Psychics Never Seem to Know When They're Not Psychic

 

"I realize that there is no concrete scientific evidence for psychic abilities (at least no evidence that's available to the public). However, has this stopped the US government and many local police forces around the nation from employing psychics? No, it hasn't. This has been going on for decades. Even China has what they call 'remote viewers'. I realize that our government isn't always good and ethical, but they (collectively) are very intelligent. Would they continue to waste money on psychics if they determined that such powers did not exist? I doubt it. 

There is a lot of information that they withhold from the public. I doubt that we'll ever know the full story behind 9/11. Did President Bush play a role in it? We may never know. Did aliens really crash land in Roswell? We may never know. Do true psychic powers (which can only be supernatural) really exist? We don't know that either, but we can make some logical inferences based on the government's activities.

Yes, I know that the psychic phone friends and the tarot card readers on the street corners are almost all phonies, but this does not mean that all psychics are.

Skepticism is a useful tool in distinguishing fact from fiction, but I encourage all of you to avoid the trap of denialism."

I happened across this query on Yahoo! Answers just last week and it got me thinking about a few things.  The first was that I was confused as to how this person managed to confuse skepticism with denialism.  Denialism is a matter wherein a person denies the validity of an event or an entity despite the amounts of evidence in favor of the phenomena.  Good examples of this would be the holocaust, evolution, germ theory, and others.  Skepticism on the other hand is the complete opposite.  Skepticism is ordering levels of acceptance based on the amount of evidence in favor or in contrary to a particular phenomena, and coming to the conclusion that there is not enough evidence to support a hypothesis, or none at all, in many cases.  Good examples of this would be alien abduction, special creationism, astrology, ghosts, chiropractic medicine, homeopathic medicine, dolphin therapy, and in this case, psychics.  So, let us never confuse skepticism with denial, as they are certainly two very different things, opposite one another.

The second thought that came to mind was something I've often wondered in the past: just how much money to state and local governments put into hiring psychics, and to what effectiveness do psychics solve crimes?  I haven't been a "believer" in psychics since I reached the age of reason, just like I haven't been a "believer" in vampires since that age, but I wondered if my skepticism could be put to the test by the hard numbers. And can I find hard numbers without having to rely on statistics, of which I'm foremost skeptical?  Hard numbers and statistics are two very different things, of course, so how hard can it be?  I could utilize the gift that is the Freedom of Information Act to find the dollar amount the federal government, and at least my own state government puts into special crime investigation, and within that, I could find the hard dollar amount that went into psychics.  Finding the amount of crimes that were solved with the help of psychics, and how large a role the psychics played in solving said crimes would be a whole different matter, and would involve some personal investigation of my own.  Damn it!

Before I get to the topic, however, here are the subjects I will not be discussing in this blog: The "we only use 10% of our brain" argument.  I will not bring this up because this is actually a myth - a commonly accepted myth, for whatever reason, which, with the slightest bit of research on something as trivial as Google, can be immediately dispelled and debunked.  If we only used 10% of our brains we would be vegetables, if even that.  I also will not discuss telekinesis, as that is a subject for another time, and a whole other volume of hokum. I will also not discuss Peter Venkman's research into the paranormal, but I still think Ghostbusters was a pretty awesome movie.  This blog will deal with extrasensory perception, precognition, parasense, a sixth sense, and other related subjects.

Stargate Atlantis?
I happened to find one source of a program that I found a little bit disturbing, not because of the nature of the program, but how long it went on without any conclusive results, and how expensive it was.  The operation I'm talking about is the federal government's Stargate Project.  Don't confuse this with Crazy Ronnie's Star Wars Initiative, mind you, but this was equally as insane.  The Stargate Project was started in the early 1970s to experiment on the value of remote viewing.  For those out of the loop, remote viewing is a form of ESP, and is the ability to use paranormal means to seek impressions about distant, unseen places or targets.  From the 1970's to 1995, the US government spend twenty-million dollars per year funding this research, and in over two decades of applying the phenomena to rigorous scientific research, not one bit of conclusive evidence was reached to add to the validity of remote viewing phenomenon.

The studies that were done were certainly conflicting.  Dare I take us back to my argument against statistics, but this is yet another example of how easily manipulated they are, and how they do not under any circumstances function as stand-alone scientific evidence because of their insurmountable amounts of variables.  I need bring to your attention no more example than these conflicting conclusions.  Just before the operation closed, a  report was run buy the American Institutes for Research (AIR) which had a council primarily of two members, Professor Jessica Utts and Dr. Ray Hymen.  The reports were performed based on the collected data of the man who took over Stargate in 1985, Dr. Edwin C. May, who was a long-time government employee working in programs dealing with precognition and ESP, and whose education is in Low Energy, Experimental Nuclear Physics.

Professor Jessica Utts' study found that subjects who claimed clairvoyance were correct about certain information at a rate of 5% to 15% above chance, citing statistically significance.  In her side of the report to the AIR, she all but claimed these numbers to be proof of the existence of ESP and precognition.  On the other hand, the information collected by Dr. Hyman was entirely different.  According to the Hyman's data, remote viewers were correct about information only 20% of the time.  Being wrong about information 80% of the time is hardly above chance in my opinion, and apparently in his as well.  He responded to Professor Utts' results, saying her claim of evidence of precognition is entirely premature, and that "present findings have yet to be independently replicated."  He also argued that the subjects' reports included large amounts of irrelevant information, and when the subjects' reports were on target, the information supplied was often vague and completely general in nature, much like ancient prophesies, which can be applied to just about anything.  These are two very conflicting results based on the same data.  I think what worries me even more is that Professor Utts is a long-time proponent of significant changes in collegiate level statistics education, arguing that the current curricula does a horrible job in teaching students how to properly interpret statistical results.  She also argues that classes don't spend enough time on the misconception that correlative studies show causation.  Although I most certainly agree with that second part, as anyone who read my last paper knows, I'm not so sure that she actually understands what she's saying.  Either that, or she's learned a lesson since 1995, and is blaming her education for the public embarrassment that should have been her side of the AIR report.

Of course, I do not know the exact amount of control that went into these experiments, nor do I know if either of these groups collecting and interpreting the date were following the strict guidelines of the scientific method to begin with.  I do know that Dr. Edwin May was, and still is, a proponent of psychic phenomenon, so it would be hard for me to say that the experiments performed, or the data collected and interpreted between 1985 and 1995 were unbiased and approached with skepticism the way they should have been.  In other words, statistical evidence for psychic phenomena exists, but it was bias to begin with.  According to the report itself, "Information provided was inconsistent, inaccurate in regards to specifics, and required substantial subjective interpretation."  As for hard evidence, still, absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the validity of psychic phenomena exists.  Total dollar amount for the Stargate Project: based on the information provided, the full cost of the project was $400 million dollars, and surely more, as the total cost of the project after it was transferred to the CIA in 1995 is not provided.  For additional information on Stargate and the AIR's conclusions visit here: http://psiland.free.fr/dossiers/parapsy/psi_defense/remote.pdf


Otherwise, private research is done all of the time from private funding, most of these exercises take place at universities, such as Washington University's $5 million grant of recent, which resulted in the same failure as the government's remote viewing project.  However, there has been one study that may show evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena.

Is This Your Porn?
Professor Emeritus Daryl Bem (psychology) at Cornell University recently published a paper called "Feeling the Future" in the magazine The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  A former stage magician, Bem has a long interest in the study of psychic phenomenon, having specialized in mentalism.  He was apparently a skeptic up until the point when he ran into noted parapsychologist Charles Hornorton at a convention hosted by the Parapsychological Association.  Bem soon began work on the empirical side of attempting to prove psychic phenomena, and to provide controlled evidence that can be replicated by independent researchers. 

Bem's experiment was as such: He put a computer screens in front of 100 students - fifty male and fifty-female - on either side was a curtain.  Behind one curtain would be a blank wall, and behind another would be an image.  Many of the images were erotic in nature, but not all of them.  The point was, obviously, to get the students to choose the screen on which was the erotic image.  Bem hypothesized that the group would be able to identify the correct screen roughly 50% of the time, as would say the laws of chance (1 of 2 options = 50% chance of success), however, that those shown the erotic images would have a higher hit rate.  I'm already blown by what Mr. Bem is considering to be a control in this experiment, but I'll digress.

Of the 100 sessions in Bem's experiment, those shown non-erotic images chose the correct curtain 48.8 percent of the time - well within the bounds of chance.  Those shown erotic imagery, however, scored a hit rate of 53.1 percent.  According to Bem, this was a substantial difference, but may I remind you that even statistically, this is not a significant difference, and scientifically, 53.1 percent is still well within the bounds of probability and chance - only a marginal percent higher than 50%.  If the results would have stated somewhere around 60%, I would be interested.  If the results showed somewhere in the area of 70%, I would actually be quite amazed and I would want to replicate the experiment myself.  If the results were 80%-90%, I would bow down and tell Mr. Bem that he very well may have stumbled upon evidence of ESP and precognition.  However, 53.7% is hardly impressive, and as I said before, well within the boundary of chance.  Why was there a difference between the two groups?  Also mere chance, as variables would dictate, if you were to show one half of the group two blank computer screens, you would probably see the same, if not a greater difference.  However, this would be called a control, and I see no evidence of one here.  Another point to ponder: This research carried over the course of eight years, with the experiment being replicated nine times, so I must wonder how many of those experiments differed in percentage, as we seem only to be receiving the average percentages.  What were the results of each individual test?  Was it conclusive 100% of the time that students overwhelmingly chose the proper computer containing the erotic image against those who were tested without the erotic images?  What were the percentage of students who chose the blank screen in each experiment?  Were there more women than men who chose any of the above results?  Where is this information?  You would think it would be important, at least for a scientist, which a psychologist plainly is not.  Especially this one, it would appear.

Now, onto a greater problem with this experiment.  In his own words, "The remarkable finding is that their psychological responses are observed to occur about 2-3 seconds prior to the appearance of the picture, even before the computer has decided whether to present a non-arousing or an arousing picture."

Yet, a half a year later, the study has yet to be replicated independently, which would indicate little more than a fluke result.  I also have not seen the entirety of the results to see if he managed to somehow score a difference between precognition (knowing what is coming) and anticipation (expecting something may come), nor have I seen what the orders of the photos were, which would well explain the anticipation.

With two highly-publicized studies, we see absolutely no evidence at all for precognition, and other studies not worth mentioning, over the past, fifty years, have come to the same results: Excited non-skeptics of precognition being met with a chorus of, "Here's what you did wrong."  I suspect that no results in the future will prove anything further from this trend.  So, why with such a lack of evidence for precognition, to police departments across the United States, Great Britain and Australia continue to pump worthwhile state money into such a worthless practice?  Why are television shows abundant on the topic of psychic investigators?

Roadhouse Blues
Why is it that Patrick Swayze is dead right now?  Living in Minneapolis, one of the suburbs of my fair city is called Edina.  Edina is the home one of the "real life ghost mediums" who acted as, among many others, an inspiration of The Ghost Whisperer.  Her name is is Echo Bodine.  Her books have sold substantially well and she currently does live readings with the accompaniment of a keyboardist.  The subject at hand is not Echo, however, but her brother, Michael Bodine, who my poor fiancee must deal with every time he saunters into her store to sign his literary nonsense.

Michael was the personal psychic of many stars including Lewis Black (that one surprises me) and Melanie Griffith, but most notably, Patrick Swayze, who died in 2009 of pancreatic cancer.  I in no way intend any disrespect to Swayze or his family in this piece, nor do I intend to make light of pancreatic cancer, which is one of the deadliest forms of cancer known to date.  However, that being said, why was Patrick Swayze dead at 57?  The average lifespan - though at a very embarrassingly tied with Cuba at 36th in the world, underneath islands that most people have never heard of - is 75.6-years-old for men.  Fifty-seven seems to be a pretty early age of death, not only for a man who was, admittedly, in pretty impeccable physical shape for most of his life, but more notably, had a psychic by his side to tell him what the future held for him.  Swayze could have easily detected his cancer early enough to cure it, had his psychic informed him, or had he known about it.  But how could he not?  I don't want to hear another psychic explain, "It doesn't work that way," I want to hear just one give me a real answer as to why psychics can detect some things but not others.  And if it's in a heirarchy of importance, I would think pancreatic cancer would be up there.  And considering what Swayze paid this man, I think most certainly Swayze's family is entitled to a refund.

This may be a bit of a tongue and cheek example, but it's the dominant example.  Therefore, why, again, are our state and federal government paying to hire these people?  Why are our tax dollars being spent to fund hokum, with a statistical success rate of 1 in 17, though, I'm still skeptical of statistics, even when they work in my favor.  You must realize that 1 in 17 is far lower than the rate of chance, and it's far, far lower than the success rates of our best detectives, who rely on investigation and evidence to solve crimes, instead of superstitious nonsense.

In Summation
What are we doing funding this type of investigation and research?  How many times do results need to be found inconclusive?  How many years is it going to take to develop proof of something that is allegedly so common?  Let's go back to chance for a moment, maybe a statistical expert out there can conclude how it could be that after hundreds of years of investigation and experimentation, absolutely no hard evidence has ever been found that precognition, or any sort of psychic ability for that matter?  It was only months after Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was released that hard evidence started to turn up.  It was only half a century after the standard model was developed that all but one of the particles it predicted have been found.  Speaking of...where is that elusive Higgs boson anyway?  I guess that's a topic for a later date.

For our federal government or state governments to spend a dime on psychics or psychic research is, in this man's opinion, a violation of the separation of church and state, as to date, psychic activity is nothing more than primitive superstition, and not hard, empirical fact.  I suspect that will never change.  For those who disagree, by all means, take those millions of dollars that James Randi has had up for years for anyone who can provide proof of psychic ability.  Hell, I'll offer a few grand myself.

Thanks for reading,
The Smiling Skeptic
C. Allen Thompson

This Skeptical Heart Goes Out to Norway

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, only days ago, a government center in Norway was bombed by an alleged lone extremist, who then followed a group of young Labor Party members to an island Summer camp, killing at least 80 in a heinous shooting.  I know that my heart, as well as any heart beating in the chest of any reader of this blog, goes out to the friends and families of the victims of this crime.  I can personally think of no worse reason for a person, young or old, to die than for political beliefs, or for the religious beliefs of a nut-job conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy theorist this man was, and then some.

When the story first broke, the mainstream media system of knee-jerk churnalism immediately blamed the bombing and shooting on Muslim extremism, going far enough to say that this was carried out by an off-shoot of Al Qaeda.  There was, of course, absolutely no evidence to point to this, but every outlet, including various ones for which I commonly have respect, seemed to forget about journalistic integrity with this mass, mindless response.  I guess that as a country, when we think of terrorism, we think of Islam immediately, despite the thousands of years of Christian and Jewish terrorism, which got a massive head start on today's extreme Muslims.  And thanks to the shooter, Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing, radical Christian, those numbers are starting to even out once again.

Breivik was not only a right-wing lunatic, but he was also a member of the famed Order of the Knights Templar, a common reference in his 1,500 page war plan, wherein he set out to kill hundreds in the name of reversing the effects of a global conspiracy to turn all of Europe Marxist first, then secondly, then to force the Islamic colonization of the entirety of the European Union.  Something not so common about this incident is that we have the privilege of taking a trek into his mind after the crime with this video, which perfectly outlines what is a dangerous combination of mental illness and belief in conspiracy theories and religion.  Take a look:

This video gave me chills, to be honest.  The repeated justifications of anti-multi-culturalism were enough, let alone the vastness of the conspiracy theories that reigned within.  Now is hardly the time for me to do a blog about conspiracy theories, but trust me when I tell you it's coming.  Now isn't even the time for me to do a blog on media skepticism, though, this would be a perfect chance for me to highjack a situation in order to illustrate the necessity for it.  Instead, what I'm doing is sharing with you the mind of a killer, and going into the depths of his illness, when aligned with antiquated ideas, conspiracy theories, and fundamentalist religion.  These four things proved to be fatal for almost 100 people, and maybe even more.  Who knows how many others out there are like him?  Who knows how many of the United States' Tea Party will act out like this?  There seems to be a strong resemblance in belief structures and political ideology, not to mention their extremism about such topics.

In conclusion, I just want to send my sincere condolences out to the friends and family of those lost, as well as to those who were wounded in the bombing or the shooting that followed.  You were the victims of a madman, and nothing less.  Stay strong and be with courage.  For those of you who would like to donate to the victims or to the families of the victims, visit the here for a list of Norwegian charities, or call your local, preferred charities and inquire.

That's Allstate's Stand. Are you a Virgo?

There are plenty of reasons to encourage critical thinking among people.  There are people who refuse to have their children vaccinated because they have a personal hypothesis - without evidence of any kind - that vaccines cause autism or lower Intelligence Quotients among children.  There are grown parents who don't seek medical attention for their children because they feel that faith and prayer will cure the child better than modern medicine.  There are even people in this day and age who deny the holocaust ever happened, think the universe is 6,000-years-old, and believe in vampires.  What do all of these people have in common?  A clear lack of critical thinking and a clear lack of regard toward the eminence and implications of evidence.

The worst part of all is how this translates in our society.  We have senators arguing against emissions regulations by quoting from the bible, saying that God won't let the world end until he's good and ready.  We have states in the south suggesting prayer to solve their budget crises.  And how many people do you know who are undoing the goodness that is human evolution, and also subjecting themselves to illnesses that humans thought they'd done away with a century ago, by subscribing to raw food diets?  I'm going to talk about one particular instance in which a clear-cut lack of critical thinking could end up costing you money, and probably already has.

Click here to read a rather disturbing study that was performed by the car insurance company Allstate.  The study cited this:

The company said its comparison of 2010 claims data against the revised astrological calendar found Virgos were involved in 211,650 collisions last year, 700 percent more than the 26,833 crashes involving Scorpios, the safest drivers on the zodiac calendar.

Had this just been a mundane study, wherein a reputable insurance company wanted to waste some money to appease the "new age" audience with some unsubstantiated and unproven statistics, that would be one thing.  Had this been a "joke" (damage control), because car insurance companies apparently like to waste money on humor, that would be another as well, but according to other sources, that's not the case.  In fact, according to Allstate's own current policies, that's not the case.  Insurance companies already use matters such as a person's credit, a person's sex, and even a person's personal life to measure the accountability and habits of a person, and the amount they should be paying for insurance. 

A person's sex and credit score have as much to do with their driving habits as their astrological sign.  Both of these matters were determined by statistics, which mean absolutely nothing in the face of reality.  First thing, statistics do not necessarily suggest correlation, and do not ever stand as evidence for causation.  One could find a hundred statistics by a hundred firms to suggest women are better drivers than men, just as one could find a hundred statistics by a hundred firms to suggest exactly the contrary.  It's all a matter of the methodology, which in matters of the business world, not the scientific one, is determined by the preordained result.  In fact, let me show you how easy it is to create a false statistic.  I'll use one of my favorite statistics, which is from the infamous Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which concludes that global warming is a direct result of the decline in piracy over the course of the last 400 years.

As anyone could tell you, temperatures - though you should never equate climate with weather as they are different things - in 1600 were a yearly average of about 54 degrees F.  In 1998, this number climbed to 58.3 degrees F.  Well, on the other hand, let's look at piracy.  Though, piracy is on the rise in recent years, it's too early to make any kind of climactic difference, says my research that I will come up with eventually to fit my conclusions.  According to generally accepted theory, the amount of pirates that rode the high seas in 1600 was close to 7,000 people.  That's quite a hefty number, especially when compared to 1998's depressing number of only 120.  Well, let us do some pretty simple math here.  From this research, I can easily conclude that there is a correlation, and I will arbitrarily conclude causation.  And with that, I will conclude that each pirate in the world is worth exactly 0.000625 of a degree.  I would also conclude that, judging by the math there, the world can only actually get 0.075 of a degree warmer, as that would be the increase in temperature caused by the remaining 120 sea-going swashbucklers giving up their day jobs, putting us at an average yearly temperature of 58.375 degrees F.  Wow, I guess I just proved that the polar ice caps are safe from heating as well.  I wonder why they're still melting then.  Well, they must not be, since I just proved with STATISTICS that they're not.

I hope I made my point about statistics.  So, now that we've proven that statistics, in the world of science, for the most part mean absolutely nothing, at least without proper and open methodology and proper double-blind scientific method.  Now, let's apply that thinking to the study I mentioned above regarding astrology.  Given that astrology applies to everyone, at least in the sense that everyone has had a sign applied to them by these hacks, we can conclude, beyond a shadow of a doubt that one of the twelve would come out on top of the others.  The chances of a tie happening are pretty small, so someone is going to take home the gold.  My question is this: Why only use Western astrology?  Why not apply Chinese astrology as well?  Is there more evidence for the tenets of Western astrology than Eastern astrology?  Well, let me check.  The following is a list of the empirical evidence collected over the course of the past 2,000 years, that suggests the tenets and claims made by either Western or Eastern astrology are viable and should be taken seriously:

(Insert cricket noises here)

Well, that's it.  Quite a bit, huh?  So, I guess to this day nobody has managed to prove that the date you were born and the position of the stars above your head or below your feet (on the other side of the world for you anti-heliocentrics out there) has any affect on your life, personality, love-life, future, family life, or driving habits.  In fact, in the long history of astrology, not one person, even those attempting with all of their might to prove this superstition as a legitimate science, has managed to produce anything.  Well, in the scientific world, one would have to say that after thousands of years with no evidence, and all of the actual evidence being completely to the contrary of astrology, it really ought to go the same route as Geocentricity, Craniometry, Phrenology, or any other pseudoscience or pseudo-hypothesis that has been practiced in the last few thousand years of recorded human history.  Why has it not?

Well, why haven't any of the religious tenets that have since been entirely unproven?  Why haven't any of the religious tenets that have been disproved through miles of evidence, such as the flood of Noah, the life-spans of biblical characters, the biblical age of the earth, the six-day creation, the Hindu world/elephant/tortoise hypothesis?  Well, because these are all religious factors, and no matter how absurd they are, you just cannot criticize them to the level at which they should be criticized, and thus, without opposition in the PC era, they just slowly absolve themselves of any responsibility to stand on evidence, and become part of the public's perception of reality.  Granted, reality exists independently of the observer, but that hardly makes a difference when people can't separate reality from observed reality, because they've not been taught the importance of critical thinking.

How many people wake up in the morning, get the paper, and read their horoscopes?  Quite a few, as the field seems to employ a ton of writers.  How many people believe them?  Far too many.  The problem is - let's say a person's horoscope says not the leave the house or they'll be killed - after a person does what their horoscope says and stays in their home, and nothing bad happens to them, you can't go back in time and prove to them that nothing bad would have happened anyway.  In fact, this may be a trivial matter, but what if something really good would have happened to them that day?  You must think that at least one of the thousands who read the horoscope that morning would have had a much better day had they gone outside.  What if one of them were on their last leg at their job and called in because their horoscope told them to?  Unlikely, yes, but still a matter to think about.  If even one bad thing has ever happened to a person, or one good thing has ever missed a person because of the directions inside of an instructive horoscope, that person has been robbed by pseudo-scientific superstition that has not one leg to stand on in the spectrum of evidence.  It is no different from those who succumbed to muscle problems later in life because of years of seeing a whole other field of charlatan, the chiropractor, who I will certainly touch on in a later blog.

My point in the end is that there is no evidence to show that astrology has any merit at all, and to charge extra money based on a religious chart is nothing more than religious discrimination.  I am a Scorpio.  I share a few of the traits outlined in my vague and common astrological description.  I share a few traits with the predictions made in my birth chart as well - yes, I had one made.  So do most people.  The issue is this: if it were a viable science, then I would share all of the traits described in both my birth chart and my star chart.  All Scorpios would be exactly the same, and every single person born on November 6, 1981 at 4:21 AM (my birthday) would have the same exact same life and personality, according to astrology.  Well, it just so happens an old friend of mine shared my birthday.  An old girlfriend, actually, who was only off by a few hours.  Well, you don't have to educate me in matters of astrophysics, I know how fast planets move, and I know how fast the earth spins as well, making it appear that stars are moving.  But in the world of astrology, apparently, this doesn't make much of a difference.  I wonder, then, why that woman and I had nothing in common, and don't talk today.  You'd think we'd make great bedfellows.

This brings me to another point.  Astrology claims to be the only algorithm necessary for bringing couples together.  Why, then, according to astrologydetails.com am I not only with a woman of an astrological sign that I'm supposed to hate (I'm in an extremely happy relationship, by the way) but according to the same site, the success of your marriage entirely depends of astrology?  I found this note quite interesting:

The type and location of the best wedding couples in astrology and reception site, officiate and other service personnel are also influenced by the residence of the daily Astrological Sun. The brides and grooms Natal Sun signs may also be used. Although the sign that the Sun resides in on the wedding day is the most significant, the other signs play their role in assisting with the preparations. Each will have some influence in the areas that they govern. Using the energies of the Astrological Bridal Zodiac can result in the bridal couples quest to plan a unique fairy tale best wedding couples in astrology.

I guess your overall algorithm is based in the position of planets on the date of your birth, but the basis of a successful marriage is not communication, compatibility, happiness, sex, or anything else that we crazy scientists have thought for hundreds of years.  Apparently, invisible and undetectable energies must travel through just the right places and just the right times, with the assistance of the sun, you know, the giant burning hydrogen ball in the sky with a mass of about about 2×10³⁰ kilograms that provides us all of our world sustenance by continuing to be a giant burning ball of gas, cares about your wedding, and even dictates your future.  Are you getting chills yet?  Because I am!  What is the evidence to support this?  NOTHING!  In fact, no link has ever been made between the time of day, nor the time of year, of a wedding ceremony that showed the success of the marriage is contingent on that whatsoever.  In fact, considering that marriages fail all the time, from weddings performed at all times of day and times of year, would certainly point to the contrary: There is no correlation at all.  I won't even get into the other signs "assisting with the preparations" part.  We'll leave that for Silvia Brown to try to explain in one of her monthly, ghost-written books.

In the end, I would have to say that this study was a wash, and the statistics mean nothing.  Whether it was a misguided appeasement of the "spiritual" crowd, or a "joke," is completely irrelevant.  And as I've shown, the statistics in this astrology exercise have exactly the same amount of merit as the statistics that increase a male's car insurance over a woman's car insurance.  They mean nothing.  At least no more than would statistics that would figure out a relationship between the time of day a person usually eats dinner, and the likelihood of that person being murdered, raped, raped again, then thrown into a burning pit of fire, ash, and ancient crystals that, together, would form a mythical symbol that would call upon the giant Cthulhu to drive the world into permanent insanity.  You know, on the other hand, I'd kind of like to read that study.  I'll mail it to Allstate so that they can use it to determine life insurance rates.

Thanks for reading,

C. Allen Thompson

The Smiling Skeptic

I Don't Like Change!

Nor do most of us.  It's just one of those evolutionary traits that we have as humans: Change is bad.

However, in this instance, I feel I should explain why the name and design change to the blog.  It has nothing to do with distancing myself from the atheist movement or from the word "atheist" in general.  I merely felt that this change would give me a chance to concentrate on a larger range of topics.  I've been an atheist for as long as I remember, and I'll be one until I see physical proof of any of man's 2,700 gods do indeed exist.  However, while I am an atheist, that word doesn't really define me as well as the word "skeptic" does, as there is far more infuriating quackery out there in the world apart from religion.  Now, I'm free to discuss these things, and I'm free to branch out a little bit, and include far more of my personality.

But make no worry, my skepticism still goes all the way to the top.  And that will be just as much a part of this blog as anything else.

So, feel free to smile with me into hell with this new venture in my blogging career.

Time to Raise a Stink

Don't be fooled by the title of this blog.  I'm in no way referring to an excess expulsion of methane gas, nor am I referring to a proposed vacation to Washington D.C.  I'm going to do what it seems like everyone else is doing: Offer my illegitimate commentary on the Rebecca Watson matter.  I refer to it as illigitimate because I was not there to witness the actions that took place in the ol' Emerald Isle, nor does my opinion on the matter really...well...matter, at least, no more than anyone else who has weighed in on this topic, from PZ Myers to Richard Dawkins.  Personally, I'd love to live in a world where this type of commentary was unnecessary because it would be second nature to everyone, but we're just not there yet, it would appear.  But to separate myself from the rest, I'm going to do something unusual, or at least not unique to the matter at hand.  I'm going to apply a little logic to this situation and to the events that followed.

For those who do not know the story:

In the early hours of the morning, after a CFI conference, Rebecca Watson was in an elevator with a "gentleman" who felt it would be appropriate to come on to her in the enclosed and cage-like walls of the modern lifting cart.  He came on very strong and merely asked if she'd like to accompany him back to his hotel for...coffee...or something.  I'm sure we all know what "or something" meant, though, again, I wasn't there, so I don't know if those exact words came out of his mouth.  She turned him down, as from what I've heard, nothing happened after that.  She returned to her room, and he returned to his to most likely "or something" himself.

Rebecca posted a video citing the situation, saying this: "Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don't do that. You know, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and—don't invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner."

Now, I don't really see anything wrong with what Rebecca said here.  It didn't come off as extremely feminist, or radically damning of the man she encountered.  It seemed she was being honest and saying it made her feel uncomfortable.  He was creepy.  I can see that.  I would question the use of the word "sexualize," though.  First thing, it's not a real word.  Secondly, being hit on by a man doesn't mean you're being sexualized, but, again, I wasn't there.  I think if he were to walk up to her and start licking her, then she's certainly being reduced to an object, or being objectified, but from what I understand, that's not what happened.  He didn't approach her, take off his clothes and start kissing her shoes or anything creepy like that.  He expressed an obvious interest in spending some time with her in his room.  That is all.

What followed was the disturbing part.  The comments on the blog were extremely radical in nature, running the gambit from claims that many women were afraid to even attend skeptics conventions because, apparently, all skeptic men objectified them and were serial date-rapists.  The comments from the men that followed were even worse.  They ranged from your usual, "Give the guy a break.  You're hot!" to, "You're a woman, and I'll fuck you in the laundry room if I damn well want to."  Now, I'm obviously paraphrasing, but the comments I read weren't that far off.  Since then, if you were to click on any singular Skepchick blog, you'll still see this argument going on between the extremes on both sides.  The extremist feminists claiming that no man has the right to talk to a woman or else it's a rape scene, and the extreme chauvinists who don't seem to see anything wrong with pinching a woman's ass whenever he wants to.  Some comments have been moderate and intermediate, attempting to bring the two sides together with a little bit of logic.  However, others have been anything but.

The following blog was much more disturbing.  After these two extreme groups were screaming at one another through their keyboards, again, the few in the middle being muddled out by the cognitive noise ensuing, Rebecca posted another blog that, instead of quieting the noise and asking people be respectful of one another and not be moronic extremists on one side or the other, she instead decided to fan the flames.  Now, this is just my opinion here, but this blog right here is a great example of how to fan the flames of two opposing sides.

Since then, there has been one more blog from Rebecca herself that seemed to have the same exact aura of flame-fanning - kindling if you will.  Others have weighed in as well, from PZ Myers, who seemingly stood up for Rebecca against the chauvenist side of the argument, and he made good points as well.  You can read them here.  More notably, however, Professor Richard Dawkins included his two cents with this comment:

Dear Muslima

 Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

Now, was this comment crass?  Yes, yes it was.  I admit that.  He's a hero of mine, but I can certainly admit it.  I can also say that PZ Myers has a point that we can worry about the plight of Muslim women and also worry about the plight of women in America.  Our brains can handle two things at once (most of us), and the two concepts are not mutually exclusive, in fact, quite to the contrary.  However, there is certainly something to be taken from Richard's comment here, and that is a commentary on modern feminism in America.  Now, this may seem to contradict what I just said about PZ Myers' comment, but it doesn't.  How can something like a woman being hit on in an elevator - not harassed, not objectified as she claims, not sexualized (still not a word), not touched, not groped, not accosted or assaulted, not raped, not murdered, not forced to listen to Justin Bieber albums - when there are women in the third world who are getting stoned for being raped.  I mean, don't you think that would be something better to get men and women fired up about?  Don't you think that next to a concept such as this, getting talked to in an elevator is just a little bit of a waste of space in the blogosphere - I'm guilty of it too, now, I admit.

Let me make an analogous point: I'm a person who fights endlessly for the rights of homosexuals.  Homosexuals certainly do have problems in America, and I write about them.  One blog per issue, and I'm certainly not narcissistic enough to make it about my own experiences, as - crazy me - I guess I feel there's a world outside of my living room that deserves at least an honorable mention.  There are laws in the third world that make homosexuality punishable by death.  There are dictators who will hang you in front of the family you had only to appease your culture, if there were just rumors about you being a homosexual male in their country.  Hell, half of these countries still punish people for witchcraft.  What kind of a selfish prick would I be if I spent a week, a video and three blogs rambling on about how much a friend of mine was bothered because a possible homophobe (though no evidence to say he is) made a slight gesture at him that he took as homophobic (though no evidence to say it was)?

My last point is my most important.  What does this do for anybody?  What does it do for anyone to ramble on with this self-entitlement ideology, which is today's feminism - not to be confused with real feminism, which at one time was about equality, fairness, civil liberties and equal rights.  Today's feminism is hardly different from the extreme on the other side.  They both make wild claims and accusations, both against the opposite sex, and about their own entitlement.  One side: A man should be able to rape and accost any woman he wants.  Other side: A man shouldn't even have the right to speak to a woman that he finds attractive, or else it's a hostile environment and the man is a would-be rapist.  WHERE DOES THIS GET US? 

How is this extreme ideology on either side any different from extreme religious ideologies.  They both take hold through the human ego, they both stem from a sense of entitlement, and they both hold dire consequences for our species.  Should a woman be afraid to leave her home for fear of being raped?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I don't think rape laws are harsh enough in this country.  However, should men be afraid of talking to women for fear of having their name or face plastered all over the internet, with words like "creepy" and "rapist" tagged all over the post?  Absolutely not.  Look, I totally agree that the guy probably should have had more respect and more tact, and maybe asked her if she'd like a cup of coffee in the lobby so they could talk more.  Maybe he should have chosen a better setting than an elevator, which has become a modern day rape haven for people.  He could have done a lot of things.  He could have also chosen not to speak to any women at all and just gone back to his room.  We could have all done that at one time or another.  I could have done that 3 years ago when I met my fiancee.  But I didn't.  Does that make me creepy?  Does that make me a potential sex offender or a rapist?  Does that make me a molester of space or a or a diligent master of masculine manipulation "lookin' fer a woman to take ma seed and make ma dinner?"  I'm sure that by now you're seeing the ridiculousness in all of this.

Let's get over the things that divide us, shall we?  Some men are asses - most aren't.  Some women are bitches - most aren't.  Making generalizations to the contrary is doing nothing for us as a society.  Neither is taking extreme positions on one side or the other.  Most of us want peace, equality, men and women to be able to do the same jobs for the same pay and the same opportunities for advancement.  Most of us don't want men or women to be held up on pedestals as the superior sex, because there's no such thing.  For all of the faults that one side has against the other, there is a strength to replace it.  It's the positive and negative energy paradigm.  And without the right amounts of protons and electrons, we're fucked.  Without unity between us, we're fucked.  I think it's time we see that.  And for those who feel that there shouldn't be equal treatment on both sides of the spectrum, well, then move to the third world where you'll feel at home, or move to Amazonia where you'll feel at home. 

Nobody wants you to "be a good girl and shut up," Rebecca, but if you could quit fanning the flames of hatred and self-entitlement ideology, the rest of us, men and women alike, would surely appreciate it.  It's not as much your own words as those in the comments on your blog, but you're doing nothing to diminish it, and you're making it worse by carrying this on and being continuously insulting to the other sex.  You're doing nothing for the skeptical movement but painting us all to be a bunch of misogynists, and you're only reinforcing many of our views on modern day feminism and how it's become nothing more than another hate movement with entitlement delusions.  Just stop, okay?  You weren't attacked, so quit acting like you were.

The Long-Awaited Return of Fun with Fundies!

WHO'S READY FOR SOME CRAZY?

It's been a while since I've done one of these here blogs, but I felt the time was right.  Why, you ask?  Well, just hold onto your britches and let me 'splain.  His name is Bryan Fischer and he's a member of the Minnesota Family Council.  If it were up to me, I'd really love to delete the first word of that title...as well as the second and third, but I digress.

Bryan, an outspoken critic of DADT and supporter of DOMA, had this to say:

Get ready for an entire spate of hate crimes in the U.S. military, perpetrated by homosexual activists against servicemembers, especially officers, who have deeply held religious convictions about the acceptability of homosexual behavior.  I received a communique from a career United States Air Force officer, a man who has been an officer for 19 years. He understandably wants his identity to be protected so that he can finish his military career without himself becoming the victim of a hate crime perpetrated by homosexuals.

A 19-year Air Force officer wants his identity hidden because he's afraid of the big, bad gays.  How interesting.  Let us continue:

Says this experienced officer, based on the training he was just recently subjected to:
“Homosexuals are now a protected class of people in the Air Force. Any form of discrimination against them — even an objection to the sexual lifestyle or behavior — is now taboo and will be severely punished.”
Severe punishment for merely expressing reservations about the normalcy of homosexual behavior? Can you say “hate crime?” I certainly can.

Okay, so I'm having a hard time figuring out how one would be perpetrating a hate crime on another by merely objecting to a person's bigoted views.  If a person comes up to me and says, "I don't like the fact that you're an atheist."  I respond in saying, "Well, it's really none of your damn business."  Suddenly, I've perpetrated a hate crime?  I think not.  And on another note, isn't it interesting how these conservative ass-clowns hate hate crime legislation until they suddenly feel victimized?  Oh, but we're not stopping there.  There's more, fellow heathens!

The officer who wrote to me went on to explain that there was “absolutely no discussion about the right of personnel to be free from unwanted sexual attraction…the guy who asks me out on a date Monday afternoon will be granted the right to shower with me on Tuesday morning…While there is currently some leeway for heterosexuals to object to intimate quarters with homosexuals…senior leaders in the room made it clear that such objections will not be tolerated for long.”

I'm not going to comment on that last part and just assume that you know why that's stupid.  In the end, this is a pretty amazing piece right here.  Amazing in the sense that it made me laugh harder than The Invention of Lying and Kick Ass combined.  In the end, congratulations, Bryan Fischer and Bryan Fischer's imaginary army friend.  You are (both?) indeed

BAT

SHIT

CRAZY!

Another Christian Trying Their Hands at Science: FAIL!

I want to start this blog out with a disclaimer: This piece may be satire. Most likely, it was intended to be satire, as there is no way anyone could be this stupid, however, it was picked up by a Christian website (non-satire site) and is being used now as if anything on it were accurate or scientifically correct. I’m just going to break this down one by one.

The first part that I want to point out is that I see nothing in this image that has anything to do with atheism. Atheism is the non-belief in deities. That is it. Nothing more. What you’re talking about (14.5 billion-year-old earth; evolution; 3.7 billion years of life on earth) is science. So, in other words, you’re trying to use science to argue science, not atheism. The fact that most atheists accept scientific facts has nothing to do with atheism itself, as most Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, and Jews also have no problem accepting reality over Bronze Age myths written by people who sacrificed cattle to appease the sun. That being said, let’s get to the scientific breakdown of this enormously hilarious piece of crap.

Fallacy no.1: This piece claims that the total amount of water on earth is approximately 1.386X10^21 liters when the actual number, not that facts ever seem to matter to these people, is 3.26X10^20 gallons, putting the number at around 1.26X10^21 liters.

Fallacy no. 2: According to the most recent studies, the total estimated population of the Earth is 6.8 billion as of 2010. Therefore, I don’t see how you’re rounding when you’re getting that six-billion number. It might be time to step out of 2000, when that number might have been viable; which, in turn, leads us to Fallacy no. 3.

Fallacy no. 3: I wish I had the writer of this piece in front of me so that I could ask him exactly how he thinks breeding works. He/she apparently thinks we’re asexual. This whole thing relies on the assumption that population never grows. You see, population grows exponentially. For instance, while there are about seven-billion people on (not in) the world right now, in 1980, there were 4.4 billion. In 1950, the world’s population was an estimated 2.4 billion. In 1900, the world’s population was around 1.6 billion. Do you see what I’m getting at? In other words, we are not asexual beings where each person will have one child, and the population totals are what they always were and always will be. I guess Christians don’t understand breeding or exponential growth. In fact, just to drive the point home, the estimated world’s population in 2050 will be 9.85 billion.

Fallacy no. 4: Dysentery! About 97% of the world’s water is undrinkable because it rests in the world’s ocean. Ocean water is salt water and is undrinkable to humans, as salt is a diuretic and would dehydrate us. There are about 326 million cubic miles of fresh water on the planet earth, which would be enough to fill the United States with a lake ranging from about 143-145 kilometers miles deep. Of this, about 70% of the Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the polar icecaps, a number that varies from year to year, as the icecaps are quickly melting. Also, less than 1% of the world’s fresh water is accessible to humans, which is why 1/3 of the world’s population lives in water-stressed countries. There are actually about 5.274X10^15 liters of fresh water on earth.

Simple equation: If the average person needs to drink about two liters of water per day, that would bring the number to about 13.6 billion liters of water per day that is consumed in the world; discounting leaky water faucets, bathing, and the amount of water present in natural and man-made objects such as water towers, vegetables and so on. So, if we’re drinking 13.6 billion liters of water per day and there is 5.27X10^15 liters of water available, then we should be completely without fresh water within 387,500 days or roughly 1,062 years. In other words, according to the equation proposed by the nice gentlemen/woman who made this nice image, mankind should have only been able to last a little over a century on the planet earth. So, even his/her bible is wrong in saying the earth is 6,000 years old, as we would have all died of dehydration after the first thousand years, long before Jebus even had a chance to become a zombie in the first place.

How is this possible, then, that mankind has survived for 250,000 years on the planet earth? Well, refer back to what I spoke about earlier in regards to breeding and timeline. There weren’t always so many of us, in fact, throughout most of the period of our stay on earth, there have been very few of us by comparison to our world’s current population. At the dawn of farming, the agricultural revolution, it is believed that only about five-million humans populated the earth. At this point, there would be enough fresh water to sustain all of the humans on earth for almost 3 million years. Funny how quickly our population’s growth has shortened our feasible fresh water supply, isn’t it?

I would go into how water replenishes itself, but I believe with the fallacies of this piece, it’s completely moot. Especially because, Crazy Christian Person, you’ve actually managed to inadvertently make a point that ecological scientists have been making for generations now: There is not enough fresh water on the earth to sustain our population. We, as mankind, need to start limiting our bathing, fixing our leaky faucets, stop running water needlessly while doing dishes or brushing our teeth, and so on. So, in other words, while trying to prove science wrong with science, you managed to prove science right, though, with pretty bad science that I’ve simply corrected for you. You’ve also proven another point: People with no scientific backgrounds shouldn’t try to discuss science, as you only make an ass out of yourselves. This was actually dumber than the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument, which in itself, completely ignores that said second law only refers to closed/isolated systems, which the earth is not.

Smiling Atheist out, and don’t forget to follow, subscribe, or do whatever it is that you people do. Also, don’t forget that my book, Crusade: The Unchecked and Unbalanced Role of Faith in America is available on Amazon.com for $19.99, and also available on all Nook formats, including free Nook applications for PC, iPhone, iPad, Android, and others, for the low price of $5.99.