The View from Number 80

 Mission Unpalatable  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a pastiche pseudoscientific website. You must trot out every hoary old piece of anti-evolutionist pro-creationist nonsense. You must wilfully misunderstand the aims and aspirations of groups such as CSICOP, as you must also completely misinterpret the terms of the Randi challenge. You must view science as a closed scientific cabal dedicated to maintaining some kind of hard line on scientific plausibility. You have to fail miserably at grasping the principles of evolution and then choose to attack your own inadequate picture of Darwin's ideas and subsequent discoveries rather than the real thing. You must defend such obviously unresearched trash as Mysterious Origins of Man prefacing same with ridiculous assertions such as " Publicly questioning or debating the received wisdom on human origins is not usually permitted on Television in Britain and America." Where you are at a loss to counter a challenge to the paranormal and pseudoscience such as that offered by James Randi you are to understand nothing of the procedures that would be applied but instead launch an ad hominem assault on Randi himself. You are to assume that everyone with an idea that does not meet scientific standards of evidence and is therefore rejected, is in fact a budding Galileo for weren't his ideas rejected by the authorities of the time? You must confuse argument from evidence with argument from authority. Best of all you must make money from the whole sorry mess by publishing a string of poorly researched antiscience sensationalist books on your cherished ideas regardless of whether they possess any merit. You must.....hold on - forget all the above, someone has beaten you to it, Richard Milton with his Alternative Science website. For a quick insight into the stance taken here a look at the FAQ pages is instructive. After a perusal of this and other pages the reader may well find it refreshing to take a look at the Skeptic's Dictionary for an interesting overview of Milton and his ideas - he does not fare too well. Nor does his book "Shattering the Myths of Darwinism" (almost a textbook on the straw man attack ploy) in this review. 80 finds it spooky that at the time of writing the latest piece of news on Milton's site is the discovery of people who apparently function normally without a "detectable brain". The temptation of an ad hominem attack is almost irresistible.................

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 Just ASKE  The Association for Skeptical Enquiry has been mentioned several times before.(Currently 80's home page carries a link regarding their Psychic Challenge addressing the claims of mediums - and offering them a substantial sum should they prove their powers.) Now, in an altruistic gesture, they have launched the ASKE Free Psychic & Pseudoscientific Services. This covers a range of subjects, including Homeopathic medecine, Astrology, Feng Shui and even God, and offers much useful advice. In the Astrology section ASKE has bravely grasped the nettle of all those inconvenient planets that were discovered after the tenets of that ancient art were laid down by offering a reading thus "Your dominant planet is currently Neptune which is a giant gas planet so there is a good chance of flatulence next month. The length of a day on Neptune in Earth hours is only 19.1 so it's probably best to have an early night." Advice of this nature is invaluable and surely as valid as the readings offered in your daily newspaper. Most stunning of all is a new concept of God which will surely win converts ranging from Taliban to Taoist, from Pagan to Protestant, from Zoroastrionist to........you get the idea. Definitely a page worth your attention. (Note: 80 is a member of ASKE but all views expressed are 80's alone)

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Serendipity Carrier  As most of us realize the web can be a timewaster par excellence - one goes to access a piece of information and is sidetracked to something completely different (to coin a phrase). In looking for more on Alexander of Abonutichus, immortalized by Lucian of Samosata and recently featured in James Randi's Commentaries, 80 came upon this title "Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: a look into the world of the gospels" by Richard Carrier. This is a short piece on  the other miracleworkers of the Ancient World - other than Jesus and his disciples that is. It is only the way that the church has arranged things that obscures the fact that such people were a dime-a-dozen and Jesus' tricks and spells were far from unique. For those who know little of the context in which early christianity grew and developed this page will make fascinating reading. Carrier, an Instructor in Ancient History has a lot of fascinating pieces available on the web on subjects of great interest to 80, such as Atheism, Ancient History (naturally), and Ethics and Values. The opening sentence said the web can be a timewaster but in this case a serendipitous link has made the time well spent - so, when you have the time, read some Carrier - you won't regret it.

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Heretic Feroe  On the subject of serendipitous links there is one such at the top of Carrier's page - an ad for "Heresy House - Funnier than Hell and much cooler". As explained on the about page Heresy House/ Heretic Cards is a small business selling greetings cards, t-shirts and posters, run by one Dave Feroe - let's have him speak for himself "HeretiCards is a small business in the truest sense; our entire production team consists of one man... one man with over fifteen years of professional experience in graphic design, a healthy imagination nurtured on a steady diet of Monty Python and Mel Brooks, a robust sense of indignation, and a hair-trigger gag reflex." This whet 80's appetite and the goods for sale are certainly not found wanting - as an alternative to the often nauseating Easter and Christmas cards on offer generally Feroe's stuff is just the job, as are the t-shirts. On the front page of the site Feroe apologises for the temporary delay with new products (when 80 looked there no posters available yet) and offers a fine range of free desktop pictures/wallpaper. There are currently 7 available for download each in different sizes to suit your screen, some featuring quotes from Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson and Carl Sagan - all in all a very good reason to pay Heresy House a visit - and part with some cash.

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Always Creepy  Occasionally one finds a site with a good idea behind it that fails abysmally in its execution. One comfort for believing christians is that the resurrected Jesus is with them - most often people's thoughts turn to such reassurance in times of trouble and tribulation, whether public or private. But what about the rest of the time - is he with believers at more ordinary times - say when they are at work pursuing their occupation or craft or perhaps at play? The creator of the With you Always website, Larry van Pelt, ( whom 80 was pleased to see lives in a place called Niceville) has chosen to convey this "ever presence" through the medium of his drawings. These show folk in ordinary everyday activities and occupations, including surgeon, carpet-layer, bank teller and juggler. And with each person depicted there is the stereotypical Jesus, bearded, flowing hair, shining white raiment and, peculiar to van Pelt's work, some very odd expressions. As most of the mortal subjects seem to completely unaware of this refugee from The Greatest Story Ever Told at their elbow the effect is more than a little creepy and unsettling. For another much more detailed and hilarious take on this page take a look at It's That Annoying Jesus Again from longtime 80 friend Brian C.

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Snippets Rather than stick your fingers down your throat you can get a very similar effect by reading this interview with apparently tireless self publicist Uri Geller published in the UK Guardian newspaper - though to be honest the interviewer Lynn Barber does not seem terribly impressed by her subject "He is thrilled by celebrities, any celebrities, however tawdry. He doesn't really understand society, or normal human interaction, so he invents some higher extraterrestrial society to which he belongs."

  Here is a nice little site that seems to get the Reverend Jerry Falwell hot under the collar, in fact so much so he has devoted considerable time and effort to try and have it shut down. The site's creator, Gary Cohn, apparently produced the parody after hearing the offensive remarks made by Falwell as to where the blame lay for the September 11th atrocity. (see Past View Baneful Biblical Basis? Beneath Contempt) When approached by the good reverend's lawyers Cohn reportedly replied "This is a completely noncommercial website, which exists for the sole purpose of expressing, through a parody, my opinion that your client is a jerk." Tough luck Jerry the site is still extant and 80 is delighted to place a link to it right HERE. By the way, Rev. Falwell, have you seen this?

 

NASA have their fingers in a lot of pies from development of computer software, aircraft technology, spacecraft, Earth observation, advanced materials, education and many others but 80 would never have them pegged as developers of mind reading technology - and apparently NASA agrees in what has to be one of the odder statements to feature in a press release from that august body. Well that clears that one up..............

 

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 Therapeutic Tosh  There are many regrettable trends in the field of medicine that want to embrace alternative therapies and those that emanate from people that you would normally consider reliable medical practitioners are particularly regrettable. One such therapy is TT or therapeutic touch promulgated by Dolores Krieger, former New York University nursing professor. Here is the official explanation of how it works from the The Pumpkin Hollow Farm website:

 

"Therapeutic Touch is a contemporary healing modality drawn from ancient practices and developed by Dora Kunz and Dolores Krieger. The practice is based on the assumptions that human beings are complex fields of energy, and that the ability to enhance healing in another is a natural potential."

 

The first comment to make is that the practice is based on an assumption backed by no physical evidence and which has failed in a properly instituted test of even its simplest claims. There has been a little more attention paid to Krieger and her healing fantasies lately because of her latest and, to many, offensive claim. This is that the TT technique can be used to "heal" the already deceased victims of September 11th attacks. Outrageous, sick, misguided, mentally ill - what is this woman's excuse for such drivel? Looking at the fees charged for workshops and books and tapes at Pumpkin Hollow might furnish a clue. For a useful list of sites for and against this therapy go here, and for a totally uncritical background to the practice go here, although you may want to turn your speakers off first. For perhaps the best overview, as ever, the Skeptic's Dictionary proves invaluable. Also here is an interesting piece referring to the World Trade Center atrocity and the attempts to benefit in some way from it by, Jerry Falwell, John Edward and Dolores Kreiger if only by associated publicity. What a fine, admirable set of people they are..............

 

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 Quotes

"Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness." Anonymous Chinese proverb

 

"Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence." Anonymous Hebrew proverb
 
"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'." Sir Arthur Eddington

 

 "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." E.B. White

 

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." Albert Einstein

 

"In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." Galileo Galilei

 

  

             

      

                                                                                                  

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