An anecdote - when Lucifer had a crack at me

Well, I like to think it was Lucifer, not some unimportant demon...

This is a personal anecdote about something quite scary and real that happened to me when I was about 12 years old (to the best of my no-doubt unreliable memory...). It's a story that shows the value in skepticism and using science as a candle in the dark to chase away the demons... (Those who know the candle bit will see the cleverness of my rip off of homage to, Carl Sagan.) I never told anyone this story straight after it happened. I only could discuss it years later when I understood what actually happened.

When I was about 12 years old, I woke up early one morning, lying on my back, completely paralysed. I could not move any part of my body at all, but was fully conscious. An extremely low pitched and evil sounding voice, sounding as if it was coming up from the bowels of the Earth was saying: "Come to me.... Come to me... Come to me..." over and over again. Needless to say, I was completely terrified. As the voice spoke, I kept feeling as if I was being pulled down into my bed, like I was being crushed through it even.

It was very repetitive, and I could feel myself drifting back to unconsciousness. I thought that if this occurred, I was a goner. I'd be sucked down into the depths of hell with this evil sounding demon. I tried to call out to my parents, but no sound would come. I panicked more and more, but to no avail.

Eventually I calmed down and thought about it (no mean feat given the evil voice still called me...). I thought I could either give in and lose consciousness, or if I could just move one of my fingers, I'd be able to break the "spell". I concentrated on my fingers (my right hand I think), and I twitched my pinkie. Within a millisecond the paralysis was over; the voice disappearing with it. I'd bested the evil demon.

For the next year or so, with the experience so vivid, I wouldn't say I actually believed in the devil and hell, but it did play on my mind and give me some cause for concern (prior to this, not being a Christian, I hadn't really thought about it). As the memory started to fade, I started to change my view of this experience, and chalked it up as a bad dream, but I still wasn't sure.

Then, in my early 20s I read a book by Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (see my Skeptics' Circle tribute to Carl based on this book). In the chapter on Alien Abductions, he discusses Sleep Paralysis. I'd previously never heard of it, but all of a sudden my experience went from being a seemingly paranormal one, to a standard physiological one, sleep paralysis with hypnopompia.

Initially, without even knowing it, as the memory faded I had applied Occam's razor to dismiss the experience as an intense and horrifying dream. That is, I had two possible hypotheses for my experience (that I could think of anyway). One, the "Lucifer hypothesis", that a devil really was trying to kill me and drag me down to hell. Or two, the "mega bad dream hypothesis", I'd had an intense and horrifying dream.

Given my evidence for both hypotheses was simply my own anecdotal experience, I reasoned the Lucifer hypothesis was the most convoluted. It postulated an entire other world (hell), to this day an undetected other world. The mega bad dream theory postulated an explanation based on an extrapolation of experiences I was already familiar with (bad dreams). The only inexplicable bit, at that stage, was the paralysis. But I had experienced the paralysis on a few occasions on its own prior to this. I just didn't know what to make of it.

I could have stuck with my first explanation, the Lucifer hypothesis (it sounds way more 'wicked'), but I had Spun Another Hypothesis that explained the experience just as well (though still not very well) and was simpler. So I went with the mega bad dream hypothesis.

Sagan's book "saved me" in more ways than one. As I said before, in his chapter on Alien Abductions he discussed sleep paralysis. This explained the only part of the experience that I couldn't readily explain. My mega bad dream hypothesis was not only parsimonious, it now had the well understood science to explain every aspect of it. Game over.

The other way Sagan's book "saved me" was by introducing me to baloney detection including fallacies and techniques I'd unconsciously been using such as Occam's razor and Spinning Another Hypothesis. (To be fair to my Dad, he was fostering these thinking skills in me from an early age, but Carl gets the major kudos as Dad didn't come and rescue me when I was 12! Although it was his copy of The Demon Haunted World I read...)

Being skeptical doesn't mean dismissing ideas out of hand. It means weighing up quality evidence (i.e., ignoring GIGO) to try and form an opinion. Where the evidence lacking, it means applying thinking techniques to form an "on balance" view. It means you are immunised from the purveyors of humbug. That's why skeptics never get possessed, haunted, abducted by aliens, scammed... you get the idea.

Not a week goes by...

until some some study comes along for a news source to confuse correlation with causation. I just wrote about emos and now it's mobile phones that are bad for teenagers:

...teens who made more than 15 phone calls and sent more than 15 text messages a day, slept poorly and had more careless lifestyles compared to those who made less than five of each per day.

Conducted by Sahlgren's Academy in Sweden using 21 teenagers...

Note it is only on 21 subjects. Not exactly a large sample size.

Now, as I said with my emo post, I wouldn't be surprised if it is the excessive use of the phone that is the cause of the lack of sleep. But, it could just as easily be the lack of sleep means they have nothing better to do than text their friends... You need to rule out this hypothesis before you know the direction of the cause. Otherwise you could be making the False Cause; Correlation Error. Perhaps the authors did this, but if so, the article does not make this clear.

What it does go on to say, after the quote above:

...the study found teenagers who made at least 15 calls and messages a day spent more time on computers and drank more caffeinated drinks and alcohol, had more irregular sleeping hours and found it more difficult to wake up and were more tired before midday.

And as you can see, we have uncontrolled variables. If we want to establish the mobile phone use as a causal mechanism for poor sleep, we'd need to rule out the other potential causes, e.g., the caffeine and booze. Perhaps they are addicted to caffeine (a drug) which keeps them up, which leads them to text and myspace, which keeps them mentally stimulated, which leads to more coffee or Red Bull, etc. A vicious circle or sorts, and another hypothesis.

To see the effect of the phone on its own, you'd need to control for these other variables. A simple experiment to set up. Perhaps the "natural" experiment has been done. Is there evidence of an increase in teen sleep deprivation (above and beyond better diagnoses) over the last 10-15 years?

Moreover, the article then goes on to relate this study to an unrelated one:

The second study, conducted by Fred Danner at the University of Kentucky on 882 Year 9 students, found teenagers who slept less than eight hours a night got worse grades and had a higher level of emotional disturbance and risk of ADHD.

The unstated claim is lack of sleep leads to worse grades. If this is the direction then I won't be surprised. But surely you have to get some students who were doing poorly to sleep more and see if their grades improve?

Note that by linking these two studies together, we now have the implication that using mobile phones leads to poor grades

I'll tell you what I would bet on. When questioned at length, I'd bet the authors of these studies would qualify these claims along the exact lines I have. The number one thing they'd say is more research needs to be done. In order to form any real position on claims in a field of current research it's best to take studies like this as interesting, but not conclusive. Wait and see where we are at in another ten years.

A problem with non-science journalists reporting science, is they don't often put qualifiers like this in the story. This can to lead to claims of Exaggerated Conflict from those wanting to dispute scientific claims. Think about climate science, or the reporting of stories on health and nutrition. Ben Goldacre writes about this very point in his Bad Science blog.

An anecdote about dowsers being double-blind to their special pleading

For those who are unfamiliar with dowsing, it is:

…the action of a person--called the dowser--using a rod, stick or other device - to locate such things as underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls, etc.

I already looked at an example of Substitution Richard Dawkins uses in the The Enemies of Reason (part 1). The second thing I want to look at from this documentary is the use of a double blind experiment, and the Special Pleading that follows.

In this clip from The Enemies of Reason part 1 (about 29 minutes into it), we see dowsers explaining why they only picked the correct bottle with water in it 1 time out of 6 (or 2 times at best). There were 6 bottles that had water, out of 36, and they assumed they would identify the correct one better than "chance" (if not 100 percent). When this fails to eventuate, the Special Pleading begins.

Ken Church (one of the Dowsers): How does dowsing work, that’s the number one question. [Surely that’s the number two question, if the answer to the number one question: “Is there any controlled evidence that shows dowsing works”, is “Yes”.] And nobody can answer you. We I reckon… I’m convinced… that something is helping me to dowse. One of the earlier chaps thinks it’s God.
Dawkins (to another dowser - Jim Negus): How do you do it? What’s your principle of dowsing?
Negus: I think the question, and I expect God to respond in a way that I understand… [He goes into some superfluous detail and demonstrates how when he walks forward, the wire bit follows the camera around. This only serves to demonstrate his ignorance of the ideomotor effect and Newton’s first law – inertia.]

Dawkins: Have you done the test yet, in the tent?
Negus: Yes I did.
Dawkins: And what was the result?
Negus: I was going to get six right, 100 percent
Dawkins: Yeah, and what happened?
Negus: One!
Dawkins: So what do you make of that then?
Negus: He’s having his laugh [points skyward], in’t he. He loves a joke. You don’t realise…

Thus we have the Special Pleading.

The next section gets on to explaining how the double blind experiment works. It then shows that all the dowsers tested perform within chance expectation – that is, on average, 1 out of 6 correct (6 bottles filled with water amongst 30 filled with sand, all hidden). The double blind wins again. Chris French, the psychologist running the experiment, goes on to explain that when talking to dowsers, they have many anecdotes of discovering water, or broken pipes, etc. They think it’s a “gift”, however, there are alternative hypotheses worth spinning. For example, could they only pay attention to and remember the times they correctly found water and forget the times they didn’t? I.e., are they counting the hits and forgetting the misses? This is called Observational Selection, or confirmation bias. Unless you write things down, to keep an accurate record, you can’t trust your own memory (I remember reading this somewhere once, or perhaps I heard it on the radio…).

This is the beauty of the double blind experiment; it rules out these biases. If they actually have special water finding powers, beyond random chance and hindsight-confirmation bias, a controlled double blind experiment would conclusively show it.

French goes on to explain that once the subjects are shown they don’t have magical powers, they begin to make excuses – they engage in Special Pleading. This is a common problem of close minded people. Not being prepared to change your mind in spite of evidence means you are guilty of Simple-Minded Certitude. This is a laughable criticism often levelled at skeptics and those accused of “scientism”. Supposedly we don’t believe in alien visitation or homeopathy or dowsing, or whatever, because we are “close minded”. However, it’s the complete opposite. We are perfectly prepared to believe in any of the above, so long as there is credible evidence in favour of it. Chris French is the perfect example of this, as are the scientists who investigated electromagnetic sensitivity. They give these claims “a fair go”.

“Fair go” is not synonymous with “credulous acceptance”, however. Fair go means to listen to the evidence and weigh it up against, or see where it fits in with, scientific orthodoxy. If it doesn’t fit in too well, the evidence would need to be strong. One of the best examples of an open minded person (one prepared to change one’s mind) who gave parapsychology a fair go is Susan Blackmore.

Anyway, back to the dowsing. French goes on to say:

I think that they are completely sincere, and that they’re typically very surprised when we run them through a series of trials and actually say, at the end of the day, “Well your performance is no better than we would expect just on the basis of guess work.” And then what typically happens, they’ll make up all kinds of reasons, some might say excuses, as to why they didn’t pass that particular test.

It then cuts back to Church and another dowser, Karen Fuller

Church: I feel the whole test… is wrong.
Fuller: I’m shocked beyond words that this has happened. But I did say from the outset, couldn’t we just sort out some grey blocks and some scaffold boards, so that I can walk above it, which is what I would routinely do, and I’ve done for forty years. [I wonder if she'd have made the same complaint if she'd correctly identified all six?]

Church: Who knows where, or what bottles, were in what tubs…
Dawkins: That’s the whole point isn’t it? That’s the whole point…
Church: Well, yeah, but, if you understand dowsing like I do, you’ll understand that everything leaves an image.

And there we have it; an extreme example of Special Pleading, “If you understand dowsing like I do…”
I'll leave the last words to Dawkins:

This state of denial is extraordinary. Even when confronted with hard fact these dowsers prefer not to face up to truth but retain their delusion.

Spin another hypothesis

The following is based on Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit from his great book - The Demon Haunted World

When deciding on whether to believe an explanation for something, is it the only possible explanation, is it the most likely? Can you think of any other possible reason for it?

Spin another hypothesis - think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. What tests could be done to disprove all the alternative explanations (until you are left with only one)? The hypothesis that survives is the fittest and is most likely the right one (especially when compared to the first explanation that took your fancy). People tend to make up their minds about things very early on and as such, tend to ignore evidence which doesn't fit (Observational Selection).

• Not a week goes by... (mobile phones)
• An anecdote about dowsers being double-blind to their special pleading
• Fat kids
• The Biggest Douche in the Universe
• Terrorists are not Muslim

The Socratic Method

The Socratic Method is a form of dialectic inquiry that in its strictness sense, isn’t of much use in real life. However, it is worth discussing given its historical importance, and as a precursor for a more loose definition which is of greater use in Humbug Hunting.

Essentially the Socratic method is a running dialogue between two persons (actors), one taking the lead role, in a question and answer format. The purpose is to establish the truth of the matter under consideration by proposition, contradiction of the proposition, repetition of this process and then eventual synthesis (the truth).

In its strict sense, the requirement is for both actors to have an agreed upon topic, to remain on topic, and to proceed by a question (from the lead actor) and response (from the minor actor). The lead actor looks for fallacies and contradictions in the minor’s responses, which are then used to drive the discussion forward until, eventually, the truth of the matter is attained. Note that this strict definition for the Socratic Method is known as the dialectic, made up of the thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.

The non-strict interpretation, which is entirely more useful, is any kind of thorough question and answer dialogue, with all involved agreeing that the questions are answered and that the goalposts remain firmly in place. This requires a strong lead actor who refuses to allow the dialogue to go off topic and will not tolerate non-answers (so perhaps even this interpretation is somewhat unrealistic). The best example of this is actually the epitome of its converse - any interview with any politician, anytime in the past, present and future.

A common misconception among professional philosophers is that the best example of the Socratic Method is found in Plato’s Socratic Dialogues. Obviously this is where the Socratic Method gets its name, but the new and best exemplar is to be found in every single episode of Perry Mason. (Though there is a case for Detective Robert "Bobby" Goren from Law and Order - Criminal Intent; is there anything that guy doesn’t know?) In all cases, the principal actor uses their superior knowledge and skills in rhetoric to get to the truth of a matter (garner a confession from the baddy in the contemporary examples I cite).

Interesting aside regarding the dialectic and truth: The dialectic formed the basis of Marx's view of the development of history and political ideology (with his ideas being based on Hegel's work). The difference between this and the Socratic Method is extreme. One is the (attempted) search for the truth, one is asserted to be historical truth. Both are flawed, but only one profoundly so. As a tool for truth seeking, the Socratic Method is useful in particular domains of knowledge - in ethics and epistemology (for example) but not (usually) science. And even then the Socratic Method will more than likely not yield the truth. It is best viewed as a tool used to clarify ideas, spin other hypotheses, defend a position and remove contradictions and fallacies from that position. Much like Playing the Devil's Advocate, the Socratic Method is guaranteed to keep you "on your toes" and defy dogmatism.

Marx argued that history actually proceeds dialectically, through direct clashes of social systems with a resulting synthesis. This process then repeats, eventually culminating (after the violent overthrow of Capitalism) into a final synthesis - a benevolent Socialist utopia. Though there is a sort of poetic beauty in this idea (minus the violence, though Marx thought that necessary), it is clearly simplistic and untrue - Socialism didn't come after Capitalism, it coexisted with it and "lost". (Not only this, try to fit all of history into thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis, not just a few examples that suit… good luck.)