I used to struggle with the seeming hopelessness of my new-found reality. It’s really tough coming to terms with the fact that there isn’t a magic man in the sky looking after my ultimate well being, that sometimes things are completely out of my control, and that no matter how hard I wish for a desirable outcome my pleading falls fallow in the empty void where I was once convinced I had eternal property and lots of friends.

While speaking with my sister – who is still an avid churchgoer – about my new-found philosophy, she asked me, “If there is nothing after death, and no grand designer is looking out for us, what keeps you going? What gives you the hope to continue?” At the time I didn’t have a quick retort that could sum it all up. It bugged me for a long time. What DOES keep me going?

For those of you who know me, I’m full of joy, full of life. I’m not the kind of person to back down from a challenge or whine about injustice as long as there is something I can do to help. But in paragraph two, my philosophy sounds a little Nihilistic — kind of dark. Where does all my light-hearted living come from then?

I finally realized that for most of my life I was sold a bill of goods that never actually existed. If I was able to live this long without it, what really changed now that I rejected it? I’m still the same guy and I have the same interests. I just don’t have the safety net of “God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle.” The ironic part is, I never really did. So, what gives me hope when things are crumbling around me? The answer is simple, and it’s the same as when I was a christian.

Action.

The thing that made me feel better when I prayed was that it was something very easy to do. I was told, “If you can’t do anything, you can at least pray.” But the comforting mechanism of prayer is what makes it insidious in nature as well. It allows you to feel good about yourself without the burden of actually having to do anything. Effectively removing you from the world around you, and allowing you to take credit for every positive outcome, regardless of the amount of work you put into your wish…er, I mean prayer.

Since I’ve started my journey from born-again-christian to atheist, my self worth, social life and overall interest in living each day to its fullest has just kept growing. Not relying on prayer to satiate my need to affect positive change has lead me to come up with some pretty creative ways to reach out and make this world the place I want to live in. You can’t have hope without action. I hope my deeds will be remembered, and will have lasting positive effects in the lives of my friends, family and fellow humans.

I’m still tempted to pray when times get a little tough, but I resist my programming and instead put on my thinking cap to see if there really is nothing I can do. More often than not, I surprise myself and unlock a new area of understanding in the complexity of the world. What can be more exiting and hopeful than that?

I am making this contact with you on behalf of my colleagues after a satisfactory information we gathered from an international business directory. My colleagues and I are members of the Contractor Review Committee of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). I have been mandated by my colleagues to look for a trustworthy company/individual into whose account some funds is to be transferred…

Or:
I am Mr. Omar El-Dagash, a Manager at the Union Bank Nigeria PLC, Lagos. I came to know of you in my private search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential transaction which involves the transfer of a huge sum of money to a foreign account requiring maximum confidence…

Or:
I am the manager of auditing and accounting department of Bank of Africa (B.O.A) here in ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of US$20.5m Dollars ( TWENTY MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOMMARS) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer ( MR. ANDREAS SCHRANNER From Munich, Germany) Who died along with his entire family…

Or:
As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. My name is Saeed Ahmed a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone(not even myself) but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous…

And of course:
I am really sorry to bother you with my problem, this has to come in a hurry. I had traveled to United Kingdom on an International business trip. Unfortunately for me all my luggage (which included my cash, diary and credit cards) were stolen at the hotel where I lodged, I am so confused right now, I don’t know what to do or where to go. I did not bring my phone here and the hotel’s telephone line was disconnected during the robbery incident. Please can you send me £ 500 (pounds sterling) so I can return home…

These are internet scams. There are myriad variations on these types of e-mails:
- Dead dictator or relative, dead foreigner, dying widow, diverted or excess funds, etc. scam
- Lottery/grant scam
- Job offer scam
- Gold/diamonds for sale
- Loan scams
- Charity scams
- Investment scams
- Internet romance scams
- Stranded relative or friend scam
- Pet adoption scams (yes, pet adoption scams)

These types of scams are generally known as advance-fee, or “419″ scams (419 because a majority of them originate in Nigeria, and 419 is the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code prohibiting such illegal activity). Please note the use of the word “majority” – not all scammers come from Nigeria or West Africa. There are scammers from all continents, including North America. This is a world-wide phenomenon, and operations range from one scammer in his living room to very large and organized groups. In all cases, the goal of the scammer is to extract money from you. It’s called “advance fee” fraud because the scammers promise you something (riches! a job! love! puppies!), but first require you to provide sums of money upfront for “processing fees,” lawyers, paperwork, shipping, visas, etc. In almost every case they will require that you wire them money via Western Union to get the ball rolling before you will receive your money/job/puppy.

A seasoned skeptic would never fall for such scams and may even wonder how anyone possibly could. But people do. Not everyone has the critical thinking skills to weed out such fraud, and sadly even at a very minimal success rate scammers can make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of their victims. You may think that the victims are naive or unintelligent, but successful business people have been taken in by scams like this. As have university students, and folks with big hearts just looking to help that poor boy in a refugee camp, or that girl trapped as a sex slave. Some people have lost their life savings to scams such as these. It may be your instinct to be unsympathetic – caveat emptor, after all – but no one who is scammed deserves to be scammed. Enter the scam baiters.

Scam baiters could be considered “internet vigilantes.” The goal of scam baiters is to keep the scammers ‘on the ropes’ for as long as possible. The thinking is that as long as the scammers are wasting their time, energy, and resources on the baiters, that’s time, energy, and resources not spent scamming unsuspecting victims. More ambitious scam baiters also gather information on the scammers, which they will provide to online forums and search engine spiders to protect future victims, or to the authorities in the hopes of bringing the scammer to real justice. Some scam baiters will make their scammers go through a series of ornate and humiliating tasks – including taking photos of themselves dressed strangely, holding weird objects, or holding funny signs in English; filling out nonsense forms and paperwork that the scammer has invented; and even travelling to potentially dangerous places. Some scam baiters have even succeeded in getting the scammers to send them money!

Scam baiters pose as potential victims, often responding to an e-mail they received (or any e-mail, really – the scammers don’t care as long as you’re a potential cash cow; they do not keep track of which e-mails were sent to which addresses). The scam baiter pretends to be keen on the scammer’s offer, and then the fun begins.

In general scam baiters may be in this for altruistic reasons, but make no mistake ó they are having fun. They will do or say pretty much anything to amuse themselves, keep the scammer on the line, and make the scammer look a fool. Scam baiters often use joke names and places that are obvious and funny to native English-speakers, but fly under the radar of non-native speakers. Baiters may construct a whole ornate plot, with multiple characters, in order to keep the transaction going for as long as possible. Perhaps the baiter has a sister who begins communicating with the scammer and falls in love with him. Perhaps the baiter has an overbearing parent/spouse/boss/business partner who views the transaction as dubious and therefore requires more and more “proof” that it’s legit and that the scammer is who he says he is. This can be a high form of satire. Ever obsequious, the scammer will comply with all requests if he thinks it will get him his money in the end.

If you have an especially sensitive sense of morality, you may question the ethics of this sport, but that is a best left for a philosophical debate in a pub some night. If it is of interest to you to learn more, and be quite amused in the process, there are many websites and books that detail different scam-baiting stories – many complete with photos. A partial list of websites (and sources for this article) is below.

The author, and The Association for Science and Reason do not endorse or promote scam baiting.

Sources: http://www.scamorama.com/ http://www.thescambaiter.com/ http://www.419eater.com/index.php http://www.419hell.com/ http://www.419baiter.com/ http://www.nigerianspam.com/scambaiting.html

There are those who generally don’t like the hard work it takes to fill in those ruts, so they construct huge works of fiction – intricate and fantastic tapestries to lay over the ugly pitted truth of reality. The holes we should be exploring and working hard to fill are instead covered with a thin and beautiful, albeit fragile, veneer. Looking out at the perfectly sculpted and smooth landscape, they’re content to dust off their hands and commend themselves on a job well done. But the holes are still there, obscured and treacherous. And because it looks good, they are perfectly happy to hand this botched and hazardous mess off to their kids.

I know that I, like many of you, have broken through the beautiful lie, to lay dazed for a time on the uneven ground below. It’s terrifying, exciting, and far more interesting than anything I was told to accept as “true” up there.

There’s a funny idiom that comes to mind – “it’s always in the last place you look.” It’s funny to me because once you found something, why would you keep looking, right? But in this case it’s a double-edged sword. Because of the sheer amount of misinformation out there, what if all you found was a fabrication or a lie? Can you imagine the tragedy of living that life thinking you no longer had to seek truth because the veneer explained it all? Progress and enlightenment would come to a standstill, leaving us all stagnant, boring, and laughing inanely at Jersey Shore.

There is a symbol in mathematics as well as written language. It’s simple, concise, inspiring, limitless and humble; it’s the perfect placeholder for truth, but it isn’t used nearly enough in this age of information and answers: ?.

Don’t be afraid. There’s gold in these hills!

Dave, Aysha, and Lisa attended with a group of approximately twelve sceptics, many of whom were from CFI and Skeptic North. Apparently before we even stepped foot into the Convention Centre there was some controversy over at Skeptic North. Some of the organizers of the expo, along with some other folks associated with it, were engaged in a back-and-forth with the blog’s authors in the comments section (some of it was genial and some of it was nasty). So the organizers knew at least that some members of Skeptic North would be in attendance, and they were ready for them.

Lisa’s immediate response to the expo was revulsion at having to give propagators of woo and pseudoscience her $8 admission fee. She would much rather have donated the money to some sort of charity than to fork it over to them. So she felt a little better when Sunday turned out to be two-for-one admission.

Once inside the expo, the group naturally split off into sub-groups, with a plan to meet at the exit at 12:30pm. Somehow Aysha and Lisa managed to stick together and experienced most of the expo as a pair, going undetected as skeptics and experiencing no drama. Not so for some of the other attendees. Approximately 20 minutes into their foray, Lisa and Aysha heard an announcement over the loud speaker warning vendors that “four members of Skeptics North” were in attendance and may “attempt to record and/or photograph” vendors without authorization. The announcement also mentioned that the skeptics appeared to be dressed in black. It was an odd statement given that probably three-quarters of the people in the room were wearing black. At the moment the announcement came, Aysha and Lisa were discussing Omega Alpha’s products with the vendor, who then said, “You’re wearing black. Are you a skeptic?” To which Lisa responded, “Everyone here is wearing black. You’re wearing black!” It was light-hearted and they all went back to discussing Omega Alpha’s vast array of natural health products including their robust pet line (OptiPet Multi, E-Z Rest, GlucosaPet, Kidney Tone, and Liver Tone, to name a few).

Dave Bailey was prepared to go either way at the expo, but any notion of innocently engaging people went out the window when the organisers made their announcement. At that point his dander was raised and plan ‘B’ went into action. The previous evening Dave had downloaded a picture from Hell’s News Stand and ironed it onto a t-shirt — a cross-section of a toilet with the slogan, “If water has a memory then homeopathy is full of crap.” He took off his jacket to reveal his shirt and waited for reactions. For better or worse, none of the organisers or participants chose to take up the obvious challenge, although Dave did have a pleasant conversation with a couple of elderly ladies who seemed both amused and bemused. Later as Dave was being ‘followed’ out of the hall, a man walking in stopped to read it, chuckled, showed it to his wife, and then gave Dave a thumbs up and said he loved it. What he was doing there with that attitude was anyone’s guess — perhaps he wanted to have some past-life regression therapy to find out why homeopathy had failed to save him in a previous existence.

Dave was intrigued that some of the exhibitors seemed to be lowering themselves by appearing in such an environment when their presence at a genuine health expo would not have been out of place. He was particularly struck by the hemp booth, which didn’t seem to be touting any miracle cures, just promoting a product that is provably a resource with good sustainability and one that could be of much benefit to the agricultural community. Dave wonders if such vendors can’t afford to turn down any opportunity for publicity. (He highly recommends the hemp substitute for peanut butter — a free sample was eagerly devoured!)

This was Aysha’s first time attending the Whole Life Expo, or anything like it, so she was pretty excited to learn about which alternative products are popular right now. The one she was most baffled by was a homeopathic detox kit. Drops of the remedy had to be added to a 1.5 litres of water, shaken, and consumed daily for a few weeks. Aysha felt that simply filling a bottle with tap water at home would have been a more cost-effective and sensible option.

It was Lisa’s first natural health expo as well. She had no idea what to expect, but found herself constantly exclaiming about how unbelievable it all was. As Dave noted, there were some ‘legitimate’ vendors, but they were few and far between. The vast majority of them stretched the boundaries of science, and many of them were ethically questionable. It seemed as though Lisa’s incredulity grew greater with each booth she visited.

First there was Asea, the “scientific breakthrough that was thought to be impossible.” This was a particularly interesting experience because in trying explain how the product works, the vendor just got more and more twisted up. For the record, the front of the pamphlet explains that Asea is “NOT a vitamin or mineral supplement, NOT made from sea vegetables, NOT a [sic] herbal formula, NOT an exotic fruit or berry energy juice, NOT an over hyped antioxidant formula, NOT a novel delivery system.” So what is it? Lisa wondered as she excitedly opened the pamphlet to find out. Well, it doesn’t actually say. The brochure explains what Asea does for you (“boosting the cell’s communication allowing it to protect, repairing [sic], and replacing cells efficiently”). It explains the “science” of it (some stuff about reactive molecules, ATP, antioxidants, free radicals, oxidative stress, and redox signalling). According to the fine people at Asea, their product is “highly patented” (Lisa didn’t know there were high and low stages of patents) and is the only product that has stabilized the native cell molecules. Okay!

Aysha tried a sample of Asea while Lisa asked the vendor what Aysha might expect to feel from it. They were told that in about 15 minutes Aysha would feel a boost of energy. Lisa kept checking in, but Aysha reported no increased energy.

Lisa’s incredulity grows over at the Biotronix Research Instruments booth. Apparently these products heal with “electro-medicine.” This information packet is almost too brilliant to ever be thrown out and must be excerpted here, in its original form — all spelling and capitalization is in the original:

Every Cell In The Body Is Designed To Run At A Voltage Of 70-90 Millivolts. We Heal By Making New Cells ! For The Body To Make These New Cells Requires 70-90 Millivolts. We Get Sick When Our Voltage Drops Below The Operating Voltage of 20 MIllivolts. Thus, All Chronic Disease is Defined by Having Low Voltage.

However, If You Run Out of Voltage Before Finishing Making Enough New Cells To Replace Those That Are Damaged, Voltage Will Drop Even Lower And Now You Are Stuck With CHRONIC DISEASE. A Drop In Voltage Causes A Drop In OXYGEN!!! [—.] The Only Way You Can Get Well Is To Increase Voltage. This, Can Be Assisted By Using ELECTROMAGNETIC DEVICES. [—.] INTRODUCING: – A NEW INSTRUMENT ‘LYMEAID GENERATOR’

And it goes on—for SIX PAGES!!!

But the expo got even better. (Worse?)

Aysha and Lisa caught about 10 minutes of a talk/demonstration by Nicholas Ashfield. The presentation platform happened to be right near the washrooms, and when Lisa saw the device on the table, she couldn’t resist finding out what it did. The device looked like something that would be used in a low-budget 1970s sci-fi movie to appear “science-y” — it had knobs and a meter. Ashfield’s field of expertise (over 30 years of practice) is Radionics: “vibrational healing that clears past traumas, restoring attunement [sic] with life.” According to his flyer, Radionics is “gentle, fascinating, and effective.” While not a particularly great speaker, Ashfield did have a few choice bon mots that Lisa just had to jot down. When it came time to demonstrate his product, Ashfield asked for a volunteer, and one bald gentleman in a black shirt (perhaps a skeptic??) raised his hand a little too eagerly. Then a bunch of other people raised their hands, including Lisa. Ashfield said he couldn’t just choose someone, that he had to let the “source” choose for him and he used “internal dowsing” to eliminate everyone in the crowd except for—bald-black-shirt guy! Ashfield referred to this “source” over and over again, but never explained what it was. Apparently it was some sort of supernatural entity that guided him. It was the “source” that allowed Ashfield to use Radionics to “clear” the plant—ahem, uh—volunteer from a distance — he didn’t have to be hooked up to the machine or even be near it; it works long distance. Ashfield informed us that in physics it’s known as an “index.” Ah. So long-distance, via Radionics, Ashfield managed to tune into the plant/volunteer’s “energetic e-mail address.” And then he told his fortune. Aysha commented that it was like he was reading the guy’s horoscope out of the paper. Indeed. After a relatively racist comment (about how Native people have been using this technique for a long time because they have a connection to nature that modern, “civilized” people didn’t have), Aysha and Lisa had had enough of the Radionics guy and moved on.

(Side note: It was just before Ashfield’s talk that the second announcement about ‘skeptics in our midst’ came over the loud speaker. Ashfield said he didn’t mind if skeptics were in attendance because he, too, used to be a skeptic — before he tried Radionics.)

Lisa really wanted to have a “Bio-ENERGY & KARMA DIAGNOSIS” and even filled out the form to have it done, but alas the line was too long. Instead she had her posture checked. There were maybe five or six chiropractic-type people there all with the same tools for checking posture, so Lisa had it done twice. The first gentleman told her that her head was too far forward while pointing to a photo of a spine with scoliosis in a subluxation text book. He really wanted her to sign up that day for treatment at a discounted rate. He even took credit cards!

Despite all of these experiences, not every vendor was sketchy. Or, at least, some provided pleasant surprises. One vendor spent a great deal of time discussing her product for digestive problems. Aysha and Lisa maintained a credulous, curious demeanour throughout the expo, asking questions with keen interest. When Lisa asked this vendor, “Should I take this pill if I don’t have digestive problems?” it is to the vendor’s credit that she said no. She instead suggested foisting it upon grandma at Christmas dinner. Nonetheless, the question was meant as a set-up to see if the vendor would recommend her ‘remedy’ even in light of a lack of symptoms, and she passed the test.

Aysha also found herself impressed by a vendor’s candor. She had a great conversation with a vendor about a “chakra reading” being offered at one of the other booths. The vendor had a ‘reading’ done the day before and seemed a little skeptical of what she was told. She mentioned that a lot of what the ‘reader’ told her was very general and could have applied to anyone, but that a couple of major things were going on in her life that the ‘reader’ did not mention; the vendor really felt that the ‘reader’ should have picked up on those things. Aysha told the vendor that she agreed and that she wishes people would talk more about the misses that they experience when they have a ‘reading’ done. Aysha was impressed with vendor’s critical reflection on her experience.

Dave was surprised to learn (and later confirmed through independent online research) that what he has been using as cinnamon for years is actually not true cinnamon, but cassia, a related plant that is usually substituted. The true cinnamon is much less woody than cassia, thin and brittle in texture, but with a very similar if not identical aroma. The genuine article may soon be appearing on his spice rack. Knowledge worth the $4 admission fee?

What shocked Lisa most about the expo overall was what seemed to be the absolute lack of effort on the part of the vendors and manufacturers to pass their products off as scientific. It seems that just saying something is science and having a few pseudoscientific words and phrases at the ready is all these vendors generally need to fob their wares off on unsuspecting consumers. But when pushed even a little to get into the nitty gritty by people with some scientific knowledge, the vendors tripped over themselves in a befuddled mass of confusion and ignorance. When the Asea vendor was going on about redox signalling and mitochondria, Aysha asked for more specifics about how it worked. The woman then pulled out a lovely colour photo of a cell, when she didn’t identify as a blood cell until Lisa pointed it out to her. “Oh yes,” she said, laughing, “thank you for pointing that out!”

Another vendor had a few products, one of which was a plate that allegedly leeches bad chemicals from your food. Simply place your grocery bag on this plate and it will remove all harmful chemicals from your food. Lisa asked how it works. The vendor explained that it uses a “process” by which the “bonds” between the chemicals are “broken down.” When Lisa pushed further — microwaves? what? — the vendor replied, “It’s proprietary.” Lisa didn’t leave it there. “Well, what about the good things in food, like the vitamins and minerals? Does it break those down too?” The response was “no.” Magic!

Aysha and Lisa visited a booth promoting “polarity therapy” workshops. This was something neither of them had heard of before and they were ever so curious! The pamphlet explains polarity therapy as “the art and science of balancing the subtle, natural electromagnetic energy that creates and maintains our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves.” When prompted, the vendor had an extremely difficult time explaining what it was, highlighting instead that we could learn all about it through the workshops. She pointed to a couple of books there and then said that it takes years to learn.

Aysha and Lisa still don’t know what polarity therapy is.

For the most part, the members of Association for Science and Reason had a fine time at the expo until Dave Bailey ran into a little trouble at the end for taking photographs. While there was apparently a sign indicating that photography was not allowed inside the expo hall, Dave went outside of the expo hall to a balcony above it and took photos from there. He was approached by security and someone who seemed to be one of the organizers or associated with the organizers. Members of CFI and Skeptic North were treated antagonistically, and you can read their respective reports via the links below.

CFI’s account:
Skeptic North’s account, 1:

Skeptic North’s account, 2:

Here we go again. The seemingly unending evolution/creation ‘debate’ (I use that word very loosely). One of the latest pathetic salvos from the anti-evolution side was from the notorious Glenn Beck, who went on a rant in which the usual ridiculous claims were made. Perhaps the most laughable was the old “I haven’t seen the half-monkey, half-person yet. Did evolution just stop?” This prompted a poll from The New York Daily News, which asked the following question, including a Beck quote:

Is evolution a dubious theory being “forced down our throats”?

1. Yes, I’m sick of scientists telling me what to believe.
2. No, it is clearly how things came to be.
3. It’s harder to believe Glenn Beck is so popular.

I’m certain that anyone with any sense would check off option three, because it is clearly the best choice. But what intrigued me was the wording of option one. It encapsulates, in one sentence, the attitude I have often seen on the other side — the perception that science is telling people what to believe. As I’m sure you all know by now, science does no such thing. All it does is present evidence and allow people to make up their minds. Unfortunately, few people know how to do so and Glenn Beck remains popular. Watch Beck’s ridiculousness below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFudttjOcB8

“Chupacabra Mystery Solved.”

Or so said the headline on the Discovery News website.

“Chupacabras turn out to be wild dogs inflicted with a deadly form of mange, according to University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor*.” Oh dear, it looks as if we have a new player in the cryptozoology-busting ranks, and he hasn’t done his research. Oh, he’s done his biology research properly, no doubt — I will respect his education and his credentials on that score. But when it comes to the whacky world of cryptozoology, he and the Discovery Channel are seriously out to lunch. If they believe for one second that his findings will shut down the chupacabra believers then they are in for a rude awakening. Cryptozoologists are almost as gullible as any other disciples of pseudoscience; not much is going to dissuade them from their quest for the sort of things usually found on the covers of supermarket tabloids.

Mr. OConnor is not totally wrong — some chupacabras may indeed be wild dogs inflicted with mange. They also could be racoons with a similar condition, visions induced by peyote buttons, or wild stories told for notoriety by shameless confabulists. None of this matters to many in the crypto crowd. Facts are often such an annoyance. Notice that I said “many’.”As I have written before, it is possible for cryptozoology to be conducted scientifically, but those who do so are few and far between.

Source

*This is not a typo; this is how OConnor spells his name.

The recent on-again off-again Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’(DADT) policy has caused some people to express their thoughts without the benefit of actually thinking first. (I’m not going to get into the politics involved, just the fuzzy logic it elicits.) A number of people have said, “I don’t want to be in the shower and have some guy checking out my junk.” Hate to break this to you guy, but it may already be happening, it’s just that right now you don’t know whether the person doing it is gay or straight. Most straight guys discreetly check out each other in the showers — it’s just something we do. <Lisa exclaims, “REALLY?!?!”>

A number of people I have encountered on the web have said words to the effect that “gays are only joining so that they can hang out with members of the same sex.” Really? Let’s examine that. You sign up for a job that has a fixed term (you can’t just quit). The pay is lousy compared to civilian life. You have to endure gruelling physical training that is often dangerous. Whether you want to or not, you may be posted to somewhere far from family and friends. You are entering a work environment that has been actively hostile to homosexuality; indeed, homophobia has been institutionalised. Finally, your job may require you to get shot at, shelled, or bombed. I’m sure we can all think of easier ways to meet members of either sex. Perhaps they are joining for the same reason(s) as many others: to have a more adventurous lifestyle than working in an office cubicle, get an education, improve job or life skills, or maybe because they believe in their country and want to serve it in a meaningful way. Whatever the reason, it cannot be denied that these people are standing ready to protect and defend their country and its Constitution — can the country and the Constitution not protect and defend them in return?

I hate to say “I told you so,” but last month I took to task one Paul Butler, an astronomy professor at the Carnegie Institute. He was commenting on the discovery of a new extra-solar planet named Gliese 581g. In his unbridled enthusiasm he stated, “The question wouldn’t be to defend that there is life at Gliese 581g. The question would be to demonstrate that there isn’t.” Well, it appears that not only may he have been wrong about the life, but the planet itself may not even exist. Subsequent attempts by other astronomers have failed to locate it. Mr. Butler, would you prefer the dark meat or the white meat on the crow?

Let’s end this month’s screed with something that we all hope is also ended, the story surrounding Russell Williams, the former colonel in the Canadian Forces who was found guilty of kidnapping, serial rape, torture, and murder. In what seems to have been a fairly quick and simple criminal case (aided no doubt by his admission of guilt), a conviction has been registered and a sentence pronounced, so why is this of concern for science and reason? Because of the reactions from many people, including the press. Words such as “monster” and “evil” were tossed around with no thought as to what they actually mean. They are simply a method of demonising a person and removing their humanity. Well here’s a shock for those people — Williams is not a monster. He is as human as you or I. He could donate blood, organs, or tissue without trouble. Until his arrest he likely would have seemed a congenial participant in a discussion at a cocktail party. He has done some terrible things, and I for one hope that he never again sees freedom. He is a clear danger to society, someone from whom we must be protected by our justice system. But when we emotionally cut him out of humanity we may prevent ourselves from looking at the reasons behind such behaviour. If effective measures are to be taken to prevent such occurrences in the future, we cannot afford to think of such people as anything other than human. His deviant behaviour was fully and completely the product of a human mind, which is something we all own.

Science encourages investigation; in fact, it expects it and demands it. It is extremely liberal when it comes to allowing rebels, and gives them free reign to attack sacred cows all the time. As airtight as many think relativity theory to be, there are many who are pushing it to the limit to see if it will hold up, and nobody seems to object. Programs like SETI have spent millions of hours and dollars investigating the notion that, not only might there be life elsewhere in the universe, but that such intelligent life has developed communication in the electromagnetic spectrum that can span light years. Universities are full of up-and-coming troublemakers who will take on any established belief in order to make a name for themselves.

And that is as it should be. Without such liberal endeavours science would not make any discoveries at all; it would stagnate. Without inquiry, it would cease to exist … no new discoveries would come along to relieve diseases or improve lives.

But what happens when one of those people submits their cherished work to the science community? A brutal conservatism takes over. Our Einstein wannabe is faced with a barrage of questions and demands for more evidence; other scientists will try to replicate the experiments done in support of the idea, never trusting the person or persons who have worked so hard to bring new knowledge to the world. A withering crossfire pins down the originator with a daunting array of weaponry, some of which may not have been readily available during the original research. And it doesn’t stop quickly — the assault can last for centuries with the hero of yesterday in danger of becoming an historical footnote tomorrow.

And that is as it should be. Without such conservative prudence science would fly off in all directions, embracing homeopathy and bigfoot as readily as penicillin and coelacanths. Confusion would create havoc with policy and planning, and our lives would not benefit.

But let’s leave politics out of it.

First up was the decision by the Ontario Supreme Court that found that various federal laws involving prostitution were unconstitutional. Immediately the forces of moralisation launched into action with the usual screams of outrage. Led by Charles McVety, who runs a Christian-based organisation called the Institute for Canadian Values, there was a lot of yelling but little substance. “I was deeply aggrieved because of all the damage that will happen to women and children especially.,” said McVety. “No one wants their daughter to go and become a prostitute.”

So according to him, legalising prostitution will lead to more women and children being victimised, but he says so with no explanation as to how or why this would happen. He fails to understand that in other legal and legitimate professions, whether it be accountancy, bricklaying, or baseball, nobody is being forced to participate. Why would prostitution be any different? I could go on a rant for a while here, but that is something I will save for a more in-depth commentary on this specific issue. Let’s move on to number two.

On September 29th a group of retired U.S. Air Force personnel held a press conference at which they dragged out one of the oldest justifications for belief in aliens: the idea that there are intelligent aliens out there who have been worried about our development and use of nuclear weapons. According to this scenario, ever since WWII aliens have been buzzing around our world paying particular attention to our air force bases and nuclear power plants. Well I suppose that’s a little more comforting than the stories from those who believe the aliens have been fixated on our buttocks, but it still misses a very important point ñ why don’t these extremely smart aliens land outside the U.N. building, march into the chambers, and give us all a stern finger-wagging? Why be so elusive? Either it doesn’t bother them enough to be open about it, or they aren’t really there at all. Guess which one I’m betting on?

I don’t use the services of sex workers and I don’t waste my time looking for UFOs, but number three hits home personally. In the high-stakes world of fishing tournaments, an insidious new mechanism has begun to creep in. It isn’t a new lure that outfishes all others or a high-tech fish-finder that gives you the species and weight before you even drop your line in; it’s a polygraph ñ that pseudoscientific contraption that can exonerate the guilty as easily as it can convict the innocent.

In a recent tournament that used a polygraph a cheater was caught, but what was lost in all the hubbub was that his duplicity was not uncovered by the polygraph but by someone actually finding lead weights in the belly of one of the bass he turned in for weighing. Sensitive fingers trumped squiggles on a graph, but the use of these electronic ouija boards is growing. I run a tournament every year, and I guarantee that they will never be used in mine.

Number four is something that I also have a lot of experience with: driving. Specifically, driving with distractor conditions. In America a report has been released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that calls into question the current spate of laws banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Studies show that there has not been a decrease in crashes as a result of those laws; in fact, they correlate with an increase.

“Texting bans haven’t reduced crashes at all. In a perverse twist, crashes increased in 3 of the 4 states we studied after bans were enacted. It’s an indication that texting bans might even increase the risk of texting for drivers who continue to do so despite the laws.” – Adrian Lund, president of both HLDI and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
(Source: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr092810.html.)

The news is both interesting and disturbing, but it was given a ridiculous hue when reported on by ABC’s Alex Stone, who said, “- Adrian Lund of the institute says, unlike seatbelt laws, texting bans for some reason are not working.”

Two things, Mr. Stone. First, I have read the report at the IIHS website and it doesn’t mention seatbelts (perhaps it was a personal communication, but I can only go by what is available). Second, how do seatbelt laws reduce crashes? Apart from a handful of crashes that ensue when a person loses control of their car, spins, and winds up in the passenger seat and is unable to prevent an upcoming crash, seatbelts cannot prevent crashes! They are designed to lessen the chance of death or injury when a crash occurs, and that is all. To try and draw some comparison or connection between seatbelt laws and cell-phone laws is a sure sign that very little thinking went in to producing the all-important sound bite.

Number five is truly painful because it comes from someone who should know better. It has been announced by the University of California-Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington that they have discovered a new extra-solar planet that revels in the name Gliese 581g (that hurts too; can’t we be a bit more imaginative?). What makes this planet interesting is that it is the closest analogue to Earth that has yet been found, with a similar mass, and it exists in the so-called ‘habitable zone’ around its parent star, where temperatures would allow for liquid water.

Fair enough, it’s exciting and we will allow those involved to gush about it. But let’s not get carried away. Here’s a quote from the Discovery Channel web report relating the comments made by Carnegie Institute astronomy professor Paul Butler: “The question wouldn’t be to defend that there is life at Gliese 581g. The question,” he said, “would be to demonstrate that there isn’t.”

Can someone please reign this guy in? We have a planet that may or may not have liquid water and already he’s declared that it should be proven to not have life! I hope it does, as I’m certain you do, dear reader, but for a trained scientist to make such a statement is an example of how not to reach out to the public. Science should be presented as exciting, but not given to unfounded speculation. All such a statement does is set people up for a possibly very crushing let-down and drive them away from the real wonders that have been confirmed.

That’s all for now. I’m going to brush in a little Grecian Formula™ before going to bed.

The following text is taken from an ASR brochure prepared by David Bailey and Lisa Johnson. Feel free to use these facts and arguments in the comments section of articles touting homeopathy as effective.

What is homeopathy?

The idea behind homeopathy is that ‘like cures like.’ This might seem correct, because isn’t that how vaccinations work? But no, a vaccine works because the small dose of the (usually dead) virus triggers the immune system to fight against it. Homeopaths believe that using extreme dilutions of substances causes them to become potent healing treatments. Homeopathic solutions are often so dilute that not a single molecule of the original substance remains in it, so how can this have any medical effect

Homeopaths claim that the water somehow retains the “imprint” (memory) of the substance, but that science has not yet figured out how or why this happens. Clearly homeopaths don’t require observational evidence or ‘science,’ yet they try to confuse people using techno-babble, and invoking quantum and subatomic physics.

Is homeopathy science?

If homeopathy falls into the realm of science, then its effects must be provable or disprovable, verifiable, and replicable. If its effects cannot be proven or replicated, then it is not science and it has no role in treating medical ailments. Scientific studies of homeopathy under proper double-blind protocols have failed to show evidence of any medical effects whatsoever. (In fact, if homeopathy worked as advertised, it would upset much of what has already been learned and proven about physics, chemistry, and biology.)

How are homeopathic treatments prepared?

To make a homeopathic preparation, a substance is continually diluted and shaken. The dilutions are done at a rate of 1 part of the original substance to 100 parts of water or alcohol. This is referred to as 1C. After some shaking, called ‘succussion’ by the homeopaths, the resultant solution is then diluted the same amount repeatedly, often up to 30 times.

Here is what that means:

3C = 1:100,0000 (One part of the original substance to 100,000 parts of water/alcohol.)

13C=1:100000000000000000000000000
(That’s about 1 drop in a volume the size of 4 Olympic-sized swimming pools!)

30C=1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
(That’s 60 zeroes! At this dilution there is probably not one single molecule left of the original substance, but homeopaths claim it is the most potent.)

What’s the harm?

When properly prepared, a homeopathic solution is simply water or alcohol in liquid form, corn starch or sugar in pill form, so what’s the big deal? The biggest danger is that it is often used in place of proven, evidence-based medical treatments. Alternative treatments whose efficacy is no greater than placebo can lead to progression of ailments as people put off real medical treatment. It can lead to serious illness and often to death. Also cause for worry is that some homeopaths are now dosing their preparations with real medicine, which they may not have the training or knowledge to properly administer, and which may have negative health effects. Finally, people pay good money for what they believe is a scientifically proven treatment but is nothing more than water or sugar that magically contains the ‘memory’ of an undetectable substance.

Conclusion

When you purchase a homeopathic product, you’re getting little more than an unproven, unscientific falsehood with about as much efficacy as a placebo. In liquid form, it will be water or alcohol; in pill form, corn starch or sugar. What it will not be is medicine (hopefully!). Homeopaths will try to tell you that it has been tested and proven, but the fact is that no scientifically conducted trials have ever shown homeopathic products to have any efficacy whatsoever beyond placebo effect.

If homeopathy worked, it would mean that all of the world’s water would be a toxic soup filled with deadly infinitesimal poisons. There are many toxic substances in the world; fungi, puffer fishes, toads, and other aquatic creatures all produce lethal tetrodotoxins that will kill you. These substances certainly make their way into our oceans and lakes, and those oceans and lakes surely shake (‘succuss’) them. Is it fair to conclude, then, that dilution in fact has the opposite effect that homeopaths claim, therefore rendering their mode of practice false?

Homeopathic practitioners claim that their treatments are effective because the water retains the “imprint” of the substance, even though it has been immeasurably diluted and there remains not the slightest trace of the substance. So why take it at all? If you don’t need any of the original substance, then you need not take the treatment at all! Leave it on the shelf and get cured for free! Just have some water or a spoonful of sugar. (While you’re at it, the next time you’re hungry take a big bite of the air — maybe it’ll contain the ‘memory’ of a sandwich.)

Open your mind, you new-age freak!

I remember when I thought that being a skeptic was a bad thing. Watching The X-Files as a kid, I always thought Scully was a stick in the mud and Mulder was by far the star of the show. Granted, this was just a TV show, but at the time I wondered why Scully couldn’t believe her own stupid eyes! There were space aliens, CHUDS, vampires, teens with super-human speed — the list of extraordinary things goes on and on, yet she always approached every investigation with a grain of salt and at the end of every episode her findings were “inconclusive.” Understatement of the century!

I was a just kid when I watched that. I bought into it hook, line, and sinker. I loved paranormal investigation movies and read all the books of mystery: The Healing Power of Pyramids, Bermuda Triangle, The Search for Atlantis, How to Increase Your ESP, etc. It all seemed perfectly reasonable to me that such things existed. But as I got older I found that no matter how much I exercised my pineal gland, I couldn’t read minds; no matter how many cups of milk I put into my pyramid, I never got yogurt. My reality had become vastly different from my beliefs, and all I had to show for it was a sore forehead and an unlimited supply of sour milk (with or without maggots).

What happened? Why are there so many books and TV shows dedicated to these things if they don’t actually exist? I think I can sum it up in one simple phrase.

Everybody loves a good magic act.

Penn & Teller are awesome for this reason. They give enough of the process away in their stage show to let you know that you’re witnessing a ‘trick’ or some slight of hand, but they still capture the whimsy of the crowd by keeping some of their act a secret. Magic is all about control and deception: if done in an innocent fashion for entertainment purposes, it’s very cool. Unfortunately, with this in mind, it’s not so cool that purveyors of magical thinking know full well what “magic” is all about and have perfected many ways to control and deceive you without your knowledge and/or consent.

I suppose the best general rule to follow in order to make sure you’re not being taken for a ride is to ask questions. If something doesn’t feel right about the line someone is feeding you, just keep asking questions until it makes sense for you. If it doesn’t make sense, you’re probably getting swindled in some way and should probably graciously back away.

Relax…

There are no “100% risk-free” opportunities that only come along once in a lifetime that you can’t live without. A lot of these ‘opportunities’ require you to make split-second decisions regarding your finances. If you feel pressured to make a purchase or to hand over your cash or credentials for a service you don’t understand, or don’t remember applying for, then you’re probably about to become a trophy on some con artist’s wall.

Watch out for conversational ‘shotgunning’

Beware of people who talk too fast and don’t listen to the responses to their questions — they’re ‘shotgunning.’ This line of attention control makes it impossible for you to keep up, but they seem to know what they’re talking about by the sheer amount of drivel they’re spilling. Only after their rant, when you have a moment to go over the glut of information and misinformation they’ve fired your way, will you be able to discern what they were talking about and what their arguments were really full of. These conclusions often come too late to act on and usually after you agreed with the person just to shut them up. When confronted with people like this, it’s best to back away slowly. Unless you can fit a word in edgewise and you’re really familiar with their arguments, you stand a good chance of getting owned when attempting to debate or rationalise with them.

So who should you trust?

You, ya turkey! We don’t live in a dictatorship. We should be able to look into anything we want, especially if it’s going to cost us our health or life savings. If something in your life comes into question, look into it. Is there a way for you to test the claims a group, corporation, or product makes? Absolutely! Get creative, ask for a demo, look at public forums, look into suspect industries, see what your peers are saying. Is there consensus, or is there a huge divide between the claims mentioned by the parties in question and the actual people using the products and services of interest? If so, ask questions. And keep asking questions.

The feeling is inescapable. You are convinced that your effort did this. But, now that you’re a little calmer, the dust has settled, and the neighbors have stopped complaining about the noise, let’s ask a few questions. Is there more to this process than is immediately apparent? Would the numbers have been called even if you had done nothing but purchase a ticket and placed random numbers in their place? After all, how many other people were counting on their numbers being called? How complex and time-consuming had their number choosing rituals been?

Welcome to the slippery world of logical fallacies. In this case you’ve fallen for the old post hoc argument.

This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the Latin translates to ‘after this, therefore because of this’). (theskepticsguide.org)

Well, what’s actually going on then? Mathematically the odds seem to be incomprehensibly stacked against you — 1:10,000,000 or more! But if you look at the big picture, it seems that someone at random wins every other week. So the odds for just any random person winning are about 1:3, which are much better odds. When push comes to shove, the numbers don’t really care what they’re doing. It does seem magical when it happens to you, but really you have just witnessed a truly random event, one of many such events that happen to you all the time; the only difference is your emotional investment in this particular one.

Let’s look at some other random events that you may take for granted that could be just as magical if you make it all about you.

Magic rain

You’re standing outside and a single drop of rain lands on the very end of your nose. “It’s about to rain,” you think, and seek shelter. But consider, if you will, the sheer amount of space that single raindrop had to travel through, and how many wind currents guided it to its final destination at the end of your nose. It’s almost like someone guided it to land perfectly and exactly in that spot. NASA would have a hard time doing the math on that one. Seems almost impossible that one raindrop would pick that exact place to land in order to warn you of the weather, but it did. In terms of odds, it’s much more likely that you’d win the lottery.

Now the rain starts and you don’t find shelter in time. You are getting pelted by rain and wind. The odds are the same for each individual raindrop hitting you as for the first one, but now you’re only able to see the raindrops as a downpour; you don’t consider them to be individual drops anymore. You have 1:1 odds of getting hit by just any rain drop. Has it lost its magic yet?

Prayer

You pray for a sick loved one and they get better, so you feel somewhat responsible. But how many prayers do you make on behalf of people that don’t come to fruition? Do you make excuses or move the goalpost to allow the prayer to be answered, even if it’s not what you asked for? Prayers are tricky for this reason. What you expect is a collaboration between you and a spiritual entity of your choosing; therefore, you can dismiss a negative outcome as the entity simply saying “no” rather than putting the blame completely on yourself. But it’s impossible to prove that there was any spiritual involvement either way. Your emotional investment in the outcome makes it seem to you that there was a connection made, but it’s more plausible to accept that people get better or worse on their own, without your spiritual sway if you don’t have actual evidence beyond emotion to back up your claim.

Precognition

You have a dream that comes true, or a daydream that seems too real and the events are unfolding just as you had pictured them. But how many dreams do you have that you can’t remember or that don’t come true? How many thoughts or daydreams do you have in a day or week? Do all of them come true, or was it just this one? When you try to count every thought or daydream, these numbers can be staggering. If you look at the figures, you are wrong infinitely more often than you are right. But let’s say you were correct in your predictions — how many of the details are accurate? Often dreams deal with familiar scenes or behaviors but the details are surreal: “In my dream I was driving toward my childhood home with my deceased father, and he kept weeping jewels from his eyes. Then we got into an accident. Two weeks later, I had a real car accident. I can’t help but think my father was trying to warn me.”

Which part of the dream came true exactly? The driving part? I drive every day, so there’s nothing significant there. The accident part? Everyone has anxiety about getting in an accident, car accidents are the number one cause of death among adults under thirty, and they are in the news almost every day — that could have affected the dream. Heading toward my childhood home? Technically, every time I travel in an easterly direction I’m heading toward my childhood home. Did the jewels symbolize financial loss from the accident? Well, the jewels could mean anything at all. If the accident happened six months or a year later instead of two weeks later, would it still be considered prophetic? You can see here how pretty much anything in the dream can be interpreted as an accurate prediction, regardless of how mundane the circumstance.

There are a number of things at play when making dream predictions:

1. We are creatures of habit; most of our days follow a routine; only the finer details of each day change for us.
2. Because dreams are loosely based on your waking life, you are bound to find parallels between the two states.
3. Your mind is constantly running hypothetical simulations drawing from everything you’ve experienced in life; that’s how we’re able to make cogent predictions based on careful observation. However, it works against us sometimes. It’s only a matter of time before the random sequencing of your unconscious mind generates an outcome based on the details of your routine-based waking life and superimposes a set of anxiety-causing situations that might have some amount of plausibility — and with seemingly apt timing. It won’t happen for everyone, but it does happen more than you would expect.

So with all that, do you really stand out that much among your peers with your ability to channel random events to your favour, or does it just seem that way because you have an emotional investment in the final, random-chance outcome? In all these events (lottery, prayer, psychic predictions, etc.), the magic relies on a simple set of self-deceptions — either confirmation bias or hindsight bias. Both force you to ignore all the times when things didn’t work in your favour and cherry pick the best outcomes to prove the magical truth. These beliefs can be very comforting because they can offer a sense of control in a situation where you had none. But be warned: if you rely on this type of magical thinking to get through life, you’re not really living in reality. Putting too much faith in this kind of magical thinking can actually do more harm than good because you might believe that merely concentrating on a problem can make it go away, when in fact you should be acting to affect the situation in a real way.