Table of Contents:
Refreshingly, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) is making a rational, direct, declaration, and they aren't afraid to be daring and politically incorrect. Please see their "Statement on the Teaching of Evolution and Cosmology" at www.aapt.org/Policy/evolutandcosmo.cfm. Now, if only we could get other teachers' organizations to step up and similarly declare themselves. Hello, Kansas!
The Virgin Mary is now gone from her latest manifestation in the Chicago underpass, covered over because of an "inappropriate" comment that was added to the concrete stain. I understand that there's an attempt under way to remove the comment and bring her back. Never fear, she'll be back; she's the Unsinkable Virgin. I note that in a recent news release concerning the Chicago brouhaha, Associated Press referred to a previous miraculous appearance of this obviously peripatetic lady. Judging from this, I think that AP needs to do more reading and research. They wrote:
Among the best-known [figures of the Virgin] in the United States was an image seen in office windows in Clearwater, Florida. Within weeks, a half million people had been to the site. Glass experts believe the image was created by a chemical reaction and corrosion of the metallic elements in the glass coating, but they could not explain why it took the shape it did. The windows were broken last year.
No, "glass experts" believed no such thing. In April of 2003, I visited this site and reported (www.randi.org/jr/031204busted.html#1) just what all the fuss was about. The shape on the window was due entirely to the fact that ground water from a broken sprinkler head in the watering system had been shooting up onto the window, depositing dissolved minerals there from the ground-water in very thin films, and producing the expected colorful reflective patterns. After the amorphous shape was noted and identified by the faithful as an image of Mary, that particular sprinkler head — and only that one — was closed off so that no one could suggest the mundane reasons for the stain. No mystery at all. A little fact-checking by AP would have made for a true — though much less attractive — story....
Reader Matthew Saunders in the UK:
With reference to your "This should work" article (randi.org/jr/042905some.html#9) about Homeopathic LSD, I Googled it and came to an artists page containing a fountain of homeopathic LSD (www.friezeartfair.com/projects_KlausWeber.html) which led me to a page from the "School of Homeopathy" where they did indeed "prove" some Homeopathic LSD (www.hominf.org/lsd/lsdintr.htm). I'm guessing you are already aware that "proving" is a kind of test where a group of believers sit down together and see what effect the homeopathic remedy they are testing has — to my surprise they include some placebos in the proving. However some of the placebos also had positive results, which might make one think the test was flawed, but no — there is a get out. One is referred to:
Information from provers who did not take the remedy are included and clearly indicated. The reasons for this are outlined in Group and Proving Phenomena, Observations by Misha Norland, an Article published in Issue 72 of The Homoeopath, Winter 1999.
Here you discover that:
A group proving generates a gestalt to which everyone associated with the provers is connected and may be affected, depending upon their personal affinity with the thing being proved; their susceptibility and therefore their resonance. This gestalt has been named a morphic field by Rupert Sheldrake. Telepathy is another term which covers this. For example, once one monkey discovers that a sea washed tuber is nicer to eat, other monkeys on other islands, who have not witnessed the event, also find themselves washing tubers... Morphic field resonance may begin once the intention to prove a thing arises, therefore individuals susceptible to this influence and belonging to the group may experience proving effects ahead of the identified proving event.
Brilliant — the placebos showing a positive is just an extra confirmation that the proving was so successful it spilled out on to everybody in the vicinity — you couldn't make this up!
First, the "Hundredth Monkey" claim was dismissed long ago, though Sheldrake still clings to it fiercely. See http://skepdic.com/monkey.html for the details. More importantly, the definition of homeopathic "proving" given above is incorrect. It actually consists of giving the full dosage of a substance to a test person, noting the symptoms, and then deciding that given dosages diluted down well beyond Avogadro's Limit, the symptoms of a sick person will be relieved. Look it up.
The "friezeartfair" site tells us that this is a work titled Public Fountain LSD Hall (2003), a single room installation by artist Klaus Weber. Furthermore, it features:
A crystal glass fountain that circulates liquid potentized LSD, which stands in the centre of the Hall. This is the only object inside the building that was not there before. It is possible to enjoy a drink from the fountain.
Depend on it, aging hippies will gulp down the water and start giggling. I'm giggling, too, but for other reasons.
Sorting through some long-neglected boxes of sundry documents and small objects, I came upon a few interesting items, some of which I'll share with you here in the next few weeks. We begin with a letter from Sir Arthur C. Clarke of which I was previously unaware. It appeared in the Sri Lanka Sunday Observer of November 11, 1991, in response to an earlier piece on Nostradamus that had appeared there by one G. Kurukulasuriya, who wrote that he'd been "bewildered at the things said by [the] seer in the sixteenth century," and he referred to Nostradamus' prediction of a "global war in 1986, starting in the Middle East." Obviously aware of the fact that this conflict should have started five years previously, he resorted to a typical escape from reality often employed by others, postulating that Nostradamus might have been off by only one digit. He suggested: "Is it 1996?" And, puzzled by the fact that "the true tomb of St. Peter...a tomb of marble and lead" had not been "disclosed" in 1986, and that a "great city" had not been "shattered" on the 10th of April of that year, Mr. Kurukulasuriya took refuge in the observation that "Interpretation of the quatrains, no doubt, needs a multiplicity of disciplines besides history," as if that somehow explained why the predictions had failed.
I suggest to that gentleman that he needs the disciplines we all know as "common sense" and "facing reality," though those may be well beyond his reach.
Sir Arthur, surprised by what he'd seen in the Observer, wrote to the editor:
These have been refuted or explained innumerable times. I enclose a review of a recent book on the subject by James Randi in the excellent magazine Free Inquiry. Unfortunately, books such as Randi's do not receive as much publicity as those written by sensation-mongering charlatans. Here is the review by Gerald Larue headlined "Unmasking Nostradamus" of the book, "The Mask of Nostradamus" by Randi.SIR, I was sorry to see, in The Sunday Observer of November 3 a letter giving publicity to the long-discredited "predictions" of Nostradamus.
Randi prepares the stage for his investigation by establishing Nostradamus' place in the historical setting of the sixteenth century. Then he discloses "the rules of the prophecy game," including: "Make lots of predictions, and hope that some come true. If they do, point to them with pride. Ignore the others." He also advises would-be prophets: "Be vague and ambiguous," "Use lots of symbolism," and "Predict catastrophes." By employing these guidelines at the right time and in the right place, predictors are bound to attract a following. Nostradamus did just that.
Randi's examination of the ways in which the seer's quatrains have been interpreted over the centuries makes it clear that devotees have not hesitated to mistranslate words or transpose letters to create results to fit their views. As part of Randi's research, he went to St. Rémy, where Nostradamus was born and lived until he was sixteen. There he discovered natural and architectural features that form the basis for a reasonable and sensible interpretation of quatrains 4-27 and 5-57. Now, it becomes clear, there is nothing mysterious or hard to decipher in these verses. As Randi writes:
"The highly fanciful, detailed and precise interpretations, naming specific dates, places, personalities and events, that Ionescu and other interpreters have given this quatrain, were arrived at after diligently searching through history for something — anything that would fit the very wrong, altered, misspelled and misconstrued poetry of Nostradamus."
He asks, "Is it not more reasonable to accept the simple, likely relationship of fact and poetry that I have ascribed above than the tortuously oblique and inventive process offered by the Nostradamians?" (p.189) The answer must be, "yes"!
What of Nostradamus' end-of-the-age prophecies? One need only read the labyrinthine explanation of quatrain 10-72 by Stewart Robb, who is modestly described on the cover of his book "Prophecies on World Events by Nostradamus" as "The world's leading scholar on Nostradamus," to discover how far interpreters will go in mingling confused interpretations of biblical mythology with Scandinavian folklore and selected modern events to give sixteenth century utterances meaning and relevance for our time. Randi's comment on the same quatrain is on target: "Ho hum." (p. 244).For those of us who have pondered the sayings of Nostradamus and read the efforts by so-called experts to force what he wrote into their particular interpretations, James Randi's no-nonsense, commonsense book, "The Mask of Nostradamus," comes as a breath of fresh air.
Dr. Arthur C. Clarke, Colombo 7.This book belongs in the library of every thinking person who would like to have a ready source of delightful reading to respond to the persistent claims of the Nostradamians.
I'm grateful to both Sir Arthur and Gerry Larue for this endorsement. In that same box of old material I also found my copy of "Lettres Inédites" — a collection of letters between Nostradamus and his clients showing just how badly he'd served them as an astrologer. In fact, I'd "stopped the presses" on The Mask of Nostradamus when I obtained this data, and I'd written an additional — and incomplete — section to deal with it, as an insert. It appears in the book from page 103 to page 115. I really should complete that research, and though I'm capable of translating from French, it's a tough job for me, and I'm looking for anyone out there who might agree to translate selected passages for me.... Il y a quelqu'un?
We still have lots of copies of this excellent book for sale at the JREF website: www.randi.org/shopping/index.html#books....
Having super-smart readers means that though I have to watch my statements carefully lest I make an error, if I do so I'm promptly corrected — and often scolded. For example, reader Alistair Eberst at the University of Abertay, Dundee, Scotland, tells me that I erred last week when I wrote:
"Frequency modulation" is a broadcasting term and a technology not in any way related to biological processes.
Said Mr. Erberst:
Given that bats have being using FM for several million years and humans for less than 70, this statement smacks of anthropocentric hubris! As a certain Professor Dawkins pointed out in "The Blind Watchmaker," bats use FM to enhance their echolocation in ways which boggles the mind of anyone who's seen them in action. You've got a transmitter, receiver, real-time analysis hardware and software, flight surfaces and self-reproduction capability all packed into a space smaller than the palm of your hand. Not only can it detect, home in on, and kill small insects in flight in pitch darkness; it can tell whether they're distasteful and ignore them purely on the basis of their echo. When it comes to using FM, we humans are really second-rate.
I should point out that Alistair is referring to audio FM; I meant radio-frequency FM, which I'm sure bats have yet not mastered. I'd forgotten the reference to this natural wonder in "The Blind Watchmaker." But others have had at me, too, on other subjects. Last week I quoted a reader as saying:
The usual controversy surrounds "Cold Fusion," an alleged method of fusing hydrogen into helium at room temperature. Fission, unlike fusion, does not occur in stars or Supernova. It occurs in radioactive elements and it occurs very rapidly in atomic bombs. Cold Fission happens all the time at a very slow pace — it's called radioactive decay. I believe that all isotopes of potassium are stable and therefore would not undergo radioactive decay!
Well, other readers have informed me — and that reader — that potassium has ten isotopes, of which eight are radioactive, and another says that there are 21 isotopes, 19 of which are radioactive. In any case, I've received abut 30 notes telling me that "K" does indeed have isotopes that are radioactive. Who knew? Obviously, many readers did!
Reader Greg Seals, Radiological Engineer in Barnegat, New Jersey, is more specific:
Actually, the isotope potassium-40 occurs in nature and is radioactive. It is a very weak beta particle emitter. Interestingly, it can be found in all human bodies, since it occurs in nature and potassium is an element essential for life. If you take a pile of salt substitute (high in potassium chloride) and hold a Geiger counter over a pile of the stuff, you will be able to detect the radioactivity emitted from the potassium-40 contained therein. Someone (I forget who) once said that a person could get more exposure to radiation by standing next to Ralph Nader than from living near a nuclear power plant. Doubtful, but entertaining.
Okay, but potassium-40 is only .02% of the regular stuff, and a very weak beta-source, so we were very close! And, I only quoted my reader, I didn't endorse his statement. Yes, that's lame, but it's all I can come up with...
Along with the criticisms — which I accept with wrinkled upper lip — there comes an occasional vindication of some comment that has been bombed on. Reader Andy McNish — who closes with "Yours combatively" — provides one about my recent boo-boo on the BBC matter:
Even until quite recently, it was common to see posters saying something like "TV detector vans are in your area now." Are we now to believe that this was all just a scare tactic? I think we should be told.
Personally, I have immense admiration for the BBC, and cheerfully pay my license fee, but the persecution, fining and occasional imprisonment — for non-payment of fines, not for illicit TV watching per se — of poor people whose chief source of information and entertainment is the humble TV set, is quite simply a national disgrace. The BBC itself may not be a government agency, but you can be darn sure that if you don't pay your "BBC tax," certain blue-uniformed agents of the state will shortly be taking quite an interest in how you choose to spend your leisure time.Methinks your irate BBC correspondent doth protest rather too much. Back in the '70s, there was a frequently broadcast "public information" film showing a TV detector van in operation. The occupants of this vehicle were shown sitting at high-tech-looking consoles, wearing headsets as I recall, in an image reminiscent of Gene Hackman in "The Conversation" or any number of stakeout scenes in cop dramas. The chief "spook" had an air of high seriousness as he homed in on some hapless illicit gogglebox users. I can't remember the full dialogue of the ad, but the final line has stayed with me to this day. Having identified an address (shown from outside with the light from a cathode-ray tube illuminating the tightly-drawn curtains) and the names of the criminals within, this grim-faced agent of the state pronounced his final, damning indictment: "And they're watching 'Columbo.'"
I'll offer the following letter to you without further comment. It was just received, and I'm only dropping it in here to show that this is a very controversial matter indeed. No careers hang on this, no huge changes in our futures are anticipated, but we see that a situation that appeared to have been rather simple to settle, is not necessarily that cut-and-dried. This comes from reader Ron Matthews, in Hither Green, London:
I have just had the pleasure of reading the May 6 commentary. I live in London and my late father used to work for the Post Office which was responsible for enforcing the TV license fee. I remember back in the early 60's my father bringing home the detector car and the team that operated it. It wasn't black and scary but, if I remember correctly, it was a pale blue Austin Cambridge estate car. The engineer on the team explained how the system worked and that it was possible to discern what room in the house the set was in and even what channel was being watched. They had a Polaroid camera to photograph the oscilloscope screen so that it could be used as evidence in court. I was sworn to secrecy about all of this, not for some men-in-black reason but because my father feared that if people knew what he did they would wreak some terrible vengeance upon us.
(I have chosen to omit a paragraph here in which Mr. Matthews questions the quality of science reporting by the BBC; I disagree with him based on my personal experience with them over many years, and I'm sure he'll forgive me.)
An ex-Mormon has directed me to http://exmormons.faithweb.com/, where I found many of the secrets of the religion revealed. For example, here's how you can tell whether it's a real angel who approaches you and offers divine wisdom, or an imposter:
When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand. . . . If it be the devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to shake hands he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything; you may therefore detect him.
Other equally believable information awaits you at the website. Enjoy!
BLADDER MERIDIAN AND LUNG/KIDNEY CHI
The attention of reader Nick Jones was taken by an article in Network Magazine — which is a mystery in itself, since its enigmatic web page has few clues about what it actually does! Nick says that according to the article, the "Chiball Method" claims to be able to "stimulate your bladder meridian" and "rejuvenate your kidney chi," amongst other similar nonsense. It claims that by doing a certain set of exercises for each season, you will "align yourself with the energy of each season promoting harmony and balance the mind, body and emotions." He sent the editor a letter to express his concern about the article:
It is claimed that chi is the "life force" present in all creation, that meridians are invisible pathways through which Chi moves and that Yin and Yang are the states of this "energy." Describing chi as "energy" is a misuse of the scientific term. Energy is defined as capacity to do work, and is expressed (broadly) in the form of mechanical, electrical, chemical or nuclear energy. Which one of these is chi? No study in the history of physics, chemistry, biology or human anatomy and physiology has determined the concept of chi to be an accurate description of how the body works. It is a pre-scientific concept that has been outmoded by modern scientific understanding of matter and natural laws. Through intensive scientific investigation we have a good knowledge of how the human body works and chi has never been found to account for any natural phenomena.
The Chiball Method claims to stimulate and rejuvenate "bladder meridians" "lung meridians" "lung chi" and "kidney chi". How does one determine if one's kidney chi is being rejuvenated? Is this measurable by any medical diagnostic methods such as MRI or ultrasound scans? Is there any measurable difference in blood or urine composition that could be detected as a result of having one's kidney chi stimulated? The essence of a scientific theory is that it is potentially falsifiable. Notions such as "stimulated bladder meridians" do not measure up to this standard.
The article goes on to state that "according to Chinese medicine, aligning ourselves with the energy of each season promotes harmony and balance of the mind body and emotions." This is a vacuous notion. "Harmony" and "balance" are not scientific concepts, and what type of (measurable) energy do seasons possess to which we can be aligned? It is said that one should perform a certain set of exercises for each season in order to be "aligned" with the "energy" of that season. I assume this is supposed to bring additional health benefits beyond what the stretches and movement would normally do, but such benefits are not documented. This is the ancient belief of "vitalism" of which numerous types of unscientific and ineffective practices are based, but which offer no verifiable evidence that stands up to scientific scrutiny.
I would also add that not only is evidence lacking for the underlying framework of chi, there is also no evidence that such things can be influenced by performing the Chiball exercises as described by Monica Linford. How does it compare to other exercise regimes, for example? To consider the Chiball Method a valuable modality for increasing one's fitness components, it must be tested according to scientific protocols, that is, in double-blind placebo-controlled experiments. If the claims of the Chiball method are true, one would expect to see greater improvements in a group of individuals that follow this method compared to another that performs the "wrong" set of exercises for the season, such as doing the winter exercises in summer. No such experimental data is provided, either in the article or on the chiball.com website. I would like to see evidence that practicing the Chiball Method, as described by Monica Linford, can elicit health benefits beyond that of industry standard stretching, strength, endurance and core stability training modalities. Further, I would expect your magazine to require the highest of scientific standards in any future article you publish as a piece of "education."
I am writing about the article "Introducing...The Chiball Method" by Monica Lindford in the Winter 2005 edition. The author presented much as fact in the article that has no demonstrable basis in science, and I think you did your readers a disservice by publishing such a piece uncritically.
This is the response he received:
As the leading source of information, the role of Network's publications has always been to disseminate information to fitness professionals so they can be aware of what is available "out there."
We strive to avoid providing our own opinions or endorsement or recommendations in our publishing, but instead seek to present information for people to make their own minds up, and this extends to the mind body practices and philosophies. Whether you or I or any other industry person likes it or not, there is definitely interest from our members in this type of information, and this was reinforced by the very full ChiBall sessions conducted by Monica Linford at our recent FILEX convention in Sydney. I appreciate receiving your passionate perspective, Nick.You are not alone in your criticism. I have received feedback from one other person with regards to Monica's perspectives. I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns. As the fitness industry's interest in the mind/body field grows, you should be aware that to explore this arena, we cannot always print evidence based articles.
Nick comments:
So it looks as though it's a classic case of "if people want it, we'll give it to them no matter how much quackery it's steeped in." I find it very disconcerting that the fitness industry is opening it's doors to quackery, when best results are obtained by using the results of scientific research. The bottom line is that this stuff is making money, so the industry embraces it and throws its integrity out the window.
I have a hard time with that statement that "[they] cannot always print evidence based articles," but I'll have to accept it; I'd attach a statement saying that the article is only presumed to be factual, but that would surely label the publication as failing to be appropriately "faith-based."
Last week, on Prayer Day, President Bush referred to prayer as "an important part of American public life" and lauded the practice of asking God to help the United States win the war against terrorism. He said:
We pray for help in defending the gift of freedom from those who seek to destroy it... We pray to acknowledge our dependence on the Almighty.
With all due respect, Mr. President, no "we" don't; please don't speak for me in that respect. I'm an American citizen. I'm part of that "we," and I don't depend on any Great Spirit in the Sky — or wherever — for anything. I don't look upon freedom as a "gift"; I acknowledge that brave people fought — and many died — to earn that freedom for their fellow citizens. Any success in defending ourselves from our enemies — I believe — will be the result of vigilance and integrity, not suppliancies and begging favors from a spirit. Prayer plays no part in my life, Mr. President; I depend on thinking and working to improve my life and the lives of those around me.
You may remember a Victor Zammit, Australian lawyer. Refer to our archives on this boring man. Reader Hugo Lowenstein has established even further the nuttiness of Zammit, as if that needed to be done. Here's what Zammit wrote when Hugo suggested that he send some "spirits" to him to establish that they existed:
Living on this earth — you have a life to live, you have responsibilities to cope with, things to do. Spirits are likely to waste your precious time. In this life you have to make your own decisions — and those who were able to make contact now find themselves with a real burden — because they find it hard to get rid of the spirits — they waste too much time.
That is NOT the way things are done — send me some spirits. You probably already have spirits in your area — but naturally enough they are invisible because their energy is rotating much faster than the atoms on earth. Why do you want to see and communicate with spirits?
Their "energy is rotating much faster than the atoms on earth"? Folks, this is a lawyer registered to practice at the bar in Australia. Professionally, he gives advice to clients. The mind boggles....
I happened on another one of Mark Twain's many enlightening comments. Share this with me:
The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
Just a wise comment from someone we need back with us again....
And just think: we dared to put this page up on Friday the 13th, just as Shermer starts his event in California....! And I flew out there, defying the odds!
Take a look at www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=12531&sid=34698&bw= for an appropriate handling of a faith-healing claim....
