(Old) Skepticblog

Horse-Laughs, the Rapture, and Ticking Bombs (2011)

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This (lightly edited) article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on May 24, 2011. An archived version is available here.

As most of you will have heard, Christian radio mogul Harold Camping’s predicted “Rapture” came and went on May 21st without so much as a trumpet sounding. This failure of prophecy unfolded to a clamour of Tweets and parties from the nonbelievers’ side of the aisle. There’s something undeniably funny about a confident prediction unfulfilled, and Camping’s prediction couldn’t have been much more confident: “We know without any shadow of a doubt it is going to happen.”

Still, personally, I had a hard time enjoying the circus. It seemed ghoulish to crack wise when so many hopes and dreams — and lives — hung in the balance. Belief, as we skeptics know all too well, cuts across lines. Beliefs unite the clever and the dull, the young and the old, the righteous and the wicked. Camping’s fear-mongering meant good people sold homes, quit jobs, broke up families, or spent the college money on apocalyptic billboards. I worried especially about the kids lying awake that week waiting for the end of the world, just as I worry about the kids suffering artificial, unnecessary terror over 2012. Read more

Russell’s Hedgehogs and Hirst’s Shark (2012)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Feb 7, 2012. An archived version is available here.

Today I’d like to share a piece of good practical advice from philosopher Bertrand Russell—and to share some reflections that touch upon it.

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.

If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet.1

Read more

You Have Been Poked By God (2011)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on June 7, 2011. An archived version is available here.

Cover of Isaac Asimov's autobiography "I, Asimov"Skeptical pioneer Isaac Asimov (a founder of CSICOP, now called CSI) produced such a staggering library of books (over 500!) that his multiple autobiographies were merely punctuation. I have three Asimov autobiographies in the Junior Skeptic library. Sometimes, just for fun, I pull one down at random, flip it open, and read the first two pages my eye happens to fall upon. Each time I do this, I inevitably

  1. read something funny;

  2. learn something interesting;

  3. and, feel a blog post spring ready-made to mind.

This certainly happened when I read Asimov’s tale of his personal experience of psychic premonition or divine intervention — in the form of a literal poke on the shoulder.1 Read more

Rescuing People from Aliens (2012)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Jan 24, 2012 An archived version is available here.

Cover of Susan Clancy's book Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens (2005)

Working on refinements to my upcoming cryptozoology book with Skepticblog’s own Don Prothero (due out later in 2012) gave me a chance yesterday to dip back into Harvard psychologist Susan Clancy’s fascinating 2005 book about her studies of alien abductees, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. I thought I might share a couple of passages from the book here, partly because they dovetail so nicely with my own “Reasonableness of Weird Things” arguments.

Clancy’s area of primary interest is not skeptical investigation of paranormal claims, but false memory. To perform an ”honest broker” service as thorough and reliable guides to the evidence on paranormal topics, skeptical investigators are ethically obliged to seriously consider the (unlikely) possibility of paranormal phenomena. In her own work with abductees, Clancy’s obligations were different. She felt justified in taking it pretty much for granted that her subjects had not been kidnapped by space aliens. Abductees were, for Clancy, a proxy group to allow her to examine questions related to a separate population’s “recovered” memories of childhood sexual abuse. Read more

Carl Sagan’s Crazy Train (2012)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Oct 2, 2012. An archived version is available here. (Questo post è disponibile anche in italiano nella versione online di Query, la rivista ufficiale del CICAP (Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sul Paranormale). Potete leggerlo qui.)

Steven Novella’s post last week on the complex topic of the ethics of speech was inspired by consideration of the ethics of “colloquial use of the term ‘crazy.’” This is an area of interest to me. I have often argued both for professional restraint in the things skeptics say and the manner in which we say them; and, for the importance of ongoing conversation on the ethics and efficacy of skeptical practice. But Novella’s post also had excellent timing, as I was already planning on touching on some of the thorny ethics at the intersection between skepticism and mental illness. Read more

Houdini, Bigfoot, and the Jackson Pollock Effect (2012)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Nov 13, 2012. An archived version is available here.

Recently Skeptical Inquirer writer Benjamin Radford posted a question to the Facebook Group thread for Skeptic magazine’s cryptozoology-themed podcast MonsterTalk on the topic of the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film, purported to show a sasquatch striding across a sandbar in the woods. What are we to make, Radford wondered, of claims that the film cannot be duplicated because it would be too expensive, too difficult technically—or perhaps even impossible to recreate due to the anatomical limits of human actors? I responded to say that all such arguments are in my opinion baloney, but that this does not necessarily imply that attempts to recreate the film to the satisfaction of fair viewers actually ever will succeed. Even if the original was a crude hoax accomplished by cheap, simple means (as I suspect) it may still be the case that it can never be matched. Read more

The Memory of Expertise (2011)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Sep 6, 2011. An archived version is available here.

Llamas! I mean, sheep. I used to know a lot about these critters, back in the 1990s when I took this picture.

I was saddened last weekend to miss Dragon*Con’s Skeptrack in Atlanta—usually a highlight of my year—due to family and professional obligations. I knew months in advance that I wouldn’t be able to go, but there were a number of panels on topics close to my heart (on the scope of skepticism, its history, and its future) in which I would have loved to participate. (Luckily, I was able to watch some of those streaming live, completely for free—something some of you may wish to note for next year.)

But for my family and I, there was a major silver lining: the 144th Saanich Fair! Western Canada’s longest running agricultural fair, the Saanich Fair has been a tradition in my family since—well, since about the 110th Saanich Fair. There’s a special kind of life satisfaction that can only arise when you gaze in wonder upon prize pumpkins and blue ribbon pies. It casts a powerful nostalgic spell. The scents of hay, dust, and manure. The cooing rows of fancy pigeons, each more Darwinian than the last. Teams of draft horses. Supporting the Lions Club through the delicious means of volunteer-sold midway hotdogs. Hearing the screams of teenagers spun, flipped, shaken, and dangled upside down for no good reason. It’s all so familiar and magical—the pleasure of being transported back to childhood (especially now that I have a child of my own to share it with).

But that sense of time travel is an illusion. Which brings me to my topic for today: the fading of expertise. Read more

The Wooliness of Memory (2010)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on April 13, 2010. An archived version is available here.

Jolene leading 1500 sheep. (Photo by Daniel Loxton.)

A very old friend of mine came into town over the Easter weekend. I went to elementary school with Jolene, and much later she was an apprentice shepherd on my crew. After a few seasons she became a Project Manager with a crew and flock of her own. My wife was a shepherd on Joe’s crew, as was our current upstairs neighbor Julie.

We only see Joe once a year or so now, so it’s always a bit of an occasion. We cracked a few beers that evening and it soon became a sheep camp reunion. And, that brought us to a small moment of skeptical reflection. Read more

Farewell to Pyramid Power Promoter Max Toth (2013)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Nov 18, 2013. An archived version is available here.

Junior Skeptic 23 cover illustration by Daniel Loxton

Junior Skeptic 23 cover illustration by Daniel Loxton

In an upbeat moment the other day, I tried proposing on Twitter that we might take a moment to try naming some things we like, respect, or even admire about a person, movement, organization, or subject area over on the paranormal / fringe science advocacy end of things. I offered up a few examples of my own. One of the first to come to mind was a conversation I had with 1970s “pyramid power” promoter and bestselling author Max Toth.

I spoke with Toth while I was working on my Junior Skeptic story on pyramid power back in 2005 (Junior Skeptic 23, bound inside Skeptic Vol. 12, No. 2) and found him an unusually friendly and generous source. Toth was happy to share his experiences and insights into a once flourishing for-profit paranormal business—the kind of information available only from insiders, and only if they are willing to share. Toth was entirely willing to share his recollections openly, despite the fact that he claimed to have “no doubts, none whatsoever” regarding the alleged paranormal powers of the cardboard pyramids he manufactured—and despite the fact that he knew I would critique that belief in my article. Read more

Sharon Hill on the Unsettling Truth About Everything You Think You Remember (2013)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Dec 5, 2013. An archived version is available here.

Doubtful News editor and fellow cryptozoology critic Sharon Hill has a new post up at her Huffington Post: Weird News column on the topic of the fallibility of memory—and on the very serious implications of that fallibility upon eyewitness testimony, whether of Bigfoot, Satantic Ritual Abuse, or regular everyday crime. Most everyone who follows the skeptical literature (or of course the psychological literature) is to some degree aware that memory is fluid, dynamic, creative stuff by its nature. (I’ve written about the fluidity and impermanence of memory myself.) Read more