Happy Halloween!

A follow up to my recent post on the non-dangers of All Hallows’ Eve:

Which of these people seem to be making a rational argument? Kimberly Daniels of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who argues*:

[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. [. . .] Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

And that

Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.

Further, did you know that

Halloween is a counterfeit holy day that is dedicated to celebrating the demonic trinity of : the Luciferian Spirit (the false father); the Antichrist Spirit (the false holy spirit); and the Spirit of Belial (the false son).

Hmm…Ooookaaay. *Backs away slowly*

Alright, how about Lenore Skenazy of FreeRangeKids, what does she have to say?

It’s not that I’m cavalier about safety. I’m just a sucker – so to speak – for the facts. And the fact is: No child has been poisoned by a stranger’s goodies on Halloween, ever, as far as we can determine. Joel Best, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware, studied November newspapers from 1958 to the present, scouring them for any accounts of kids felled by felonious candy. And…he didn’t find any. He did find one account of a boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix his father gave him. Dad did it for the insurance money and, Best says, he probably figured that so many kids are poisoned on Halloween, no one would notice one more…

It’s not just the fact that churches and community centers are throwing parties so that kids don’t go out on their own. It’s not just the fact that Bobtown, Pennsylvania has gone so far as to “cancel” Halloween altogether — for the sake of “safety.” (The authorities there were surprised to find this decision unpopular.) It’s not even that those of us who’d like to hand out homemade cookies know they’ll be instantly tossed in the trash.

No, the truly spooky thing is that Halloween has become a riot of warnings that are way scarier than the holiday itself. The website Halloween-Safety.com recommends that if your child is carrying a fake butcher knife, make sure the tip is “smooth and flexible enough to not cause injury if fallen upon.”

I know which one I’m putting my money on: Clearly Ms. Daniels is a bastion of rational thought, and Ms. Skenazy is ready for the rubber room.

*It appears that Ms. Daniels’ original article is no longer to be found on the CBN site (though it still shows up in their search engine) – presumably because they were (rightly) taking too much shit about it? I have also not been able to find out too much about Ms. Daniels from the CBN site, but presumably this is the person in question.

Good news first. Today the St. Petersburg Times ran a story about how poisoned Halloween candy is a myth. If you read Bryan’s piece last week you got most of the same info plus a lot more. The money shot from the Times article:

Commercial interests, like malls and candy companies, are all too willing to exploit Halloween myths such as these, said Lenore Skenazy, writer of the Free Range Kids blog, which urges parents to let go of irrational fears of strangers and boogeymen. And police and federal agencies continue to reinforce them.

“There is a big echo chamber of fear,” Skenazy said, author of Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry, “and nobody will ever criticize you for saying ‘Please watch your kids,’ even though there hasn’t been a case of a child getting poisoned on Halloween. Ever.”

And now the bad news. The Times also ran a column by Howard Troxler about an alleged ghost photo. On one hand Mr. Troxler does stress that there is “no doubt” it’s a trick of the light (or more correctly, a blurred exposure), but then he spends most of the rest of the column suggesting that there’s something creepy about the situation, based on such evidence as an old dog staring down a hallway.

Mr. Troxler also talks to a ghost hunter, and is surprised that the ghost hunter talks about how most ghost photos have conventional explanations. This should come as no surprise to anybody who follows such people. Ghost hunters love to affect an air of skepticism, because it gives them false credibility. What they don’t do is apply serious scientific standards to the evidence they present as genuine. In the column, notice how the ghost hunter says that ghosts can be attached to antiques. How can he possibly know this? What evidence does he have for the claim? None, unless you count Amityville IV: The Evil Escapes.

I realize that it’s the silly season, and there’s a good chance that Mr. Troxler is just having a bit of fun. Still, it would be nice if a major paper wouldn’t spread the impression that there is physical evidence for ghosts.

It’s October – time for spooooky post subjects!

OK, not that spooky. First, considering that every year local news agencies trot out stories about the dangers kids face on Halloween, and that many local police stations and hospitals offer free X-ray candy inspection, I suppose we skeptics can trot out the annual debunking that no such dangers really exist. The gist is that there have been very few, if any, legitimate cases of poisoning, deadly razor blade attacks, or other nefarious tampering with candy in the history of Halloween celebrations in the United States – especially when compared against the hundreds of millions of pieces of candy given out over that time. The majority of the documented cases of such behavior have generally been instances of fraud (hello, can anyone say “balloon boy“?), accident, or ultimately harmless (though mean-spirited) pranks – not psychotic, pre-meditated murder prevented by vigilant X-ray techs. The few cases where actual serious injury or death occurred have been inflicted by abusive or disturbed parents on their own offspring – apparently, if you’re worried about your children being poisoned or injured by Halloween candy, forget X-ray machines: make sure they don’t get any candy from inside your own house! And the story is similar for child abductions, assaults, or sacrifice in satanic rituals – injuries are much more likely to be inflicted on kids by other children or adults that they know, especially family members, and there is little evidence, if any, of an increase in abductions or satanic ritual cult sacrifices (despite a popular documentary on the subject) on or around Halloween.

And now for something completely different.

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe this week did an excellent 5×5 podcast on the so-called Lunar Effect – the belief that the full moon affects people’s behavior – pointing out that any proposed effect would presumably be tidal in origin, which force is based on the difference in distance across the object experiencing tides. So, whipping out the trusty calculator, the Earth, with a diameter of 8000 miles, experiences a relatively large tidal effect from the moon, while the human brain, with a diameter of about 6 inches, experiences a tidal effect roughly 6.02×10²³ times smaller (holy cow, that’s Avagadro’s number! Conspiracy!) Not to mention the problem that the tides have very little to do with the phase of the moon. Or else the causative force could be strictly gravitational, in which case the force exerted by the moon is 1/20^th that of a car you’re sitting in. Or else it could be caused by light, an effect that would be dwarfed by daylight. Or a flashlight. Incidentally, there is no actual evidence (other than anecdotal) that a difference in crime rates, suicide rates, hospital visits, or any other aspect of human behavior potentially tied to the full moon (other than perhaps the incidence of not walking into trees) even exists – i.e., there’s no reason to believe there’s even a phenomenon for which to search for arguments.

Finally, in closing, and by the way, who the hell comes up with the idea to make sexy Halloween costumes for pets? I blame childnapping satanist lycanthropes.