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.
Last week, DispatchPolitics.com published a cap to the whole Freshwater debacle:
The unfortunate experience should be a cautionary lesson to other school districts dealing with teachers whose personal beliefs get in the way of their responsibility to educate: Don’t look the other way for years, even if the teacher is well-liked and personable. The mistake was not in firing Freshwater but in waiting so long to do it.
I mention this not only because it’s a good piece skeptics would be interesting in reading, but also because this was the incident that led me to find more local skeptics, and, eventually, organize and mobilize them. Hopefully, this situation won’t arise again in central Ohio anytime soon – but if it does, it’s nice to know we have an established group here with a voice to help fight it.
Thanks to David at the Ohio University Skeptic Society for sending me the link.
In a time of economic uncertainty, it’s nice to see businesses are spending their money on something useful…
(click above for video)
“What I do is I give hopefully most of the time accurate information. Sometimes in the future.”
That’s what Laura Day said on Nightline the other night. Confident as ever. This psychic, or ‘intuitive’ as she calls herself, is giving these fortune 500 companies advice on how the should invest, amongst other important things – like the weather. But it doesn’t stop there, she also teaches people and companies classes on how you too can be an ‘intuitive’.
Laura has been known for her “prediction” of the stock market crash. When asked by the reporter, ‘why not just go running down the streets screaming the market’s going to crash?’
“Um – lots of reasons. I wouldn’t be able to make a living.”
Or… because you’re a fraud.
It’s really hard not to get mad at these people. Now, not that I think using a psychic is justified in any way, shape or form, but this case especially bugs me because it’s not just an individual – it’s large companies. And if her claim is true, multi-million dollar companies.
I can’t help but wonder how many people on Wall Street are seeing these people every week or calling into someone like Miss Cleo so they can get their investment advice.
Thoughts?
December 8, 2008 by Erica
We’ve started planning for our first SkeptiCamp Ohio! Here’s a list of relevant links and groups to help keep you informed and up-to-date on the event:
I’ll also be annoucing in-person planning meetups at our Meetup.com group, so if you haven’t joined up over there yet, go ahead.
For some general information on what SkeptiCamp’s all about, check out the main SkeptiCamp wiki page, and don’t hesitate to contact me at jmyers@ohioskeptic.com with any questions!
November 11, 2008 by Erica
Come meet up with us at 6 PM, Q Bar (map). You can also RSVP on Facebook.
Here’s what October looks like for us so far:
Friday, October 10:
A few of us met up with the Omnipresent Atheists group to see Religulous last Friday, and it was a pretty good time, so we’re going to go again next Friday, October 10 at the AMC Lennox theater. I think there were already a couple of votes for the 9:35 PM time, but if you want to go and have a conflict with that, let me know and we’ll see if we can adjust accordingly. For the time being, we’re planning for 9:35.
Saturday, October 11:
We’re heading to COSI! We’ll meet up at 10 AM in the founders atrium, a big open space right behind the pendulum exhibit. (Map: http://www.cosi.org/visitors/map/) We don’t have to all stick together the entire time (some of us will have our kids, and will probably be running all over the place), but I thought we could get together at the beginning, and make plans for meeting up later for lunch. It’s also Columbus Days, so go to http://www.experiencecolumbusdays.com/ to print off a coupon for 50% adult COSI admission.
Saturday, October 18:
Drinking Skeptically, 6 PM, Q Bar (map). You can also RSVP on Facebook.
Thursday, October 30:
Neil deGrasse Tyson will be giving a lecture at Ohio State University, as part of their First Year Experience series. We have a limited number of tickets set aside for our group (contact me for details), and beyond that you can pick up tickets when they’re available to the general public at 120 Enarson Hall, 154 W 12th Ave. on OSU campus starting October 23 at 8:00 a.m. The lecture itself is at 7 PM, at Weigel Hall Auditorium. We’ll work out details of distributing tickets and meeting up closer to the event.
September 19, 2008 by Erica
Our very first Drinking Skeptically Columbus is tonight, Friday 19, at Q Bar and Nightclub 6-7ish PM. Come on by and party with other central Ohio skeptics!
Google Map
September 10, 2008 by Jen
Okay, here we are with a brand-new blog. Look for more pages, links, and bloggers coming soon.
