A shocking lesson in human nature

2009 March 22
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By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1313

Hi everyone, this is Andy Kaiser. I’d like to share an interesting experience. I have a unique perspective on the Digital Bits Skeptic website, because I’m the administrator. I edit and post all articles. Some of those I write myself, and my articles interest me, no matter how odd they may seem to others. I also get to see all comments submitted by visitors. This gives me a very good feel for the readership.

For the most part, Digital Bits Skeptic has… well, skeptical-minded readers. These are women and men with excellent critical thinking skills, people who enjoy weird and interesting puzzles, people who want to attack logical anomalies and find out why and how.

Several months ago, I wrote and posted an article about “human static electricity generators”. I wrote it for laughs, and poked fun at a pseudoscientific claim that didn’t even take itself seriously. This was the case of Mavis Price, and an interview she gave to the UK newspaper the Daily Mail. Ms. Price is a woman whose body supposedly generates a massive amount of static electricity. Like a high-voltage ninja, this power gives her a “death-touch” to any electrical appliance. Computers and vacuum cleaners and television sets have all fallen victim to this static buildup.

So I wrote a critical article about this, poking fun at the situation and offering many suggestions as to why Ms. Price may be misinterpreting her symptoms.

And the strangest thing happened: the article received a few comments, as the articles usually do, but these comments were different. They were from people chiming in to support Ms. Price. Starting with comment number three, many of these people claimed they could generate their own static electricity, and, like Ms. Price, expressed their frustration at how this power is irritating and interferes with their daily life.

Here are a few comments:

Kathleen said, “A friend of mine is a psychologist and he used his galvanic skin resistance test machine on me and had never seen anything like what I made that machine do.”

Mac said, “But these days it’s worse – metal shocks me, other people, plastic yes plastic..cloth…wood…i am freakin afraid to touch anything…i mean these are mean crackling visible shocks mini blue bolts or electricity…don’t get me wrong if i could control it would be cool but i can’t…”

Brook said, “I am 37, and have purchased 26 VCR/DVD players in the last 48 months, I have shocked people on the other end of a phone line, and in the dark if I get close to a light switch you can visibly see the arc from my finger tip to the light switch before I touch it. I dim streetlights when I walk below them, and haven’t been able to wear a watch since I was 13. It is real, it is financially cumbersome, and it freaks people out. Yes, I am using a computer to type this message, I’ve learned first to ground myself before touching any electrical equipment, and second it doesn’t happen all of the time, it seems more common when I am angry, or deep in thought etc. I just wanted to respond because there are many people that are different in the world, this is just another (dis)ability.”

Other skeptics and I replied. We gave recommendations for properly testing this power, how to rule out natural causes, and indicated what a supernatural cause would imply. I contacted James Randi, and asked him if he’d encountered this phenomenon. Of course he had. His response was, “Yes, I’ve seen a few of them. Simply changing their footwear always ‘cures’ the problem.”

A simple proposal. But as the conversation extended into several dozen comments, I realized something: Those complaining about this ability didn’t seem to care enough to troubleshoot it.

And that’s the real problem. If you think you have a static super-power, I’m begging you: please see a doctor. If the doctor does a test and says, “My god, I’ve never seen anything like this before!” …don’t just end it there! Go to an electrician. If the electrician says, “Huh, you know… I just…. Huh.” …Well, then you’d better drop ten pounds and get a haircut, because life is about to get very interesting. You know – breaking the laws of physics tends to put you in a scientific spotlight, whether you want it to or not.

What was originally a fun article to write turned out to be a frustrating lesson in human psychology. That is, people love to assume, complain and rationalize. The alternative is to use some brain power for analytics and questions. And for many, that effort just isn’t worth it.


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from → Biology, Pseudoscience, Psychology

12 Comments
2009 March 23
shelly permalink

anything maybe true. who knows. nothing is impossible as ads says.

2009 March 23
DB Skeptic permalink

Shelly,

I disagree with those ads. In the real world we can say, “the chances of X being true are such low probability – with explanations Y and Z being much more probable – that for all intensive purposes X is impossible.”

Andy

2009 March 23
Jen Henson permalink

People want to feel special. That’s all the human psychology it takes to figure that out.

We are all different. However, we all still live under the laws of physics. Nice article.

2009 March 23
Jen Henson permalink

I agree with both of you. Anything is possible, but not everything is probable.

2009 March 23
Joel wheeler permalink

@DB: I’m pretty sure you meant “for all intents and purposes.”

2009 March 23
DB Skeptic permalink

Joel,

You are correct. Thanks for catching that.

Andy

2009 March 24
TechSkeptic permalink

You must have a different experience with electricians than I have. They know which connector to buy for 20 amp service. But Ohm’s law? Understanding how static discharge works? I don’t think so.

A better test might be that if they don’t discharge something after having a pompous physicist berate them for their stupid idea, then I think we can safely say that the power doesn’t work? No?

I think you are dead on that they haven’t bothered to be critical of their own biases and cherry picking.

If I did that I would say I can cause rain when I step outside.

2009 March 26
cat permalink

be entertained

2009 March 27
TheThomas permalink

I had a door at my workplace that I opened with my elbow because the pain of the shock wasn’t noticeable on my elbow. I thought the too-reliable shocks were because the air was dry and I constantly moved, but now I know it’s my own innate statoelectric [sic] aura. Thx for the info.

Streetlights go off around me too, and no it’s not confirmation bias… (<–sarcasm)

On a serious note, people do have different levels of skin conductivity; psychopaths are notorious for low skin conductivity.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2242355

Particular people could conduct unusually high levels of electricity.

2009 December 7
Hoomom permalink

I only seem to have trouble when it is really dry and cold, which rarely happens here in Portland.  It is dry here now, that’s why I finally googled a search to see if anybody else suffers from this.  It’s not nearly as serious as other people who have commented.  But when I stick a key in my car door, a visible blue spark flashes.  If I touch the refrigerator, I get a painful static shock.  My children run away from me during this time, because I always shock them.  My husband won’t kiss me.  I wear regular New Balance shoes, just like my kids do, and I do not shuffle my feet.  My husband shuffles his feet in wool shocks and HE does not shock everybody!  It is certainly not so serious I would see a doctor, or an electrician ( our house is new, exactly like all the others here, and nobody else has this problem).  I’m simply adding my two bits here.
I do not see how it could be so far fetched that some people, for whatever perfectly rational scientific reason which does not include how they dress or whether or not they are angry, simply shock and get shocked more than others.  I think you need to be open to the possibility that you can put a thousand people in the same dry environment, wearing the same clothes and whatever, and while all may occasionally give a zap, one just might be a super-shock person.

2009 December 7
TechSkeptic permalink

Actually that would be a perfectly good test….for the people who claim to have higher than normal static discharge. If you did that, do you think there would be any detectable difference between one person and the next, or do you think we are talking about a simple matter of perception?

2009 December 8
Hoomom permalink

When people run for cover when you enter a room, you begin to think it might not just be in your head.

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