Law
Abiding Circles
There are, as 80 has noted
before, many and conflicting theories as to who or what is behind the phenomena
known as crop circles. Now at least one fact about the perpetrators is known -
in general they are law-abiding - or so the
BBC
would suggest. In general the aliens,
great ones, magnetic vortices, human artists seem to have heeded the British
government's strict rules regarding countryside access during the recent foot
and mouth disease epidemic amongst livestock. Then, when the restrictions were
lifted circles bloomed - including one particularly spectacular one, the Milk
Hill Formation. In fact so intricate is this design that it had would-be time
and motion experts scratching their heads in disbelief given the short hours of
darkness in the UK at this time of year. Mind you, they do seem to have assumed
that hom. sap. is behind this one...................... Milk Hill and many other
superb designs, including the Arecibo Reply (beloved of nuts like Richard
Hoagland and Art Bell) are on this
page brought to you courtesy of The
Circlemakers.
(See
Past View -
The Cereal Artists for more
information)
Money for
Nothing?
Right - you possess psychic powers - you
can perhaps dowse, bend spoons, find that body the police can't seem to locate,
read auras, heal by touch, levitate, communicate with the dead, - you get the
picture. Now, as far as 80's limited knowledge extends, no one individual has
claimed all these powers but plenty of folk have laid claim to at least one or two of
them. Imagine the kudos, the glory, the sheer cool of being to prove this to
everybody. Not just your fellow psychics, or wishful thinkers but the hard-nosed
guardians of science, the skeptics, the doubters and the carpers - would that
not be mind-bogglingly brilliant? Well, now you can - and pick up a load of cash
at the same time. (This is beginning to sound like the spam that 80 keeps the
Hotmail account for.) There used to be only one chance of achieving this but now
there are three. The first, and most financially rewarding, is offered by James
Randi, a name possibly not unfamiliar to
regular readers. The second is through
ASKE -
of which more in a moment. The third hails from
Australia.
As
Randi's website accurately
states, he "...has
an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but today he is
best known as the world's most tireless investigator and demystifier of
paranormal and pseudoscientific claims."
He certainly has a more combative stance than many other debunkers of hokum and
his confrontational style is reminiscent of some of the excellent rationalist
and skeptical groups say, in
India (of
whom more in a future issue - and their
psychic challenge).
This attitude has resulted in clashes of a legal nature with conjuror and bane
of straight spoons, Uri Geller. A quote from
Carl Sagan, again from
The James Randi Educational Foundation pages,
sums up quite nicely "
We may disagree with Randi on certain points, but we ignore him at our peril."
Psychic
Shyness
Arguably Randi's best move
regarding the mystery mongers, con artists, deluded and, of course, possible
psychics has been to offer a
prize of $1,000,000 to
anyone claiming psychic or paranormal powers and is prepared to be
tested and have such
claims independently verified. Oddly,
despite many folk's cast-iron belief in their ability to read minds, remote
view, spoon bend, only one person has stated that they would take up the
challenge - one Sylvia
Browne, a
self
proclaimed psychic. She accepted the
challenge on the Larry King Live TV show in March 2001 but has yet to respond to
any communications sent since. It would appear she is happy to
peddle her
particular brand of twaddle for money, via
her "best selling"
books but is less than keen to prove her
so-called powers under any sort of controlled conditions. If you sell any
product, and her books and claims are a product, the consumer has a right to
have those claims verified. You would not buy a car or house or a computer
without making some attempt to independently verify the claims of the seller -
there is no reason why claims of paranormal powers should be treated any
differently (see the quote from Carl Sagan in Past
View - Crypto Bamboo Movies).
Update
- a scheduled Larry King Live show for August 28th with Randi and Browne has
been cancelled - 80 is pretty sure it is not
James Randi who has cold feet.
Update 2
- the Larry King show finally went out on September 3rd with Browne agreeing
to the suggested protocols and King is to be part of the control procedure -
how long now to the actual test? Not too soon is the betting......
Aske for
Money
"Ask, and ye shall
receive" is a well known quote from mythology - here is the modern take on
that "ASKE
and ye shall receive £3000 in cash"
As what could be viewed as a warm-up for the Randi challenge the Association
of Skeptical Enquiry is " offering
people the chance to win £3,000 in cash if they can demonstrate a particular
psychic ability. Our first challenge will be to those who claim to be able to
move or bend objects using only the power of their mind, this includes such
powers as bending metal and moving compass needles. This particular psychic
talent is usually referred to as 'psychokinesis' or 'PK' for short. (Sounds
ideal for Geller - not that he needs the money 80 is sure.)
The actual testing procedure will depend on precisely what is being claimed. For
example if you claim to be able to bend spoons then we will want to know such
things as whether you will need to actually touch the spoon (which wouldn't
really count in this instance) or just stare at it. But we won't simply design a
test without your involvement. Claimants will be given every opportunity to
review the protocol beforehand.
Taking the above into consideration we fail to see any justification for saying
that this challenge is unfair. Any such accusation is entirely spurious and
clearly without foundation."
It IS hard to think of a fairer offer than that - and for those of you who claim
PK this challenge runs from Aug 1st to Oct 31st 2001. In a welcome bit of
transatlantic cooperation James Randi has agreed that passing the ASKE challenge
constitutes the successful accomplishment of the preliminary requirement for the
million dollar challenge.
Rationality Rules
Apart from the above challenge ASKE
" is
committed to the application of rational, objective and scientific methods to
the investigation and understanding of ideas, claims and practices, especially
those of an extraordinary or paranormal nature.
ASKE is committed to challenging the uncritical promotion of beliefs and claims
which are unsupported or contradicted by existing objective scientific
knowledge.
ASKE opposes the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of science for purposes
which deceive the public.
ASKE supports the objective evaluation of all forms of medical or psychological
techniques offered to the public, and opposes the uncritical promotion of
techniques which are unsupported or contradicted by existing scientific
knowledge.
ASKE supports all efforts to promote the public awareness of the rational and
scientific understanding of extraordinary and paranormal claims.
ASKE is committed to a rational understanding of the reasons and motives which
underlie the promotion and acceptance of irrational and paranormal claims and
beliefs.
ASKE accepts the rights of individuals to choose for themselves their beliefs
about the world." Note that
last sentence and then look at Jesus is Lord.com below.
(Note - 80 is a member of ASKE but any views expressed in this newsletter are,
as ever, 80's fault alone.)
The Third
Way
Assuming that not all would-be
psychics etc are confined to the Northern hemisphere (and believe me they are
not) the third challenge is from the
Australian Skeptics who not only offer $100,000 prize for proof
of such things as "extra sensory perception, telepathy, telekinesis,
divining for water or metals, clairvoyance and predicting the future"
but have
also introduced the novel idea of a spotter's fee of $20,000. So if you think
Auntie May's tea leaf reading is uncannily accurate wheel the old dear out and
pick up your fee! (The Australian scene is also down for a future View but until
then do take a look at
Operation
Clambake's presentation of
Carl Sagan's
Baloney Detection Kit - a set of simple
rules for examining and testing claims of all sorts - not just psychic
psilliness.)
All three challenges offer a wonderful
opportunity to prove such powers exist - something 80 believes is worth more
than any cash prize. And for those who think their powers would not work in the
pursuit of something as sordid as cash how about pledging the winnings, if any,
to a nominated charity or charities beforehand? (But not the Bide-a-Wee
Retirement Home for
Spoon Bending Charlatans please.)
Note - the above mentioned
Operation Clambake is a great resource
pertaining to L. Ron Hubbard and his equally charming successors -
Battlefield Earth,
anyone?
Pye in the
Sky
At the finale of Arthur C.
Clarke's science fiction classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey there appears the next
evolutionary step for humankind - the Star-Child. This book was a great favorite
of 80's and so when a website contained a reference to a
Starchild, curiosity
led to further investigation and
The Starchild Project.
It turns out to have nothing to do with Clarke's book possibly apart from the
name imparting a kind of science fictional gloss. No, the Starchild is what
appears to this layman's eye a deformed human skull. Luckily for laymen one
Lloyd Pye is
at hand. We can assess the caliber of Pye by the fact that in trying to rouse
interest in studying this skull he first approached the "alternative
knowledge community" and also such luminaries as
Art Bell, Jeff Rense and
Laura
Lee. (Right, we have here the challenge
of how this skull came to be and the need some kind of explanation of its shape so you
first approach the gullible, the sensation seekers and the cynical manipulators
of fear and ignorance - great start.) After approaching the fringe Pye tried
talking to an odd assortment of folk he refers to as "experts" (his
quotation marks) such as pathologists, radiologists, dentists, ophthalmologists,
chiropractors (!) and anthropologists who informed him the skull was the product
of some kind of human deformity. This apparently did not suit Pye's
preconceptions - let's face it bestowing the name Starchild on this skull does seem to
indicate a degree of bias on his part. This whole page is worth reading to
illustrate how if you have already made up your mind on something no number of experts is going
to change it. His last paragraph sums things up -
"What we need now is $20,000 to pay for the
diagnostic DNA test mentioned earlier. That will take the recovered X and Y
chromosomes and break them into their component strings of base pairs, to
compare them with similar strings of base pairs in normal humans. If everything
lines up as it should, then the Starchild is entirely human. Period. If they
don’t line up equally, then it is something other than human. Period. Will
that prove it is an alien from Zeta Reticuli? No. Will that prove it is a hybrid
between some kind of “gray” alien and a human (which I am currently betting
on)? No. Will it create one of the most raging controversies the scientific
world has ever seen? I think it just might."
Is Pye deluded or is he on to something? The
pictures at the Starchild Project are intriguing but the
forensic
reconstruction looks a little too much
like a cliched alien - do these people help their case with this sort of thing?
Likely not. That Pye has an agenda of his own is suggested by his book Everything You Know is Wrong Book One: Human Origins
(an unassuming little title I am sure you
would agree). His biographical
page has several illuminating
paragraphs. Pye has a "B.S. in psychology" from Tulane University, New
Orleans acquired in 1968. Armed with such a qualification,
"Mr. Pye began a serious independent study of all
aspects of human evolution. By the time he was 30, his studies led him to
conclude humans could not possibly have evolved on Earth according to the
prevailing Darwinian paradigm. By the time he was 40, he could convincingly
illustrate his belief by comparing skeletons in the so-called
"prehuman" fossil record with those reported to belong to the world's
four basic types of hominoids (Bigfoot/Sasquatch, The Abominable Snowman/Yeti,
and two other types Westerners know next to nothing about: Almas and Agogwes).
Although Mr. Pye's research had convinced him that humans did not evolve on
Earth, he had no idea where we might have come from, so he undertook an extended
search for an answer."
If the skull is as amazing as the claims
being made 80 would be a lot happier to see it investigated by someone with,
perhaps, a somewhat less prejudicial attitude. (Agogwes? if you must know look here.)
Miscellany
It's hodgepodge time again and
first up is NutNet
Strange Tales of the Information Highway.
This page ( it must be said a very looong page) is a medley of sites loosely
grouped under various headings such as Guerilla Ontologists & Chaosmongers,
Politics & Paranoia For Fun & Profit, A Jesus For Every Occasion, and,
in the interest of balance, A Satan For Every Other
Occasion. They are all here,
Flat Earthers, Fundamentalist Hate Groups, Feminist Satanic Covens. The apparent
compiler of this huge collection is Popess Lilith von Fraumench (well, that's
the e-mail address) who says....
"..Do you sometimes suspect that the Internet might
be overrun by nuts?..........even the most deranged and impoverished nut can get
their nephew in grade school to upload their unique theories and beliefs onto a
free webpage. These sites, although a minority among the general Internet
population, still demonstrate that no idea is too strange, stupid, false, or
true enough to stay off the net."
A fascinating collection and worth
bookmarking that would be even better for organization along the lines of, say,
CrankDotNet.
The final site is a little piece of bigoted
nastiness called
Jesus
is Lord.com. reminiscent of
yourgoingtohell ( Past View
- Dinosaur Hell Ark)
with its ignorance of the bible, intolerance, wearying strident tone and
fanatical adherence to the idea that only the King James version out the huge
number of translations of the so-called good book is the right one. 80 called
this site little in the first sentence but in fact the page is interminable. The
only little thing is the mind that produced this hate-filled garbage. It is
worth scrolling all the way down though for the final message which 80 at least
found of great comfort
"This website will not be here forever. The
incarnation of the Beast is coming."
(Check out the
paranoid page on how Jesus is Lord.com
is being cruelly filtered as a hate site. Funny that..........)
Quotes
"The trouble with the world
is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell
......and with the heated debates about "Son of Star Wars" here is
James Burke in 1978
"......in particular, the complex and costly defence systems which have
hitherto acted as deterrents against aggression can now be breached with ease by
any physics graduate with access to the necessary radioactive material.
Anti-missile batteries are impotent against attack by a suitcase bomb, and, as
the technology of miniaturization improves, there is no reason why a nuclear
device should not be contained in something the size of a handbag. Such a weapon
delivery system is virtually indetectable, and its use would radically alter the
future."
James Burke Connections Macmillan London 1978
