Robert Todd Carroll

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the
Skeptic's Dictionary
Newsletter 50
December 10, 2004
"The secret of life is honesty and fair
dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
--Groucho Marx
In this issue:
Revisions, updates, and new stuff; cold fusion;
election lowlight; intelligent design;
feedback; and the upcoming Randifest.
What's New in The Skeptic's
Dictionary & Skeptic's Refuge
Revisions
- The
Indian rope trick. The story did not originate in the Chicago
Tribune in the 19th century. Alex Williams turned me on to a 17th century story
from China that is the likely basis for the Tribune hoax. And Mick Sherman
informed me of a 14th century Arab (Ibn Battutah) who claims he saw a similar trick while
traveling in China. Also Johathan Blaney has informed me that in Ibn
Battutah's account of the Indian Rope Trick he watched in China, there is
a sceptical payoff. This is from the Mackintosh-Smith abridgement of the
standard English translation by Hamilton Gibb: "The qadi Afhar al-Din was
at my side and said, 'By God, there was no climbing up or down or cutting
off of limbs. It's all conjouring" [p.269]
- Jung: rewrote a small
section to make it clearer that synchronicity is better explained by
apophenia
Updates
New stuff
New Reader Comments
- auras (two
letters posted).
Cold Fusion
A couple of years after the Pons and Fleishman cold
fusion debacle, our Department of Energy (DOE) announced, in so many words,
that it considered cold fusion a chimera not worth pursuing. Earlier this
year it announced that it would review the research in the field--now known
as low energy nuclear reactions--that has been done over the past
fifteen years. Last week, DOE published its
report. The grand conclusion: "While significant progress has been
made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject
in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those
found in the 1989 review." If I remember correctly, several labs tried
to replicate the work of Pons and Fleishman--a task made difficult by the
fact that they announced the results of their experiments at a press
conference rather than in a peer-reviewed journal--and some succeeded. In
the end, the replications were due to inaccurate measurement of heat due to
faulty equipment. This should remind us that replication of positive results
can sometimes give a false sense of confirmation of a hypothesis. (Or, if
I'm wrong about this, it should remind us not to trust our memories.)
Lowlight of the recent election
campaign
IMHO the lowlight of the presidential campaign came
from the Catholic bishops who opposed Kerry because of his defense of a
woman's right to have an abortion. Some of the bishops went so far as to
advocate refusing the Eucharist to Kerry or anyone else who supports the
right to have an abortion. Catholic bishops have given up any right to take
the moral high road, especially where children are concerned, by their years
of abuse,
silence, and cover-ups regarding child abuse. Even now the bishops are
as silent as sleeping lambs. Where is their outrage at the thousands of
young people abused by Catholic priests and others?
Some may find it of interest that George W. Bush got
54% of the
Catholic vote. Kerry, a Catholic, got only 47% of the Catholic vote.
According to BeliefNet.com, "In
Ohio, Bush got 55% of the Catholic vote in 2004 compared to just under 50%
in 2000. That means a shift of 172,000 votes into the Republican column.
Bush won the state by just 136,000 votes this year." Actually, Bush won
by
119,000 votes. (No, I'm not implying
that the bishops caused Kerry to lose or that Catholics are owed big time by GWB. But, if I were Kerry, I'd be asking myself why I'm not that popular
with members of my own faith.)
further reading
Intelligent Design
A reader was concerned that the scientific community
hasn't given the intelligent design (ID) folks a fair shake. The evidence
put forth was the recent fiasco involving a paper by Stephen Meyer that was
published in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington and
was soon afterward repudiated by the group that published it. The spin being
put on the affair by the ID folks is that the scientific community has
played foul with them. (See, for example,
Chuck Colson's article on the subject. He has links to several other
articles in the same vein from the Discovery Institute folks.) According to
the spin, the scientific community demands that ID be represented in
peer-reviewed literature. Then, when an article is accepted in a peer-review
journal, the scientific community roars and demands that it be removed. The
truth is that the paper, while published in a peer-reviewed journal, was
not peer reviewed. It was published without review by a former
editor. Here is a statement issued by the biological society of Washington:
The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of
biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," in vol. 117,
no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of
Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor,
Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper
was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled
the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected
councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have
deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because
the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly
purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout
its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a
rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design
(ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian
body-plan diversity. The Council endorses
a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, which observes that there is no credible
scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the
origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet
the scientific standards of the Proceedings.
We have reviewed and revised editorial policies to
ensure that the goals of the Society, as reflected in its journal, are
clearly understood by all. Through a
web presence and improvements in the journal, the Society hopes not
only to continue but to increase its service to the world community of
systematic biologists.
The Panda's
Thumb, your one-stop website for material on evolution and the
antievolutionists, has several items on the Meyer controversy, including a
detailed
critique of Meyer's paper by Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R.
Elsberry.
I also recommend
Chris Mooney's
article on the Meyer paper fiasco and
TalkDesign.org for a critical
examination of the ID movement.
Hot off the presses...The
Feathered Onion: Creation of Life in the Universe by Clive Trotman
(Wiley 2004)...According to
The Guardian, Trotman "bats down some of the creationist objections:
the one about the eye, for instance, and the one about the sheer
improbability of life assembling itself by chance."
Feedback
I've had an inquiry from Youngra Rhee, a publisher in
Korea, about publishing a print version of The Skeptic's Dictionary
in Korean.
Maybe someday we can compete with the
Moonies!
Also, Kenji Sato informs me that he is working on updating
and revitalizing the Japanese translation of The Skeptic's Dictionary.
Thanks to Kenji.
***
Andrew Skolnick writes to correct a few errors in the
last newsletter:
The three investigators who designed and conducted
the test of Natasha Demkina's claimed abilities are Ray Hyman and Richard
Wiseman, who are CSICOP research fellows, and Andrew Skolnick
who is the executive director of the Commission for Scientific Medicine and
Mental Health. (The test was a CSMMH-CSICOP project. Ray and I are writing
reports for the March/April 2005 issue of Skeptical Inquirer.
***
Tom Morris of the UK informed us of
quackblog and of his posted
comments expressing his outrage that two British universities are teaching
homeopathic medicine as part of their science curriculum. That's pretty bad,
but in this country we have to fight every day to keep back those who think
we should teach religion as part of our science curriculum as a matter of
fairness.
***
Chris wrote to complain about the Discovery Channel
show, "Rameses:
Wrath of God or Man?"
I hope to read a very negative review on your site
in the near future. The Discovery Channel produces some good stuff, like
Mythbusters, but it still amazes me that crap like Rameses can make it on
there. I'm going to write a protest to Discovery while I'm ranting like
this.
Sorry, Chris, I won't be reviewing this swell-sounding
show. The Discovery Channel has disappointed me too often. I rarely watch it
anymore. In fact, one of the shows I was disappointed with was Mythbusters!
But that was long ago and don't ask me what the show was about. (update:
Dec. 16, 2004. Last night I caught
Mythbusters and the show was very good. The crew tested two perpetual
motion machines--worthless devices, as expected--and they tested the urban
legend that a child jumping on a bed was beheaded by a ceiling fan--not
likely! No, they didn't use live children. They created their own dummy just
like in the movies.)
***
John Renish was disturbed enough by what he found at
his local Long's Drug store that he sent off a complaint to the company:
When in my local Long's store to refill my
legitimate prescriptions the other day, I picked up a Long's "wellness"
sheet "Don't Let the Flu Bug You". I was appalled to see that you recommend
multivitamins, echinacea, goldenseal, Zicam, Airborne, and Vitamin C for
real diseases, one of which is sometimes fatal. Then I saw your "Live
Healthy" section in this site (http://longs.com/), which is even more
credulous, and recalled that you also sell copper bracelets and other
"magical" products. I understand that these useless products have a high
profit margin, but it is unprofessional and irresponsible in the extreme to
proffer snake oil in a pharmacy.
At least they're not selling prayer wheels. Or are
they?
***
Mogens Winther of Denmark tells us that the Danes have
their own version of Court TV's psychic
detectives. “Sense
Murderer “ is now being exported to
several countries, including Australia and the US. In one of the
episodes, the psychics incorrectly identify an innocent mother of two
children as a killer. A police investigation proved the psychics were wrong.
(What is wrong with that picture?)
***
Several readers wrote to tell me that I let Penn &
Teller off the hook too easily in my last newsletter.
[I HAVE RETRACTED THE FOLLOWING CLAIM. SEE
NEWSLETTER 41. P & T WERE NOT
CORRECT IN THEIR CLAIMS ABOUT THE EPA REPORT ON SECONDHAND SMOKE.]
Even though P & T were
correct about the tainted nature of the Environmental Protection Agency
report in 1993 that claimed that passive smoking causes 3,000 lung cancer
deaths a year, they were not justified in concluding that laws forbidding
smoking in pubs and restaurants are not justified. They ignored other
studies regarding the effects of passive smoke. See, for example,
-
"Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on
Cancer’s second-hand smoke study" Lancet Vol 355, April 8,
2000.
-
"The
accumulated evidence on lung cancer and environmental tobacco smoke,"
A K Hackshaw, M R Law,, N J Wald, BMJ 1997;315:980-988 (18 October).
-
"Involuntary smoking in the restaurant workplace. A review of employee
exposure and health effects," by M. Siegel, JAMA Vol. 270 No.
4, July 28, 1993.
-
"A Tobacco-Specific Lung Carcinogen in the Urine of Men Exposed to
Cigarette Smoke," by Stephen S. Hecht, Steven G. Carmella, Sharon E.
Murphy, Shobha Akerkar, Klaus D. Brunnemann, and Dietrich Hoffmann, The
New England Journal of Medicine Volume 329:1543-1546, November 18,
1993, Number 21.
-
"Environmental tobacco smoke and cardiovascular disease. A position paper
from the Council on Cardiopulmonary and Critical Care, American Heart
Association," by AE Taylor, DC Johnson and H Kazemi Circulation,
Vol 86, 699-702, 992.
-
"Passive smoking and heart disease. Mechanisms and risk," by S. A.
Glantz and W. W. Parmley, JAMA, Vol. 273 No. 13, April 5, 1995.
-
"Active and passive cigarette smoking and the occurrence of breast
cancer," by TL Lash and A Aschengrau. American Journal of
Epidemiology, Vol 149, Issue 1, 5-12, 1999.
-
Passive
Smoking by the Cancer Council of South Australia.
-
Lung
cancer and passive smoking, British Medical Journal
Several other
studies are described in
A Skeptical
Blog (Mon, Apr 07 2003/Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading
It?)
With respect to P & T's
position on Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist and their
Cato Institute affiliation, we are advised to
follow the money and read
For a detailed criticism of P & T's claims on
environmental issues and their defense of Lomborg, see
A Skeptical
Blog (April 22, 23, 24, and 25 2003) and for criticism of their diatribe
against those who protest genetically engineered crops, see
A Skeptical
Blog (Apr 08 2003).
Okay. I agree. I wimped out on this one. P & T
shouldn't get a free ride on environmental and scientific issues just because they ridicule
Van Praagh, alternative medicine, alien abductions, ESP,
creationism, feng shui, and Ouija boards.
I DIDN'T JUST WIMP OUT ON THIS ONE.
I FAILED MISERABLY. I WAS DUPED BY SOME VERY POWERFUL FORCES, BUT THAT'S NO
EXCUSE. I THANK CHRIS MOONEY FOR SETTING ME STRAIGHT ABOUT THE POWERS THAT
HAVE LED TO THE EXCESSIVE SKEPTICISM PROMOTED IN THE NAME OF "SOUND SCIENCE"
WHEN WHAT IS MEANT IS JUNK SCIENCE OR THE INTRODUCTION OF ABSURD STANDARDS
MEANT TO PROMOTE DEREGULATION AND INACTION. SEE
THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE.
Randifest
I hope to see some of you next month (and next year!)
in Las Vegas at the James Randi Educational Foundation
Amazing Meeting (TAM3).
Penn and Teller will be there but they probably will not be talking about
environmental or deregulation issues. In addition to rubbing elbows with the
Amazing One himself, TAM3 will bring you face to face with Richard Dawkins,
Michael Shermer, Julia Sweeney, Banachek (Steve Shaw of
Project Alpha fame),
Joe Nickell, and Phil Plait, among others.
Until next time....
***
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The Skeptic's Dictionary
online from
Amazon.com or from your local bookseller. The perfect holiday
gift for true believer and skeptic alike!
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