An online chat I had with a good friend a few months ago really made me think about how I view the world as a skeptic. I think that many people don’t draw a distinction between skepticism and cynicism, and often assume both mindsets are one and the same; particularly when an individual happens to be a snarky skeptic, like myself.

The discourse soon became a discussion about verification and belief. It all started with a discussion of the ubiquitous Jenny McCarthy and her genuinely dangerous anti-vaccination notions.

8:57amTrent
speaking of bad “science:” [The "Jenny McCarthy Body Count" Video]

8:59amTrent
of course it never occurred to Ms McCarthy that her child was misdiagnosed, and she simply passed on the “bimbo” gene.

9:00amCarrie
of course, there isn’t any evidence presented in that video that actually proves that the increase in vaccine preventable illnesses is actually a direct result of her book or appearance on Oprah…

she may be deluded, but the science geeks can’t have it both ways

even if they’re RIGHT that she’s a complete idiot

or am i being too much of a freethinker here?

9:03amTrent
since they’re hanging it on her, it would have been nice if they could get their hands on figures for how many of those figures were associated with individuals choosing not to vaccinate as a result of of the anti-vaxxers.
but that’s not easily done…

9:03amCarrie
and the fun part is just pointing out that she’s an idiot, i know

9:04amTrent
not just an idiot, but an idiot promoting a delusion with dangerous consequences.

What Jenny McCarthy is espousing is a belief, not a verifiable fact. But what does that distinction mean?

9:04amCarrie
i guess i’m saying that we all tend to agree without question when it comes to information that matches what is already a part of our “world view”

i’ve been trying the experiment of not having a “world view” lately, and it’s pretty fascinating how attached everyone seems to their own version of the universe

9:07amTrent
belief is intensely personal.

9:07amCarrie
not that i’m not attached to my own view, but i’m trying to be aware of mine — hence noticing the lack of scientific evidence for jenny mccarthy’s ‘body count’ while stating it as a fact

Without evidence, a notion is, by definition, unverifiable. That does not mean that it is false, it means that we cannot say whether it is true or false, because there is no evidence supporting either conclusion.

In this Venn diagram, what is verifiable would be within the blue circle and what is real is within the green circle.

So in this case, if it were the case that there were no evidence either way, Jenny McCarthy’s notions could either be real or unreal, but they would be unverifiable, and lay outside the Blue Circle of Verifiability.

In Ms. McCarthy’s particular case however, her notion that vaccines cause autism is verifiably false.

Recently the seminal medical journal article supporting the anti-vaxxers was retracted. Even prior to this removal of the last foundation for their argument, a lack of anything other than anecdotal evidence left the anti-vaxxers notions untenable.

In the second Venn diagram, the distinction between what is verifiably real and what is verifiably false can be seen. The anti-vaxxers notions of a connection between vaccinations and autism lay squarely in the realm of the false, based upon a preponderance of evidence that shows that no such connection exists.

Note that my diagram lists the areas of the verifiable as “provisionally” true and “provisionally” false. Why is that?

And what implications does that hold for beliefs in general? Do I have beliefs? And how do I address them?

9:13amTrent
i am rational about it. except in very rigorously defined systems, such as mathematics, it is not possible to prove via deductive logic that something does not exist.

if compelling evidence could be presented, i’d be open to it.

9:14amCarrie
the only compelling evidence that truly exists for anyone in many cases is personal experience – that fact has been true for all of human history

9:15amTrent
anecdotal experience makes for poor evidence. that’s why science avoids it.

9:17amCarrie
but your belief is in the scientific method? and i’m not being snarky, it’s a serious question

9:19amTrent
this is similar to the argument from believers in the paranormal, that “belief” in the “scientific method” is somehow flawed because it doesn’t support their beliefs.

the scientific method isn’t a belief. belief is something that an individual chooses in the absence of or in the face of evidence. i simply seek proof before provisionally accepting a concept. that acceptance is always open to dismissal if further evidence warrants that. that is what the scientific method is.

9:25amCarrie
i didn’t use the argument that the scientific method is flawed, just tried to point out that you do have an opinion on what type of evidence is compelling to you…

9:25amTrent
yes, verifiable evidence.

9:26amCarrie
ah, the rub is that the evidence of the existence of anything ‘supernatural’ (even in the very loosest sense) is completely verifiable, but only by personal experience

now should i assume that since other folks’ personal experience is not compelling to you, that you assume your own wouldn’t be either?

9:28amTrent
while an individual may have a personal experience, and that experience may be genuinely “supernatural” in nature, if i can’t verfy it independently and objectively, i am unwilling to accept it as evidence. at the same time, i recognize that it is entirely possible that such an experience is “real.” it is simply that i am unable to verify it.

there is a distinction between verifiable and “true” or “real.” verifiable only encompasses those things that can be verified – it does not wholly encompas reality.

9:30amCarrie
so you are saying that even your own personal experience wouldn’t qualify as “verifiable” to you, no matter how “real” that 900 foot jesus looks standing in your yard? lol

9:33amTrent
i am. i could be hallucinating, or simply mistaken, or any other number of potential causes that can color our perceptions and make them differ from what others may perceive or measure. or it could be real. but if i can’t verify it somehow, i would have to question what i had seen.

9:35amCarrie
so do you just ignore what is ‘real’ in favor of what is ‘verifiable’, or do you ever ponder the question of what is outside that ‘verifiable’ circle in the venn diagram of your own personal universe?

9:38amTrent
i accept that not all of what is real may be verifiable, but i do not accept something unverifiable as real. i understand that there is a “gray area” outside of the verifiable. things that lay in that area i accept as neither “true” nor “false” – and if someone claims that such a thing is “true” or “false” i accept that they are not making that statement from a standpoint of critical thinking.

Being in a position of needing to put my understanding into words was a valuable experience, and I thank Carrie for pushing my buttons and making me think.

So I’m trolling Facebook this morning, and lurking in the right-hand column is an ad for the new del Toro-Hopkins movie “The Wolfman.” Part of the ad is a poll. “Do you believe in werewolves,” it queries.

Poll: Are you gullible?

Okay, I’m curious. I am fully aware that this is a non-scientific poll, being drawn not from a random sampling of the public, but rather from those who choose to respond to a poll in a movie ad on Facebook. But in order to see the poll results, one must vote.

It should come as no surprise that I elected to vote “No.”

I click my selection and await the results with a small degree of trepidation. This being teh Intarwebz, I mercifully haven’t long to wait.

Well. You can see the results. I suppose I should be heartened that a creature for which there is no evidence of existence is not believed to exist by a majority of poll respondents. But 29% say Yes?! And an additional 7% chose “I don’t know.”

Evidence, people. Evidence. Please require some.

Rocketboom FAIL!

This is fairly disappointing – generally Rocketboom has at least the quasi-skeptical position of big-city hipster intellectuals who are smart enough not to get suckered by bullshit. But this is total credulous Huffpo dreck.

(How does a multimeter work, exactly, without any probes? Or do they just wander around jabbing them into the atmosphere?)

One thing that skeptics have to deal with is the idea that some beliefs, no matter how wrong, are harmless. For example, dowsing. Dowsing is supposed to be the ability to find water or other hidden materials in the ground using nothing other than a wood or metal stick. It has a long tradition here in the U.S., and it has been tested scientifically many times and found without merit.

But does it hurt anyone? Most of the time dowsing is used for finding water for the purposes of drilling a well, and most of the time it works. Not because the dowsing did anything, but because if you dig deep enough nearly anywhere you eventually hit the water table.

However, we now have proof that the belief in dowsing, helped by human greed, does kill people. The following story ran in the TimesOnline yesterday.

The boss of a British company that has sold million of dollars worth of “bomb detectors” to Iraq’s security forces has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.

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Jim McCormick, 53, the managing director of ATSC which is based in a former dairy in Sparkford, Somerset, has been questioned by detectives from Avon and Somerset Police after a complaint that he misrepresented the devices.

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In November, Mr McCormick, a former Merseyside police officer, told The Times that his devices, which consist of little more than a telescopic antenna on a molded plastic handle, are able to detect explosives in the same way as a dowsing rod finds water.

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Thousands of the devices are in use at military and police check points across Baghdad where they are used to search vehicles and pedestrians for explosives. In recent months hundreds of people have died after car bombers were able to penetrate the security cordon supposed to protect the centre of the Iraqi capital.

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Colin Port, the Somerset and Avon Police Chief Constable, personally ordered the investigation. A force spokesman said in a statement: “We are conducting a criminal investigation, and as part of that, a 53-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation. That man has been released on bail pending further inquiries.

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“The force became aware of the existence of a piece of equipment around which there were many concerns, and in the interests of public safety, launched its investigation.

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“It was reported to the Chief Constable Colin Port, through his role as the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on international development. He is chair of the International Police Assistance Board.

“Given the obvious sensitivities around this matter, the fact that an arrest has been made, and in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, we cannot discuss it any further at this time.” The Iraqi Government has spent a total of $85 million (£52.7 million) buying 1,500 of the bomb detectors from ATSC.

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Mr McCormick told The Times that his company sold the device known as the ADE-651 for $8,000 each, a total of £12 million. The balance went on training and on middlemen. He admitted that despite his claim to have invented the detector, the precise principle on which it works was still unexplained.

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The American magician and sceptic James Randi has condemned the bomb detectors as a “blatant fraud” and challenged Mr McCormick to prove that the ADE-651 really can find explosives, with the offer of $1 million if he succeeds. The challenge has not been taken up. Senior US military sources have also expressed doubts that it could ever work.

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The Times tested the flimsy device which has no electronic components and no working parts and was unable to detect a paper bag containing fireworks from a few feet away. ATSC’s sales literature claims the device can detect minute quantities of explosives at up to one kilometre, or three kilometres from the air.

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Mr McCormick told The Times that his device was being criticised because of its crude appearance.

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He added: “We have been dealing with doubters for ten years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”

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A police source said: “We are satisfied the bomb detectors don’t work.”

An earlier story is is also worth reading, as it gives more detail on the device itself, which is basically an antenna with some important looking bits stuck on to give it an air of legitimacy. Obviously, these things never should have been bought by any government, let alone with the security problems Iraq has. From what I can tell, these “bomb detectors” are at least partly responsible for allowing the bomb attacks in Baghdad back in October, and probably the attacks last month. That’s a death toll of around 300, with an additional 1000 injured. I guess it’s good that this scam artist, Mr. McCormick, has been arrested, but I doubt any punishment he gets will come close to comparing to the consequences of his actions.

. . . wine, and critical thinking.

This recent story in the Wall Street Journal* discusses the weaknesses of the common 100-point wine rating system. The thesis is that blind wine ratings aren’t particularly repeatable, even by experts; that lists of adjectives describing particular wines tend not to overlap; and that much of the wine-rating system is arbitrary and built on what pretty much amounts to a cult of personality and an elite group of emperors with no clothes.

The article makes some good points, and the existing research seems to be legit, and to back the story up. And it’s definitely good to keep these skeptical points in mind before believing dogmatically in the authority of a rating system. But, all that being said, I rely heavily on the wine rating system myself, and will likely continue to do so, even after reading this article. My typical rule of thumb is to buy wines rated 91-92 (I purchase higher rated wines when they are available, of course, but my other guide is a limit of about $25), and am generally very satisfied with them. I also feel that this strategy results in wines that are generally well-received at tastings when I bring them – I believe I typically get an above-average positive response. (Not this last time, though – yeesh, that viognier was nasty. But there was a very limited selection for that varietal, so I was not able to select one with a particularly high rating.)

However, I am perfectly willing to concede that this perception may be entirely in my head: I have not conducted blinded trials on this theory (in fact, I am one of the worst tasters in a blinded trial); I have not tested the reverse theory (that wines with low ratings or wines chosen without noticing ratings produce worse results); I have a very small sample set; and the theory is clearly based on anecdote and subject to bias, selective perception, and remembering the hits and forgetting the misses. It is solely due to a judgment call that I think the wine ratings are useful, at least as rules of thumb.

But, even if the wine rating system is flawed, there are much nastier things afoot in our wine. (You see what I did there? Feet in the wine vats? Grape stomping? That’s a pun, people!) Some nimrods out there are trying to use astrological principles to tell you when you should or should not consume certain wines. But at least that’s fairly innocuous to the consumer; where the crazy really starts to kick in is with biodynamics.

Biodynamics is a mind-blowingly stupid belief which manages to combine new-agey organic agriculture with homeopathy. Christ, homeopathy – boy, that’s really a star you want to hitch your wagon to. (I suppose “homeopathic agriculture” means you water the plants.) I mean, call me crazy, but I just don’t think that “crushed powdered quartz prepared by stuffing it into a horn of a cow and buried into the ground in spring and taken out in autumn . . . [mix] 1 tablespoon of quartz powder to 250 litres of water . . . spray under very low pressure over the crop during the wet season; it should be sprayed on an overcast day” is going to work very well! Plus, just to top things off, it manages to include astrological guides on when and how to plant – which phase of the moon is best for cultivating, for instance. So you don’t get were-wine, I guess.

This is really one of those beliefs, like homeopathy itself or scientology, where you hear a description of it and think, “This can’t really be what they believe – this has surely got to be a mischaracterization; no one can be this stupidly irrational.” Well apparently they can.

Unfortunately, biodynamics has had somewhat of a similar effect in the wine shops as naturopathic or herbal medicines have had in pharmacies: It manages to convey a slightly sciencey, slightly natural air in its name; no one knows what it’s really claiming, but it sounds kind of good; and hey, if it didn’t work, they wouldn’t be selling it to us, right? Right!? Wrong. It makes money, it’s a fad, it’s been on Oprah, so they sell it.

So do yourself and all of the wine-drinking public a favor, and the next time you see “biodynamic” on a wine label, put it back on the shelf. No matter what it’s rated.

*Of course, as has been pointed out, this is an old story trotted out periodically, similar to the stories on psychological experiment results showing that cheap wine tastes better out of expensive bottles, which come out every year around the slow-news holiday season. Still, it’s interesting, and lets me talk about wine…

Maybe.

But probably not.

The Voynich manuscript, for those who don’t know, is a fascinatingly enigmatic document that has been puzzling modern puzzlers for almost a century. It is a purportedly 500-year-old manuscript written entirely in an unknown script that has resisted all efforts at decryption over the last five centuries. Its provenance is unclear at best; it has (apparently) been owned by royalty, scholars, and clergy and been lost, found, captured, sold, lost, and found again. It contains copious illustrations of the astronomical, botanical, and anatomical, the latter largely of the female variety. And of the nude variety. Its code has been attacked by myriad hobbyists, by NSA and WWII British cryptographers, and by modern computers. It presumably contains, guarded by encryption in a script of fiendish complexity, information of inestimable value. Or it may be meaningless gibberish. It may have been authored by DaVinci or Roger Bacon; or it may be a hoax.

But someone named Edith Sherwood claims to have at last at least partially broken this enigmatic code. She claims to have discovered that the glyphs are simple substitutions for Latin characters as used in medieval Italian, and that the words are anagrams of medieval Italian words using this substitution cypher.

I don’t know anything about this Dr. Sherwood, but her discussion doesn’t sound like that of an outright crank – her jargon and technique sound on the up-and-up; there is no ranting or claims of conspiracy, or suggestions that the document encodes the secrets of Atlantis. There are, however, a couple of at-least-orange flags which make this story seem doubtful, though:

1. She apparently doesn’t speak medieval Italian (hey, not that I hold that against her – I don’t, either), so her familiarity with the linguistics she’s claiming to translate is presumably minimal. Also, she’s using Wikipedia and online dictionaries and anagram finders as primary translation/deciphering/historical reference tools, which hardly screams “professional” (not that this type of decoding would be something an amateur couldn’t do – only orange flags, as I said).
2. The postulated substitution+anagram encoding is relatively simple; it seems very likely that it would have been detected before by cryptographers, and almost certainly by computer letter-frequency analysis. She doesn’t seem to address this at all, which seems odd.
3. The offered set of decrypted words is both relatively small, and (seemingly – I don’t speak medieval Italian, either) comprised of remarkably few distinct letters. Apparently in Italian you can make almost any plant name with Os, Is, Ls, and Cs – which means that an acronym composed of only those letters can likely be decoded into several or many words.

Still, it’s interesting, and bears keeping an eye on – if she comes up with decipherments of large chunks of the body text of the book, it would be quite an accomplishment!

I’m sure nearly everyone reading this has at least heard something of the story of Rom Houben. He’s the Belgian man who was paralyzed by a car accident in 1983 and, for 23 years, he was thought to be in a coma, though in 2006 it was discovered he was, in fact, conscious. It’s been running as a human interest story all over the place.

Why is this a topic for skeptics? On the surface, it isn’t. There’s nothing impossible about it. Diagnosing (hell, even defining!) consciousness is a tricky thing. I have no doubt that brain scanning technology in 2006 is orders of magnitude better than it was in 1983. I might question the competence of the doctors back in 1983, but if there’s one thing you can count on in this life it’s that mistakes happen.

But there were two words in the first article I read that gave me pause. Those words were “special keyboard.”  Mr. Houben has been able to communicate again with a special keyboard, and most news articles even included quotes like, “I will never forget the day they finally discovered what was wrong — it was my second birth.” That’s pretty poetic for someone who has essentially been staring at a wall for 23 years, and, if he was paralyzed so badly he was mistaken for being in a coma, I had trouble seeing how he could have enough dexterity to use any kind of keyboard…

That’s when I checked out video of Mr. Houben, like this one from the BBC. My worst expectations were confirmed — Houben is “communicating” via a long discredited technique known as facilitated communication. Even if you accepted the assumptions of facilitated communication, the example in the video stretches credulity. He’s typing faster on that pad than I probably could, and I have a tough time believing that someone who spent 23 years in conditions similar to solitary confinement would be so eloquent about the experience. Please note that I’m not accusing Mr. Houben’s family, doctors, or even the facilitator of being anything less than sincere.

Why, then, do I feel the need to point out that Mr. Houben probably isn’t communicating at all, and that the people around them have fallen for a delusion? Why can’t I just let people read a happy story and feel uplifted by it? And, I admit, a small part of me feels like a horrible cynic that the words “special keyboard” could make me so suspicious.

Here’s the reasons why it’s good to be skeptical, even of a feel good story like Mr. Houben’s.

• If Mr. Houben isn’t really communicating via the keyboard, then he’s being victimized. If we assume the doctors are right and he is conscious, then I can’t imagine anything worse for him than someone else saying they speak for him when they really don’t. It would be worse than being trapped, because not only would he be trapped, but now no one is looking for a real method to communicate with him.
• Suggesting without good evidence that someone in this kind of state can communicate breeds false hope. This point was demonstrated to me on a public bus last week. A woman was reading Houben’s story out loud from the paper and declaring that her mother had been in a vegetative state for a mere four days before the doctors told her nothing could be done. It’s probably safe to say that the medical situation was very different, but you can see where this whole story makes it sound like people in comas are just one keyboard away from being completely whole.
• When the deception is ended, it will leave people distrustful of doctors. Medicine should be based on good science, and facilitated communication is bad science. I wish Mr. Houben’s doctors were being more careful because, when the truth outs, most people will take away the lesson as “Doctors can’t be trusted” rather than “Pseudoscience can’t be trusted.”
• If a story conforms to your prejudices, that’s a good enough reason to be skeptical by itself. For example, take the death of Bill Sparkman. He was the Census worker found hanged in rural Kentucky back in September. If you’re of a liberal persuasion and inclined to think Deliverance was a documentary (guilty!) it was very easy to jump to conclusions about what happened to him. There was much handwringing in the media, like this Time article. It has since come to light that Sparkman committed suicide, though this hasn’t gotten as much press. Always wait until all the facts are in, and being a good critical thinker is the most useful skill you can have.

Just a collection of stories from today’s St. Petersburg Times that caught my eye.

Writer Jerry Blizin revisits the stories he wrote about Mary Reeser back in 1951. Reeser is arguably the best documented and best known example of the non-phenomenon known as “spontaneous human combustion.” What’s interesting is that the FBI got it right at the time:

“Once the body became ignited almost complete destruction occurred from its own fatty tissues,” the FBI reported, adding that the absence of any scorching or adjacent damage was due to the fact that “heat liberated by the burning body has a tendency to rise and form a layer of hot air which never came in contact with the furnishings on the lower level.”

That’s the wick effect, since proven to be the unusual circumstance behind most of the so called spontaneous human combustion cases. Even though this good explanation has been around for more than 50 years, Reeser still shows up all the time in paranormal literature as a “mysterious” case.

Then there’s the story about a Marine reservist who attacked a priest with a tire iron. The priest, who was attacked for no other reason than pure xenophobia, reportedly doesn’t want to press charges because he wants to practice “biblical forgiveness.” I’m not sure what that means legally, but I hope the reservist is still prosecuted. Forgiveness is terrific thing to give to those who are repentant, but I’d hate to think that the priest’s interpretation of his Christian beliefs is going to allow a clearly dangerous man stay free to visit more violence on innocent people.

Finally, there’s a new bar called Club Sinn over by Williams Park, and they’re getting ready to feature scantily clad dancers. No real skeptical angle here, but I have to call attention to the following, regarding whether or not these dancers will make the bar an “adult business”:

What about a bikini, from a legal point of view? “Generally, I would say that a bikini is not a violation. There are small bikinis that are smaller than other bikinis, and those might be a violation,” said Mark Winn, the city’s chief assistant attorney. “You almost have to look at them on a case-by-case basis.”

I’m thinking that the city won’t have much trouble finding selfless public servants willing to look at each and every one of those bikinis. In context.

Today would have been Carl Sagan‘s 75th birthday. Among his many interests, Sagan was an outspoken advocate for skeptical inquiry, critical thinking, and the scientific method.

Carl Sagan with a full-scale mock-up of one of the Viking landers.

In the fall of 1980, I was 14.  I had had a deep interest in science for literally as long as I could remember.  But that fall I was one of millions treated to a voyage of scientific discovery on PBS through Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.  While Cosmos is largely the story of the history of science and how it leads to our understanding of our place in the universe and the world around us, it is also a collection of lessons on critical thinking and the scientific method.

Over the course of the series, Sagan clearly and concisely demonstrated the logical and verifiable flaws in creationism, astrology, and tales of alien abduction and UFOs.

He also discussed the suppression of knowledge, by ancient Greek philosophers, by the early Christian church through its brutal murder of the mathematician Hypatia of the Library of Alexandria, and by the Inquisition against astronomer Galileo Galilei. In our present society, suppression of scientific knowledge for religio-political purposes remains an antagonistic issue.

Years later, in 1995, I had the good fortune to see Carl Sagan speak in person at the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  The talk was part of a session honoring the late James Pollack, an astrophysicist and former student of Sagan’s.  The talk was to be on the work Sagan and Pollack had done together on the potential for terraforming Mars, but Sagan spent the time telling stories about his former student, colleague, and friend.  It was a kind and generous tribute.

Through his work and his clear elucidation of the wonder of understanding the world through science, he gave us all an immeasurable gift of enlightenment.

Thank you, Carl.