Australian Skeptics new site (design)

The Australian Skeptics have just launched a new look site - check it out. Great for skepticism of course, but also a great example of website design (IMHO).

Million Dollar Challenge

No - not "the million dollar challenge". This is an "all kinds of crazy million dollar challenge:

"A man has stepped forward with a $1million reward in gold to challenge vaccine supporters, CDC and the government to justify promotion of vaccines over natural immunization by Bionaid™ & ZeoHeal™."

... The reward has been on the internet for almost a year, but vaccine and drug supporters have neglected to register for the million dollar reward being offered in raw gold. The gold is secreted away in several locations underground with billions of dollars in precious metals.

"...with billions of dollars..." Hmmm, I'm a little skeptical. You sound like a crazy person.

I can't believe I've never come across "Natural News" before. Wow...

Nun Bowling

Made this video for laughs (small things...) and to use the slow mo feature on my phone camera.

Metronome synchronisation

This is pretty cool

A favourite illusion

Try to make her spin both ways. (Hint, look at her feet to swap direction.)


Left Brain V Right Brain Test - The funniest videos are a click away

Not sure I buy the "Left Brain - Right Brain" though.

Avast you lily-livered bilge rats!

Happy international talk like a pirate day.

May the flying spaghetti monster touch you with his noodly appendage... Arrr.

Who says scientists can't communicate!

This would have helped a lot when I studied Relativity and Elementary Particles... If you want to get an idea of the whole point of the world's biggest ever experiment then watch the hip-hop explanation above - or read the article I linked to.

A promising beginning

I've just started reading this book - The Natural History of Nonsense by Bergen Evans. It was published in 1946, and it goes to show, nothing much has changed if we go by this introductory paragraph for chapter 1:

WE may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon "nests of woolly caterpillars." Seemingly sane men entrust their wealth to stargazers and their health to witch doctors. Giant planes throb through the stratosphere, but half their passengers are wearing magic amulets and are protected from harm by voodoo incantations. Hotels boast of express elevators and a telephone in every room, but omit thirteen from all floor and room numbers lest their guests be ill at ease. We function on a dozen different levels of intelligence. Earnest suburbanites in sack suits go in their automobiles to celebrate the ancient rites of Attis and Mithra, theophagous in grape juice. On the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox we dye eggs, according to immemorial custom, and seven days before the end of the year worship the pine tree, as did our neolithic forebears. Matter and impertinency are inextricably mixed. One of our greatest universities employs its vast endowment to furnish "scientific proof" of clairvoyance, while, at another, a Nobel prize winner in physics, finding Truth to be incomprehensible, decides that the incomprehensible must be true. The discoveries of the telescope, the spectroscope, and the interferometer are daily news, but the paper that carries them probably has an astrologer on its staff and would sooner omit the headlines than the horoscope.

Looks like a good book.

The Natural History of Nonsense - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: The Natural History of Nonsense

The Crackpot Index

Through browsing posts from the skeptics' circle, I came across this amusing index:

The Crackpot Index

John Baez

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

1. A -5 point starting credit.

2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.

3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.

4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.

5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.

6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.

7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).

8. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".

9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

10. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.

11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it. (10 more for emphasizing that you worked on your own.)

12. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.

13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.

14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.

15. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".

16. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.

17. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

19. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

20. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)

21. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.

22. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

23. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.

24. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.

25. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)

26. 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.

27. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".

28. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".

29. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)

30. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

31. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).

32. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.

33. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.

34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

35. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.

36. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

37. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

It's along the lines of the 7 signs of bogus science.

I've always been a bit skeptical of literary criticism

And this web page by Michael Fowler about ancient Greek science confirms it. Imagine the progress we would have made if it wasn’t for literary criticism:

Strato, like Aristotle, believed in close observation of natural phenomena, but in our particular field of interest here, the study of motion, he observed much more carefully than Aristotle, and realized that falling bodies usually accelerate. ...rainwater pouring off a corner of a roof is clearly moving faster when it hits the ground than it was when it left the roof, because a continuous stream can be seen to break into drops which then become spread further apart as they fall towards the ground. ... One is forced to conclude that falling objects do not usually reach some final speed in a very short time and then fall steadily, which was Aristotle's picture.

Had this line of investigation been pursued further at the Lyceum, we might have saved a thousand years or more, but after Strato the Lyceum concentrated its efforts on literary criticism.

And the winner is...

I always wanted to know who'd win out of a croc or a shark, and now I do:




And if you're worried about my claim of croc superiority, because it's a sample of one; it's not the 1st time this has happened.

I wonder how a lion would go?

I want Mika Brzezinski

...to read the news in Australia.

_______

Via LP.

New job... maybe not

This is really just an update to my update in my previous post. I thought I'd give it a post of it's own as it's OT from the original. All the press releases on the Democrats’ website are riddled with errors in written expression. I emailed the leader of the Democrats, Lyn Allison and applied for a job as a press release editor:

Dear Senator,

Regarding your opinion piece - Indigenous Child Abuse: Speak Out and Get the Solutions Right - Press Release Number: sibxsjmu.

I know written expression is not what the subtitle of the piece was referring to, but I was moved to "speak out" and provide some "right solutions" to the frequent errors I noted.

Attached is a word document of the piece with corrections and suggestions. It is not comprehensive by any means, but it is as much as I could bother to do in 20 minutes.

I've had a look at other releases on your website and note that all I have seen contain many of the same errors. This includes Andrew Bartlett's piece on the same topic. Given Senator Bartlett generally has very good written expression on his blog, including correct use of the comma, I assume these errors are added by a well meaning "editor".

Feel free to send me along other work for proof reading before release - your website is the public face of a major Australian political party after all (though I might have to start charging for my services).

All the best,

Theo Clark

I'll let you know if I get it - fingers crossed (or is that finger's crost?).

Update - July 4: Still no reply from any Democrat (I cc'd the email to every Democrat I could find on their website). However, all of a sudden their press releases are using apostrophes correctly. For example:

Democrats' Deputy Leader, Senator Andrew Bartlett, says the federal government...

A plural possessive - correct! Coincidence? I think not. A small thank you email would have been nice...

Please call me at home after 6...

The Australian federal government recently launched the Do Not Call Register in a effort to combat telemarketing. A great idea, I’m sure you’d agree. There are three ways to register - online, calling 1300 792 958, or sending in a postal application.

However, I’m far too lazy to organise my number to be listed with any of these methods. (I’m much the same with holidays and my telephone service provider.) I wish the DNCR would be a bit more proactive (like my current telephone provider was, and that lovely Malaysian woman who sold me a timeshare at Noosa) and provide a fourth option. Have someone call me at home on a weeknight to inform me of the valuable and obligation free service provided by the DNCR…

Words without opinions

Les Carlyon, a former editor of the Age, sums up the problems of journalism (especially opinion pieces) the write stuff:

…The main troubles with journalism are sloppy writing and sloppy editing, advocacy masquerading as reporting, gossip masquerading as reporting, stories that abound in loose ends and cliches, stories that are half-right, stories that insult the reader's intelligence.

…When I started in journalism one of the worst jobs was reporting church sermons on Sunday. Eventually both Melbourne papers stopped reporting church sermons, and we all thought this was progress. Now we read sermons, terribly earnest, written on op-ed pages not by clerics but by journalists and academics, and I wonder whether this is progress. I saw a short piece in a Sydney paper recently that carried the byline of four academics. How did they do it? Did each of them write every fourth word?

This was based on a speech he gave for a lifetime achievement award at the Melbourne Press Club Quill awards. I wonder if Phillip Adams, Mike Carlton, et. al. were listening?

Haiku - an Ode to Phillip Adams

I naturally turned to Phillip Adams for inspiration when I prepared to make my first post (on Humbug - or fallacies in thinking) to this site. I read his column in last Saturday's Australian in order to pick out a few choice and obvious fallacies for comment. However I found the multiple fallacies too densely packed and multi-layered to isolate a "clean" example for analysis.

So instead, I wrote this Haiku... and I offer it as an oblique tribute to the at times breathtaking unreasoned reasoning skills of the Grand Master of Humbug.

Unreasoned reasons...
Flatulent Phil thinks he thinks,
but thinks not, I think.

Miscellany

• Another black Friday
  
• Astrologer makes astoundingly unlikely yet precise prediction
  
• Alien mind control
  
• Are the Rotary Cartoon Awards fixed?
  
• Oliver Stone, conspiracy nut
• Skeptic admits travelling with aliens in UFO
  
• The Chuck Norris bridge
  
• Faked Moon landings - another line of evidence
  
• Spooked911 Moon landing faked!
  
• I'm in trouble...
  
• A postmodern joke
• Creative Ways to Break Off Fruitless Interactions
• I See Humbug Everywhere - even at the hairdressers and the coffee shop
• WTF? Fallacy and Scientology
• Bowhunting and Traceurs - A Match Made in Heaven?
• Just what we need on the East Coast, more sharks…
• Scientific breakthrough in genetics
• Attempt to Boost Credibility of Social Scientists Backfires
• Is There a Case for Creating a WTF? Fallacy
• Leahey an Inspiration
• Season's Greetings from Bah Humbugonline
• Quick Thinker
• All Hail the Fallacy Meister
• All-Purpose News Item - Race Riots
• Junk History III Mythistorian Reviews Book Edited by Mythistorians
• Junk History II - The Mythistorian
• Junk History
• Words without opinions
• Haiku - an Ode to Phillip Adams