There are lots of reasons that people don’t question claims, and most of them fall into the bucket of one logical fallacy or another. There’s the Argument from Personal Incredulity: I just can’t believe that xxx could be right, so it must be this other thing that I understand better. There’s the Argument from Ignorance: We don’t know everything about xxx, so yyy is probably true. Then there’s one of my favorites: the Argument from Authority: Well, So-and-So said so, and she ought to know, she’s an expert! Read more
Visit our new website for SkeptiCamp Ohio and register for free to attend the event, which takes place on May 2, 2009. You can also see the evolving list of planned sessions.
Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Greg Fish, a journalist who currently writes for BusinessWeek.com and who has his own blog on skeptic topics, World of Weird Things. Since he also happens to be based in Columbus, he contacted me and asked if we could chat about modern skepticism. You can read the interview here.
Here’s a question – are you a skeptic in the workplace?
Let me give a little background. I am a librarian, and with that comes the responsibility of removing my personal beliefs/opinions from what I do. When I answer questions for customers, I have to be sure to give them appropriate information without interpreting it for them. If I remove books from our collection, I have to make those decisions based on circulation data, date of publication, and how much additional information is available in the subject area – and NOT on whether or not the author is a crackpot. And when I talk to customers face-to-face, I have to be careful not to show my feelings toward either side of an issue. I think that I do this well, but it can become difficult in certain situations.
For example: A customer calls in and asks about Kinoki Foot Pads. The skeptic in me wants to tell this customer all about how ridiculous it is to even consider for a second that these pads do anything for your health. However, I have to be careful to consider what is being asked. If they just want to know how to buy them, I will give them all the information they need to purchase this product. Sure, I might not agree with the purchase, but I can’t make that decision for them. But if the question is about how they work… well then, that’s different. Unfortunately, even when I’ve had the opportunity to tell someone about a hoax or a product that has been shown not to work, they often ignore the facts I give them and continue to believe whatever they want to believe.
How do you handle skeptic issues in the workplace? Do you have the freedom to express your opinions to coworkers or customers? And if you are in a position similar to mine, have you ever had a time that you’ve really struggled to maintain your neutrality?
As a Christmas present to my nephew Collin, I took him to a COSI family workshop. He wasn’t too excited about it until he found out the workshop included a tadpole to take home. Don’t worry–I checked with his mom first. My idea was to trick my nephew into learning some science. His idea was to put up with the science to get some tadpoles. Win-win, I say.
COSI has a new exhibit called Frogs: a Chorus of Colors, which explores the diversity of frogs This workshop was meant to explore in a little more depth the life cycle of frogs. I entered into it thinking it would be a talk about frogs, and then after you sit through the talk you get the tadpoles. I was so wrong.
The workshop was held in a large room with containers of water on the floor throughout the room. As we picked a container and sat down, Collin noticed that in the water were tiny little tadpoles swimming around. These were the tadpoles we were going to take home. The whole workshop focused around these little tadpoles. The moment Collin saw the tadpoles swimming around he was hooked.
We began by picking out our tadpoles and putting them in their new home. We could pick as many as we wanted, but I stopped Collin at two (I didn’t want to push my luck with his mom). We learned how to clean their water and how to feed them, what they needed to survive and why. They gave us a poster with the life cycle of the frog pictured, and we did a craft project illustrating the transformation from tadpole to frog. After we had our tadpoles in their new home and named them Michael and Jackson–not my choice; my choice was Aunt and Kim–there was a table set up to see frog eggs and to see the actual different stages from egg to frog.
When they wrapped up the workshop we went downstairs to see the new frog exhibit, which is really cool. If you see it, make sure to check out the poisonous frogs. They are so cute! All workshops also include admission into COSI and to the Extreme Screens. Before we arrived I had asked Collin if he would want to stay and look around afterward, and maybe see a movie, but he informed me he was too old for COSI. After the workshop, as we were leaving, he decided we might as well look around since we are here. In kid talk that means “I am actually having fun, although I won‘t admit it.”
In the end the workshop did just what I was hoping it would do: it made Collin excited about learning and discovering something new. We had fun looking around COSI, and it was great spending some quality time together. He left excited to watch the tadpoles turn into frogs. If you have a chance to take your son or daughter, niece, nephew, or grandchild to a family workshop, I say go for it! It is definitely worth the money, and they did a great job of making learning and discovering fun. They offer workshops for almost any age group, and different subjects, so find one that is interesting and try it!
~Kim
I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Michael and Jackson, whose lives were cut short after being with us for just one day. They will be missed. You will be happy to know COSI replaced the tadpoles and now Aunt and Kim are doing just fine.
Well everyone, the day is near! Michael Shermer will be coming to Ohio State this Thursday. Arrive early! The room isn’t that big!
Here’s everything copy-pasted from http://www.sffosu.org/meetings/
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Michael Shermer – Why People Believe Strange Things
Thurs February 19th – 7:00pm
200 Campbell Hall
Ever wonder why people believe in UFOs and alien abductions, mind-reading and psychics who talk to the dead, reincarnation and life after death, out-of-body and near-death experiences, urban legends and satanic panics, not to mention Intelligent Design creationism and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against junk science, bad science, voodoo science, pathological science, pseudoscience, and plain old nonsense. Based on his bestselling book, Why People Believe Weird Things, Dr. Shermer’s lecture is filled with humor, insight, magic, illusions, and personal anecdotes—a highly entertaining wake-up call that has become a wildly popular presentation at hundreds of college campuses. Students and professors alike rave about Dr. Shermer’s show, calling it one of the best presentations ever.
Books will be provided for sale by Barnes & Noble with a signing to follow.
Sponsored by:
Students for Freethought, The Psychology Department, Your Student Activity Fee
Friday morning on Jan 30 got me up a little more excited than usual. (Aren’t you always excited to go to work?) I was going to my daughter, E’s, school that day to participate in the COSI on Wheels event. I am, of course, a total science nerd, and love to play with stuff, so the thought of having some fun with the hands-on exhibits seemed like a perfect day.
I was not to be disappointed. The COSI rep there was bright and cheerful. She clearly loved her job. The rest of the volunteers were a little sluggish at 7:15 in the morning, but with a workday that usually starts at 6:00 AM, after an hour’s drive, I was Mr. Perky. That and the exhibits were already set up and ready to go, looking super-cool. That day’s theme was “Space”, which was a big hit with everyone, both volunteers and participants alike. We did 6 sessions that day with different grade levels, so everyone got a chance to play with something. Here’s a brief rundown of the hands-on exhibits.
- Glove Boxes. In space, in order to do some experiments, the astronauts must use boxes containing the materials or tools with which the experiments are done. The boxes have a pair of gloves embedded in them, that are open to the outside, so that the astronauts can place their hands in the gloves and work inside the boxes. This has the additional advantage of being able to create a vacuum in the boxes, or fill them with a different gas. There were two of these available for the kids to play with, containing legos, and a Mr. Potato Head. I attempted to assemble Senor Potato, with minimal success.
- Space Food. At this table, a sample of dried and powdered foods were available for the kids to examine. Water equaling weight, most of the food sent into space is powdered or dried, and must be re-hydrated in orbit. Here, the kids were given the task of re-hydrating some potato flakes. Once done, they had to invert their containers over a bowl. If the powder, or any excess water fell out, then that would be what would be floating around the cabin in orbit. I chose not to attempt this one, knowing my record in the kitchen.
- Spectroscopy. Here were four gas tubes, set up like neon lights, along with several diffraction lenses. The diffraction lenses were like the old Kodak slides, but clear, and when held to the eye and looking at light source, would show a small rainbow of colors to either side of the light. Each tube was filled with a different gas, and the last tube was the ‘Mystery Star’. The idea is, by looking at the light spectrum given off by the different gases, it is possible to tell what elements a faraway star is composed of. Though I must admit, since only one of the test gases was bright red, and the ‘Mystery Star’ was also bright red, it made things pretty easy.
- Rocks & Minerals. I honestly didn’t get a chance to play with this one, but there were several mineral samples there, and four very sturdy looking microscopes. I would have like to get to check those out, but time was short before the kids showed up. I will have to keep an eye open for this one next time I do this.
- Micro-gravity. At this table, there was a video player, and a set of tubes where the kids could attempt to mix oil and water. I say attempt, because in standard gravity, where water is more dense than oil, that is not possible. But the video showed how, in micro-gravity, oil and water do indeed mix.
- Vacuum. Here we had a bell jar with a vacuum pump attached. The idea was to illustrate what happens in the vacuum of space. The kids got to decorate marshmallows with little faces. The marshmallow heads were stuck onto a space man action figure body, and the setup was placed in the bell jar. It was fun watching Mr. Space Man’s head swell to about twice it’s size. It was even more fun to watch it practically implode once air pressure was restored.
- Made For Space? This was a type of quiz show that had several different objects on a table, and kids were to decide if the different things were made for use on earth or in space. A good example: Pudding Cup? Earth. Powdered Pudding? Space. Here’s a quick quiz for you: Tell me if these were made for use on earth or in space. a) Velcro. b) Cordless Screwdriver. c) Tortillas. d) Dust Buster.
- Mass vs. Weight. Here, a set of scales were placed on the floor, each one representing your weight on a different planet. The moon, Venus, Uranus, and Jupiter were represented. I weighed in at about 440 on Jupiter, myself.
- Air-pressure propulsion. This is where I spent the day. First, I’ll cover the experiment and then I can talk about the experience. The kids were given graduated cylinders, water bottles, and plastic test tubes with rubber stoppers. The kids would each measure out a quantity of water, and place that in the test tubes. Each kid would then get a small helping of Alka-Seltzer. That would be dropped into the test tube, and then the stoppers would be put on very quickly. As the gas pressure built up in the test tubes, the tops would pop off. We also had some inclined racks to put the tubes in, and a measuring tape on the floor so we could get a gage on how far the corks went.
I worked the air-pressure propulsion table. It was, in my limited estimation, the most popular table there. We had a good line of students there the entire time, for all 6 sessions that day. I was running the experiments with the kids, and there was another person there to handle crowd control. Seriously. Students would basically do the experiment, then try to get back in line two and three times. I needed the help.
I can’t describe how much fun I had that day. It was like playing the caller at a carnival tent, except everyone wanted to be there. A few of the students needed more help than others, but the excitement was contagious. Everyone had fun, regardless of age, knowledge or experience. It was a joy to see the curiosity and playfulness in the kids as they ran to and from each experiment. Some of the kids gently tapped the cork into the top, producing a mild pop. One of the kids got a rather large piece of Alka-Seltzer, and shoved his cork about a third of the way down the length of the test tube. That one flew almost the length of the measuring tape and bounced against the far wall. The reaction from the students was awesome.
At one point, one of the parent volunteers brought their child over to our table, specifically because the child didn’t get the chance to do the experiment during the main session. I took her through it, explaining a bit about air pressure, and how the gas built up inside the tube, forcing the cork out of the top. That, I said, is basically how rockets work, and how the Space Shuttle gets into orbit. I think she understood at least a fraction of what I said, but it was her mother’s reaction that caught me off guard. She took the time to thank me for the explanation, stating that it was good to learn new things, and she was glad she had the opportunity to learn something.
This, I think is what puts me where I am in the realm of skepticism at the moment. It’s the joy of being able to help people expand their knowledge. Showing people how the reality of the universe is far cooler than anything we can imagine we can imagine. (No, that’s not a typo. Read it again.) 
So with that good feeling in my pocket for the rest of the day, I helped to clean up, load the truck, and take my leave for the day. I left feeling that I did something positive for the kids’ curiosity, and maybe, just maybe, helped to get someone more interested in science than they were before. That’s worth a day off of work, any day.
Thanks.
-D.
I’m sitting in the car with the kids, waiting for my wife to retrieve something from the local craft store, when this breaks loose:
E: “Daddy?”
Me: “Yes?”
E: “What’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”
Me: “It’s a little mass of spaghetti with two meatballs and two eyes.” Technically correct, I suppose…
E: “No, I mean what’s it all about?”
Uh oh…
Me: “Well, sweetie, what if I asked you what 2 + 2 was?”
E: “2 + 2 is 4.”
Me: “Ok, but let’s say I believe that 2 + 2 is 5. What would you say to that?”
E: “That’s silly. It’s 4.”
Me: “No, I believe it’s 5.”
E: “Daddy, look…”, she proceeds to count on her fingers, showing me the digits. “Four, see?”
Me: “Yes, that’s a nice demonstration, but I still believe it’s 5.”
After a few rounds of this, she seemed to get the point that no matter how much she showed me her four fingers sticking up, I was going to adamantly insist that 2 + 2 was 5, just because I believed it was so.
E: “I don’t get what this has to do with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” she finally said.
Me: “We’re getting to that, now. Remember the other day when you asked me how people got here?”
E: “Uh huh.”
Me: “Remember how I said that life started with small, simple animals, and bigger, more complicated animals grew up from them?”
E: “Right.”
Me: “Well, there are some people that don’t believe that. There are some people who believe that people and animals and plants just appeared like magic, because God decided he wanted to do that.”
E: “Ok…”
Me: “So we can either look at the proof, and decide what’s true, or we can just believe what we want. Get it?”
E: “Oh, like 2 + 2.”
Me: “Right.”
E: “I still don’t get it.”
Me: “Well, after a while of trying to explain something to someone, is it easier to explain why you’re right, or show them why they’re wrong?”
E: “I don’t know.”
Me: “Well, if one doesn’t work, then you can try the other, right?”
E: “Ok.”
Me: “So one way to show people how they’re wrong is to give them a different way to look at things.”
E: “Ok.”
Me: “So one way to show people who just believe something that there might be another answer, is to show them a different belief, even if that belief is made up.”
E: “Oh, so the Flying Spaghetti Monster is made up?”
Me: “Right, and it’s an example to show people that you can make up any kind of belief, without proof. That doesn’t make it right. Just believing in something doesn’t make it real.”
She fell silent for a while, and then.
E: “I can’t wait for Santa to come. I really hope I get my Fancy Nancy book.”
Me: “We’ll see, sweetie. We’ll see.”
Some lessons are best learned by example.
Recently I started evaluating a “healthy living” type of web site, for my own personal use. I was skeptical, of course, of the usefulness of the site at the beginning. It had all the flashy banner ads, weight loss pictures, and testimonials of many other sites I had seen in the past. Most of those had turned out to be useless to me, and I found my initial impression of the latest site to be dubious. However, I did find a useful meal planning and grocery list tool, and given the exercise equipment I owned, the site was able to come up with a reasonable 30 minute routine for me for each day of the week.
Like other sites, you could put in your starting and goal weight, and how soon you wanted to get from the former to the latter. I tried my usual trick of entering some false data. I stated I weighed well over 400 lbs and wanted to get to a slim 125 by next weekend. Many sites I’ve done this on before would return the calculation with, “Of course we can help you lose 100 lbs per week!” Right. In this case, I was greeted with a popup that stated what I wanted was not possible, and I should lose no more than 2 lbs per week. Now I was impressed, so I signed up for a free account and began using the various tools the site offered.
As I was browsing around the new site I started reading several articles on the main site and looking through the message boards. Ah, there’s the woo. I found everything from wacky diets to extreme exercize routines and much in between. While I was looking through an article on the effectiveness of 100-calorie snack packs or something like that, my wife looked over my shoulder and asked if what I found there was any good. “Well…”, I said, “…the site has some useful tools, and it seems to be reasonable when it comes to goal setting, but there are some really goofy things on here in the forums and in some of the articles. I suppose you can take what you want, and just leave the rest.”
“Take what you want and leave the rest.” It’s a common phrase uttered by psychics, astrologers, diviners, mediums and those of similar practice. It’s meant to imply that some things offered as part of a reading or study may be considered useful to you, so you should concentrate on those. Anything that doesn’t make sense can be safely ignored. For example, a psychic states that you will be lucky in love, and your pet rabbit will be, as well. You don’t have a pet rabbit? Well, maybe you did have a pet rabbit in the past or maybe will have one in the future, so you can leave that for now. Well, if you’re happy about the idea of being lucky in love, then you may very well be tempted to just leave Bunnykins aside and take the luck with you when you leave the psychic. Who knows who you might bump into on the way home? Though you will hopefully not run over any rabbits.
So when can we take what we want and leave the rest? Maybe when there is something worth taking, at a price worth paying. In many cases, such as with psychics, or mediums, you can take away good feelings, but the cost of belief is way too high for me, personally. Not to mention that there is often a monetary and an emotional cost invested in such things. I’m not about to suspend my rationality or open my wallet just to talk to dear, departed Uncle Joe for a brief moment. Especially when all Uncle Joe seems to remember is his first initial. Likewise I am not going to buy into a diet and exercise program that can promise me quick results if I have to drink some odd fruit juice every 4 hours and pay through the nose for a case of it every week. Pseudo-Scientists and Paranormal Claimants: You have nothing I want. At least, not badly enough to pay that kind of price.
However, I’m willing to put up with a little woo on the forums if a site has decent tools I can use to plan out my own fitness routines. Likewise, I’m not averse to a nice massage at a fair price, even if the person giving it to me wants to light a few aromatherapy candles. And things such as meal planning tools and massages are useful to me, independent of their sources, if they work in a way that jives with good science and sound thinking. There, I can get what I want without having to sacrifice my critical thinking skills, and leave the rest for the mods to deal with.
Though I will admit that the temptation to jump in on the forums and bring a little skeptical smackdown on the diet fads is pretty high.
Thanks for reading.
-D.
For those of you who don’t know or haven’t met me yet, I’m a database consultant by trade, and that brings me into contact with many people, with all different types of cultural backgrounds. I was sharing an office at the time with “J” a gentleman from Thailand, and another gentleman, “E” from Indonesia. It was around the holiday season and the company had purchased several dozen Poinsettia plants and sprinked them liberally around the building. It would also have been nice if they had chosen to water them, but I digress…
One of my office-mates, J, decided to take matters into his own hands, and brought four or five of the plants into our own little office space. I find Poinsettias to be attractive and welcomed the change, as did E. No-one else said anything about the foliage relocation project, so for a week or so, J happily watered and tended to the plants as needed, between development tasks. Later that month, an email went out stating that anyone who wanted to could take the plants home to enjoy. J took two. Neither I nor E took any.
A couple of days later, “M”, another co-worker of ours came in and asked if he could have one of the plants. I deferred to J, who seemed to be in charge of the operation, and he said it was fine, with one caveat… “Do you have a cat at home? Or kids?”, J asked. “Yeah, I have two sons, and a dog.”, M replied. “Oh, you might not want to take these, then.”, said J. “They’re poison.” “No, they’re not.”, I interjected without glancing up from my monitor. The roar of silence which followed allowed me to better feel the three pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head.
I let them stare for a second and turned around. “It’s already been demonstrated in lab tests, and by stats from the Poison Control Centers that Poinsettia plants are not toxic.”, I said. “Unless you’ve already got some kind of allergy to plants to begin with, Poinsettias are safe.”
“Oh, no…”, said E. “I had a cat once that died from eating a Poinsettia. I took it to the vet, and he said that that is what killed it.”
“Yeah, come on, Dave. Everyone knows these things are poison.”, said M.
“Really…”, I said, and turned back around to my monitor. A couple of quick searches later, I found the Snopes page on the topic and a specific research article on TOXNET that stated categorically that Poinsettias were NOT toxic. Reading them aloud, I was met with a stray “Hm.” or “Well…”, and mostly silence. M took his plant and walked away. J, E and I went back to our code.
Towards the end of the day, another co-worker inquired about taking one of the plants. J said, “Sure, go ahead. But make sure you keep them away from your kids or pets. They’re poison, you know.”
Poinsettias are not poisonous. But a CRT monitor will leave a nice red mark on your forehead if you hit it hard enough. I have proof. But what I didn’t have was anything near good enough to counter what was surely a few decade’s worth of belief. Perry DeAngelis once defined a belief that persists despite overwheming evidence as a delusion. While I’d be hard pressed to describe either of my office mates as delusional, I did wonder what kind of evidence it would take to convince them that the plants were not poisonous.
I’ve also read in several places that while not poisonous, the plant is extremely bitter. I think the next time I hear someone mention that a Poinsettia is poisonous, I’ll down a couple leaves to prove them wrong. Any suggestions for a chaser would be appreciated.
Thanks.
-D.
