WaveSpace - Skepticism

Supersense

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:20:14 -0400

I'm trying to get caught up in Point Of Inquiry episodes. This is my favorite podcast; it really makes you think.

In the last episode, Bruce Hood talks about "supersense" or an innate instinct that humans have to believe in the supernatural, even despite their better judgement. Take for instance the space program. Here you will find probably the highest concentration of people who operate on pure rationality, yet you will find that it is laden with superstition, particularly of course with high-risk activities (launches and landings). Or recall all the silly superstitions of Barack Obama and John McCain that were reported during the campaign. These are smart people and deep down they know that these things have zero direct effect on the outcome. But Hood believes they are not without value; they get the believer to have more confidence than they otherwise would, and that confidence often has real positive results. And this is at the most secular end of the spectrum, obviously it applies to religious belief as well.

Or take the trees planted from seeds carried by the astronauts (there's one outside the place where I work). Now of course they've received more radiation than normal seeds but they certainly aren't imbued with some special space essence. But it's nice to know that there is that connection, maybe it makes us feel that our campus is a bit more special.

I don't think Hood is trying to argue against rationality in any way, but merely to show how this trait is common (why we have it would be a task for evolutionary psychology) and how we use it. He certainly isn't saying that such ju-ju has objective existence, just that understanding how such beliefs arise is important. And if we can do that, maybe we can minimize our need for such things (IMHO ... imagine Star Trek where Picard needs to eat a bag of peanuts before going into Warp, or the crew needs to pray before using the Transporter ... not that ST is any guide to our future other than in a hope for a secular, superstition-less wiser society).

Shadowboxing

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:19:16 -0400

I missed seeing In the Shadow of the Moon, Ron Howard's Apollo documentary, in the theaters. I wanted to see that footage on the big screen. It turns out that there's not too much that I haven't seen a million times already. There's footage of Armstrong going down the ladder, shot from a fixed camera on the LM, it wasn't retransmitted, so the quality is very high. Another sequence shows the command module and LM departing, shot from inside the stage that had housed the LM. I've seen that, but Howard stays with it for a minute, as the departing craft gets tiny; the stage begins to tumble and shows the limb of the Earth.

The surviving moon-trippers (with the exception of Armstrong, as always) talk about what it was like, and that was enjoyable in place of the standard technical details.

As the credits roll, they give their thoughts on the rise in popularity of the moon hoaxer myth. I got the feeling that one of the things Howard was trying to do was respond to that by showing how real and personal it was to the astronauts involved. But I think Buzz Aldrin had the right idea when he punched the guy in the face who called him a liar... they should have ended the movie with that clip!

As an aside, I recently received email from a fellow seeking to show some photos to his friends and try to shake their moon hoax "skepticism." I said that the proper term, in my opinion, was not "skeptic" but "denier". He thought that was too harsh. But as a skeptic, and a great fan of professional skeptics, I don't know what other term would fit. Not accepting anything without evidence is one thing, willfully denying evidence or not examining it in detail is quite another.

The Ghost Whisperers

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:50:27 -0500

I see that the excellent Skeptoid Podcast has a new episode taking a look at Ghost Hunters, the popular show on the Sci-Fi network that looks at sites said to be haunted. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but Ghost Hunters is starting a new season, so here are my thoughts.

The good: superficially, it seems scientific. Data is collected and reviewed, observations are noted, and some attempt to account for bias is occasionally put forth. So, it is kind of an improvement over many other paranormal shows on TV that merely present anecdotal evidence as fact. And, the bottom line is that lots of people seem to find it entertaining.

The bad: it's not science. There's no systematic effort to remove bias. There's no serious attempt to disprove their hypotheses, to try their hardest to falsify all the evidence, until whatever is left stands on its own, as a measurement of reality, which is what real scientists do. No outsiders have access to the data to review it.

The worst: their use of recording equipment is laughable. In one episode, they're very excited by a spike in IR (hilariously lampooned on SNL with Hugh Laurie). They interpret this as a positive result (proof of a spirit). Any electronic equipment is susceptible to noise. They seem to have no idea of how to calibrate their equipment, of finding ways of subtracting noise from signal, or even realizing that noise is a possibility. Worst of all is their audio recording ("Electronic Voice Phenomena"), where they're eager to interpret any sound as spoken or whispered words, which of course takes only a little imagination. EVP is their biggest source of what they consider to be "evidence" and, by no coincidence, it's the area where they show no rigor whatsoever.

So the Ghost Hunters are entertainers and not scientists. So what? I think it does a disservice both to skeptics and to believers in the paranormal. If you really believe in ghosts, wouldn't you want the best effort made to find proof? A good skeptic wants the same. That's the difference between skeptics and debunkers. We (the former) are "open to anything, skeptical of everything." Debunkers have a pre-defined conclusion that something is impossible, and only look for evidence of that conclusion. In one episode, they say that they are debunkers, by which they meant to say they are skeptics. I.e. they don't even know what the words mean.