http://www.dbskeptic.com Skepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community. Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:30:05 +0000 en-us hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Digital Bits Skeptic brings skepticism and critical thinking to a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture. Andy Kaiser clean Andy Kaiser skeptic@dbskeptic.com skeptic@dbskeptic.com (Andy Kaiser) 2009 Skepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture skeptic, skepticism, critical thinking, new age, religion, pop culture, skeptical articles, critical thinking articles, philosophy http://www.dbskeptic.com/images/dbskeptic-logo-144.jpg http://www.dbskeptic.com/category/new-age/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/04/17/how-to-have-an-out-of-body-experience/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/04/17/how-to-have-an-out-of-body-experience/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:36:03 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1996 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/04/17/how-to-have-an-out-of-body-experience/feed/ 8 Kevin Bridges by Kevin Bridges Article ID: 1410 - What do you think of when you hear the words "out of body experience"? Perhaps you imagine an ill-fated victim of a car accident, a spirit floating inside an ambulance looking down at EMTs as they try frantically t... by Kevin Bridges Article ID: 1410 What do you think of when you hear the words "out of body experience"? Perhaps you imagine an ill-fated victim of a car accident, a spirit floating inside an ambulance looking down at EMTs as they try frantically to revive his broken, unconscious body. Explore the wilds of the Internet and you’ll get plenty of variations on the “out of body” theme. Plenty of people claim to have out-of-body experiences, saying "I've had one of those!” Or “I've had a dozen!” Or “I had one last night!" Did they all have traffic accidents? Do that many people fall off the roof trying to take down their Christmas lights? How accident-prone can a person be? No. Further study shows that many out-of-body experiences happened in the security of a person's own bed. It’s usually very late at night or in the wee hours of morning. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to debunk this one, does it? It's called having a dream!  Elementary, my dear Watson. However, a closer look at the experiences paints a different picture. The general scenario involves a body shaking and vibrating and then a sensation of floating up out of the body and being able to view one's own bedroom from a ceiling’s perspective. Personally, I've had more dreams about being naked at my old high school than I've had about floating around in my bedroom.  But every one of these people will tell you that the experience isn’t like a usual dream – there is no strange dreamlike logic and plotlines, and it doesn’t physically feel like a dream – it feels real. Then maybe it isn't a dream.  But if it’s not an actual out-of-body experience, what else could it be? For some of us, it's too improbable – too much of a stretch of logic - to think that these people not only have souls but that these souls sometimes go out to play.  But a closer look at the techniques to induce an out-of-body experience shows us just how this could happen without a supernatural element. Out of body techniques include instructions like this: 1) Lie down in a comfortable bed or kick back in a recliner. 2) Completely relax your whole body. 3) Enhance the relaxation with visualization techniques. For example, imagine yourself walking down some stairs, and with every step you descend, have your heart rate slow and your breathing grow deeper and slower. 4) Eventually you will fall into a self-induced trance. 5) During this process, say affirmations. Repeat to yourself: "The out-of-body experience is completely natural.  I will use this technique every night when I sleep. I am more than my physical body." 6) Using these techniques, your soul will rise away from your body, and your consciousness will follow. Anyone who’s heard the word “hypnosis” is right now cocking a skeptical eyebrow. Many excited people out there are learning self-hypnosis without realizing it. In the books and websites with instructions for getting out of your own skin, many teach the same techniques that others use to quit smoking or lose weight. The process to coax your soul from your body is the same one you can use to stop eating three desserts after dinner. With this in mind, let's again look at the out-of-body experience. Read a thick book about people’s souls flying around like thrown confetti. Spend an hour on a forum devoted to the topic. Then go lie in bed and repeat to yourself that you are going to have an out-of-body experience. What would you expect to happen?  I’d be surprised if someone doing this didn't have a supposed out-of-body experience. If the out-of-body experience isn't a dream, should we assume it’s reality? Not yet. There are other explanations available, possibilities that don’t presume the supernatural. We’d need to first rule those out before a supernatural explanation would make sense. Although now that I think about it, just because the out-of-body experience isn’t real doesn't mean I don’t want to try it. Andy Kaiser clean 8:13 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/12/in-defense-of-oprah-winfrey/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/12/in-defense-of-oprah-winfrey/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:57:00 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1364 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/12/in-defense-of-oprah-winfrey/feed/ 5 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1330 - Oprah Winfrey was nothing more to me than an unseen TV show. I knew she was there, but never wanted to watch. Why would I? Her show was usually about clothes and cooking and redecorating and various "women's issues" ... By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1330 Oprah Winfrey was nothing more to me than an unseen TV show. I knew she was there, but never wanted to watch. Why would I? Her show was usually about clothes and cooking and redecorating and various "women's issues" that I just didn't care about. I didn't have time for all that. I was a MAN. I had to get things DONE. No time for what I saw as fluff. I had important video games to play. Then years later, like some people do, I married a girl. My wife changed my viewpoint on many things, including how I felt about Oprah Winfrey. When I first realized my wife watched Oprah, I gave a long-suffering mental sigh. But, I figured I'd treat her Oprah-watching with the same respect she treated my video game playing: it would be tolerated, but never spoken about. But as I overheard a few things and learned some facts, my viewpoint changed. Oprah is a very good person. In 2007, Oprah spent $40 million to build the "Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls" in South Africa. She did this to provide educational opportunities to gifted girls who may not normally have a chance to succeed. In 2006, she raised money to help people recover from Hurricane Katrina. She got over $11 million in donations, and personally donated $10 million. In 1998, she started "Oprah's Angel Network", a charity designed to improve the lives of the underprivileged.  As of this writing, the charity has raised more than $51 million. And none of it is wasted - any overhead like administrative costs is personally covered by Oprah. 100% of donations actually get to those who need them. She's known to be an extremely philanthropic celebrity, if not the most philanthropic. I'm telling you these facts to show that Oprah herself personally cares about people, and she's willing to spend major chunks of her time and money to help others.  I'm telling you this to make clear what I believe about her personality - that whatever she might believe or promote, she's not malicious. Now we come to the situation today. It was my wife that alerted me as to the events. She said, "I just read this really cool Newsweek article about Oprah. I think you might be interested." The June 8, 2009 article was a long feature story on Oprah, detailing the medical quackery she's had on her show, from ineffective New Age scams  to dangerous anti-vaccination medical advice popularized in multiple interviews with Jenny McCarthy. It pulled no punches. The piece was titled, "Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures and You". Then, just a few hours later, the skeptical community virtually exploded in glee. The big skeptical names brought out their big cannons, and fired. People in and outside of the skeptical community wrote their own "open letter to Oprah", expressing well-reasoned arguments as to why Oprah shouldn't be doing what she's doing, essentially bolstering and supporting the Newsweek article. So Oprah got slammed by the mass media. Hard. And don't get me wrong - she should be held accountable for popularizing such claims. Particularly when those claims go against the consensus of the medical community. Particularly if those claims could cause harm to others, either by intention or negligence. Particularly when Oprah is so influential. But in the press that followed the Newsweek article, people seemed to really hate Oprah herself. In my Inbox right now, I have an email from someone with the self-righteous subject line, "Oprah gets what is coming to her".  Reader's Digest magazine followed up with an article, "The Trouble With Celebrity Science". You'll find plenty of not-so-polite opinion pieces. Some are intelligent. Some have titles like "Oprah is an idiot" and "Oprah fails at everything". Well, Oprah is not an idiot. She doesn't "fail at everything". This is clear. A smart person can be uncritical and taken in by ideas they hope are true. A good example is Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Andy Kaiser clean 9:54 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/05/how-to-be-a-fakir/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/05/how-to-be-a-fakir/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:32:14 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1191 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/07/05/how-to-be-a-fakir/feed/ 3 M Parrott By M Parrott Article ID: 1329 - In a previous article, I covered "How to be a psychic", telling how to recreate common psychic supernatural abilities. But there are more important problems in the world. Not a politician's expense claims, but fakirs. By M Parrott Article ID: 1329 In a previous article, I covered "How to be a psychic", telling how to recreate common psychic supernatural abilities. But there are more important problems in the world. Not a politician's expense claims, but fakirs. Fakirs convert people to religions by performing supposed miracles that people assume would otherwise be dangerous or impossible. Before I begin: everything I describe here is dangerous and should not be attempted. If you hurt yourself or someone else with the techniques described here, it's not my fault, it's yours. I will describe how these things are done, and the science behind them, as much as I can. If you are so desperate to try these techniques, I can't stop you. But I did warn you. How to lay on a bed of nails As many of you know, this trick is where someone just lies on a bed, and the bed is made from hundreds or thousands of upturned, pointy, sharp and dangerous-looking nails. The performer takes a snooze, gets up, and is unpunctured. So the trick... actually, there is no trick. All that is needed is a real bed of nails. The nails must all be the same length. You need someone to lower you down so that your weight is evenly distributed over all the nails. You want your body to be pressing against as many nails as possible. Your weight being distributed means there is not enough pressure on any one nail to puncture the skin. When getting up from the bed of nails, make sure no extreme pressure is applied to any nail-covered area. There's a similar (and much safer) way to perform this trick with eggs instead of nails. You can lay out a bed of eggs so that the top of the eggs - the pointy part -  are all facing upwards. Then lay down carefully in the same manner as you would on a bed of nails. If you mess up, at least it's not painful. Just moist. How to perform snake flossing This is a trick where the fakir gets a snake, sucks it in through his nose and pulls it out of his mouth. How's it done? Well, you get a snake, suck it in through your nose and pull it out of your mouth. Any perceived "trick" is just due to human biology: right above your nostrils is the entrance to your nasal cavity. The nasal cavity connects to your throat near the same place your mouth connects to it. So the idea is you snort the snake in through your nose with sharp intakes of breath (I'd suggest tail first), grab it from deep inside your mouth and pull it through. Now obviously if you were stupid enough to not follow my earlier warning and are going to try this (which I thoroughly suggest you do not), don't start with a snake. A thread of 100% cotton (I emphasise cotton) is best. How to walk on broken glass In this trick, a bed of broken glass is laid out. The fakir walks across the bed of glass from one side to the other. At the end of the journey, the fakir shows his feet, and they're uncut by the shards of glass. This relies on a similar principle to the bed of nails - weight distribution. Your pressure is spread out over enough pieces of glass that you won't cut your feet. But there is another element to making sure this trick works. A lot of the glass shards will lay smooth side up - sharp edges will press against the ground, not against your foot - but this isn't always the case. So, when you put your foot down, you must move it slowly back and forth, helping the glass settle into the right distribution so that you can put your entire weight on that foot without getting hurt. Do not transfer pressure to that foot until you are absolutely certain you won't cut yourself. Then repeat the process. The idea is to take it slowly, for two reasons. One, you don't want to cut yourself. Two, the slower it is done the more pain the performer appears to be going through. In reality, any pain is caused by walking on the broken glass too fast. How to walk on hot coals - How to firewalk A bed of burning hot coals. A fakir in bare feet, Andy Kaiser clean 12:49 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/12/the-ideomotor-effect/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/12/the-ideomotor-effect/#comments Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:25:50 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1126 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/12/the-ideomotor-effect/feed/ 7 M Parrott By M Parrott Article ID: 1326 - The ideomotor effect is a psychological accident that spans many new age traditions, séances, and other "woo-woo" practises. I must emphasise that these practises aren't faked intentionally. By M Parrott Article ID: 1326 The ideomotor effect is a psychological accident that spans many new age traditions, séances, and other "woo-woo" practises. I must emphasise that these practises aren't faked intentionally. People delude themselves into believing they are true. Examples of the ideomotor effect cover a wide range of supernatural games, from Victorian-era séances to examining the most harmoniously-vibrating new age crystal. The ideomotor effect and the Ouija board Ah, yes, one of the most popular séance tools! Today, Ouija boards are usually perceived more as a joke and a fun party game. We all know the basic principal and layout of the most common Ouija boards - you've got a flat board with letters of the alphabet printed on it: You've got a "planchette", which is a small pointing device that can be slid around the board. Participants put their hands on the planchette and concentrate on a particular problem, question or spirit communication. The planchette will then start to move towards particular letters or symbols on the Ouija board, giving you a response to your question. If you want to test this out as we go, it would be a great exercise and far superior to me just talking to you: 1) Get 26 small sheets of paper. Write the letters A-Z on the pieces. 2) Get a large table and remove any coverings (like tablecloths). 3) Place all the cards face up in a circle so it looks somewhat like the picture you see here. Candles are optional. 4) Get a strong wine glass (preferably one without wine inside). Turn it upside down and place it in the centre of the cards. And there you have a homemade Ouija board. The next steps work better if you have more than one person, however you can try it alone if you want to tempt the Powers of Darkness all by yourself. Turn one letter over so it's face down. Place two fingers on the wine glass. Concentrate. Focus on believing that the wine glass WILL definitely move towards that one letter turned upside down. Don't move your hand intentionally, but if the glass moves move with it. Keep concentrating. It will move if you concentrate. And it'll speed up towards the letter and when it gets there it will stop at the letter. Now that may not have worked for all of you, but it will have worked for some. I also apologise if the wine glass shot off the table and smashed. If so, that just means you are really easy to manipulate. Now you may be wondering how that worked and why the glass moved. You know for a fact you didn't move the glass. So how did it move? Through a genuine spirit! Nah, just messing with you. The movement happens because of the ideomotor effect. The ideomotor is the mechanism which makes your reflexes kick in when your knee is tapped gently with a doctor's hammer. But in this case what happens is, due to you focusing so much mental power on something, your body makes it physically happen. You may not think you are doing it, but you are, and the more you are convinced it is going to happen, the faster it happens. Which is why a Ouija board "works" better for people who use one more often. What evidence do I have for this? Easy: find a medium who will do the Ouija board blind-folded. Blindfold them, and then without telling them, turn the Ouija board around. As the "Ouijing" commences, the medium will move the planchette to the locations that they think the letters are, as if the board was rotated correctly. This shows the Ouija board is all in the user's mind, and that it isn't some spiritual communion. Ouija boards aren't the only evidence of the ideomotor effect in new age superstitions. Dowsing Dowsing is traditionally thought of as the process of finding underground water or oil using Y-shaped sticks or wire. To a large extent, this is the process. But dowsing has widened its spectrum of effect. A few years ago, I saw a dowser trying to find human remains on a British Archaeology programme called "Time Team". Andy Kaiser clean 11:07 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 17:29:42 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1039 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/feed/ 11 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1321 - I have no idea how I first started listening to the deò's Shadow podcast. But there I was. A skeptic. A secular humanist. An atheist. And I was listening to and enjoying a podcast that targeted pagans. Pagans! By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1321 I have no idea how I first started listening to the deò's Shadow podcast. But there I was. A skeptic. A secular humanist. An atheist. And I was listening to and enjoying a podcast that targeted pagans. Pagans! Nature-communing, naked-fire-dancing, tarot-card-reading, Winter Solstice-celebrating pagans! Many pagans believe in multiple gods and the supernatural. Many secular humanists don't. On paper, I'm the opposite of a pagan. But I listened. I listened to this podcast that lectured in depth about things I thought were nonsense. But that was okay. I liked deò's Shadow for two reasons. First, the hosts (husband and wife team deò and Mandy) were talented and charismatic. Second, the show was (for lack of a better description) kinda skeptical. Yes, they focused heavily on pagan-centric stuff that rubbed my hackles in a way I didn't want rubbed. But they also supported issues important to skeptics. Some you may know, like Kirk Cameron's odd assumption that the physical design of the banana proves the existence of God. Or a criticism of "The Secret", an Oprah-advertized self-help guide that's just cuckoo. Or how to profess a liberal belief system in a land populated by fundamentalists. As the podcasts went on, many topics and conversations crossed from pagan ley lines into skeptical latitudes. In fact, the second-to-last podcast of deò's Shadow was titled "Skepticism, Science and Scientology". A short time later, the podcast stopped. No more episodes. With a bit of research, I found why. deò and Mandy said: "Making deòs Shadow was usually a joy, and as the show grew more popular, we had many opportunities for new experiences which helped us to grow as people. One of the interesting side-effects of such growth is that one can end up growing out of that which induces the growth. We've moved on from Paganism and are now practicing atheists." Cool. Good for them, you know? Not because they came over to a philosophy I support, but that they were willing to significantly change their lives based on what they believed, even though it would mean the loss of some very important things. That conversion took intelligence, research, and self-confidence. It was a thinking change. I respect that, whether you're moving to my philosophy or away from it. This next sentence might sound like a violent derailing of the topic, but trust me: Let me tell you about my philosophy of life. Andy's meaning of life Everyone asks, "Why are we here? What's the point of life?" No one really knows for sure, so we have to make an intelligent guess as to the answer. Here's what I've come up with so far: Produce, create and use what ability you have to improve the world and the lives of those around you. Leave something good behind. Help others. Teach others. Raise good kids. Or, say, as a completely random example, try to produce a critical-thinking podcast to the best of one's ability. Someday I'll die. When I'm gone, I want something left. Yes, my genes will be around in my children, my family and friends will have memories and stories. But I'm talking more. I'm also talking about the horrible alternative of having done nothing at all. If I do nothing, I've rejected our evolutionary imperitive to further the species. Or in a more personal take, I've wasted the biggest opportunity any of us ever gets. This concept is best explained in one of my favorite books, "The Circus of Dr. Lao", by Charles Finney. In the book, a woman thinks it would be fun to go to a fortune teller and have him predict her future. Little does she know, the fortune teller is gifted - and cursed - because his fortunes and predictions are always 100% accurate. This is what he tells her: "Tomorrow will be like today, and the day after tomorrow will be like the day before yesterday. I see your remaining days each as quiet, tedious collections of hours. You will not travel anywhere. You will think no new thoughts. Andy Kaiser clean 11:33 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/02/14/orgone-chips-review-new-age-versus-the-scientific-method/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/02/14/orgone-chips-review-new-age-versus-the-scientific-method/#comments Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:46:35 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=706 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/02/14/orgone-chips-review-new-age-versus-the-scientific-method/feed/ 11 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser - Article ID: 138 - Orgone is a magical energy force that's inside and outside our bodies. You can think of orgone as the Chinese culture's "chi" or any generic "life force energy". It permeates us and everything around us. By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 138 Orgone is a magical energy force that's inside and outside our bodies. You can think of orgone as the Chinese culture's "chi" or any generic "life force energy". It permeates us and everything around us. Using ... Andy Kaiser clean 17:47 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/28/atlantic-university-a-degree-of-nonsense/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/28/atlantic-university-a-degree-of-nonsense/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:29:31 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=102 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/28/atlantic-university-a-degree-of-nonsense/feed/ 0 Todd Fritz By Todd Fritz Article ID: 1241 ABSTRACT - This article looks at the claims and programs of study provided by Atlantic University, and it considers some of the implications from that study.  A brief history of the college's founder, Edgar Cayce, By Todd Fritz Article ID: 1241 ABSTRACT This article looks at the claims and programs of study provided by Atlantic University, and it considers some of the implications from that study.  A brief history of the college's founder, Edgar Cayce, is given.  It also considers the validity and meaning of the word "university". BIO Todd Fritz thefritzs@cox.net www.thinkingiscritical.com Todd Fritz is a member of Science and Reason in Hampton Roads.  He has a master's degree in counselor education and has been a school counselor for fifteen years.  Along with his partner, Andrew Payne, he also does programs on critical thinking for school groups and corporations. ARTICLE There is an institution granting master's degrees in something that has yet been proven to exist. Who decides what makes a university?  How does a student know if his courses are teaching him facts, theory or nonsense? I assume that if a college exists, it must follow some set of standards.  I make my living as a school counselor and have been looking at colleges for years.  The old saying that "there is a school for everyone" seems to be true.  I might amend that to say "there is a school for everything, whether it is real or not". At Atlantic University, I found entirely new educational concepts.  According to the "frequently asked questions" page, Atlantic University defines its status like this: "We don't have a large campus with dormitories, huge lecture halls, and a football team. Nor do we have a collection of many schools and degree programs, such as what's found at a traditional university. However, the word ‘university' is still an apt description of our institution because of the very root meaning of this 700-year-old word. The origins of ‘university' come from ‘the whole, the aggregate' just like the word ‘universe'. And although our student body and faculty are small - only about 250 and 16 respectively - we emphasize the whole person and the way in which truly meaningful and practical knowledge comes only from a holistic perspective." [Editor's note: All quotes were taken directly from the Atlantic University website and were accurate as of February 2008.] How's that for verbal gymnastics?  Because the root of the word may have originally meant "the whole", Atlantic University is a real university.  By that logic, anything can be considered a "real university" because anything that exists can be considered whole. Let's take a closer look at Atlantic University. It would be impossible to discuss Atlantic University without a brief introduction to its founder, Edgar Cayce.  Cayce was said to be able to heal people all over the world by going into a sort of "sleeping trance".  Among the things Cayce claimed were the ability to read auras, read a book by placing it under his pillow when he slept (a sort of educational osmosis), the ability to talk to angels, cure cancer and a host of other paranormal things like clairvoyance.  He also made many predictions that did not come true.  A few of my favorites are the following: A part of Atlantis will rise out of the ocean. Maybe he meant the hotel. In 1958, The US would discover a death ray that caused the destruction of Atlantis. He predicted that California would slide into the ocean. My favorite false Cayce prediction is that China would convert to Christianity by 1968! One has to question the educational value of a school whose founder can be this wrong on so many things. Cayce is best known for his alleged abilities to diagnose and cure patients psychically, and to discover details about a person's past lives.  Yes, he claimed the ability to heal people of all sorts of afflictions without ever seeing them in person.  Sort of like a long distance faith healer. Let's look at the college and course offerings for a moment. Located in Virginia Beach, VA, Atlantic University is an accredited graduate school.  They focus on Transpersonal Studies. Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/08/a-field-trip-to-edgar-cayces-association-for-research-and-enlightenment/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/08/a-field-trip-to-edgar-cayces-association-for-research-and-enlightenment/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:19:12 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=98 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/08/a-field-trip-to-edgar-cayces-association-for-research-and-enlightenment/feed/ 10 Tammy Buchli By Tammy Buchli, Science & Reason in Hampton Roads Article ID: 1238 - When my local skeptic's organization (Science & Reason in Hampton Roads) announced a field trip to Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, By Tammy Buchli, Science & Reason in Hampton Roads Article ID: 1238 When my local skeptic's organization (Science & Reason in Hampton Roads) announced a field trip to Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, I was... Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/06/what-good-is-half-an-eye/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/06/what-good-is-half-an-eye/#comments Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:01:16 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=96 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/06/what-good-is-half-an-eye/feed/ 3 David Annis By David Annis Article ID: 1236 - One frequent objection that creationists use about evolution is to question how a complex structure could evolve - what good is half an eye?  What possible evolutionary path could there be that would lead to such a c... By David Annis Article ID: 1236 One frequent objection that creationists use about evolution is to question how a complex structure could evolve - what good is half an eye?  What possible evolutionary path could there be that would lead to such a complex structure? So, how would an eye evolve?  Start with simple organisms that don't have an eye.  In my fish tank I have a Tridacna maxima which is a saltwater clam.  It has no eyes, but if I move my hand between the light and the water in a way that makes a shadow pass over the clam, it will close its shell.  The clam has no eyes but is able to avoid predators by being able to sense light and dark.  It is easy to see how this example of something that isn't even half an eye results in a competitive advantage.  Many organisms, not just clams, have the ability to sense light and dark. So, how do we get from being able to sense light all the way to a human eye?  The next step is eyespots (these are light-sensitive areas that may or may not be attached to a nervous system).  Flatworms are a great example of eyespots. According to Wikipedia: "Flatworms do have a bilateral nervous system; they are the simplest animals to have one. Two cordlike nerves branch repeatedly in an array resembling a ladder. The head end of some species even has a collection of ganglia acting as a rudimentary brain to integrate signals from sensory organs such as eyespots." Once we have eyespots, it is pretty easy to see how forming a dimple below the eyespot would help the animal.  Since light from the side would hit only one side of the depression, the deeper the dimple the better the animal would be able to sense direction.  Some flatworms and the nautilus have deepened these depressions enough to create a design like a pinhole camera, allowing the eye to focus without a lens. Getting a lens over the eye to protect it and better focus the light is an easy step and one from which nature gives us many examples. Some creationists will object to the idea that the thousands of varying eye designs represent steps in an evolutionary change. From photosensitivity, to eyespots, to dimpled eyespots, to lensless eyes, to the eyes of an eagle, they argue that the small advantage conferred by any single step wouldn't be enough to make sure that the change persisted in the population.  They ask for an example of a small, inefficient design evolving into a more refined form in a laboratory setting.  Since most laboratories are far smaller than the entire planet, and have been operating for a far shorter time than Earth itself, it is difficult to recreate examples of most evolutionary events. Nevertheless, there is a tantalizing example of what is probably an inefficient mechanism evolving and then being refined into an efficient adaptation in a carefully controlled laboratory setting.  It occurred in a lab at Michigan State University, which has been growing 12 populations of E. coli since 1988.  I've discussed this experiment in detail in a previous article titled Macro-evolution observed in the laboratory. This is our example of macro-evolution under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. In this experiment, we saw the ability to use citrate under oxic conditions evolve in E. coli.  It took about 30,000 generations and only happened in one of the 12 populations studied.  Just like the eye, the wing, or any other complex trait, it evolved first as a very inefficient mechanism and then got better.  In fact, in this experiment the Cit- population almost out-competed the inefficient Cit+ population before the Cit+ population became more efficient.  From the paper: "No Cit+ cells were found in the samples taken at 30,000, 30,500, or 31,000 generations. Cit+ cells constituted 0.5% of the population at generation 31,500, then 15% and 19% in the next two samples, but only 1.1% at generation 33,000. It appears that the first Cit+ variant emerged between 31,000 and 31,500 generations, Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/09/women-in-skepticism/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/09/women-in-skepticism/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:30:57 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=88 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/09/women-in-skepticism/feed/ 6 Rodrigo Neely By Rodrigo Neely Article ID: 1230 - Since becoming a dedicated and pro-active skeptic, I have observed some troubling trends. One is the under-representation of women. I submit that all of my data on this issue is anecdotal. By Rodrigo Neely Article ID: 1230 Since becoming a dedicated and pro-active skeptic, I have observed some troubling trends. One is the under-representation of women. I submit that all of my data on this issue is anecdotal. But some of my anecdotes are pretty compelling. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I live, I'm a member of the local skeptic group, the North Texas Skeptics. I'm also the president of a skeptical club at my university. In these two areas I have seen about 1 woman for every 10 men. This could just be Dallas-Fort Worth, but I also asked Alison Smith. She coordinates the James Randi Educational Foundation's million dollar challenge, directs SAPS, a skeptical ghost hunting organization, and is an all-around skeptical hero. I asked her what her experience has been, and she readily acknowledges that skepticism does seem to be a sausage party. One cannot have an honest discussion of gender and skepticism without acknowledging the important work of skepchick.org. This is a skeptical blog with a predominantly female writing staff and a legendary skeptical pin-up calendar. I bring up Skepchick mostly to acknowledge its existence, but it's an anomaly in the unfortunately male world of skepticism. The trend is that skepticism is predominately male. I have heard various explanations for this. One is that women are just gullible. That's right, women are naturally more inclined to be believers, and there is just nothing that can be done about it. I usually get this reason from female skeptics. I would beg to differ on one point: the data seems to suggest that humans are just gullible. If one looks at the more ridiculous movements - like the New Age movement, the UFO movement, the psychic movement, the Faith Healer movement and others - men are extremely well-represented as victims of all these frauds. One does not see the audience of victims groups as being almost exclusively female, while all the males sit lonely at their local skeptic club wondering where all the women are. Rebecca Watson, founder of skepchick.org, and co-host of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, has observed that women's magazines don't seem to emphasize critical thinking, and that they are riddled with ads for woo nonsense. She has a point there. But I don't think it's much worse than your average men's magazine, which will offer its fair share of scams. They may be more of the pyramid scheme, martial arts magic variety, but one never sees articles celebrating the virtue of critical thinking in publications such as GQ, or Maxim. Don't even get me started on Men's Health. Yet women are under-represented in the Skeptical movement. What must skeptics do? I think what would be ideal is a study. It doesn't have to be a formal academic one, but instead simply be a survey for women in Skeptic Magazine or Skeptical Inquirer magazine. With a little networking and coordination, it could even find itself in the newsletters of smaller local skeptical organizations. This survey should ask women why they think women are under-represented in skepticism; ask them why skeptical activism is important to them, and if it's not, then why not. The men who subscribe to these magazines could go the distance, and even ask their wives to fill in this survey, and we could get some data from women who aren't active in the skeptical movement. Once a year the JREF holds a skeptical convention called The Amazing Meeting, or TAM. I am told women are more than a little scarce at TAM. Are skeptical males just unusually inept in attracting women? Are homosexual males over-represented in the skeptical movement? If the answer to the above questions is "no," then why don't we see male skeptic's female romantic partners? Is it because skeptical men think their wives and girlfriends wouldn't enjoy an activity that they have found worth doing? Is it because they have asked their wives and girlfriends, Andy Kaiser clean