A Can of Worms Revisited

Our beliefs guide what we do, and why, because we base our actions on our beliefs — those things we hold to be true — for the purpose of maximizing the success of those actions. Few people are inclined to act or behave on the basis of beliefs they do not think true, except maybe charlatans and con-artists.

Let me state from the onset that I am not anti-belief. It is not my intent or purpose as a skeptic to ‘make people not believe,’ to otherwise violate anyone’s right to believe. But it’s people who have rights and privileges, not beliefs or claims of fact. All claims of fact are eligible for a fair hearing, but not all have equal truth-value. Nor are all beliefs equally harmless, or equally effective as a result of actions based on them.

I contend that the view that all claims have equal validity is specious, for to paraphrase Carl Sagan, If all claims are equally true, then none have any truth at all.

A problem arises when people confuse what they believe, when what they believe cannot or has not been demonstrated to be true, to be facts. I run into this a lot in some of the comment threads on this blog.

This includes even the claim that it’s a belief that something is a belief, and not whatever one wishes to be fact…

Sorry, but wishes, or to use the new paranormal vernacular, ‘intention,’ have no effect on reality save for the results of our physical actions to fulfill them.

Does one’s belief in a claim unsupported by sound evidence or reasoning, no matter how sincere, justify actions taken on its behalf? Does even sincerity and conviction of belief grant one an ethical free pass to promote or practice any belief, however questionable?

I argue no.

For without casting any doubt or speculation on their purity of motives, many promoters and practitioners of various scientifically and medically questionable claims are often fully knowledgeable that the mainstream research community considers their particular claim to be controversial at best, and its efficacy or factual worth not adequately supported by valid evidence in any case.

Practitioners of various claims not supported by evidence are at best providing a useless service, and at worst causing their clients great harm, such as death or serious illness resulting from the denial or delay of adequate evidence-based medical care for a serious but treatable condition, or even the use of unproven modalities that are not merely ineffective, but actively dangerous. This extends into finances too, when mystics provide what they claim to be ‘divine,’ ‘prophetic,’ or ‘psychic’ advice for a fee, when the services rendered are no more effective than merely guessing, and more often than not, wrong.

Again, they may be perfectly sincere in their belief, but this does not make them right, nor their beliefs true, nor the practice of those beliefs ethically justified.

Even with the purest of intentions, (…and to steal a page from Sir Ian McKellen’s Magneto: “We all know about roads to Hell and what they’re paved with.”) one can believe so strongly in something that they are willing to go to any length to support the belief, even cheat, even lie, sometimes even worse, when cognitive dissonance gives them the means to rationalize these acts, as opposed to using rationality, in their own minds. There is the frequent occurrence of what is referred to by skeptics as the pious fraud, the true believer not adverse to bending the rules and cutting corners a bit.

I say this: Let people believe what they want, but should they desire it, should they ask, provide them with the mental toolkit and methods to assess claims for their worth themselves, of their own free will and full understanding, rather than just being forced to accept or reject claims by coercion of others, a knee-jerk reaction, or on a whim.

People who can think for themselves are much less likely to leave their belief systems up to the vagaries of chance, and much more able to protect themselves both financially and health-wise from those who would take undue advantage of their trust, even without meaning to. Fnord.

Goodbye, Little Sammy (Yes, Skeptics do Have Feelings…)

Sorry, guys, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be posting this week except for prescheduled entries, including this one. If you see this, it is because I had to put one of my cats to sleep — a beautiful blue-point Himalayan cat of some 18 years named Sammy, who has been my devoted companion for over 12 years. The pictures accompanying this post are an homage to her. Goodbye old girl…your passing left a hole that will never be filled…

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

I tended at first to be somewhat capricious about how I write and what I write on, sometimes putting a post on the proverbial back burner to pursue an idea for an entry that pops into my head in the wee hours of the morning, and usually this works: It’s resulted in some of my favorite free-form pieces, though I supplement this by posting on news events and listening to podcasts, discussing things with friends, and so on.

I’ve increased my inspirational resources considerably since this same time last year on this blog, and I fully intend to improve on this. Sometimes I just don’t feel like posting, for whatever reason, even on weekdays.

So I don’t.

Scheduling posting for entries ahead of time by the server, sometimes by several days or more, has proven very useful. I try not to rely so much on those unreliable flashes of inspiration for that reason.

As much as I used to depend on that at first, I’m getting better about that. This is cool by me. So here’s today’s query:

How do you get ideas about what to write? What do you do?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

One thing I can’t help but notice about most new and unusual claims of paranormal or supernatural abilities is how trite and overly limited they are. It’s the same old stuff, using effects that can easily be explained without invoking magic mind powers.

If Uri Michelle Gellar can bend cutlery by psychic means, truly by mental force alone, why does she need to use her hands to do so? Why not the tip of her nose, her elbows, or the top of her head? If she’s doing this by mental force, why even need to touch the item at all, why need to have full physical control of it, much less any at all? Why do so many demonstrations of psychic powers have limitations that would not logically apply if they really did what their users claim they were doing? Curiouser and curiouser…

I’m a big science fiction buff, and I’ve always thought that the abilities of psionic characters in fiction far outstrip the paltry abilities of real world psychics. Fictional characters can do these things in ways that are very difficult if not downright impossible for a magician or mentalist to imposture.

Fictional psi abilities are often unambiguously real, and unlike real-world psi abilities, often easily capable of being reliably and independently replicated, in most stories I’ve read, regardless of the experimenter’s beliefs or ‘attitude.’ I’m not banking on it, but I really hope that one day, someone will actually be able to verify psi as genuine.

So here’s today’s question…

What is the one paranormal or pseudoscientific belief that you wish were true? Why?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

As a former Seventh-Day Adventist, I drew my moral principles from religion until I came to see their source, dogmatic scriptural authority, as absolutist, and now consider much of Old Testament ‘morality’ wrong and outdated. We’ve made real moral progress as a species since the Bronze Age of the Middle East over the past 3,000 years.

In my experience, I found much of scriptural morality associated strongly with feelings of anxiety over the most trivial shortcomings and, yes, you guessed it — fear of Hell…

After looking around a bit and being disappointed each time I looked, it hit me that there was no way I was going to have authentic, non-arbitrary ethical or moral values from any sort of faith-based authoritarian belief system or doctrines, so after the futility of looking for a new religion, I eventually stopped believing in faith as a path to valid knowledge and started more closely examining my supposed justifications for believing what I do, looking into more philosophically-based theories of ethics.

And so it goes…

I finally settled on humanist philosophy as just the right fit, and it stuck with me ever since as a guide for proper behavior toward both other humans and other species.

So here’s the pop question–

From what source or sources do you draw the sense of morality and ethical duty in your life?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM

Dropping the Bomb

Hey, guys. Many of you might have found out about James (the Amazing One) Randi’s recent ‘coming out,’ and it gave me the idea to open up to my incredible readership in revealing a little something that hasn’t been mentioned in great detail in the past, though I’ve occasionally alluded to it from time to time.

Some of you may have suspected it from my writing style, some from my early comment responses, others of you already knew, to more than just a few this may be a bit of a surprise, and some probably just won’t give a crap…

No, I’m not gay — not if any of my ex-girlfriends have a say in the matter — but I do harbor a rather bothersome medical condition that I’m not particularly proud of, nor especially happy about, but which I’ve seen no reason to hide in person, and as of now, here…

I’m schizophrenic.

This condition is one of the most debilitating neurological disorders known to Man (or Woman for you readers of the fairer sex), and something that I have struggled with ever since my early twenties.

My particular condition is one of a family of related disorders, having nothing to do with ‘split-personalities’ as they are popularly termed (That is actually referred to, if I recall correctly, as Disassociative Identity Disorder, an entirely different class of condition) in the media, and this is one of the many reasons among others that I’m a skeptic, since keeping better in tune with reality is a Good Thing™, as this enables me to stay out of trouble more easily than would otherwise be the case.

Is skepticism effective for combating mental illness? I would venture not by itself, and I recommend to others with mental illnesses that you stay on your treatment plan and follow it scrupulously, just to be on the safe side.

You are not alone.

For me though, skepticism is a useful adjunct to my basic treatment. Learning to think clearly is always a good thing with or without a problematic condition.

Few with the more extreme variants of my condition can benefit from skepticism, and many often require physical care as well. But fortunately my illness is mild enough and sufficiently amenable to treatment to allow me to function in daily life and do the things I enjoy, like post on and administer this blog.

I consider myself lucky, to the extent luck actually exists, that I got treatment for my affliction during the early stages before it became too advanced, otherwise I would not be typing this into my browser window for you all to read.

Pushing the ‘publish’ button for this entry was not an easy decision, but a necessary one. Some things are important enough that they need to be said. The Randi-Meister was a big factor in this…

As one of those ‘fervently dogmatic, pseudo-skeptical, pseudo-intellectual (and according to one recent commenter, ‘unread’) debunkers,’ there is no point in pretending to be what I am not and can never be — perfectly normal, ‘just like everyone else’ — since the truth should always be paramount.

Hence this post.

I have little doubt that this entry will be used as a convenient source of ammunition by those online who’ve expressed impatience towards my ‘attitude’ as a skeptic, and that’s fine with me — as long as any disagreement between me and others remains bloodless and gentlemanly — including disagreements with those I’ve annoyed in the past. And believe me, I’ve annoyed quite a few…

For the past couple of decades, I’ve worked at a vocational rehabilitation business as an administrative assistant, only retired as of last December, and this has helped immensely in my personal growth and experience in the workplace.

The people I met and knew there, clients and employees, will always be a reminder how much stigma is still attached to mental illness in this country, as well as others. They will also be a reminder of the incredible resilience of human courage, hope, and ability.

I plan to diversify the subject matter posted on this site to include advocacy for the rights and well-being of those with disabling psychiatric conditions, both like and unlike my own.

I’ve so far immensely surpassed where I was when my illness first popped up some years ago, and I plan to do better still, helping others like me as well. You, my readers both locally and around the world are an absolute joy to write for, and this blog is a wonderful journey & learning experience for my Troythuluness.

Let’s travel and learn together.

Like it says in my collector’s edition copy of the Principia Discordia– Fnord.

Kevin Warwick, Human Cyborg

Dr. Madblood — Picture Perfect

Toulouse Latrine, Graffitti Man, is at it again…

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

Since one of the primary foci of the skeptical community is advocacy of science, a big concern is the quality of science-education in whatever nation one lives in.

In my case, that would be the U.S. A big issue is that, in most parts of the country, the educational standards are a bit mixed to say the least, with some teachers who have Creationist leanings trying to indoctrinate their classes with their religious views in spite of Constitutional law.

Also of concern is the fact that in most K-12 classes, education often amounts to rote memorization of facts, not teaching students how to think scientifically, the latter of which in my view is essential for a good understanding of science. Further, even in those regions of the States where standards aren’t as lax, science communication to the general public is sparse, and often doesn’t reach as wide an audience as it could, despite the advocacy of it by scientists and skeptics.

Personally, my view is that we need more of both science education and science popularization to combat the spread of irrational ideas and societal confusion and fear that often results.

But what is your perspective?

Do you think that better science education or better science communication, or both, is more needed to counter the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs? Why?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM

Speculative Technology — Realism vs. Lala Land

As a science fiction fan, I sometimes get into some highly speculative, and highly animated, discussions of SF technologies, some more or less realistic, ranging all the way from the just-around-the-corner possible to some that are far distant future if not pure fantasy. I’m occasionally chided for my conventionalized closed-mindedness, not just by fringe-science or paranormal believers, but by science fiction enthusiasts who are irked by my refusal to accept that time travel, hyperspace travel or Star Trek-style transporters will be practical realities in the near future (usually within the next couple of hundred years or so).

I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to effectively and constructively argue for realistic SF technologies, you have to limit the parameters of the discussion to those technologies that are conceivably possible, according to what we can honestly say we know at the present time about how the universe works.

In short, to meaningfully discuss realistic technologies, we must limit ourselves to speculating within known physical laws as they are currently understood. Why?

“But Troythulu,” you might say, “why should we be so arrogant as to believe that what we know at this moment is all there is? Why must we think that that’s how it’s necessarily so?”

Well, I’m not arguing that…

I’m saying that there’s a huge world of difference between science fiction with the accent on the word ‘science,’ and science fiction with an emphasis on the word ‘fiction.’ Let’s not fool ourselves with muddled magical thinking — We live in a universe in which there are genuine limits to what can be achieved, as far as we can currently tell, such as the Einstein’s law and the second law of thermodynamics, not a universe in which literally anything goes, and likewise literally anything and everything is possible. Sorry.

Right now, we have little good justification for thinking most of those laws we currently know of wrong, since they allow the creation of practical technologies that actually function, which wouldn’t be the case if they weren’t at least partly true. Science is not a magical, irrational myth that makes things work for no reason at all, but a powerful, rational, and thus far useful method of understanding the world. Don’t like science very much? Too bad. Reductionism may not be the whole ballgame, but it works.

I’m not arguing that what we know now is all that’s ultimately possible, and that we know everything about the universe that can ever be known, or my nom de blog is not Troythulu.

I’m arguing that we really do happen to know things about the universe, many of them tested and verified beyond a reasonable doubt, and these things have to be taken into account when discussing the realistically possible, including conceivable applications of that knowledge. We must in such discussions limit ourselves to what we know, pending further and better evidence as we come to understand more in the way of new and more precise findings.

We most certainly don’t know all there is to know, and we probably never will, but we don’t understand absolutely nothing at all for not knowing absolutely everything. Our science is stumbling, incomplete, infantile, we know close to nothing, but it’s the best thing we have so far in terms of our comprehension of Reality, of what’s ‘out there,’ apart from the subjective worlds inside our skulls.

It’s almost certain that there indeed remain undiscovered forces, laws, theories, paradigms, hypotheses, physical constants, findings of science that have yet to be made. Cool discoveries we have yet to uncover. But unless we are somehow made aware of these findings through the scientific process, as limited as that is, we have no business invoking unknowns to fantasize about technologies and techniques that may not even be possible when attempting to discuss the realistic, rather than just admitting it and saying we are engaging in pure technological fancy and speculation.

Let’s not be misled into believing what we merely wish were true. Fnord.

Post 7189

Important to me as a skeptic, when learning to see what is, the first and most important lesson gained is to avoid seeing what isn’t really there.

In my view, a positive skepticism that affirms the power of human knowledge, intellect, and reason, rather than denying them in a nihilistic way as postmodern relativism does is essential to a sound understanding of the world and the success of living within it in harmony.

I define paranormal events as those occurrences resulting from an apparent arbitrary suspension of natural laws as they are presently understood. Further, I consider such events to be unlikely given the evidence, though like many skeptics, I would argue that they are possible, however improbable. Why improbable? Why unlikely? Because I am not personally given to magical thinking, as I consider that to be fallacious, and often dangerously misleading.

My reason is simple — Magical thinking is based upon two principles, both of which in my experience and that of quite a few others have been demonstrably falsified:

• Hope is never, and cannot be, unfulfilled…

• It is not possible to be deceived by wishes, intention, or desire…

Anyone who has ever had to endure crushing disappointment, and who has ever had a wish that went without being granted will know what I am talking about.

Weird things on occasion happen to me, yet they elicit no cognitive dissonance from my Troythuluness, no denial, and no desire to ‘dismiss’ or ‘explain away’ those events for which an immediate explanation is not obviously apparent. What do I do about this? I simply conclude that without more looking into it, no quick answer is available, that I don’t know the cause of what happened, and I go on about my business without trying to prematurely explain the seemingly strange event.

If possible, I look more closely into the matter, try to spin as many hypotheses as I can that can be conceivably falsified, put them in competition with each other in accordance with Occam’s razor, and weigh them in terms of their parsimony, selecting the winner as the most likely explanation.

Some paranormal advocates will strongly disagree, but I prefer to limit myself to those hypotheses that can be tested, which more often than not are naturalistic hypotheses. Why? Because I find it rational to limit oneself to conventional causation without good reason to do otherwise, as that in my experience has time and time again shown itself to be the most easily testable therefore as the most likely to be true.

Also if one points to one’s own personal experience and argues that it is an infallible guide to truth, then one cannot consistently argue that my personal experience is any less valid in light of the assumptions going into one’s own. Logical double-standards do not a valid idea make. Fnord.

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

Sometimes science and religion venture into each others’ territory, like when evolutionary psychologists inquire into the origin and nature of human morality, or when young-Earth creationists lobby against the teaching of evolution in schools. There are those on either side ready and willing to vilify the other, but is this really necessary?

While I’m firmly on the side of science in this debate, I do not believe that religion, authentic religion, is as evil, injurious, or to use one term, poisonous, as many New Atheists make it out to be. It’s not faith itself that is the great enemy, but its perversion.

It’s not at all surprising to me that numerically and worldwide, most supporters of evolution are Christians and most Christians are supporters of evolution.

It’s also not surprising to me that there are millions more Hindu and Muslim creationists in the world than Christian ones. The Christian creationists lobbying in the States to impose their beliefs on others, by subverting the constitutional separation of Church and State are a minority, however a vocal and active minority they may be.

There are three general concepts as to how religion and science should interact:

• The Shared World Model: This model proposes that religion and science are both part of one world, that of Nature, and that they can and should complement and inform each other in their respective endeavors. This model proposes that despite encompassing the same domain, they are not in conflict, or rather, don’t have to be…

• The Different Worlds Model: This idea proposes the existence of different domains, one for science and one for religion, and proposes that ideally, they should deal with different matters — Science on facts of the natural world, and Religion on values and morals. And nary should one intrude into the domain of the other. This however neglects a third domain, Philosophy, for reasons my Troythuluness knows not. This model was proposed by the late Stephen Jay Gould…

• The Conflicting Worlds Model: This is the one favored by both New Atheists and religious fundamentalists, and proposes that science and religion are, or should be, in conflict, as dire enemies for which there can be no compromise. Though I once espoused this view in my early blogging days, I’ve come to see it as counterproductive, alienating potential allies of science while giving fodder to its enemies. It creates more enemies than it overcomes…

So, today’s pop question is…

How do you view the relationship between science and religion?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM

The Brain as Explained by John Cleese

Here’s a bit of advice on brains…

Hot Quark Fluid Produced at RHIC

TNQ | Troythulu’s Noontide Query

A common refrain of skeptics is, ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,’ and what it means is that the more a claim of fact runs counter to whatever we have good reason to think we know, the stronger and more compelling the evidence for that claim must be.

This means that skeptics tend to have a higher bar for evidence, than most believers would seem to have as to what constitutes not just necessary, but sufficient evidence for many of the same sorts of claims in order to consider them valid and credible.

Bear in mind that at least one believer has expressed to me the view that proving the paranormal is as necessary as proving the existence of trees, so skeptics and believers also differ substantially as to what constitutes an unusual claim. To many believers, the ‘extraordinary claims’ are those of Big Science™.

Also important to mention is the fact that believers and skeptics apparently mean different things when they use the word ‘evidence,’ which to many believers includes unsubstantiated anecdotes and the seemingly compelling but often self-deceptive ‘evidence’ of personal experience.

My experience thus far is that the believers I’ve come across have what skeptics would consider excessively lax standards of evidence. And to many believers, skeptical standards of evidence are typically regarded as ‘excessively demanding’ or even ‘moving the goalposts.’

So, I’ll pop the question for this Monday:

What would qualify as sufficient evidence to you to validate any particular weird claim, and why?

TNQ is a daily question that I pose to you, my readers, and please, do feel free to comment — I’m not an ogre. As per the title, TNQ is published each weekday at 12:00 PM