I want to thank Doug Delong for mentioning The Dumbasses Guide To Knowledge on his Planet Japan podcast. I had emailed Doug to comment on his Preacher and Skeptic blog, and got to talking about other things skeptical.
I wasn't expecting Doug to plug my blog on his podcast, but I'm pleased that he found it worthy of plugging.
And just to return plug, everybody who already reads my blog (listen up both of you!) should check out Planet Japan, where Doug and Jen discuss current events from the perspective of Americans living in Japan.
I haven't listened to the latest episode yet, but his show notes calls this blog "a guide to all things skeptical". I appreciate it Doug, but you're obviously overselling it! All things skeptical? I just write about whatever dumbass topics happen to pop into my mind.
And also check out the Preacher and Skeptic blog, where Doug debates a conservative Christian preacher on matters of faith.
The wife just showed me this blurb from the beauty section of May's issue of Canadian Living magazine:
I guess it must be valid... after all, I've never seen an electric eel with wrinkles!
This isn't an ad, just part of a review of hot beauty tips and the like. No thought towards critically examining this claim, it's just accepted wholesale.
Apparently, it's so "scientific" that you have to use two bottles of crap instead of just one.
And at $47 per 14ml, I'm assuming that this product will also infuse you with Super Ion Crime Fighting Powers as well.
I tell everybody upfront that I'm just some dumbass with a blog. But the thing is, I'm a dumbass who at least tries to know what he's talking about. I make an effort to understand science, and I try like hell to get my facts straight as much as possible.
So it annoys me a little when people who don't understand how science is done and haven't done their homework present themselves as knowledgeable authorities on a topic and start making claims that are not supported by their evidence.
What I'm talking about here is a story that's been making the news about author and blogger Joann Bruso, who bought a McDonald's happy meal, and left it on her office shelf for a year in order to prove a point.
Her point? The happy meal didn't decompose, and that means that it's made up of materials that your body can't metabolize.
I'll let Mrs. Bruso explain in her own words, taken directly from her blog:
I think a lot about the question of how we know things. It's especially important when I write a blog devoted to understanding science and the world around us. Why should people trust what I have to say? I write articles that attempt to counteract claims made by people who I believe are wrong. But by what standards should I expect people to judge what I have to say as being more accurate than the claims I'm arguing against?
Should you trust my expertise? My education is in the computer sciences. I took statistics in college, but I'm not a statistician. I basically don't have any formal education in most of the things I talk about on this blog.
When I look at some of the references this blog has been getting through Google searches, it seems that some of my articles have done pretty well in the rankings for certain searches. That's gratifying to see, but it makes me wonder how I come across to others.
As I've mentioned before, I think it's important to develop intellectual uncertainty, and to admit to the possibility of being wrong. I think it's also important to pay attention to the actual experts, and try to understand the current state of knowledge.
What I hope I present to people are articles that are well researched and reasoned. I think the strength of an argument should always be more important than a person's quality of expertise.
But, of course, expertise matters. In this post, I want to explore how I believe that we should look at and think about knowledge and expertise.
I think a lot about what science can tell us and how supernatural/paranormal claims work. It's an interesting topic to think about.
Of course, it's a wide open field, so this post may be a little bit unfocused. But some aspects of the issue have been turning around in my mind, and I'm enough of a dumbass to put my contemplations out here for the world to see.
I watched a documentary a few years ago about a girl who supposedly had some form of pseudo X-Ray vision and could diagnose medical problems. One thing I found very interesting was a soundbite by a skeptic who said that if she can actually perform this task, we'll have to re-write everything that we know about physics.
That seemed a little bit hyperbolic for my tastes. Even if it were true that this girl could do something that nobody could explain, that doesn't mean that the explanation wouldn't fit into the science of what we currently know about the world.
I personally think it's a mistake to approach claims of the paranormal from a position of "I can't imagine how it could possibly work, therefore it must not work.". Not only is argument from incredulity a logical fallacy, it's also one of the types of arguments used to justify nonsense.
"I can't imagine how it's possible for ancient humans to have built the pyramids, therefore they must not have." is the common argument for people who believe that aliens built the pyramids.
You can't believe that I could have faked such a convincing image, therefore it must be genuine!
You don't have to credulously accept everything you're told in order to have an open mind. I think it's best to adopt a balanced attitude where you're not simply dismissing these kinds of claims out of hand, but have specific criteria for what kind of evidence will convince you.
In an earlier post, I mentioned my disagreement with my friend Jeff regarding Aspartame. It's one of those very in-depth topic where proponents of Aspartame as poison deluge you with tons of data. I plan on tackling a good chunk of that data in this blog, but it's going to have to be broken up into multiple posts.
In this post, I want to analyze a video that Jeff sent me in order to convince me of the dangers of Aspartame. This is an interview with a man by the name of Ron Dodge, who believes that Aspartame caused the cancer that killed his wife:
I want to say right up front that my heart goes out to Mr. Dodge. I don't believe that you can watch this video without feeling for this man's pain. He lost somebody very important to him, and he's having trouble accepting that it could be due to something as random and meaningless as just the luck of the draw.
But that doesn't change the fact that he's wrong. I'm going to tackle each of Mr. Dodge's claims head on, and I will even ridicule some of them. But I will not ridicule this man's pain, nor will I have anything negative to say about the dedication he feels towards his wife's memory. I don't wish his anguish on anybody.
With that important note out of the way, let's analyze Mr. Dodge's claims that were made during the course of this video:
Dude! I just looked out my window and saw this mysterious green glowing UFO hovering close by!
It's not photoshopped. All you need is a window at night. Turn off any other light source so that there's no other reflection interfering with your shot. Then you just use a common keychain light:
You could also use a laser pointer. Just shine it on the window, and take a picture of the reflection.
The reason I bring this up is because I was thinking about how simple it can be to fool people sometimes. These days we have photoshop, and we can use it to create impressive images. But it's often the case that you don't really need to resort to the fancy bells and whistles.
I'm thinking specifically here of the famous fairy pictures from 1920. A lot of thought has gone into analyzing how these girls were not adept at the practice of photo manipulation, a much more complicated procedure back then, and how it seems unlikely that the pictures were tampered with.
But all the girls did was pose with fairy cut-outs. A simple trick that would baffle you if you were expecting a complicated and involved process.
I think it's good to remind ourselves every once in a while that it's best to start out looking for the simpler solutions before making things more complicated.
I came across this interesting looking book recently:
It's a book on paranormal phenomena written for a young audience. It was written in 1993 by Jim Razzi, and contains a collection of stories of "unexplained" phenomena. The book introduces itself as follows:
It sounds impossible, but everything in this book really happened. The events you will read about here defy explanation. You cannot come up with logical reasons for why they occurred. You may not even believe they are true. But they have all been reported by reliable witnesses. In many cases, they have factual evidence to back them up. Believe it or not, strange things don't happen only in the imagination. Real life is full of mysteries that no one has been able to solve. But see for yourself....
I cannot come up with logical reasons for why they occurred?? That sounds like a challenge to me! I wholeheartedly accept!
This book looks like it will provide some fun stories to analyze and research. I'll start off with the title story, Nightmare Island:
SYNOPSIS: Can a nightmare come true? You might not think so. But if Byron Somes were still alive, he would have to disagree with you.
Several years back I got into an online debate with somebody pushing a health elixir known as "Seasilver". It was probably the first time that I had the urge to do the research and debate with snake oil salesmen, leading me on a course of critical thinking culminating with this blog. I amassed a large file of quotes and references, and I was going to set up a website to display this information.
Fortunately for the world, but unfortunately for my website, the FDA came in and forced Seasilver to stop making their outlandish claims as I was in the middle of setting it all up. Most of the Seasilver websites have disappeared by now, but I've still got cached copies and quotes. I figured that some of the material I have saved will make good example material for the kinds of claims these kinds of people make.
So today, I want to look at a very interesting quote regarding the "deadly chemical" DCP.
