <paj@gec-mrc.co.uk>. If that
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bounces, try <paj%uk.co.gec-mrc@ukc.ac.uk>, which explicitly routes
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your email via the UK backbone.
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This is in no way an "official" FAQ. I am a computer scientist by
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profession and deeply skeptical of paranormal claims (although I may
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include some pro-paranormal arguments here). If anyone else with a
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less skeptical point of view wants to start a FAQ list, please feel
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free. I certainly can't stop you.
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Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are not necessarily those of
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GEC.
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Other Topics
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============
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I would like to have some info on Astrology, Velikovsky and the
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Tunguska (sp?) event. Submissions on these matters are invited.
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Credits
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=======
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Thanks to all the people who have sent me submissions and comments.
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There isn't enough room to thank everyone, but some of the more major
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contributors are listed here:
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York H. Dobyns <ydobyns@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> provided carbon 14
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dating information, notes about current psi researchers and other
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useful comments.
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Dendrochronology information came from <whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.com>.
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The questions "What are UFOs?" and "Are crop circles made by flying
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saucers?" were answered by Chris Rutkowski <rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
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Ken Shirriff <shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU> provided information on
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perpetual motion machines, Leidenfrost reference and the AIDS section.
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Robert Sheaffer <sheaffer@netcom.com> sent information about Philip
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Klass and UFO abductions.
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The Ezekiel information comes from a posting by John Baskette
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<jfb@draco.macsch.com>.
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Contents
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========
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A `*' indicates a new or rewritten entry. A `+' indicates an altered
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entry.
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Background
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----------
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0.1: What is sci.skeptic for?
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0.2: What is sci.skeptic not for?
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0.3: What is CSICOP? Whats their address? +
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0.4: What is "Prometheus"?
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0.5: Who are some prominent skeptics? +
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0.6: Aren't all skeptics just closed-minded bigots?
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0.7: Aren't all paranormalists just woolly-minded fools?
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0.8: What is a "conspiracy theory"?
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The Scientific Method
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---------------------
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1.1: What is the scientific method?
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1.2: What is the difference between a fact, a theory and a hypothesis?
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1.3: Can science ever really prove anything?
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1.4: If scientific theories keep changing, where is the Truth?
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1.5: What evidence is needed for an extraordinary claim?
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1.6: What is Occam's Razor?
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1.7: Galileo was persecuted, just like researchers into <X> today.
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1.8: What is the "Experimenter effect".
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1.9: How much fraud is there in science? *
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1.9.1: Did Mendel fudge his results? *
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Psychic Powers
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--------------
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2.1: Is Uri Geller for real? *
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2.2: I have had a psychic experience. +
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2.3: What is "sensory leakage"?
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2.4: Who are the main psi researchers? +
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2.5: Does dowsing work? +
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2.6: Could psi be inhibited by the presence of skeptics?
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UFOs/Flying Saucers
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-------------------
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3.1 What are UFOs?
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3.1.1: Are UFOs alien spacecraft?
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3.1.2: Are UFOs natural phenomena?
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3.1.3: But isn't it possible that aliens are visiting Earth?
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3.2: Is it true that the US government has a crashed flying saucer?
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(MJ-12)? +
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3.3: What is "channeling"?
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3.4: How can we test a channeller?
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3.5: I am in telepathic contact with the aliens.
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3.6: Some bozo has just posted a load of "teachings" from a UFO. What
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should I do?
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3.7: Are crop circles made by flying saucers?
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3.7.1: Are crop circles made by "vortices"?
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3.7.2: Are crop circles made by hoaxers?
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3.7.3: Are crop circles radioactive?
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3.7.4: What about cellular changes in plants within crop circles?
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3.8: Have people been abducted by UFOs?
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3.9: What is causing the strange cattle deaths? *
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3.10: What is the face on Mars?
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3.11: Did Ezekiel See a Flying Saucer?
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Faith Healing and Alternative Therapies
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---------------------------------------
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4.1: Isn't western medicine reductionistic and alternatives holistic? +
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4.2: What is a double-blind trial? What is a placebo?
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4.3: Why should scientific criteria apply to alternative therapies?
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4.4: What is homeopathy? +
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4.5: What is aroma therapy?
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4.6: What is reflexology? +
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4.7: Does acupuncture work?
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4.8: What about psychic surgery?
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4.9: What is Crystal Healing?
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4.10: Does religious healing work? +
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4.11: What harm does it do anyway?
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Creation versus Evolution
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-------------------------
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5.1: Is the Bible evidence of anything? +
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5.2: Could the Universe have been created old?
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5.3: What about Carbon-14 dating?
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5.4: What is "dendrochronology"?
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5.5: What is evolution? Where do I find out more?
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5.6: The second law of thermodynamics says....
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5.7: How could living organisms arise "by chance"?
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5.8: But doesn't the human body seem to be well designed?
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5.9: What about the thousands of scientists who have become Creationists?
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Fire-walking
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-----------
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6.1: Is fire-walking possible?
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6.2: Can science explain fire-walking?
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New Age
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-------
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7.1: What do New Agers believe?
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7.2: What is the Gaia hypothesis?
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7.3: Was Nostradamus a prophet?
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7.4: Does astrology work? *
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7.4.1: Could astrology work by gravity? *
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7.4.2: What is the `Mars Effect'? *
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Strange Machines: Free Energy and Anti-Gravity
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----------------------------------------------
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8.1: Why don't electrical perpetul motion machines work?
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8.2: Why don't magnetic perpetual motion machines work?
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8.3: Why don't mechanical perpetual motion machines work?
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8.4: Magnets can levitate. Where is the energy from?
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8.5: But its been patented!
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8.6: The oil companies are conspiring to suppress my invention
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8.7: My machine gets its free energy from <X>
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8.8: Can gyroscopes neutralise gravity?
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8.9: My prototype gets lighter when I turn it on.
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AIDS
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----
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9.1: What about these theories on AIDS?
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9.1.1: The Mainstream Theory
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9.1.2: Strecker's CIA Theory
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9.1.3: Duesberg's Risk-Group Theory
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Background
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==========
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0.1: What is sci.skeptic for?
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-----------------------------
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[Did anyone save the Charter? PAJ]
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Sci.skeptic is for those who are skeptical about claims of the
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paranormal to meet with those who believe in the paranormal. In this
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way the paranormalists can expose their ideas to scientific scrutiny,
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and if there is anything in these ideas then the skeptics might learn
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something.
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However this is a very wide area, and some of the topics covered might
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be better kept in their own newsgroups. In particular the evolution
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vs. creation debate is best kept in talk.origins. General New Age
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discussions belong in talk.religion.newage. Strange "Heard it on the
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grapevine" stories belong on alt.folklore.urban, which discusses such
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things as vanishing hitchhikers and the Everlasting Lightbulb
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conspiracy. Serious conspiracy theories should be kept on
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alt.conspiracy, and theories about the assassination of President
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Kennedy should be kept on alt.conspiracy.jfk. CROSS-POSTING from
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these groups is NOT APPRECIATED by the majority of sci.skeptic
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readers.
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The discussion of a topic in this FAQ is not an attempt to have the
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final word on the subject. It is simply intended to answer a few
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common questions and provide a basis for discussion of common topics.
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0.2: What is sci.skeptic not for?
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---------------------------------
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The scope of sci.skeptic extends into any area where hard evidence can
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be obtained, but does not extend into speculation. So religious
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arguments about the existence of God are out of place here (take them
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to alt.atheism or talk.religion.*). On the other hand discussion
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about miracles is to be welcomed, since this is an issue where
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evidence can be obtained.
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Topics that have their own groups should be taken to the appropriate
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group. See the previous answer for a partial list.
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Also out of place are channelled messages from aliens. If your
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channelled message contains testable facts then post those. Otherwise
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we are simply not interested. Take it to alt.alien.visitors.
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The posting of large articles (>200 lines) is not a way to persuade
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people. See the section on "closed minded skeptics" below for some
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reasons for this. I suggest you summarise the article and offer to
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mail copies to anyone who is interested.
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Sci.skeptic is not an abuse group. There is a regrettable tendency
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for polite discussion here to degenerate into ad-hominem flames about
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who said what to whom and what they meant. PLEASE DO NOT FLAME. You
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won't convince anyone. Rather the opposite.
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0.3: What is CSICOP? What is its address?
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------------------------------------------
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CSICOP stands for the "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
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Claims Of the Paranormal". They publish a quarterly magazine called
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"The Skeptical Inquirer". Their address is:
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Skeptical Inquirer,
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Box 703,
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Buffalo, NY 14226-9973.
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Tel. 716-636-1425 voice, 716-636-1733 fax.
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Note that this is a new address.
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0.4: What is "Prometheus"?
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--------------------------
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Prometheus Books is a publisher specialising in skeptical books.
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Their address is:
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Prometheus Books
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700 Amherst Street
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Buffalo, NY 14215-9918
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0.5: Who are some prominent skeptics?
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-------------------------------------
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James "The Amazing" Randi is a professional stage magician who spends
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much time and money debunking paranormal claims. He used to offer a
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reward of $100,000 to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal powers
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under controlled conditions, but has had to exhaust that fund to pay
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legal expenses in the series of lawsuits that have been brought
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against him since 1988. Currently, he can offer only a $10,000
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promissory note. Anyone who wants to contribute to his defense can do
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so via:
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The James Randi Fund
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c/o Robert Steiner, CPA
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P.O. Box 659
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El Cerrito, CA 94530
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The lawsuit by Geller against Randi is still going on. There is a
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mailing list for updates on the situation, which originates from the
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account <geller-hotline@ssr.com>. [To subscribe, you should probably
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send mail to <geller-hotline-request@ssr.com>.]
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Martin Gardner is an author, mathematician and amateur stage magician
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who has written several books dealing with paranormal phenomena,
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including "Science: Good, Bad and Bogus" and "Fads and Fallacies in
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the Name of Science".
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Philip J. Klass retired after thirty-five years as a Senior Editor of
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"Aviation Week and Space Technology" magazine, specializing in
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avionics. He is a founding fellow of CSICOP, and was named a Fellow of
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the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has
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won numerous awards for his technical journalism. His principal books
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are:
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UFO Abductions, A Dangerous Game (Prometheus, 1988)
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UFOs, The Public Deceived (Prometheus, 1983)
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UFOs Explained (Random House, 1974)
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Susan Blackmore holds a Ph.D in parapsychology, but in the course of her
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Ph.D research she became increasingly disillusioned and is now highly
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skeptical of paranormal claims.
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Ray Hyman is a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon.
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He is one of the major external, skeptical critics of parapsychology.
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In 1986, he and parapsychologist Charles Honorton engaged in a
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detailed exchange about Honorton's ganzfeld experiments and
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statistical analysis of his results which was published in the Journal
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of Parapsychology. A collection of Hyman's work may be found in his
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book The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research,
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1989, Prometheus. This includes "Proper Criticism", an influential
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piece on how skeptics should engage in criticism, and "'Cold Reading':
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How to Convince Strangers that You Know All About Them."
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James Alcock is a professor of psychology at York University in
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Toronto. He is the author of the books Parapsychology: Science
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or Magic?, 1981, Pergamon, and Science and Supernature: A Critical
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Appraisal of Parapsychology, 1990, Prometheus.
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Joe Nickell is a former private investigator, a magician, and
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an English instructor at the University of Kentucky. He is the
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author of numerous books on paranormal subjects, including Inquest
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on the Shroud of Turin, 1982, Prometheus. He specializes in
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investigating individual cases in great detail, but has recently
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done some more general work, critiquing crop circles, spontaneous
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human combustion, and psychic detectives.
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[I gather Isaac Asimov wrote on skeptical issues. Can someone tell me
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more? PAJ]
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[Can someone supply me with potted biographies and publication lists
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of these and other people? PAJ]
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0.6: Aren't all skeptics just closed-minded bigots?
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---------------------------------------------------
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People who have failed to convince skeptics often say "Well all
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skeptics are just closed-minded bigots who won't listen to me!". This
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is not true. Skeptics pay close attention to the evidence. If you
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have no evidence then you will get nowhere.
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Unfortunately life is short. Most of us have better things to do than
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investigate yet another bogus claim. Some paranormal topics,
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especially psi research and UFOlogy, produce vast quantities of low
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grade evidence. In the past people have investigated such evidence
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carefully, but it always seems to evaporate when anyone looks at it
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closely. Hence skeptics should be forgiven for not bothering to
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investigate yet another piece of low grade evidence before rejecting
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it.
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Of course there are some who substitute flaming and rhetoric for
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logical argument. We all lose our temper sometimes.
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0.7: Aren't all paranormalists just woolly-minded fools?
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--------------------------------------------------------
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No. Some just pick a belief and then search for evidence to support
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it. Others have had experiences which they find compelling evidence
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for belief. This includes channellers, palmists and dowsers. Shouting
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won't convince these people. The best tactic is to explain why you
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think they are wrong, and do it slowly and quietly.
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Of course, some of them are confidence tricksters out for a fast buck.
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But its best to assume innocence unless you can prove guilt.
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[Any paranormalists out there want to add something? PAJ]
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0.8: What is a Conspiracy Theory?
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---------------------------------
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A conspiracy theory is a belief that there is a large-scale conspiracy
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by those in power to mislead and/or control the rest of the world.
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Consider the following example:
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There is a conspiracy amongst the computer programmers to
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control the world. They are only allowing the public to have
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simple machines, while they control the really powerful ones.
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There is a computer in <city> they call "The Beast". It has
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records about everyone. They use this information to
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manipulate the politicians and businessmen who ostensibly rule
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the world into doing their will. The Beast was prophesied in
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the Book of Revelation.
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Conspiracy theories divide the world into three groups. The
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Conspirators, the Investigators, and the Dupes. Conspirators have a
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vast secret. The Investigators have revealed parts of the conspiracy,
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but much is still secret. Investigators are always in great danger of
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being silenced by Conspirators. Dupes are just the rest of us. Often
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the Conspiritors show a mixture of incredible subtlety and stunning
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stupidity.
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Evidence produced by the Investigators is always either circumstantial
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or evaporates when looked at carefully. The theories can never be
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disproved, since any evidence to the contrary can be dismissed as
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having been planted by the Conspirators. If you spend any time or
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effort digging into the evidence produced by Investigators then you
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will be labelled a Conspirator yourself. Of course, nothing a
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Conspirator says can be believed.
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[Since this was first posted, Nick Silver <nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk> has
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written to tell me that a friend of his was accosted by two guys who
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told her that the Beast computer is in Holland and that you can be
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saved by converting to their religion. They also added that every
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product bar code includes three 6 digits as frame markers, hence 666,
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the number of the beast. In fact this is not true, and even if it
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were it would not fulfill the prophecy in Revelation]
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The Scientific Method
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=====================
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1.1: What is the "scientific method"?
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-------------------------------------
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The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing
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the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something
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like this:
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1: Observe some aspect of the universe.
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2: Invent a theory which is consistent with what you have
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observed.
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3: Use the theory to make predictions.
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4: Test those predictions by experiments or further
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observations.
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5: Modify the theory in the light of your results.
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6: Go to step 3.
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This leaves out the co-operation between scientists in building
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theories, and the fact that it is impossible for every scientist to
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independently do every experiment to confirm every theory. Because
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life is short, scientists have to trust other scientists. So a
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scientist who claims to have done an experiment and obtained certain
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results will usually be believed, and most people will not bother to
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repeat the experiment.
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Experiments do get repeated as part of other experiments. Most
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scientific papers contain suggestions for other scientists to follow
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up. Usually the first step in doing this is to repeat the earlier
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work. So if a theory is the starting point for a significant amount
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of work then the initial experiments will get replicated a number of
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times.
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Some people talk about "Kuhnian paradigm shifts". This refers to the
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observed pattern of the slow extension of scientific knowledge with
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occasional sudden revolutions. This does happen, but it still follows
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the steps above.
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Many philosophers of science would argue that there is no such thing
|
|
as *the* scientific method.
|
|
|
|
1.2: What is the difference between a fact, a theory and a hypothesis?
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
In popular usage, a theory is just a vague and fuzzy sort of fact.
|
|
But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that *explains*
|
|
existing facts and predicts new ones. For instance, today I saw the
|
|
Sun rise. This is a fact. This fact is explained by the theory that
|
|
the Earth is round and spins on its axis while orbiting the sun. This
|
|
theory also explains other facts, such as the seasons and the phases
|
|
of the moon, and allows me to make predictions about what will happen
|
|
tomorrow.
|
|
|
|
This means that in some ways the words "fact" and "theory" are
|
|
interchangeable. The organisation of the solar system which I used as
|
|
a simple example of a theory is normally considered to be a fact which
|
|
is explained by Newton's theory of gravity. And so on.
|
|
|
|
A hypothesis is a tentative theory which has not yet been tested.
|
|
|
|
[Can anyone explain this better? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
1.3: Can science ever really prove anything?
|
|
--------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Yes and no. It depends on what you mean by "prove".
|
|
|
|
For instance, there is little doubt that an object thrown into the air
|
|
will come back down (ignoring spacecraft for the moment). One could
|
|
make a scientific observation that "Things fall down". I am about to
|
|
throw a stone into the air. I use my observation of past events to
|
|
predict that the stone will come back down. Wow - it did!
|
|
|
|
But next time I throw a stone, it might not come down. It might
|
|
hover, or go shooting off upwards. So not even this simple fact has
|
|
been really proved. But you would have to be very perverse to claim
|
|
that the next thrown stone will not come back down. So for ordinary
|
|
everyday use, we can say that the theory is true.
|
|
|
|
You can think of facts and theories (not just scientific ones, but
|
|
ordinary everyday ones) as being on a scale of certainty. Up at the
|
|
top end we have facts like "things fall down". Down at the bottom we
|
|
have "the Earth is flat". In the middle we have "I will die of heart
|
|
disease". Some scientific theories are nearer the top than others,
|
|
but none of them ever actually reach it. Skepticism is usually
|
|
directed at claims that contradict facts and theories that are very
|
|
near the top of the scale. If you want to discuss ideas nearer the
|
|
middle of the scale (that is, things about which there is real debate
|
|
in the scientific community) then you would be better off asking on
|
|
the appropriate specialist group.
|
|
|
|
1.4: If scientific theories keep changing, where is the Truth?
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
In 1666 Isaac Newton proposed his theory of gravitation. This was one
|
|
of the greatest intellectual feats of all time. The theory explained
|
|
all the observed facts, and made predictions which were later tested
|
|
and found to be correct within the accuracy of the instruments being
|
|
used. As far as anyone could see, Newton's theory was the Truth.
|
|
|
|
During the nineteenth century, more accurate instruments were used to
|
|
test Newton's theory, and found some slight discrepancies (for
|
|
instance, the orbit of Mercury wasn't quite right). Albert Einstein
|
|
proposed his theories of Relativity, which explained the newly
|
|
observed facts and made more predictions. Those predictions have now
|
|
been tested and found to be correct within the accuracy of the
|
|
instruments being used. As far as anyone can see, Einstein's theory
|
|
is the Truth.
|
|
|
|
So how can the Truth change? Well the answer is that it hasn't. The
|
|
Universe is still the same as it ever was, and Newton's theory is as
|
|
true as it ever was. If you take a course in physics today, you will
|
|
be taught Newton's Laws. They can be used to make predictions, and
|
|
those predictions are still correct. Only if you are dealing with
|
|
things that move close to the speed of light do you need to use
|
|
Einstein's theories. If you are working at ordinary speeds outside of
|
|
very strong gravitational fields and use Einstein, you will get
|
|
(almost) exactly the same answer as you would with Newton. It just
|
|
takes longer because using Einstein involves rather more maths.
|
|
|
|
One other note about truth: science does not make moral judgements.
|
|
Anyone who tries to draw moral lessons from the laws of nature is on
|
|
very dangerous ground. Evolution in particular seems to suffer from
|
|
this. At one time or another it seems to have been used to justify
|
|
Nazism, Communism, and every other -ism in between. These
|
|
justifications are all completely bogus. Similarly, anyone who says
|
|
"evolution theory is evil because it is used to support Communism" (or
|
|
any other -ism) has also strayed from the path of Logic.
|
|
|
|
1.5: What evidence is needed for an extraordinary claim?
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Extraordinary evidence.
|
|
|
|
An extraordinary claim is one that contradicts a fact which is close
|
|
to the top of the certainty scale discussed above. So if you are
|
|
trying to contradict such a fact, you had better have facts available
|
|
which are even higher up the certainty scale.
|
|
|
|
1.6: What is Occam's Razor?
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
Ockham's Razor ("Occam" is a Latinised variant) is the principle
|
|
proposed by William of Ockham in the fifteenth century that
|
|
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate", which translates as
|
|
"entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily". Various other
|
|
rephrasings have been incorrectly attributed to him. In more modern
|
|
terms, if you have two theories which both explain the observed facts
|
|
then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along. See
|
|
W.M. Thorburn, "The Myth of Occam's Razor," _Mind_ 27:345-353 (1918)
|
|
for a detailed study of what Ockham actually wrote and what others
|
|
wrote after him.
|
|
|
|
The reason behind the razor is that for any given set of facts there
|
|
are an infinite number of theories which could explain them. For
|
|
instance, if you have a graph with four points in a line then the
|
|
simplest theory which explains them is a linear relationship, but you
|
|
can draw an infinite number of different curves which all pass through
|
|
the four points. There is no evidence that the straight line is the
|
|
right one, but it is the simplest possible solution. So you might as
|
|
well use it until someone comes along with a point off the straight
|
|
line.
|
|
|
|
Also, if you have a few thousand points on the line and someone
|
|
suggests that there is a point which is off the line, it's a pretty
|
|
fair bet that they are wrong.
|
|
|
|
A related rule which can be used to slice open conspiracy theories is
|
|
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be
|
|
adequately explained by stupidity". See the Jargon File (edited by
|
|
Eric Raymond) for more details.
|
|
|
|
1.7: Galileo was persecuted, just like researchers into <X> today.
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
People putting forward extraordinary claims often refer to Galileo as
|
|
an example of a great genius being persecuted by the establishment for
|
|
heretical theories. They claim that the scientific establishment is
|
|
afraid of being proved wrong, and hence is trying to suppress the
|
|
truth.
|
|
|
|
This is a classic conspiracy theory. The Conspirators are all those
|
|
scientists who have bothered to point out flaws in the claims put
|
|
forward by the researchers.
|
|
|
|
The usual rejoinder to someone who says "They laughed at Columbus,
|
|
they laughed at Galileo" is to say "And they also laughed at Koko the
|
|
Clown". This may be a quotation from Carl Sagan.
|
|
|
|
1.8: What is the "Experimenter effect"?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
It is unconscious bias introduced into an experiment by the
|
|
experimenter. It can occur in one of two ways:
|
|
|
|
o Scientists doing experiments often have to look for small effects
|
|
or differences between the things being experimented on.
|
|
|
|
o Experiments require many samples to be treated in exactly the same
|
|
way in order to get consistent results.
|
|
|
|
Note that neither of these sources of bias require deliberate fraud.
|
|
|
|
A classic example of the first kind of bias was the "N-ray",
|
|
discovered early this century. Detecting them required the
|
|
investigator to look for very faint flashes of light on a
|
|
scintillator. Many scientists reported detecting these rays. They
|
|
were fooling themselves.
|
|
|
|
A classic example of the second kind of bias were the detailed
|
|
investigations into the relationship between race and brain capacity
|
|
in the last century. Skull capacity was measured by filling the empty
|
|
skull with beans and then measuring the volume of beans. A
|
|
significant difference in the results could be obtained by ensuring
|
|
that the beans in some skulls were better settled than others. For
|
|
more details on this story, read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure
|
|
of Man".
|
|
|
|
For more detail see:
|
|
|
|
T.X. Barber, "Pitfalls of Human Research", 1976.
|
|
Robert Rosenthal, "Pygmalion on the Classroom".
|
|
|
|
[These were recommended by a correspondant. Sorry I have no more
|
|
information.]
|
|
|
|
1.9: How much fraud is there in science?
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
In its simplest form this question is unanswerable, since undetected
|
|
fraud is by definition unmeasurable. Of course there are many known
|
|
cases of fraud in science. Some use this to argue that all scientific
|
|
findings (especially those they dislike) are worthless.
|
|
|
|
This ignores the replication of results which is routinely undertaken
|
|
by scientists. Any important result will be replicated many times by
|
|
many different people. So an assertion that (for instance) scientists
|
|
are lying about carbon-14 dating requires that a great many scientists
|
|
are engaging in a conspiracy. See the previous question.
|
|
|
|
In fact the existence of known and documented fraud is a good
|
|
illustration of the self-correcting nature of science. It does not
|
|
matter if a proportion of scientists are fraudsters because any
|
|
important work they do will not be taken seriously without independant
|
|
verification. Hence they must confine themselves to pedestrian work
|
|
which no-one is much interested in, and obtain only the expected
|
|
results. For anyone with the talent and ambition necessary to get a
|
|
Ph.D this is not going to be an enjoyable career.
|
|
|
|
Also, most scientists are idealists. They perceive beauty in
|
|
scientific truth and see its discovery as their vocation. Without
|
|
this most would have gone into something more lucrative.
|
|
|
|
These arguments suggest that undetected fraud in science is both rare
|
|
and unimportant.
|
|
|
|
For more detail on more scientific frauds than you ever knew existed,
|
|
see "False Prophets" by Alexander Koln.
|
|
|
|
1.9.1: Did Mendel fudge his results?
|
|
------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Gregor Mendel was a 19th Century monk who discovered the laws of
|
|
inheritance (dominant and recessive genes etc.). More recent analysis
|
|
of his results suggest that they are "too good to be true". Mendelian
|
|
inheritance involves the random selection of possible traits from
|
|
parents, with particular probabilities of particular traits. It seems
|
|
from Mendel's raw data that chance played a smaller part in his
|
|
experiments than it should. This does not imply fraud on the part of
|
|
Mendel.
|
|
|
|
First, the experiments were not "blind" (see the questions about
|
|
double blind experiments and the experimenter effect). Deciding
|
|
whether a particular pea is wrinkled or not needs judgement, and this
|
|
could bias Mendel's results towards the expected. This is an example
|
|
of the "experimenter effect".
|
|
|
|
Second, Mendel's Laws are only approximations. In fact it does turn
|
|
out that in some cases inheritance is less random than his Laws state.
|
|
|
|
Third, Mendel might have neglected to publish the results of `failed'
|
|
experiments. It is interesting to note that all of his published work
|
|
is concerned with characteristics which are controlled by single
|
|
genes. He did not report any experiments with more complicated
|
|
characteristics.
|
|
|
|
Psychic Powers
|
|
==============
|
|
|
|
2.1: Is Uri Geller for real?
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
Randi has, through various demonstrations, cast doubt on Geller's
|
|
claims of psychic powers. Geller has sued Randi. Skeptics are
|
|
advised to exercise extreme caution in addressing this topic, given
|
|
the pending litigation. Bay Area Skeptics, Tampa Bay Skeptics, and
|
|
the Skeptics Society of Los Angeles have all been threatened with
|
|
litigation over this matter, which could be expected to be extremely
|
|
expensive and time-consuming, whatever the eventual outcome.
|
|
|
|
2.2: I have had a psychic experience.
|
|
-------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
That is pretty remarkable. But before you post to the Net, consider:-
|
|
|
|
* Could it just be coincidence? The human mind is good at
|
|
remembering odd things but tends to forget ordinary things, such as
|
|
premonitions that didn't happen. If psychic experiences happen to
|
|
you on a regular basis then try writing down the premonitions when
|
|
you have them and then comparing your record to later events.
|
|
|
|
* If you think you have a mental link with someone you know, try a
|
|
few tests with playing cards [Has anyone got a good protocol for
|
|
this kind of thing? PAJ].
|
|
|
|
* If you are receiving messages from elsewhere (e.g. UFOs), ask for
|
|
specific information which you can then check. A proof or
|
|
counterexample of Fermat's Last Theorem (see the sci.math FAQ)
|
|
for example [Has anyone got any better ones? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
If you want to make a formal registration of your predictions, send
|
|
mail to <prediction_registry@sol1.gps.caltech.edu>.
|
|
|
|
2.3: What is "Sensory Leakage"?
|
|
-------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Sensory leakage is something that designers of tests for psi must be
|
|
careful to guard against. Tests for psi use powerful statistical
|
|
tests to search for faint traces of communication. Unfortunately the
|
|
fact that communication has taken place does not prove that it was
|
|
done by telepathy. It could have been through some more mundane form
|
|
of signal.
|
|
|
|
For instance one experiment involved a "sender" in one room with a
|
|
stack of numbered cards (1-10) and a "receiver" in another room trying
|
|
to guess what the next card was. The sender looked at a card and
|
|
pressed a button to signal to the receiver. The receiver then tried
|
|
to guess the number on the card. There was a definite correlation
|
|
between the card numbers and the guesses. However the sender could
|
|
signal the receiver by varying the delays between buzzes. When this
|
|
channel of communication was removed, the effect disappeared.
|
|
|
|
2.4: Who are the main psi researchers?
|
|
--------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Targ and Puthoff spring to mind, but actually, Puthoff is no longer
|
|
doing psi research (I don't have any idea what Targ is up to these
|
|
days.) Granted, their SRI work is quite famous, but if we want to
|
|
review the historical (rather than currently active) figures, you
|
|
probably want to go back at least as far as the Rhines.
|
|
|
|
Helmut Schmidt, a physicist who has been looking at PK, is still
|
|
active at the Mind Science Foundation in Texas. (Sorry, I don't know a
|
|
more specific address than that.)
|
|
|
|
The Foundation for Research into the Nature of Man (FRNM), which is
|
|
what Rhine's work at Duke eventually developed into, is still active
|
|
near Duke. It is currently headed by K. Ramakrishna Rao.
|
|
|
|
The Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinborough
|
|
is, as far as I know, still active. The current incumbent is, I think,
|
|
named Robert Morris; his main assistant is Deborah Delanoy.
|
|
|
|
Roger Nelson is active in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
|
|
center (PEAR) and occasionally posts to the net.
|
|
|
|
Active workers in the field that I can think of currently include Dean
|
|
Radin, who also posts to sci.skeptic as <dir2@gte.com>,
|
|
Jessica Utts, and Ed May. The Parapsychological Association has a much
|
|
larger roster than that, of course, but I'm not a member myself and
|
|
don't have access to their membership roll.
|
|
|
|
2.5: Does dowsing work?
|
|
-----------------------
|
|
|
|
Dowsing is the art of finding underground water by extra-sensory
|
|
perception. Sometimes tools are used. The traditional one is a
|
|
forked hazel stick. When held in the correct way this will twitch
|
|
in response to small muscle movements in the back and shoulders.
|
|
Another tool which has become popular in recent years is a pair of
|
|
rods mounted in tubes which are held in each hand just in front of the
|
|
user.
|
|
|
|
Rod bent into tube.
|
|
|
|
|
V
|
|
r-------------------------------
|
|
|| ^
|
|
|| |
|
|
|| <- Tube Rod
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
When water (or something else) is dowsed, the rods turn towards each
|
|
other. Like the forked hazel stick it amplifies small movements of
|
|
the arm and shoulder muscles.
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately careful tests of dowsers have revealed absolutely no
|
|
ability to find water or anything else by extra-sensory perception.
|
|
Dowsing success stories can be explained by noting that wherever you
|
|
dig you will find water. You just have to dig deep enough.
|
|
|
|
James Randi has tested more than 100 dowsers (don't know the actual
|
|
count). He tells that only 2 tried to cheat. This suggests that
|
|
dowsers are basically honest people.
|
|
|
|
The Skeptical Inquirer has published a number of articles on dowsing.
|
|
James Randi's "A Controlled Test of Dowsing" was in vol. 4, no. 1, pp.
|
|
16-20. Michael Martin's "A New Controlled Dowsing Experiment" was in
|
|
vol. 8, pp. 138-140. Dick Smith's "Two Tests of Divining in
|
|
Australia" was in vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 34-37. Randi's book Flim-Flam!
|
|
has a section on dowsing. The main skeptical book about dowsing is
|
|
Vogt, E.Z. and Hyman R. (1959, 2nd edition 1979) "Water witching USA".
|
|
The University of Chicago Press. 260 pages. Available as a paperback.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2.6: Could psi be inhibited by the presence of skeptics?
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Psychic researchers have noted something they call the "shyness
|
|
effect" (or more grandly "psi-mediated experimenter effects"). This
|
|
is invoked to explain the way in which many subjects' psychic powers
|
|
seem to fade when exposed to careful scrutiny and proper controls.
|
|
Often it is alleged that having a skeptic in the audience can prevent
|
|
the delicate operation of psi.
|
|
|
|
In its most extreme form this hypothesis becomes a "catch-22" which
|
|
makes any results consistent with a psi hypothesis. This renders the
|
|
hypothesis unfalsifieable and therefore unscientific. Less extreme
|
|
forms might be testable.
|
|
|
|
UFOs and Flying Saucers
|
|
=======================
|
|
|
|
3.1 What are UFOs?
|
|
-------------------
|
|
|
|
UFOs are, simply, Unidentified Flying Objects, no more, no less. This
|
|
means that if you are out one night and see a light moving in the sky
|
|
and cannot immediately identify it as a certain star, planet or other
|
|
object, then it is by definition a UFO. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE
|
|
SEEN AN ALIEN SPACESHIP.
|
|
|
|
A better question would be:
|
|
|
|
3.1.1 Are UFOs alien spacecraft?
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Probably not. The vast majority of UFO reports, when investigated by
|
|
competent researchers (and that is a problem all by itself), can be
|
|
easily explained as natural or manmade objects misidentified for one
|
|
reason or another. The actual percentage is around 95%. A very few
|
|
reports are provable hoaxes. The remaining few percent (some skeptics
|
|
argue that there are no remaining reports) are not explained at this
|
|
time. Again, this does not mean that they are observations of alien
|
|
spaceships. All we can say is that, given the information presently
|
|
available, some cases don't appear to be stars, balloons, airplanes,
|
|
aurorae. etc. Given a great deal more time and effort, many more
|
|
could likely be identified. It's possible that the witness(es) were
|
|
in error, or are very good liars. And the remaining few cases? Well,
|
|
the best we can say, as true skeptics, is that we don't know what they
|
|
were, but there is NO proof that they were alien spacecraft.
|
|
|
|
3.1.2 Are UFOs natural phenomena?
|
|
----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Possibly. A number of theories have been proposed, suggesting that
|
|
some UFOs are "plasmas" or variations of ball lightning or earthquake
|
|
lights. Unfortunately, the theories seem to change to fit observed
|
|
data, rather than predict the observations. Also, studies designed to
|
|
support the theories have used newspaper articles and raw, unsifted UFO
|
|
case lists for data, and therefore the studies do not appear to be
|
|
completely unbiased. Perhaps time will tell. Until then it is safe to
|
|
say that SOME UFOs are probably ball lightning or other rare natural
|
|
phenomena.
|
|
|
|
3.1.3 But isn't it possible that aliens are visiting Earth?
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Yes. But it is also possible that there is an invisible snorg reading
|
|
this over your shoulder right now.
|
|
|
|
Basically, some astronomers (e.g. Carl Sagan) are convinced that there
|
|
are other habitable planets in our galaxy, and that there may be some
|
|
form of life on them. Assuming that parallel evolution occurred on
|
|
these other planets, there MIGHT be intelligent life forms there. It
|
|
is possible that some of these life forms could have an advanced
|
|
civilization, and perhaps have achieved space travel. BUT - there is
|
|
no proof that this is so. SETI programs such as those Carl Sagan is
|
|
involved with are "listening" to other stars in the hope of detecting
|
|
radio signals which might indicate intelligent life - kind of
|
|
listening for the equivalent of "Watson, come here, I need you!", or
|
|
"I love Lucy" in the infancy of our early communications. Such
|
|
searches have been fruitless, so far.
|
|
|
|
If there are aliens on distant planets, then it is possible that they
|
|
might have found a way to travel between stars in their lifetimes.
|
|
According to our present understanding of physics, this is not likely,
|
|
given the vast distances between stars. Even travelling at the speed
|
|
of light (which cannot be done), a round trip to the nearest star would
|
|
take about ten years. This does not rule out interstellar ships, but
|
|
it does make it seem unlikely that we are being visited.
|
|
|
|
3.2: Is it true that the US government has a crashed flying saucer (MJ-12)?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The MJ-12 documents purportedly established that the U.S. government
|
|
had established a secret organization of 12 people called MJ-12 or
|
|
Majestic-12 to deal with UFOs. These 12 people were all conveniently
|
|
dead at the time the documents were discovered. Klass proved that the
|
|
documents are fakes.
|
|
|
|
The Roswell Incident refers to an alleged UFO crash in Roswell, NM.
|
|
This is also known as the "Roswell Incident". Philip Klass has also
|
|
investigated this one and shown the reports to be bogus. One of the
|
|
more notable items of "evidence" was a document "signed by the
|
|
president". Klass showed that this signature was a photocopy of an
|
|
existing presidential signature. [Can someone supply me with a proper
|
|
section on this please? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
All such allegations involve a conspiracy theory. Sometimes these
|
|
conspiracy theories get very big indeed. One common one involves a
|
|
treaty between the government and the saucer people whereby the
|
|
government stays in power and the saucer people get to abduct humans
|
|
for various gruesome purposes.
|
|
|
|
3.3: What is "channeling"?
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
"Channeling" is remarkably similar to Spiritualism. The main
|
|
difference is that the relatives "on the other side" are replaced by a
|
|
wide variety of other beings. This means that the channeler does not
|
|
have to worry about providing accurate information about people in the
|
|
audience. The beings that channelers claim to speak for range from
|
|
enlightened aliens to humans who lived thousands of years ago to
|
|
discarnate intelligences who have never had bodies.
|
|
|
|
3.4: How can we test a channeler?
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Some channelled entities are alleged to come from the distant past.
|
|
They can be asked about events, climate and language in ways that can
|
|
be checked.
|
|
|
|
[I have read lists of questions which advanced beings should be able to
|
|
answer (e.g. Proof or counterexample of Fermat's Last Theorem). Can
|
|
someone suggest more? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
3.5: I am in telepathic contact with the aliens.
|
|
------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
See the earlier section on psychic experiences and then try testing
|
|
your aliens to see if you get a specific answer. If you can come up
|
|
with new facts which can be tested by scientists then you will be
|
|
listened to. Otherwise you would do better on alt.alien.visitors.
|
|
|
|
3.6: Some bozo has just posted a load of "teachings" from a UFO. What
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
should I do?
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
You have several choices:
|
|
|
|
* Ignore it.
|
|
|
|
* Ask for evidence (see question 3.4 above).
|
|
|
|
* Insult or flame the poster. This is a bad idea.
|
|
|
|
3.7: Are crop circles made by flying saucers?
|
|
---------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
There is no convincing evidence that crop circles or any other kind of
|
|
UGM (Unusual Ground Markings) were made by aliens. There are some
|
|
reports of lights being seen in and around crop circle sites, and a few
|
|
videos showing objects flitting over fields. The lights are hardly
|
|
proof, and the objects in the videos seem to be pieces of foil or paper
|
|
being tossed about by the wind.
|
|
|
|
In a deliberate attempt to test crop circle "experts", a crop circle
|
|
was faked under the watchful eyes of the media. When cerealogists were
|
|
called in, they proclaimed it genuine.
|
|
|
|
3.7.1: Are crop circles made by "vortices"?
|
|
---------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Probably not. There are a number of meteorologists who believe that
|
|
crop circle formations are created by rare natural forces such as
|
|
"ionised plasma vortices". Basically, winds blowing across rolling
|
|
hills sometimes form eddies which in some circumstances (that have
|
|
never been quantified) become strong, downward spiralling drafts which
|
|
lay down the crop. Cerealogists claim to have over two dozen witnesses
|
|
to such events. Unfortunately, many more have said they have seen
|
|
flying saucers do the same thing.
|
|
|
|
Scientific articles arguing for the reality of these vortices have
|
|
appeared regularly in the Journal of Meteorology. But its editor is
|
|
the leading proponent of the theory, Dr. Terence Meaden.
|
|
|
|
Winds can lay down crop in patches known as lodging. But geometric
|
|
patterns in fields can hardly be attributable to natural phenomena.
|
|
Meaden has changed his theory to first accomodate complex circles,
|
|
ovals and even triangles (!), but now admits that most circles are
|
|
hoaxes and the theory can only explain simpler patterns.
|
|
|
|
3.7.2: Are crop circles made by hoaxers?
|
|
-----------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Of course. Although most people have heard only of two, Doug Bower and
|
|
Dave Chorley of England, many others have been caught, not only in
|
|
Britain but in other countries such as Canada. Their methods range
|
|
from inscribed circles with a pole and a length of rope to more complex
|
|
systems involving chains, rollers, planks and measuring devices.
|
|
|
|
And as a further note: just because you can't prove a crop circle was
|
|
made by a hoaxer, you should not assume aliens were involved. Remember
|
|
Occam's Razor (Section 1.6).
|
|
|
|
3.7.3: Are crop circles radioactive?
|
|
--------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
This is a claim that has received wide circulation in UFO/cerealogy
|
|
circles (pardon the pun). It is also untrue. Examination of the data
|
|
from spectral analyses of soil taken from crop circles has shown that
|
|
there were no readings above the normal background levels. The
|
|
proponents of this claim are debating this, however.
|
|
|
|
3.7.4: What about cellular changes in plants within crop circles?
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Yes, what about the changes? Although this is another claim that is
|
|
widely circulated among ufologists and cerealogists, the evidence is
|
|
simply not very good. A few photographs of alleged changes in the
|
|
"crystalline structure" of wheat stems were published in some
|
|
magazines and UFO publications. The method used was spagyrical
|
|
analysis. This is a technique involving crystallization of the
|
|
residue of organic material after harsh processing, invented three
|
|
centuries ago and popularized by Sir Kenelm Digby. Digby is known for
|
|
other wonderful inventions like condensation of sunlight and the
|
|
development of sword salve (which you had to put on the weapon rather
|
|
than on the wound, in order to cure the wound). The fact that this
|
|
technique was tried at all casts serious doubts on the "researchers"
|
|
involved.
|
|
|
|
3.8: Have people been abducted by UFOs?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
While the number of people who believe themselves to have been
|
|
abducted by flying saucer aliens must number at least many thousands,
|
|
not one of them has produced any physical evidence to establish the
|
|
reality of their claim. On the contrary, a number of factors clearly
|
|
point to a subjective basis for the "UFO abduction" phenomenon.
|
|
Probably the strongest factor is that of the cultural dependence of
|
|
such claims. Such claims were virtually unknown until the famous
|
|
abduction story of Betty and Barney Hill received widespread publicity
|
|
in the late 1960s. Also, the appearance and behavior of supposed UFO
|
|
occupants varies greatly with location and year. UFO abduction claims
|
|
are made much less frequently outside North America, especially in
|
|
non-English-speaking countries, although foreign reports have started
|
|
to catch up since the publication of Whitley Strieber's "Communion".
|
|
Furthermore, the descriptions of supposed UFO aliens contain clear
|
|
cultural dependencies; in North America large-headed grey aliens
|
|
predominate, while in Britain abducting aliens are mostly tall, blond,
|
|
and Nordic. Aliens that are claimed to steal sperm, eggs, and fetuses,
|
|
or make scars or body implants on those supposedly abducted, were
|
|
practically unknown before the publication of Budd Hopkins' books.
|
|
This particularly alarming type of abduction seems to be quite rare
|
|
outside North America.
|
|
|
|
Clear "borrowings" from popular science fiction stories can be traced
|
|
in certain major "UFO abductions." Barney Hill's description of his
|
|
supposed abductors' "wraparound eyes" (an extreme rarity in science
|
|
fiction films), first described and drawn during a hypnosis session on
|
|
Feb. 22, 1964, comes just twelve days after the first broadcast of an
|
|
episode of "The Outer Limits" featuring an alien of this quite unique
|
|
description. Many other elements of the Hill story can be traced to
|
|
the 1953 film "Invaders from Mars," including aliens having "Jimmy
|
|
Durante" noses, an alien medical examination, something done to her
|
|
eyes to relax her, being probed with a needle, a star map hanging on a
|
|
wall, a notebook offered as a remembrance, even the imagery of a
|
|
needle in the navel. Other "abductees" borrowed other ideas from
|
|
"Invaders From Mars," including brain implants, aliens drilling into a
|
|
human skull, and aliens seeking to revitalize a dying world.
|
|
|
|
Originally, stories of UFO abductions were obtainable solely by
|
|
hypnotic regression of the claimant, although in recent years the
|
|
subject of "UFO abductions" has become so generally known that some
|
|
subjects claim to remember their "abduction" without hypnosis.
|
|
Hypnosis is a NOT a reliable method for extracting so- called "hidden
|
|
memories", and its use in this manner is likely to lead to fabrication
|
|
and error. Moreover, if it is suggested to a hypnotized person that
|
|
fictitious events have occurred, the subject himself may come to
|
|
believe this (See the article "Hypnosis" in the 1974 "Encyclopedia
|
|
Brittanica" by Martin Orne).
|
|
|
|
|
|
3.9: What is causing the strange cattle deaths?
|
|
-----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The only information I have on these is a long file which came to me
|
|
via Len Bucuvalas <lpb@stratus.swdc.stratus.com> from ParaNet. The
|
|
gist is that cattle and other animals have been found dead with
|
|
strange mutilations. Organs, especially genitals, have been removed
|
|
but no blood appears to have been lost. These events are also
|
|
sometimes associated with reports of alien encounters and UFOs.
|
|
|
|
The best source of information on cattle mutilations is the
|
|
book Mute Evidence by Ian Summers and Daniel Kagan, a couple
|
|
of investigative journalists who started out believing that
|
|
something mysterious was happening, but ended up skeptics.
|
|
SI has published James Stewart's "Cattle Mutilations: An Episode
|
|
of Collective Delusion" (way back in vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 55-66).
|
|
Stewart is a sociologist who examined the pattern of reports and
|
|
found that new reports were inspired by previous media coverage.
|
|
It came in "waves" or "flaps".
|
|
|
|
3.10: What is the face on Mars?
|
|
-------------------------------
|
|
|
|
One of the Mars orbiters took a photograph of a part of Mars (Cydonia)
|
|
when the sun was very low on the horizon. The picture shows a "face"
|
|
and some nearby pyramids. Both these structures are seen more by
|
|
their shadows than their actual shape. The pyramid shadows appear
|
|
regular because their size is close to the limit of resolution of the
|
|
camera, and the "face" is just a chance arrangement of shadow over a
|
|
couple of hills. The human brain is very good at picking out familiar
|
|
patterns in random noise, so it is not surprising that a couple of
|
|
Martian surface features (out of thousands photographed) vaugely
|
|
resemble a face when seen in the right light.
|
|
|
|
Richard Hoagland has championed the idea that the Face is artificial,
|
|
intended to resemble a human, and erected by an extraterrestrial
|
|
civilization. Most other analysts concede that the resemblance is most
|
|
likely accidental. Other Viking images show a smiley-faced crater and
|
|
a lava flow resembling Kermit the Frog elsewhere on Mars. There exists
|
|
a Mars Anomalies Research Society (sorry, don't know the address) to
|
|
study the Face.
|
|
|
|
The Mars Observe spacecraft, scheduled for launch September 25 has a
|
|
camera that can give 1.5m per pixel resolution. More details of the
|
|
Cydonia formations should become available when it arrives.
|
|
|
|
Anyone who wants to learn some more about this should look up "Image
|
|
Processing", volume 4 issue 3, which includes enhanced images of the
|
|
"face". Hoagland has written "The Monuments of Mars: A City on the
|
|
Edge of Forever", North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, USA,
|
|
1987.
|
|
|
|
[Some of this is from the sci.space FAQs]
|
|
|
|
3.11: Did Ezekiel See a Flying Saucer?
|
|
--------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The chapter in question is Ezekiel 1:4-28. This vision is a early
|
|
example of apocalyptic writing that is common in the centuries before
|
|
and after Christ. (Good examples are chapters 2 and 7-12 of Daniel
|
|
and the book of Revelation.) Apocalyptic literature is often
|
|
difficult to interpret because the language is deliberately symbolic
|
|
and figurative. In some cases, however, the writer will tell the
|
|
reader just what is meant by the symbols. This is the case for
|
|
Ezekiel's wheels within wheels vision. Verse 28 identifies the vision
|
|
as, "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the
|
|
LORD." Also the wheels are explicitly described as appearing in a
|
|
*vision*. In other words this was a message from God (or a
|
|
hallucination) rather than a physical event.
|
|
|
|
Faith Healing and Alternative Therapies
|
|
=======================================
|
|
|
|
Disclaimer: I am not medically qualified. If you have a medical
|
|
problem then I strongly recommend that you go to a
|
|
qualified medical practitioner. Asking the Net for
|
|
specific medical advice is always a bad idea.
|
|
|
|
4.1: Isn't western medicine reductionistic and alternatives holistic?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Practitioners of alternative therapies often put forward the idea that
|
|
modern scientific medicine is reductionistic: it concentrates on those
|
|
parts of the body that are not working properly, and in so doing it
|
|
reduces the patient to a collection of organs. Alternative therapies
|
|
try to consider the patient as a whole (a holistic approach).
|
|
|
|
This is a fine piece of rhetoric, but it's wrong. It is
|
|
true that modern medicine looks at the details of diseases, trying to
|
|
find out exactly what is going wrong and what is causing it. But it
|
|
also looks at the life of the patient, and tries to understand how the
|
|
patient interacts with his/her environment and how this interaction
|
|
can be improved. For instance, smoking is known to cause a wide
|
|
variety of medical problems. Hence doctors advise patients to give up
|
|
smoking as well as treating the individual illnesses which it causes.
|
|
When a patient presents with an illness then the doctor will not only
|
|
treat the illness but also try to understand how this illness was
|
|
caused in order to avoid a recurrence.
|
|
|
|
4.2: What is a double-blind trial? What is a placebo?
|
|
------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
A double-blind trial is the standard method for deciding whether or
|
|
not a treatment has any "real" effect.
|
|
|
|
A placebo is a "treatment" which has no effect except through the mind
|
|
of the patient. The usual form is a pill containing a little lactose
|
|
(milk-sugar), although a bitter-tasting liquid or injections of 1cc
|
|
saline can be used instead.
|
|
|
|
The "placebo effect" is the observed tendency for patients to display
|
|
the symptoms they are told to expect.
|
|
|
|
The problem is that the state of mind of a patient is often a
|
|
significant factor in the effect of a course of treatment. All
|
|
doctors know this; it is why "bedside manner" is considered so
|
|
important. In statistical tests of new treatments it is even more
|
|
important, since even a small effect from the state of mind of a small
|
|
fraction of the patients in the trial can have a significant effect
|
|
on the results. Hence new medicines are tested against a placebo.
|
|
The patients in the trial are randomly divided into two groups. One
|
|
of these groups is given the real medicine, the other is given the
|
|
placebo. Neither group knows which they have been given. Hence the
|
|
state of mind for both groups will be similar, and any difference
|
|
between the two groups must be due to the drug. This is a blind trial.
|
|
|
|
It has been found that patients can be unconciously affected by the
|
|
attitude and expectations of the doctor supplying the drug, even if
|
|
the doctor does not explicitly tell them what to expect. Hence it is
|
|
usual for the doctor to be equally unaware which group is which. This
|
|
is a "double blind" trial. The job of remembering which group is
|
|
which is given to some administrative person who does not normally
|
|
come into contact with patients.
|
|
|
|
This causes problems for many alternative therapies because they do
|
|
something to the patient which is difficult to do in a placebo-like
|
|
manner. For instance, a treatment involving the laying-on of hands
|
|
cannot be done in such a way that both patient and practitioner are
|
|
unaware as to whether a "real" laying on of hands has taken place.
|
|
There are partial solutions to this. For instance one study employed
|
|
a three-way test of drug placebo, counseling and alternative therapy.
|
|
|
|
4.3: Why should scientific criteria apply to alternative therapies?
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
So that we can tell if they work or not. If you take an patient
|
|
and give them treatment then one of three things will happen: the
|
|
patient will get better, will get worse, or will not change. And this
|
|
is true whether the treatment is a course of drugs chosen by a doctor,
|
|
an alternative therapy, or just counting to ten.
|
|
|
|
Many alternative therapies depend on "anecdotal evidence" where
|
|
particular cases got better after the therapy was applied. Almost any
|
|
therapy will have some such cases, even if it actually harms the
|
|
patients. And so anecdotal evidence of Mrs X who was cured of cancer
|
|
by this wonderful new treatment is not useful in deciding whether the
|
|
treatment is any good.
|
|
|
|
The only way to tell for sure whether or not an alternative treatment
|
|
works is to use a double-blind trial, or as near to it as you can get.
|
|
See the previous question.
|
|
|
|
4.4: What is homeopathy?
|
|
------------------------
|
|
|
|
Homeopathy is sometimes confused with herbalism. A herbalist
|
|
prescribes herbs with known medicinal effects. Two well known
|
|
examples are foxglove flowers (which contain digitalin) and willow
|
|
bark (which contains aspirin). Folk remedies are now being studied
|
|
extensively in order to winnow the wheat from the chaff.
|
|
|
|
Homeopathists believe that if a drug produces symptoms similar to
|
|
certain disease then a highly diluted form of the same drug will cure
|
|
the disease. The greater the dilution, the stronger this curative
|
|
effect will be (this is known as the law of Arndt-Schulz). Great
|
|
importance is also attatched to the way in which the diluted solution
|
|
is shaken during the dilution.
|
|
|
|
People are skeptical about homeopathy because:
|
|
|
|
1: There is no known mechanism by which it can work. Many homeopathic
|
|
treatments are so diluted that not one molecule of the original
|
|
substance is contained in the final dose.
|
|
|
|
2: The indicator symptoms are highly subjective. Some substances have
|
|
hundreds of trivial indicators.
|
|
|
|
3: Almost no clinical tests have been done.
|
|
|
|
4: It is not clear why trace impurities in the dilutants are not also
|
|
fortified by the dilution mechanism.
|
|
|
|
Reports of one scientific trial that seemed to provide evidence for
|
|
homeopathy until a double-blind trial was set up can be found in
|
|
Nature vol 333, p.816 and further, and the few issues of Nature
|
|
following that, about until November of that year (1988).
|
|
|
|
SI ran a good article on the origins and claims of homeopathy:
|
|
Stephen Barrett, M.D., "Homeopathy: Is It Medicine?", SI,
|
|
vol. 12, no. 1, Fall 1987, pp. 56-62.
|
|
|
|
4.5: What is aromatherapy?
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
A belief that the essential oils of various flowers have therapeutic
|
|
effects. [Does anyone know more? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
4.6: What is reflexology? What is iridology?
|
|
---------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Reflexology is an alternative therapy based on massage of the feet.
|
|
The idea is that parts of the body can be mapped onto areas of the
|
|
feet. There is no known mechanism by which massaging the feet can
|
|
affect other parts of the body (other than the simple soothing and
|
|
relaxing effect that any massage gives) and no evidence that it
|
|
actually works.
|
|
|
|
Iridology is a remarkably similar notion. Diseases are detected and
|
|
diagnosed by examining the iris of the eye. A good critique of
|
|
iridology: Russell S. Worrall, "Iridology: Diagnosis or Delusion?",
|
|
SI, vol. 7 no. 3, pp. 23-35.
|
|
|
|
4.7: Does acupuncture work?
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
[I don't know. I have heard of a few studies. Does anyone have more
|
|
information, especially references? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
[Various people have responded to this question asserting that
|
|
accupuncture does not work beyond a placebo effect, but no-one has
|
|
sent in a reference to a clinical trial.]
|
|
|
|
4.8: What about psychic surgery?
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Psychic surgeons have claimed to be able to make magical incisions,
|
|
remove cancers and perform other miracles. To date, no investigation
|
|
of a psychic surgeon has ever found real paranormal ability. Instead
|
|
they have found one of two things:
|
|
|
|
1: Simple conjuring tricks. The "surgeons" in these cases are
|
|
confidence tricksters who prey on the desperate and the foolish.
|
|
|
|
2: Delusions of grandeur. These people are even more dangerous than
|
|
the first catagory, as their treatments may actually cause harm in
|
|
addition to whatever was wrong with the patient in the first
|
|
place.
|
|
|
|
4.9: What is Crystal Healing?
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
The belief that carrying a small quartz crystal will make you a
|
|
healthier person. People selling these crystals use phrases like "the
|
|
body's natural energy fields" and "tuning into the right vibrational
|
|
frequencies". All this sounds vaguely scientific but means absolutely
|
|
nothing. Crystal Healing is mostly a New Age idea. See the section
|
|
on the New Age below for more information.
|
|
|
|
4.10: Does religious healing work?
|
|
----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Miraculous healing is often put forward as a proof of the existance
|
|
and approval of God. The Catholic and Christian Scientist churches in
|
|
particular often claim that believers have been healed, none of
|
|
these healings have stood up to careful scrutiny, although it should
|
|
be noted that the Catholic church does investigate alledged miracles.
|
|
|
|
One famous "healing" which has been carefully investigated is the case
|
|
of Mrs Jean Neil. Many people have seen the video of her getting out
|
|
of a wheel-chair and running around the stadium at meeting led by the
|
|
German evangalist Reinhard Bonnke. This was investigated by Dr. Peter
|
|
May, a GP and member of the General Synod of the Church of England.
|
|
His findings were reported in the Skeptic (organ of the UK Skeptics).
|
|
Here is a summary of the report. [Any errors are mine. PAJ].
|
|
|
|
May found that Mrs. Neil was helpful and enthusiastic when he
|
|
contacted her, and there is little doubt that her quality of life has
|
|
improved greatly since the "healing". However May was unable to find
|
|
any physical changes. His report lists each of the illnesses claimed
|
|
by Mrs. Neil, and he found that they were either not recorded by
|
|
doctors previous to the healing or that no physical change had taken
|
|
place. It seems that the only change in Mrs. Neil was in her mental
|
|
state. Before the healing she was depressed and introverted.
|
|
Afterwards she became happy and outgoing.
|
|
|
|
A more sinister aspect of the story is the presentation of the Neil
|
|
case in a video promoted by CfaN Productions. This represented Mrs.
|
|
Neil before the healing as a "hopeless case", implied that she had a
|
|
single serious illness rather than a series of less major ones, and
|
|
included the false statement that she had been confined to a
|
|
wheelchair for 25 years (in fact Mrs. Neil had used a wheelchair for
|
|
about 15 months and could still walk, although with great difficulty).
|
|
A report on her spine was carefully edited to include statements about
|
|
her new pain-free movement but to exclude the statement that there was
|
|
no evidence of physical changes.
|
|
|
|
For the full report, see "The Skeptic" p9, vol 5, no 5, Sept 91. Back
|
|
issues are available from "The Skeptic (Dept. B), P.O. Box 475,
|
|
Manchester, M60 2TH, U.K. Price UKL 2.10 for UK, UKL 2.70 elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
The video is entitled "Something to Shout About --- The Documentation
|
|
of a Miracle". May does not say where this can be obtained. [Does
|
|
anyone know?]
|
|
|
|
Of course, this does not disprove the existance of miraculous healing.
|
|
Even Mrs. Neil's improvement could have been due to divine
|
|
intervention rather than a sub-consious decision to get better (as
|
|
most skeptics would conclude, although the May report carefully
|
|
refrains from doing so). I include this summary here because the Neil
|
|
case is often cited by evangelical Christians as an undeniable
|
|
miracle. In fact the case demonstrates that even such dramatic events
|
|
as a cripple getting up and running may not be so very inexplicable.
|
|
|
|
For more general coverage of this topic, see James Randi's book, The
|
|
Faith Healers. Free Inquiry magazine has also run exposes on
|
|
fraudulent faith healers like Peter Popoff and W.V. Grant.
|
|
|
|
4.11: What harm does it do anyway?
|
|
----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
People have died when alternative practitioners told them to stop
|
|
taking conventional treatment. Children have died when their parents
|
|
refused to give them conventional treatment. These issues matter.
|
|
|
|
Most alternative treatments are harmless, so the "complementary
|
|
medicine" approach where conventional and alternative therapies
|
|
proceed in parallel will not hurt anyone physically (although it is a
|
|
waste of time and money).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creation versus Evolution
|
|
=========================
|
|
|
|
5.1: Is the Bible evidence of anything?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Apart from the beliefs of those who wrote it, no. It is true that
|
|
most Christians take the truth of at least some parts of the bible as
|
|
an article of faith, but non-Christians are not so constrained.
|
|
Quoting the bible to such a person as "evidence" will simply cause
|
|
them to question the accuracy of the bible. See the alt.atheism FAQ
|
|
for more details.
|
|
|
|
Some things in the bible are demonstrably true, but this does not make
|
|
the bible evidence, since there are also things in the bible that are
|
|
demonstrably false.
|
|
|
|
5.2: Could the Universe have been created old?
|
|
----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
An argument is sometimes put forwards along the following lines:
|
|
|
|
We know from biblical evidence (see above) that the Universe
|
|
is about 6,000 years old. Therefore God created it 6,000
|
|
years ago with fossils in the ground and light on its way from
|
|
distant stars, so that there is no way of telling the real age
|
|
of the Universe simply by looking at it.
|
|
|
|
This hypothesis is unfalsifiable, and therefore not a scientific one
|
|
(see the section on the scientific method). It could also be made for
|
|
any date in the past (like last Tuesday). Finally it requires that
|
|
God, who is alleged to speak to us through His Works, should be lying
|
|
to us by setting up a misleading Creation. This seems to be rather
|
|
inconsistent with Biblical claims of God being the source of all
|
|
truth.
|
|
|
|
5.3: What about Carbon-14 dating?
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Isotope dating takes advantage of that radioactive materials break
|
|
down at a rate independent of their environment. Any solid object that
|
|
formed containing radioactive materials therefore steadily loses them
|
|
to decay. If it is possible to compare the amount of radioactive
|
|
material currently present with the amount originally present, one can
|
|
deduce how long ago the object was formed. The amount originally
|
|
present cannot, of course, be observed directly, but can be determined
|
|
by indirect means, such as identifying the decay products.
|
|
|
|
C-14 dating uses an unstable isotope of carbon that is constantly
|
|
being produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. This process is
|
|
assumed to be in equilibrium with the decay of C-14 throughout the
|
|
biosphere, so the proportion of carbon that is C-14 as opposed to the
|
|
stable C-12 and C-13 isotopes is essentially constant in any living
|
|
organism. When an organism dies, it stops taking up new carbon from
|
|
its environment, but the C-14 in its body continues to decay. By
|
|
measuring the amount of C-14 left in organic remains, one can
|
|
establish how long ago the organism they came from died. Because C-14
|
|
has a half-life of only a few thousand years, C-14 dating can only be
|
|
used for remains less than a few tens of thousands of years old--
|
|
after that, the C-14 is entirely gone, to all practical purposes.
|
|
Other isotopic dating techniques, such as potassium-argon dating, use
|
|
much longer-lived radionuclides and can reliably measure dates
|
|
billions of years in the past.
|
|
|
|
Actually the production rate isn't all that constant, so the amount of
|
|
C-14 in the biosphere varies somewhat with time. You also need to be
|
|
sure that the only source of carbon for the organism was atmospheric
|
|
carbon (via plants). The nominal date from a C-14 reading, based on
|
|
the present concentration, therefore has to be corrected to get the
|
|
real date --- but once the correction has been calculated using an
|
|
independent dating tool like dendrochronology (see below), it can be
|
|
applied to any sample.
|
|
|
|
While it is true that there *may* be unknown errors in some dating
|
|
methods (see the note in section 0 about science "proving" things)
|
|
this assertion cannot be used to write off isotope dating as evidence
|
|
of an ancient Earth. This is because:
|
|
|
|
o There are several independent ways of dating objects, including
|
|
radio-isotopes, dendrochronology, position in rock strata etc.
|
|
These all give a consistent picture.
|
|
|
|
o Dating methods all point to an *old* Earth, about *half a million*
|
|
times older than the Creationists claim. This requires dating
|
|
methods which are accurate up to 6,000 years ago and then suddenly
|
|
start to give completely wrong (but still consistent) answers. Even
|
|
if our dating methods are out by a factor of 10 or 100, the earth is
|
|
still thousands of times older than Creationists claim.
|
|
|
|
5.4: What is dendrochronology?
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The science of dating wood by a study of annual rings.
|
|
|
|
[These figures and references come from a longer summary emailed to me
|
|
by <whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.com>. Any mistakes are mine. PAJ]
|
|
|
|
Everyone knows that when you cut down a tree the cut surface shows a
|
|
series of concentric rings, and that one of these rings is added each
|
|
year as the tree grows. The lighter part of the ring is the summer
|
|
growth and the darker part is the winter growth. Hence you can date a
|
|
tree by counting the rings.
|
|
|
|
But the rings are not evenly spaced. Some rings are wider than
|
|
others. These correspond to good and poor growing seasons. So if you
|
|
have a piece of wood cut down a few thousand years ago, you can date
|
|
it by comparing the pattern of rings in your sample to known patterns
|
|
in recently cut trees (Bristlecone pines exist which are over 4600
|
|
years old, and core samples allow ring counting without killing the
|
|
tree).
|
|
|
|
Now for the clever bit. The tree from which your sample came may have
|
|
been old before any trees now alive were even saplings. So you can
|
|
extend the known pattern of rings back even further, and hence date
|
|
samples of wood which are even older. By lining up samples of wood in
|
|
this way, dendrochronologists have been able to produce a continous
|
|
pattern of rings going back around 9,900 years. This easily refutes
|
|
the chronology of Bishop Usher, who calculated from dates and ages
|
|
given in the Bible that the Earth was created in 4004 BC.
|
|
|
|
Dendrochronology is also valuable in providing calibration data for
|
|
C14 and other isotope dating methods. See the previous question for
|
|
more details.
|
|
|
|
References:
|
|
|
|
"Dendrochronology of the Bristlecone Pine....."
|
|
by C. W. Ferguson, 1970. Published in a book called
|
|
"Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology"
|
|
|
|
This takes the record back 7484 years. I am told that more recent
|
|
work published in Nature in 1991 [exact reference anyone?] has pushed
|
|
this back to the 9,900 years I mentioned above.
|
|
|
|
5.5: What is evolution? Where can I find out more?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Many creationist "refutations" of evolution are based on a straw-man
|
|
argument. The technique is to misrepresent the theory of evolution,
|
|
putting forward an absurd theory as "what scientists claim". The
|
|
absurdity of this pseudo-evolution theory is then ridiculed.
|
|
|
|
Debunking all these refutations would take a lot of space. Instead I
|
|
suggest that anyone interested should go and read the FAQ lists over
|
|
on talk.origins. These contain good explanations of what evolution is
|
|
(and isn't). I can also recommend books and essays on the subject by
|
|
Stephen Jay Gould.
|
|
|
|
[Perhaps the FAQ lists on talk.origins could be cross-posted?]
|
|
|
|
5.6: "The second law of thermodynamics says....
|
|
-----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
...that entropy is always increasing. Entropy is a measure of the
|
|
randomness in a system. So the universe is getting more and more
|
|
disordered. But if this is so, how can life happen, since
|
|
evolutionists claim essentially that life is a system that becomes
|
|
more ordered with time?"
|
|
|
|
In fact this is a mistatement of the law. Here is one generally
|
|
accepted statement of the Second Law:
|
|
|
|
No process is possible whose *sole* result is a heat flow out of
|
|
a system and at a given temperature and the performance of work
|
|
with that energy.
|
|
|
|
In other words, you can't get work except by exploiting a temperature
|
|
gradient (at least, not thermodynamically - forms of potential energy
|
|
other than heat may be used - but they can also be used to make a
|
|
heat gradient).
|
|
|
|
Notice that this statement of the second law doesn't mention the word
|
|
"disorder". In fact, the principle of entropy increase also does not,
|
|
since entropy is a thermodynamic state variable whose definition is
|
|
independent of such ill-defined terms as "disorder".
|
|
|
|
So, where does this idea that entropy is a measure of "disorder" come
|
|
from - and what does it mean anyway? Well, the idea comes from a
|
|
mistatement of the theory of statistical mechanics. And the meaning
|
|
is nil - since the term "disorder" has no precise scientific meaning
|
|
anyway.
|
|
|
|
In statistical mechanics, "entropy" is defined in terms of the number
|
|
of distinct energy "microstates" that are possible within the system.
|
|
This diversity of states was (and sometimes still is) informally
|
|
called "disorder" by some statistical mechanics experts when trying to
|
|
convey a feel for the subject to lay audiences. It was never a
|
|
technical term - and never had any specific meaning in the theory.
|
|
The term "disorder" applied in this way is misleading (or, at best,
|
|
meaningless). A room which is messy would be informally called
|
|
"disordered" by most people - even if they're ignorant (as most are)
|
|
of the entropy of the room. The room might actually have a *higher*
|
|
entropy after it has been cleaned.
|
|
|
|
In addition the laws of thermodynamics only apply to closed systems
|
|
(which the Earth is not). Small parts of such a closed system can
|
|
show a decrease in entropy, but only if some other part has a higher
|
|
entropy. Entropy in the system as a whole will always increase.
|
|
|
|
For instance, when you freeze water the molecules of H2O line up in
|
|
beautifully organised crystals. This organisation does not violate
|
|
the second law of thermodynamics because the work done by the freezer
|
|
in extracting the heat from the water has caused the total entropy of
|
|
the *universe* to rise, even though the entropy of the *water* has
|
|
decreased.
|
|
|
|
Similarly the existence of life on earth has not decreased the entropy
|
|
of the universe, so the second law has not been violated.
|
|
|
|
5.7: How could living organisms arise "by chance"?
|
|
--------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
This is actually a less sophisticated version of the question above.
|
|
Consider the freezing water in the example. The wonderful arrangement
|
|
in crystals arises from the random movement of water molecules. But
|
|
ice crystals do not require divine intervention as an explanation, and
|
|
neither does the evolution of life.
|
|
|
|
Also, consider a casino. An honest casino makes a profit from
|
|
roulette wheels. The result of a spin of a particular wheel is purely
|
|
random, but casinos make very predictable profits. So in evolutionary
|
|
theory, even though the occurance of a particular mutation is random,
|
|
the overall effect of improved adaptation over time is not.
|
|
|
|
The actual origin of life is more problematical. If you stick some
|
|
ammonia, methane and a few other simple chemicals into a jar and
|
|
subject them to ultraviolet light then after a week or two you get a
|
|
mixture of organic molecules, including amino acids (the building
|
|
blocks of protein). So current theories propose a "primordial soup"
|
|
of dilute organic chemicals. Somewhere a molecule happened to form
|
|
which could make copies of itself out of other molecules floating
|
|
around in the soup, and the rest is history. However calculations
|
|
suggest that even with an immense volume of primordial soup left for
|
|
many millions of years this is wildly improbable. Some people give
|
|
this as evidence that God triggered the start of life. Others (e.g.
|
|
Fred Hoyle) posit extra-terrestrial origins for life. Still others
|
|
have suggested that the assumptions about the complexity necessary for
|
|
a self-replicating molecule are wrong.
|
|
|
|
5.8: But doesn't the human body seem to be well designed?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Not to me. Consider a few pieces of the human body for a moment. The
|
|
back for instance. The reason we poor humans suffer so much from back
|
|
problems is that the back is actually not well designed. And what
|
|
about human reproduction. Can you imagine any engineer being proud of
|
|
having designed *that*?
|
|
|
|
5.9: What about the thousands of scientists who have become Creationists?
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
This outrageous claim is frequently made by creationists, but somehow
|
|
these mystery scientists are never identified. It is claimed that
|
|
these conversions have been caused by "the evidence", but this
|
|
evidence never seems to be forthcoming either.
|
|
|
|
Even if this claim were true, it would not be a reason to become a
|
|
creationist. The only reason for adopting creationism as a scientific
|
|
theory would be the production of convincing evidence.
|
|
|
|
Firewalking
|
|
===========
|
|
|
|
WARNING: Whatever the truth about firewalking may be, it is a
|
|
potentially dangerous activity. Do not attempt it without
|
|
expert guidance.
|
|
|
|
[Please could one of the firewalkers on the net contribute a paragraph
|
|
or two for this section. PAJ]
|
|
|
|
6.1: Is firewalking possible?
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
Yes. It is possible to walk on a bed of burning wood without being
|
|
hurt.
|
|
|
|
6.2: Can science explain firewalking?
|
|
-------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
There are a number of theories which have been put forward to explain
|
|
firewalking. Any or all may be the explanation for a particular
|
|
event.
|
|
|
|
o The dry wood coals used by firewalkers conduct heat very poorly.
|
|
The coal itself may be very hot but it will not transfer that heat
|
|
to something touching it.
|
|
|
|
o The coals are a very uneven surface, and the actual surface area of
|
|
foot touching the coals is very small. Hence the conduction of heat
|
|
is even slower.
|
|
|
|
o Firewalkers do not spend very much time on the coals, and they keep
|
|
moving. Jan Willem Nienhuys <wsadjw@urc.tue.nl> adds that about 1
|
|
second total contact time per foot seems on the safe side.
|
|
|
|
o Blood is a good conductor of heat. What heat does get through is
|
|
quickly conducted away from the soles of the feet.
|
|
|
|
o The "Leidenfrost" effect may play a part. This occurs when a cold,
|
|
wet object (like a foot) touches a hot, dry object (like a burning
|
|
coal). The water vaporises, creating a barrier of steam between the
|
|
hot and cold objects. Hence the two objects do not actually touch
|
|
and evaporation from the cold object is much slower than might
|
|
otherwise be expected. Since steam is a relatively poor conductor
|
|
of heat the foot does not get burned. Jearl Walker, of Scientific
|
|
American's "The Amateur Scientist" column, explains the Leidenfrost
|
|
effect in the August 1977 issue; he walked across coals unharmed and
|
|
attributes this to the Leidenfrost effect. Other scientists believe
|
|
that the Leidenfrost effect is unimportant in firewalking.
|
|
|
|
Some skeptics have challenged firewalkers to stand on hot metal plates
|
|
instead of coals. Others have pointed out that making such a
|
|
challenge in the belief that the firewalker would be seriously hurt is
|
|
of dubious morality.
|
|
|
|
New Age
|
|
=======
|
|
|
|
7.1: What do New Agers believe?
|
|
-------------------------------
|
|
|
|
An awful lot, it would seem. New Age seems to be a sort of
|
|
"roll-your-own" religion. Some of the more common threads include:
|
|
|
|
o Divination, especially Tarot, I-Ching, and Western and Chinese
|
|
Astrology.
|
|
|
|
o Green politics, especially the more extreme "deep green" movements.
|
|
|
|
o Flying saucers.
|
|
|
|
o "Alternative" health (see above).
|
|
|
|
o Vegetarianism.
|
|
|
|
o Pacifism.
|
|
|
|
o Conspiracy theories to explain why the rest of the world does not
|
|
follow the same beliefs.
|
|
|
|
o Rejection of science and logic as tools for understanding the
|
|
universe. A reliance on feelings and intuition as guides to action.
|
|
|
|
o Pseudo-scientific jargon. New Agers talk about "rebalancing energy
|
|
fields" and "vibrational frequencies". These sound vaguely
|
|
scientific but in fact have no meaning at all.
|
|
|
|
o Eastern religions, especially "cult" religions. Mainstream eastern
|
|
religions such as Hinduism and Sihkism don't seem to attract New Age
|
|
believers. Most New Agers are actively against organised
|
|
Christianity, but some favour heretical variants such as Gnosticism.
|
|
|
|
Not all of these are bad just because New Age people follow them, but
|
|
the rejection of logical argument as a basis for belief and action
|
|
often leads to bizarre beliefs and futile actions. A recent example
|
|
was the vandalism of a GPS satelite while it was waiting to be
|
|
launched. The vandals claimed that GPS was part of a nuclear
|
|
first-strike system. In fact ICBMs use inertial guidance instead of
|
|
GPS, and have done for decades.
|
|
|
|
[Would any New Agers out there like to try summarising their beliefs
|
|
in a few paragraphs for this section? PAJ]
|
|
|
|
7.2: What is the Gaia hypothesis?
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
There are several versions:
|
|
|
|
Religious: The planet (or the ecosphere) is aware, or at least alive,
|
|
and tries to preserve itself.
|
|
|
|
Strong: The planet/ecosphere reacts to preserve a homeostasis; if, for
|
|
example, global warming raises the temperature then various
|
|
changes in the planet's biota will occur which will (in some
|
|
period of time) lower the temperature.
|
|
|
|
Weak: Life affects the conditions of life.
|
|
|
|
No scientist would disagree with the weak version given here; at the
|
|
other extreme, the "religious" version is not science (unless we can
|
|
find signs of that awareness).
|
|
|
|
Not only can we look at the ozone hole, global warming, or human
|
|
pollution, but the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is also due to
|
|
the presence of life.
|
|
|
|
The strong hypothesis is very much a matter of debate. Most
|
|
scientists don't believe it, some don't think it's science, but others
|
|
feel they have good evidence. Some point to Le Chatelier's principle
|
|
(a system in equilibrium, when disturbed, reacts to as to tend to
|
|
restore the original equilibrium). However the ice ages suggest that
|
|
the Earth is not in long-term equilibrium.
|
|
|
|
Was Nostradamus a prophet?
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
Almost certainly not. His supporters are very good at predicting
|
|
events after the fact, often relying on doubtful translations of the
|
|
original French to bolster their case. But they have had absolutely
|
|
no success at predicting the future. Up until a few years ago most
|
|
Nostradamus books were predicting a nuclear war in the next few years.
|
|
|
|
The prophecies are very general, with lots of symbolism. It is very
|
|
easy to find connections between these symbols and almost anything
|
|
else, particularly if you allow multi-lingual puns and rhymes.
|
|
|
|
A good general reference on Nostradamus is:
|
|
|
|
The Mask of Nostradamus
|
|
James Randi
|
|
Charles Scribner's Sons
|
|
ISBN 0-684-19056-7
|
|
BF1815.N8R35 1990
|
|
|
|
7.4: Does astrology work?
|
|
-------------------------
|
|
|
|
No. A number of studies have been done which have failed to find any
|
|
predictive power in astrology. Psychologists have also done studies
|
|
showing that people will agree with almost any statement made about
|
|
them provided that it is a mild compliment.
|
|
|
|
7.4.1: Could astrology work by gravity?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Some people argue that we are affected by the gravity of the planets
|
|
(just as tides are caused by the gravity of the Moon and Sun), and
|
|
that this is the connection between the motion of the planets and
|
|
mundane events on Earth.
|
|
|
|
Leaving aside the fact that astrology doesn't work (see above),
|
|
gravity is simply too weak to do this. Gravitational force on a mass
|
|
(such as a human being) decreases with the square of the distance to
|
|
the other mass. But the Earth is affected just as strongly by the
|
|
other mass, and accelerates slightly towards it. So the net effect on
|
|
us is nil. What is important is the difference in gravity between the
|
|
two sides of the mass. This decreases with the *fourth* power of the
|
|
distance (i.e. very fast) but increases with the distance between the
|
|
near and far sides. Hence the Moon and Sun cause tides because the
|
|
Earth is very large. But the difference in gravity between one end of
|
|
a human and the other is absolutely miniscule.
|
|
|
|
Also, if this were the mechanism behind astrology then the most
|
|
significant thing in astrology would be the phase of the Moon, with
|
|
the time of day coming second. The position of the planets would be
|
|
completely irrelevant because they are so much further away than the
|
|
Moon and so much smaller than the Sun.
|
|
|
|
7.4.2: What is the `Mars Effect'?
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
French scientist Michael Gaugelin [spelling?] has discovered an apparant
|
|
correlation between the position of some planets at the time of birth
|
|
and the career followed as an adult. The strongest correlation is
|
|
between the time when Mars rises on the day of birth and athletic
|
|
prowess. This is the cause of considerable controversy, and anything
|
|
I say will probably be flamed. However:
|
|
|
|
o The Effect seems to come and go depending on exactly what the sample
|
|
population is. Most of the controversy seems to revolve around who
|
|
did what to which sample populations.
|
|
|
|
o `Mundane' mechanisms for the Mars Effect correlations have been
|
|
proposed which invoke the age grouping of school athletic
|
|
activities.
|
|
|
|
o Nothing found by Gaugelin bears any resemblance to classical
|
|
astrology, so claims that Gaugelin has somehow "validated" astrology
|
|
are bogus.
|
|
|
|
Strange Machines: Free Energy and Anti-Gravity
|
|
==============================================
|
|
|
|
8.1: Why don't electrical perpetual motion machines work?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Electrical perpetual motion machinists usually present a machine that
|
|
causes a small battery to generate a huge amount of power. The most
|
|
common problem here is that the "huge amount of power" was incorrectly
|
|
measured. AC power measurements are tricky; you can't just multiply
|
|
the voltage and current, because they may be out of phase. Thus,
|
|
measuring 10 Volts and 10 Amps could indicate anything from 0 to 100
|
|
Watts, depending on the power factor. In addition, most AC meters
|
|
expect a sinusoidal wave; if they are given some other wave they may
|
|
be totally wrong. A simple argument against these machines is; "If
|
|
they can provide so much energy, why do they need the battery to keep
|
|
going?"
|
|
|
|
8.2: Why don't mechanical perpetual motion machines work?
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Mechanical perpetual motion machines depend on rising and descending
|
|
weights. The problem is that the amount of energy that you get out of
|
|
a descending weight is exactly the same amount that it took to raise
|
|
the weight in the first place: gravity is said to be a "conservative"
|
|
force. So no matter what the weights do, you can't get energy out.
|
|
|
|
8.3: Why don't magnetic perpetual motion machines work?
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Magnetic motors have a clever arrangement of magnets which keeps the
|
|
motor rotating forever. Not surprisingly, whenever someone tries to
|
|
build one, the motor rotates for a while and then stops -- this is
|
|
usually attributed to the magnets "wearing out". These motors usually
|
|
rely on using magnets as low-friction bearings, meaning the "motor"
|
|
can coast for a long time, but it doesn't supply any power. Magnetism
|
|
is like gravity; you can store potential energy and get it back, but
|
|
you can't get more energy no matter what you try.
|
|
|
|
8.4: Magnets can levitate. Where is the energy from?
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Levitating magnets do not require energy, any more than something
|
|
resting on a table requires energy. Energy is the capacity for doing
|
|
work. Work can be measured by force times distance. Although the
|
|
magnets are exerting a force the levitated object is stationary, so
|
|
the magnets aren't supplying any energy.
|
|
|
|
8.5: But its been patented!
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
So what? Patent offices will not grant a patent on a "perpetual
|
|
motion machine" but if you call it a "vacuum energy device" and claim
|
|
that it gets its energy from some previously unknown source then you
|
|
can probably get a patent. Patent offices are there to judge whether
|
|
something has been invented before, not whether it will work.
|
|
|
|
8.6: The oil companies are conspiring to suppress my invention
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
This is a conspiracy theory. See the entry on these in section 0.
|
|
|
|
8.7: My machine gets its free energy from <X>
|
|
---------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
A number of machines have been proposed which are not "perpetual
|
|
motion" machines in the sense of violating the law of conservation of
|
|
energy. Mostly these are based on bogus science. One inventor claims
|
|
that atoms of copper wire are being converted to energy in accordance
|
|
with Einstein's "e=mc^2". However he fails to explain what causes
|
|
this transformation and how this energy is converted into electrical
|
|
energy rather than gamma rays.
|
|
|
|
Occasionally one sees a machine which could work in theory but would
|
|
produce very tiny amounts of energy. For instance, one can set up a
|
|
gyroscope which always points in one direction (this is how the
|
|
gyrocompass in an aircraft works). The earth will rotate underneath
|
|
this once every day (to an observer standing on the Earth it looks
|
|
like the gyro is rotating). So you could attach gears and a generator
|
|
to the gyroscope and use this rotation to get electricity. The
|
|
4,320,000:1 gearing required is left as an exercise for the student,
|
|
as is naming the source of the energy it would generate.
|
|
|
|
8.8: Can gyroscopes neutralise gravity?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Gyroscopes (or gyros) are a favorite of "lift" machine inventors
|
|
because many people have come across them and they behave rather
|
|
oddly. However there is nothing all that mysterious about the
|
|
behaviour of gyros. You can use Newtonian physics to explain them.
|
|
Briefly, if you imagine a bit of metal on the edge of a spinning gyro,
|
|
then to turn the gyro you have to stop the bit of metal moving in its
|
|
current direction and start it moving in another direction. To do
|
|
this when it is moving fast you have to push it rather hard. Nothing
|
|
about this makes the thing get any lighter (in fact to be pedantic,
|
|
the gyro gets very slightly heavier when it spins, in accordance with
|
|
Einstein's theory of relativity.)
|
|
|
|
8.9: My prototype gets lighter when I turn it on
|
|
------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Weighing something which is vibrating on ordinary scales is a sure way
|
|
of getting a wrong answer. The vibration from the machine combines
|
|
with "stiction" in the scales to give a false reading. As a result
|
|
the weight reductions reported for such machines are always close to
|
|
the limits of accuracy of the scales used.
|
|
|
|
AIDS
|
|
====
|
|
|
|
9.1: What about these theories on AIDS?
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
There are two AIDS theories that often appear in sci.skeptic. The
|
|
first is Strecker's theory that the CIA invented HIV by genetic
|
|
engineering; the second is Duesberg's theory that HIV has nothing to
|
|
do with AIDS.
|
|
|
|
9.1.1: The Mainstream Theory
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
The generally accepted theory is that AIDS is caused by the Human
|
|
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). There are two different versions of
|
|
HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. These viruses are believed, on the basis of
|
|
their genetic sequences, to have evolved from the Simian
|
|
Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), with HIV-2 being much more similar to
|
|
SIV. Several years after the initial HIV infection, the immune system
|
|
is weakened to the point where opportunistic infections occur,
|
|
resulting in the syndrome of AIDS. A good reference for more
|
|
information on the "mainstream" view of AIDS is:
|
|
|
|
The Science of AIDS : readings from Scientific American magazine.
|
|
New York : W.H. Freeman, c1989.
|
|
|
|
9.1.2: Strecker's CIA Theory
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
Strecker's theory is that the CIA made HIV in the 1970's by combining
|
|
bovine leukemia virus (BLV) and sheep visna virus (OLV). The evidence for
|
|
this theory is that the government was looking at biological warfare around
|
|
then, and that there are some structural similarities between HIV and BLV
|
|
and visna. The evidence against this theory is:
|
|
|
|
a: HIV has been found in preserved blood samples from the 1950's.
|
|
[Anyone have a reference for this?]
|
|
b: We didn't have the biotechnology back then for the necessary gene
|
|
splicing. (But maybe the CIA has secret advanced technology?)
|
|
c: The genetic sequences for HIV, SIV, BLV, and OLV are freely
|
|
available (e.g. from genbank). You can look at them and compare
|
|
them yourself. The HIV sequence is totally different from BLV and
|
|
OLV, but is fairly similar to SIV, just as the scientists say.
|
|
|
|
Also see the question in section 0 about Conspiracy Theories.
|
|
|
|
9.1.3: Duesberg's Risk-Group Theory
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Duesberg's theory is: HIV is a harmless retrovirus that may serve as a
|
|
marker for people in AIDS high-risk groups. AIDS is not a contagious
|
|
syndrome caused by one conventional virus or microbe. AIDS is
|
|
probably caused by conventional pathogenic factors: administration of
|
|
blood transfusions or drugs, promiscuous male homosexual activity
|
|
associated with drugs, acute parasitic infections, and malnutrition.
|
|
Drugs such as AZT promote AIDS, rather than fight it. His theory is
|
|
explained in detail in "Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired
|
|
Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation but not Causation", Proc. Natl.
|
|
Acad. Sci. USA V86 pp755-764, (Feb 1989).
|
|
|
|
He claims as evidence for his theory:
|
|
|
|
a: HIV does not meet Koch's postulates for the causitive agent of an
|
|
infectious disease.
|
|
b: The conversion rate from HIV infection to AIDS depends greatly on
|
|
the country and risk group membership, so HIV isn't sufficient to
|
|
cause AIDS.
|
|
c: The HIV virus is minimally active, does not seem to infect many
|
|
cells, and is suppressed by the immune system, so how could it
|
|
cause problems?
|
|
d: It takes between 2 and 15 years from HIV infection for AIDS to
|
|
occur. HIV should cause illness right away or never.
|
|
e: HIV is similar to other retroviruses that don't cause AIDS. There
|
|
seems to be nothing special about HIV that would cause AIDS.
|
|
f: AIDS patients suffer very different diseases in the US and Africa,
|
|
which suggests that the cofactors are responsible, not AIDS.
|
|
g: How could two viruses, HIV-1 and HIV-2, evolve at the same time?
|
|
It doesn't seem likely that two deadly viruses would show up
|
|
together.
|
|
|
|
Virtually the entire scientific community considers Duesberg a flake,
|
|
although he was a respected researcher before he came out with his
|
|
theory about AIDS. There is no suggestion that his theories are the
|
|
result of a political agenda or homophobia.
|
|
|
|
Some of the arguments against him are:
|
|
|
|
a: People who receive HIV tainted blood become HIV+ and come down with
|
|
AIDS. People who receive HIV-free blood don't get AIDS (unless
|
|
they get HIV somewhere else). Thus, it is the HIV, not the
|
|
transfusion, that causes AIDS.
|
|
b: The risk factors (homosexuality, drug use, transfusions, etc.) have
|
|
been around for a very long time, but AIDS doesn't show up until
|
|
HIV shows up. People who engage in homosexuality, drug use, etc.
|
|
but aren't exposed to HIV don't get AIDS. On the other hand,
|
|
people who aren't members of "risk groups" but are exposed to HIV
|
|
get AIDS. Thus, it is the HIV, not the risk factors, that causes
|
|
AIDS.
|
|
c: With a few recent exceptions, everyone with an AIDS-like immune
|
|
deficiency tests positive for HIV. Everyone with HIV apparently
|
|
gets AIDS eventually, after an average of 8 years.
|
|
d: Koch's postulates are more of historical interest than practical
|
|
use. There are many diseases that don't satisfy the postulates.
|
|
e: It is not understood exactly how HIV causes AIDS, but a lack of
|
|
understanding of the details isn't a reason to reject HIV.
|
|
f: A recent study matched up people in the same risk groups and found
|
|
those with HIV got AIDS but those without HIV didn't. The study
|
|
was titled "HIV causes AIDS".
|
|
|
|
More information can be found in published rebuttals to Duesberg, such as in
|
|
Nature V345 pp659-660 (June 21, 1990), and in Duesberg's debate with
|
|
Blattner, Gallo, Temin, Science V241 pp514-517 (1988).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Interval expired; posting skeptic-faq.
|
|
Article <skeptic-faq_724518324@gec-mrc.co.uk> posted successfully.
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
===============================================================================
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
|
|
From: blanton@mksol.dseg.ti.com (John F Blanton)
|
|
Subject: Skeptics' Library
|
|
Message-ID: <1993Jan17.164307.25711@mksol.dseg.ti.com>
|
|
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc
|
|
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 16:43:07 GMT
|
|
Lines: 382
|
|
|
|
The following bibliography was compiled by John Thomas and James Rusk
|
|
for the North Texas Skeptics. Free use may be made of this list to
|
|
promote the understanding of the subjects referenced here, but no
|
|
commercial use should be made without the consent of the authors.
|
|
|
|
Printed copies of this list may be obtained from the NTS for free
|
|
while supplies last. This file was produced by OCR conversion of a
|
|
typeset work. To that extent, some character substitutions may be
|
|
present, for which I apologize. Also, the printed document used
|
|
italics and bold where appropriate. These were naturally discarded in
|
|
the conversion to plain text.
|
|
=======================================================================
|
|
Scientists Confront Pseudoscience
|
|
|
|
A Bibliography for Librarians
|
|
|
|
Distributed by:
|
|
North Texas Skeptics
|
|
P.O. Box 111794
|
|
Carrollton, TX 75011-1794
|
|
(214) 416-8038
|
|
|
|
Fall, 1990
|
|
|
|
General
|
|
|
|
Abell, George and Barry Singer, eds., Science and the Paranormal,
|
|
Scribners, 1983, P-$13.95, ISBN 0-684-17820-6.
|
|
|
|
Asimov, Isaac, The Roving Mind, Prometheus Books, 1983, H-$21.95,
|
|
ISBN 0-87975-201-7; P-$15.95, ISBN 0-87975-315-3.
|
|
|
|
Cazeau, Charles J. and Stuart D. Scott, Jr., Exploring the Unknown:
|
|
Great Mysteries Reexamined, Plenum Press, 1979, H-$18.95,
|
|
ISBN 0-306-40210-6.
|
|
|
|
de Camp, L. Sprague, The Fringe of the Unknown, Prometheus
|
|
Books, 1983, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975-217-3.
|
|
|
|
de Camp, L. Sprague, The Ragged Edge of Science, Owlswick
|
|
Press, 1980, H-$16.00, ISBN 0-913896-06-3.
|
|
|
|
Frazier, Kendrick, ed., Paranormal Borderlands of Science,
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1981, P-$17.95, ISBN 0-87975-148-7.
|
|
|
|
Frazier, Kendrick, ed., Science Confronts the paranormal
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1985, P-$17.95, ISBN 0-87975-314-5.
|
|
|
|
Gardner, Martin, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science,
|
|
Dover, 1957, P-$6.50, ISBN 0-486-20394-8.
|
|
|
|
Gardner, Martin, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, Prometheus
|
|
Books, 1981, P-$15.95, ISBN 0-87975-573-3.
|
|
|
|
Goran, Morris, Fact, and, and Fantasy: The occult and
|
|
Pseudosciences, Littlefield, 1980, P-$7.95, ISBN 0-8226-
|
|
0356-X.
|
|
|
|
Hines, Terence. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: A
|
|
Critical Examination of the Evidence, Prometheus Books,
|
|
1987, P-$17.95, ISBN 0-87975-419-2.
|
|
|
|
MacKay, Charles, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the
|
|
Madness of Crowds, Templeton, 1985 (original 1841), H-
|
|
$24.95, ISBN 0934405-00-X; P- 3 editions available.
|
|
|
|
Nickell, Joe and John F. Fischer, Secrets of the
|
|
Supernatural: Investigating the World's Occult Mysteries,
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1988, H-$18.95, ISBN 0-87975-461-3.
|
|
|
|
Paulos, John Allen, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and
|
|
Its Consequences, Hill and Wang, 1988, H-$16.95, ISBN 0-8090-74478.
|
|
|
|
Randi, James, Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other
|
|
Delusions, Prometheus Books, 1982, P-$12.95, ISBN 0-87975-1983.
|
|
|
|
Rothman, Milton A., A Physicist's Guide to Skepticism
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1988, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-440-0.
|
|
|
|
Sagan, Carl, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of
|
|
Science, Random House, 1979, H-$14.95, ISBN 0-394-50169-1.
|
|
|
|
Schultz, Ted, ed., The Fringes of Reason: A Whole Earth
|
|
Catalog, Harmony Books, 1989, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-517-57165-X.
|
|
|
|
Stanovich, Keith E., How to Think Straight About Psychology,
|
|
2nd ed., Scott Foresman and Company, 1989, P-price not set,
|
|
ISBN 0-67338412-8.
|
|
|
|
Astrology
|
|
|
|
Bok, Bart J. and Lawrence E. Jerome, Objections to
|
|
Astrology, Prometheus Books, 1975, P-$10.95, ISBN 0-87975-059-6.
|
|
|
|
Culver, Roger B., Sun Sign Sunset: A Statistical
|
|
Investigation of the Claims of Sun Sign Astrology, Pachart
|
|
Publishing House, 1980, P$9.95, ISBN 0-912918-00-4.
|
|
|
|
Culver, Roger B. and Phillip A. Ianna, Astrology: True or
|
|
False? A Scientific Evaluation, Prometheus Books, 1988, P-
|
|
$14.95, ISBN 087975-483-4.
|
|
|
|
Gauquelin, Michel, Dreams and Illusions of Astrology,
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1979, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-099-5.
|
|
|
|
Jerome, Lawrence, Astrology Disproved, Prometheus Books,
|
|
1977, H$22.95, ISBN 0-87975-067-7.
|
|
|
|
UFO's
|
|
|
|
Billig, Otto, Flying Saucers: Magic in the Skies, Schenkman
|
|
Books, 1982, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87073-833-X; P-$11.95, ISBN 0-87073940-9.
|
|
|
|
Klass, Phillip, UFO'S: The Public Deceived, Prometheus
|
|
Books, 1986, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-203-3; 1986, P-$14.95,
|
|
ISBN 0-87975322-6.
|
|
|
|
Klass, Phillip, UFO-Abductions: A Dangerous Game, Prometheus
|
|
Books, 1988: 1989 (updated), P-$16.95, ISBN 0-87975-509-1.
|
|
|
|
Oberg, James, UFO'S and Outer Space Mysteries, Donning,
|
|
1982, P$6.95, ISBN 0-89865-102-6.
|
|
|
|
Sagan, Carl and Thornton Page, eds., UFO'S: A Scientific
|
|
Debate, Norton, 1974, P-$8.95, ISBN 0-393-00739-1.
|
|
|
|
Sheaffer, Robert, The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence,
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1986, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975-338-2.
|
|
|
|
Ancient Astronauts and Cult Archaeology
|
|
|
|
de Camp, L. Sprague, The Ancient Engineers, Ballantine
|
|
Books, 1988, P-$4.95, ISBN 0-345-00876-6.
|
|
|
|
de Camp, L. Sprague, Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme,
|
|
Dover, 1970, P-$6.50, ISBN 0-486-22668-9.
|
|
|
|
De Mille, Richard, ed., The Don Juan Papers: Further
|
|
Castaneda Controversies, Ross-Erikson, 1979, H-$19.95, ISBN
|
|
0-915520-257; P-(write for information), 1990,
|
|
ISBN 0-534-12150-0, Wadsworth Press.
|
|
|
|
Hadingham, Evan, Lines to the Mountain Gods: Nazca and the
|
|
Mysteries of Peru Random House, 1986, H-$22.50, ISBN 0-394-
|
|
54235-5-, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988, P-$16.95, ISBN
|
|
08061-2130-0.
|
|
|
|
Harrold, Francis and Raymond Eve, eds., Cult Archaeology and
|
|
Creationism: Understanding Pseudoscientific Beliefs about the
|
|
Past, University of Iowa Press, 1987, H-$20.00, ISBN 0-87745-176-1.
|
|
|
|
Stiebing, William H., Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions,
|
|
and other Popular Theories about Man's Past, Prometheus
|
|
Books, 1984, P$13.95, ISBN 0-87975-285-8.
|
|
|
|
Velikovsky
|
|
|
|
Bauer, Henry, Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public
|
|
Controversy, University of Illinois Press, 1984, H-$21.95,
|
|
ISBN 0-252-01104-X.
|
|
|
|
Goldsmith, Donald, ed., Scientists Confront Velikovsky,
|
|
Norton, 1979, P-$3.95, ISBN 0-393-00928-9.
|
|
|
|
Bermuda Triangle
|
|
|
|
Kusche, Larry, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved,
|
|
Prometheus Books, 1986, P-$16.95, ISBN 0-87975-330-7.
|
|
|
|
Creationism
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Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence for
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Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Norton, 1986, H-
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$18.95, ISBN 0-393-02216-1; 1987, P-$7.95, ISBN 0-393-30448-5.
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Frye, Roland M., Is God a Creationist? The Religious Case
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against Creation-science, Scribners, 1983, P-text edition by
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Macmillan, ISBN 0-02-339560-5.
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Futuyma, Douglas J., Science on Trial: The Case for
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Evolution, Pantheon Books, 1982, P-$10.36, ISBN 0-394-70679-X.
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Godfrey, Laurie R., ed., Scientists Con Confront
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Creationism, W. W. Norton,
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1983, P-$9.95, ISBN 0-393-30154-0.
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Hanson, Robert, ed., Science and Creation: GeologicaL
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Theological and Educational Perspectives, Macmillan
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Publishing Co., 1985, H-$24.95, ISBN 0-02-949870-8.
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Kitcher, Phillip, Abusing Science: The Case against
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Creationism, The MIT Press, 1982, P-$9.95, ISBN 0-262-61037-X.
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McGowan, Chris, In the Beginning: A Scientist Shows Why the
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Creationists Are Wrong, Prometheus Books, 1984, P-$14.95,
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ISBN 0-87975-240-8.
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Montagu, Ashley, ed., Science and Creationism Oxford
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University Press, 1984, P-$13.95, ISBN 0-19-503253-5.
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Newell, Norman D., Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality?
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Columbia University Press, 1982, H-$25.00, ISBN 0-231-05348-7;
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Praeger, 1984, P-$12.95, ISBN 0-275-91792-4.
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Pastrier, Stephen and William Haviland, eds., Confronting
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the Creationists, American Anthropological Association,
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1982, H-$6.00, ISBN 0-317-66352-6.
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Ruse, Michael, Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution
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Controversies, Benjamin-Cummings, 1982, P-$25.95, ISBN 0-20106273-9.
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Ruse, Michael, But Is It Science? The Philosophical Question
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in the Evolution-Creation Controversy, Prometheus Books,
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1988, H$24.95, ISBN 0-87975-439-7.
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Strahler, Arthur N., Science and Earth History: The
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Evolution/Creation Controversy, Prometheus Books, 1987, H-$39.95,
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ISBN 0-87975414-1.
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Walker, K. R., ed., The Evolution-Creation Controversy,
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University of Tennessee, Dept. of Geological Sciences, no
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date, P-$6.50, ISBN 09131377-00-5.
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Wilson, David B., ed., Did the Devil Make Darwin Do It? Iowa
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State University Press, 1983, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-8138-0434-5.
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ESP and Psychic Powers
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Alcock, James E., Parapsychology: Science or Magic? Pergamon
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Press, 1981, H-$61-00, ISBN 0-08-025773-9-, P-$25.00, ISBN
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0-08025772-0.
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Alcock, James E., Science and Supernature: A Critical
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Appraisal of Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, 1989, H-$24.95,
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ISBN 087975-548-2.
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Blackmore, Susan, The Adventures of a Parapsychologist,
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Prometheus Books, 1986, H-$22.95, ISBN 0-87975-360-9.
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Blackmore, Susan, Beyond the Body: An Investigation of Out-
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of-the-Body Experiences, Academy Chicago Pubs., 1990, P-$8.95,
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ISBN 089733-344-6.
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Booth, John, Psychic Paradoxes, Prometheus Books, 1986, P-$14.95,
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ISBN 0-87975-358-7.
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Flew, Antony, ed., Readings in the philosophical Problems of
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parapsychology, Prometheus Books, 1986, H-$25.95, ISBN 0-87975-382-X;
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P-$17.95, ISBN 0-87975-385-4.
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Gardner, Martin, How Not to Test a Psychic: A Study of the
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Remarkable Experiments with Renowned Clairvoyant Pavel
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Stepanek, Prometheus Books, 1989, H-$24.95, ISBN 0-87975-5121.
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Gardner, Martin, ed., The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold?
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Prometheus Books, 1986, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-321-8.
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Gordon, Henry, Extrasensory Deception, Prometheus Books,
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1988, H$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-407-9.
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Hall, Trevor H., The Enigma of Daniel Home: Medium or Fraud?
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Prometheus Books, 1984, H-$21.95, ISBN 0-87975-236-X.
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Hall, Trevor H., The Medium and the Scientist: The Story of
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Florence Cook and William Crookes, Prometheus Books, 1985,
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H-$21.95, ISBN 0-87975-276-9.
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Hansel, C. E. M., The Search for Psychic Power. ESP and
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Parapsychology Revisited, Prometheus Books, 1989, H-$24.95,
|
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ISBN 0-8797-D-516-4; P-$16.95, ISBN 0-87975-533-4.
|
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Harris, Melvin, Investigating the Unexplained, Prometheus
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Books, 1986, H-$20.95, ISBN 0-87975-367-6.
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Houdini, Harry, Miracle Mongers and their Methods: A
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Complete Expose, Prometheus Books, 1981 (original 1920), H-$18.95,
|
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ISBN 0-87975-143-6.
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Hyman, Ray, The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of
|
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Psychical Research, Prometheus Books, 1989, H-$24.95, ISBN
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0-87975-5040.
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Kurtz, Paul, ed., A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology,
|
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Prometheus Books, 1985, H-$35.95, ISBN 0-87975-302-1; P-$18.95,
|
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ISBN 087975-300-5.
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McGervey, John D., Probabilities in Everyday Life, Nelson-
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Hall, 1986, H-$23.95, ISBN 0-8304-1045-7; Ivy Books, 1989,
|
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$3.95, ISBN 0804-0532-4.
|
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Marks, David and Richard Kammann, The Psychology of the
|
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Psychic, Prometheus Books, 1980, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-121-5;
|
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P$15.95, ISBN 0-87975-122-3.
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Randi. James, The truth about Uri Geller, Prometheus Books,
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1982, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975-199-1.
|
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Reed, Graham, The Psychology of Anomalous Experience,
|
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revised edition, Prometheus Books, 1988, P-$16.95, ISBN 0-87975-435-4.
|
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Stenger, Victor J., Physics and Psychics: The Search for a
|
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World Beyond the Senses, Prometheus Books, 1990, H-$22.95,
|
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ISBN 087975-575-X.
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Shroud of Turin
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Nickell, Joe, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Prometheus
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Books, 1983, 1987, P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975-396-X.
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Animal Mysteries
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Binns, Ronald, The Loch Ness Mystery Solved, Prometheus
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Books, 1985, H-$20.95, ISBN 0-87975-278-5; P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975291-2.
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Dowsing
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Vogt, Evon, and Ray Hyman, Water Witching U. S. A., 2nd.
|
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ed., The University of Chicago Press, 1979, P-$10.95,
|
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ISBN 0-226-86297-6.
|
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Faith Healing
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Brenneman, Richard, Deadly Blessings: Faith Healing on Trial
|
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Prometheus Books, 1990, H-$21.95, ISBN 0-87975-580-6.
|
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Randi, James, The Faith Heaters, Prometheus Books, 1988,
|
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Rev. ed., H-$18.95, ISBN 0-87975-369-2; 1989, P-$18.95,
|
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ISBN 0-87975369-2.
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Handwriting Analysis
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Beyerstein, Barry L. and Dale F. Beyerstein, eds., The Write
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Stuff: Evaluations of Graphology, the Study of Handwriting
|
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Analysis, Prometheus, 1990, H-$24.95, ISBN 0-87975-612-8;
|
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P-$14.95, ISBN 0-87975-613-6.
|
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Nevo, Baruch, ed., Scientific Aspects of Graphology: A
|
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Handbook, Charles G. Thomas, 1987, H-$44.75, ISBN 0-398-05245-X.
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Medical Pseudoscience
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Bender, Arnold, Health or Hoax? The Truth about Health Foods
|
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and Diets, Prometheus Books, 1986, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-318-8.
|
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Jerome, Lawrence E., Crystal Power: The [Ultimate Placebo
|
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Effect, Prometheus Books, 1989, H-$18.95, ISBN 0-87975-514-8;
|
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P$12.95, ISBN 0-87975-532-6.
|
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Stalker, Douglas and Clark Glymour, eds., Examining Holistic
|
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Medicine, Prometheus Books, 1985, H-$25.95, ISBN 0-87975-303x
|
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Sullivan-Fowler, Micaela, Alternate Therapies, Unproven
|
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Methods, and Health Fraud, American Medical Association,
|
|
1988, P-$20.00, ISBN 0-89970-319-4.
|
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The "New Age"
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Basil, Robert, ed., Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical
|
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Essays, Prometheus Book, 1988, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-490-7.
|
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Gardner, Martin, The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher,
|
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Prometheus Books, 1988, H-$19.95, ISBN 0-87975-432-X.
|
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Gordon, Henry, Channeling into the New Age: The "Teachings"
|
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of Shirley MacLaine and Others, Prometheus Books, 1988, H-$18.95,
|
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ISBN 0-87975-503-2; P-$11.95, ISBN 0-87975-462-1.
|
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Satanism
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Carlson, Shawn and Gerald Larue, Satanism in America, Gaia
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Press, P. 0. Box 466, El Cerrito, CA 94530-0466, 1988, P-$12.95
|
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(no ISBN available).
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Hicks, Robert D., In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the
|
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Occult, Prometheus Books, 1990, H-$23.95, ISBN 0-87975-604-7.
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=============================
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+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
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| John Blanton |
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| Secretary, North Texas Skeptics |
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| blanton@lobby.ti.com |
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+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
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