A Bright Idea ?
a 2001 survey (PDF)
has indicated there could be perhaps as many as 40 million (14%) or so
non-believers, atheists, humanists and other deity-free individuals in the
USA. Even if taken down to a more conservative figure of 20 million that
is still a hell of a lot of people. For comparison it is 4 times as
numerous as American Jews - who are generally acknowledged to be a pretty
powerful lobby group. Using an analogy with the gay community there is now
a movement to encourage these god-free to "come out" and announce
themselves. One way of drawing attention is to have a label, a badge as it
were, of some kind and make it your own - we all know how the meaning of
the word "gay" has changed radically over the last 30 years. What would be
a suitable term for those with no religious faith and a naturalistic world
view? Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell
thought the word "bright" would do nicely - and have hopes of its adoption
as a general term. Not as an adjective but as a noun as in "I am a
bright". Backers of the idea feature such respected figures as
Richard Dawkins and
Danniel
Dennett (registration req'd). It is hoped as more and more declare
themselves as brights the stigma, especially in the US, of being a
non-believer will disappear. 80, cynical old observer that he is, has his
doubts. There is a strong social pressure to conform and again, especially
in the US, it will take great strength of will to go against the majority.
Unless of course this majority is not as overwhelming as it appears and
has many members who themselves are conforming for purely social reasons.
It is difficult to see how this will go but 80 has signed up at the
Bright
web site - but then a glance through these pages would show that 80 came
out of the believer closet a long time ago.......
Update - the
Bright idea does not find much favor with
this writer.
Fat of the Land
- and light Brights? It would be interesting to check on the body weight of Brights to see if
these 1998
findings are accurate "The faithful are fatter
than ever—at least in this country—according to Kenneth Ferraro, a
sociologist at the University of Purdue. His analysis of data from two
national surveys, published in the Review of Religious Research, shows
that religious people tend to be more corpulent than their nonreligious
counterparts. States with a high rate of religious
affiliation—Mississippi, Michigan, and Indiana—have heftier citizens than
such strongholds of secularity as Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Colorado. And
among denominations, Southern Baptists are the real heavyweights. If
Southern Baptists had an official patron saint, it might be Thomas
Aquinas, whose 300-pound bulk led his fellow students to nickname him Ox."
Well, praise the Lard.
Chariots of Faith
- those whose faith in the inerrancy of the Christian bible as an
historical text is insufficiently strong spend a lot of time and money
looking for physical evidence of some kind to back it up. Those who search for the
"real" Mount Sinai, the final resting place of Noah's Ark or search the
desolate landscape around the Dead Sea looking for Sodom and Gomorah are
chasing ghosts of things that may never even have existed - but still they
try. The latest example of this is the
announcement that a chariot wheel, found by divers in the Red Sea,
provides evidence for the famous tale in Exodus where the sea parted to
let the fleeing Israelites walk across dryshod and then poured back,
inundating Pharaoh's army. The finders of this artifact (which puzzlingly
does not seem to be available for study) were inspired by the exploits of
Ron Wyatt, the late discoverer of the "true" resting place of the Ark.
Wyatt Archaeological
Research, a web site now maintained by others, has more
detail on
Red Sea chariot wheels, particularly the information that Wyatt retrieved
a wheel hub from the Red Sea and had it dated, by Nassif Mohammed Hassan, a
Cairo "director of Antiquities", to the Egyptian 18th Dynasty. Researching
further and using devastating circular reasoning Wyatt decided that if
this wheel, and others he claimed to have found on the seabed, were 18th
Dynasty then that was the date of Exodus. Naturally for any of this to
work you have to know already the site of the Red Sea crossing to look for
the chariots in the first place. Sadly the wheel examined by Hassan is
nowhere to be found - an astounding occurrence for such a valuable
artifact - so an independent assessment is not possible. Further searches
on Hassan himself also seem to be a dead end and the few sites that
mention him merely parrot the little information supplied by the Wyatt
site. So where does that leave things? Absolutely nowhere regarding
anything to do with history or archaeology - but quite a lot regarding
gullibility and wishful thinking. (For information on real archaeology and
a skeptical look at pseudoarchaeology the place to go is
Doug's Archaeology Site.)
"Real" UFO
- it is August 1956 and the Cold War is in full swing. Over the skies of
eastern England radar picks up various objects, one estimated as
travelling at 4000 mph, and lights are seen in the sky - two fighter
aircraft are scramble to intercept and the pair of them play tag with
something in the night skies.......one pilot is unable to shake whatever
is on his tail - a something that showed on the
ground radar as
well. Eventually both planes return, one low on fuel and one with engine
trouble. This
incident is held up as a convincing encounter with a true Unidentified
Flying Object seen as lights and as Unidentified Radar Echoes (URE). Now
US Air Force intelligence radar logs have been
released confirming the radar contacts. Various explanations have been
offered for what happened that night and perhaps a combination of these is
the real answer. There was unusual meteorite activity that night, the
radar was nowhere near as sophisticated as today's and could throw up
false "bogeys" and bright stars may have played a part in some sightings. The
atmosphere of the time was full of paranoia about the USSR's intentions
and technology - the airbase involved in the incident hosted spyplanes and
nuclear weapons and so would seem an obvious target for enemy
surveillance. Young pilots, honed by intensive training, finally had a
chance to show what they could do and their enthusiasm could well have
played its part as well. The truth will never be known and this case,
unlike most others, does have radar-visual evidence enough for believers
to claim "they were breaches of our airspace by some
extraordinary flying machines..." For 80 the jury will always be
out on this one........ for once it is a genuine Unidentified Flying
Object(s). (For more on UFOs take a look at
The Klass Files)
WWJD
- Try this exercise some time - try to project your consciousness back in
time a couple thousand years and picture yourself, a man, of a fairly low
social class, living in the eastern Mediterranean. Try to understand his
world view - if you are to do this with even a modicum of authenticity it
is going to take some serious study and a lot of work. In fact having done
so to any degree of accuracy you are doubtless worth at least a doctorate or
two in various fields of study - quite an achievement.
Here's another one to try - one that is impossible - at least to 80's
limited intellect. Imagine that you have infinite power - in fact all
there is was made by you. Nothing escapes your attention - the explosion
of a supernova, the fall of a sparrow, the eternal dance of sub-atomic
particles - it is all yours to see and understand.
This last one is the hardest though. Imagine that you live in the first
decade of the 21st century. Now take the first two exercises and combine
them so that can picture an amalgam of that person from history and the
incredible science fictional observer and maker of all. Can you visualize in
any way at all what this chimera would be like? No? Then it is probably
best you don't wear
one of
these - you would never make any decisions.
(....and whatever you do steer clear of
these wicked sites WWJD and
WWJD)
Raging Bull
- people tend to think of lawyers (when they think kindly of them) as
having sharp brains and the ability to argue a case from the evidence
available. The truth is of course lawyers are as fallible as the rest of
us and if a belief is important enough they will ignore and attempt to
belittle any evidence to the contrary. In the case of
Victor Zammit he
pursues the defence of his beliefs with a zeal that is almost evangelical.
Rather than present evidence for those beliefs he resorts to a tactic that
may work at times in a courtroom, with a jury to persuade with the skill
of your rhetoric, but often has the opposite effect when seen in
print. This is the ad hominem attack - in this case aimed mainly at James
Randi but also at many others of a skeptical frame of mind who require
evidence for extraordinary claims. Zammit, formerly a lawyer of the
Supreme Court of New South Wales, and the High Court of Australia, as he
prominently announces on his web page, is also a man in very great fear -
and it is this fear that drives what is a bitter diatribe against those he
terms "close minded skeptics". He is
scared to death of....death - and seems ready to accept even tawdry drivel
such as the antics of TV entertainer
John Edward,
parasite of the bereaved, as evidence for life after death. One does not
expect a lawyer to have a good grasp of the mathematics of probability but
there are places where it is possible to learn something about it.
Zammit's reference to the stupendous odds against Edward's obtaining his
"results" by chance also shows that he is completely unaware or unwilling to
acknowledge that the trashy TV show he is so keen on is thoroughly edited
before transmission to show successful readings - much more useful would
be an analysis that included the failures from the cutting room floor -
and this is without taking into account the work of Edward's assistants in
engaging with the audience before the show - trawling for information. The
fact that these obvious tricks pass Zammit by in his zeal to believe in
the afterlife says much about the quality of the other items he offers as
evidence. A look through his other pages and links show again and again a
man so desperate to believe that there is life after death that his tone
becomes shrill and tiresome. There are no new insights available here but
just a glimpse into the mind of someone apparently so obsessed with the
thought of his own personal demise that retreads of tired old arguments
such as the "experimenter
effect" and personal attacks are considered useful for advancing his case,
although the result is just the reverse. 80 cannot but recall the lines by
Dylan Thomas -
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Not that it will make any difference...............
All or None
- there is a tendency that has been around for for as long as the
scriptures have existed for believers to cherry pick the parts that they
are comfortable with and ignore the rest. The Anglican Church, presided
over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, has adherents all over the world. So
it is not too surprising that there has been much
dispute about
the appointment of an openly gay man as a bishop. What seems reasonable to
a liberal UK cleric is anathema to one, say, from Nigeria. Also the very
vocal evangelical element were up in arms over the conflict with their
more fundamentalist stance. This reflects cultural and social differences
between members of the Anglican Church as well as the religious ones. (The
church was set up by Henry VIII for rather more
practical purposes than religious fervor.)
Leviticus in the Old Testament is a source for many rules including
the prohibition of male homosexual acts. Leviticus18:22 "Thou
shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
seems to make that quite clear. What else is prohibited and punishable in
Leviticus? 19:10 "...neither shall a garment mingled
of linen and woollen come upon thee" so you had better check your
wardrobe. 20:9 "For every one that curseth his
father or his mother shall be surely put to death" That is a
somewhat final way to end a family row. 21:17 to 21:20 "Whosoever
he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not
approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath
a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath
a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or
brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his
eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken." So if
you are disabled in some way you are not welcome at God's altar - He
doesn't want your worship. There is much, much more as once God gets going
it must be pretty difficult to get him to stop 'til he is good and ready
but you get the picture. To accept the prohibition on gays you must also
accept a load of other laws which may have been fine for a small Iron Age
tribe surrounded by enemies but should have no place in a modern culture.
(Elsewhere in the bible not even the
sin of Sodom is
what most people think.) The cherrypicking continues for the New Testament. Fundamentalists in particular bang on
about adhering to every word because it is the word of God. It is funny
but 80 has not seen any of these zealots adhering, for instance, to Jesus'
advice to the young man in Matthew 19:21 " If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me."
(Treasure in heaven is not as good as the SUV out front.) It is not as
though there is not enough incentive for the believer, Matthew 19:29 "every
one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive
an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Remember to
ask about this and the other items above next time a bible basher appears
at your door to save your soul - and watch them wriggle. (If you don't
have the time, use the Number 80 Plan B - smile sweetly as you close the
door saying, "No, thank you, I am not superstitious.")
Taking the Time
- a common complaint from those with a
skeptical frame of mind when confronted with the latest "cult archaeology"
and "fringe history" blockbuster is how can these people turn out reams of
this stuff and not be shot down in flames. Most of it is rarely refuted
outside the bounds of websites and journals that are mainly read by
skeptics in the first place. Surely a good tactic would be to take action
right at the point of sale - and this is what Dr Mark Newbrook has done.
Here you will find a string of his reviews of a range of books with
subject matter ranging from Vedic culture, the origins of language to
pre-Columban America. Many of the claims made in these books hinge in some
way on the language of ancient peoples and their supposed derivation and
diffusion. Other critics may address other claims but Newbrook, of Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia specializes in "dialectology,
historical linguistics, the structure of English and 'skeptical
linguistics' (the application of skeptical methods to 'fringe' and other
dubious ideas about language)." It is this skeptical linguistics
that help make his reviews fascinating to read. It is a truism that it is
much harder work to refute in detail the wild claims made by the cult
archaeologists than it is to make the claims in the first place. It is fortunate
that Newbrook takes the time and effort to do so - and particularly good
that his reviews appear on the very pages that sell these books. It is not
just cult archaeologists who seem almost too much trouble to take to task
- many types of pseudoscience and irrational belief gain currency because
the professionals are unwilling to spend time on what to them appears
absurd. To others, without the benefit of time to study even the most
ridiculous ideas may sound plausible. If all you hear is the clamor of the
hawkers of such things and effectively silence from academia the tendency
is to think that these claims are left to stand because they are true
rather than that they are too ridiculous to challenge. Take the claims
made for Reverse Speech
(RS), the brainchild of one David John Oates. Below is a description
from the website of Reverse Speech Technologies -
THE THEORY OF REVERSE SPEECH AND SPEECH
COMPLEMENTARITY.
(1) Human speech has two disctinctive yet complementary functions and
modes. The Overt mode is spoken forwards and is primarily under conscious
control. The Covert mode is spoken backward and is not under conscious
control. The backward mode of speech occurs simultaneously with the
forward mode and is a reversal of the forward speech sounds.
(2) These two modes of speech, forward and backward, are dependent upon
each other and form an integral part of human communication. One mode
cannot be fully understood without the other mode. In the dynamics of
interpersonal communication, both modes of speech combined communicate the
total psyche of the person, conscious as well as unconscious.
(3) Covert speech develops before overt speech. Children speak backwards
before they do forwards. Then, as forward speech commences, the two modes
of speech gradually combine into one, forming an overall bi-level
communication process.
Now this idea may sound so daft as to be not worth examining but it
is tailor-made for Newbrook's skeptical linguistics. Here is a
summarized
version of Newbrook's and Jane Curtain's detailed examination and
refutation of Oates' ideas. The one thing upon which Reverse Speech must
be judged is linguistics as it purports to be theory of language. As
Newbrook and Curtain state -
Given that RS is supposed to be basically a
linguistic phenomenon, one might hope that - whatever his shortcomings in
other fields - Oates would prove to be well informed about linguistics.
However, this is not the case. We have already seen that many of his
claims about RS are implausible on linguistic grounds, and in fact it does
not appear that he has read more than superficially in the linguistic
literature. Other obvious errors (etc.) made by Oates involve: very
superficial and inaccurate treatments of matters of intonation, various
other errors involving the description and analysis of pronunciation, a
naively folk-linguistic approach (at least terminologically) to the issue
of grammaticality (accompanied by a neglect of some grammatical issues
which would be of great interest if RS were real), acceptance of
folklinguistic errors on the origins of languages, a rather cavalier
attitude to items in foreign languages, a naive linking of RS with
palindromes (‘reverse’ phenomena involving written language), the apparent
(ludicrously wrong) suggestion that the central aspects of FS are
completely consciously controlled (in contrast with RS, which is
unconsciously generated), etc.
Newbrook and Curtain are to be thanked for bringing their expertise to
bear on RS. The all too common attitude from academia is noted in
this page
about RS "Elsewhere in his site Mr Oates says he
can't understand why, when he's taken all this to universities and
scientists, they refuse to even look at his evidence. It's because they're
not naive, Mr Oates. It's the same reason they don't buy a ten dollar
Rolex from a guy at a card table set up on Times Square. They don't
squander their time going to get a Rolex expert to examine the cheap,
tacky little watch and confirm that it's a fake. They simply walk past the
card table. And scientists don't squander precious research time on people
who say that their backward tape recordings "lay the human soul bare and
open up a doorway to the infinite". " Happily some people do take
the time - silence only helps these clowns. (It is to be noted that Oates'
RS is more a marketing opportunity than anything else - just take a look
at the courses
and Reversing
Machines he peddles. Still it is reassuring as we are told the sales
are not for profit but to fund study of RS.) For more on Oates'
absurdities from a psychological point of view look here at this piece
from Skeptical Inquirer "The
Demon-Haunted Sentence - A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech" which
also references Newbrook and Curtain.
Miscellany
- a short list of web pages ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous
with the odd remark. First up is The
Skeptical
Believer, source of the "ten dollar Rolex" quote above, from John
Shirley in which he "variously rants about whatever
enters his mind". Subjects range from
Is There a
God? to
Smirking Post-Modern Snobbery to
Pitfalls
of Ufology (which mentions the Cold War UFO sighting above) and more -
well worth a look.
There are many sites out there on the web that proudly show "inexplicable"
photos of orbs,
rods,
ghosts whatever. If you ever felt you were
missing out here is a page about how to make your own
Energy Creature pictures. Fun stuff and at least as convincing as
anything else 80 has seen.
Enter the world of
Astrocartography - the bastard child of astrology and cartography
dreamed up by Robert Couteau who
poses this question
"If we view the birth chart or horoscope as a
symbolic portrait of the soul the next logical question might be: What is
the focal point or key to the horoscope?" What indeed, although to
be truthful there is nothing logical in this whole farrago. For further
bafflement look at the loving drawn and meaningless
charts of various
celebrities such as Marlon Brando, The Dalai-Lama, Benito Mussolini and
Nikola Tesla. Couteau must at least be congratulated on managing to come
up with a new twist to the tired old hogwash that is astrology - and a new
product to sell -
Astro-maps.
If you have ever had an email chain letter and felt too scared to delete it but also
too scared to pass it on (be very scared if you clog up 80's inbox with
such drivel) - now the answer is at hand.
Chain Letters Anonymous,
sponsored by Skeptical Inquirer, will take the load off your mind and they
even accept old fashioned snail mail versions too. For more info on Chain
Letters take a look here (this
site could do with an update.)
Lots of good stuff is to be had at
Donald Simanek's Pages
too numerous to mention. Science, pseudoscience, humor and absolute
gems such as Richard Feynmann's classic 1974 piece
Cargo Cult Science.
Finally, and appropriately, here is
Armageddon Online "This
site is about the possibility of Armageddon - Extinction Level Events.
From super volcanoes and mega tsunamis to Planet X and meteor impacts,
these are the most destructive forces threatening our planet. Everything
you never wanted to know..." and in some cases more than you ever
wanted to know. A well laid out site with masses of material - and much
better than first impressions would suggest.
Quotes
"I'm an atheist and that's it. I
believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each
other and do what we can for other people."
Katherine Hepburn
"You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light."
Vicomte
de Chateaubriand
"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free
is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
Lord Acton
"The great tragedy of Science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by
an ugly fact." Thomas H. Huxley
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense that
we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart"
H L Mencken
