Oooo Fairies

I'm surprised I'd never heard of this before, but I guess I'd essentially moved out of the area before this got started. I had no idea that Twisp, WA was where "veil between dimensions is said to be thinnest". Though I guess I do remember that the area was popular with the hippies.

TAM 7: Getting Closer

I'm getting really excited for TAM 7. The JREF has advertisements on several podcasts I listen too, Penn did a Penn Says about it and I just got a flier in the mail. I've got my registration completed and my airline tickets booked. I just need to order a few books to get signed and I'll be all set.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I enjoy the most about TAM. It is really fun to be around so many people who are rational thinking and pro-science. It is such a positive atmosphere. I know a lot of people who aren't aware of the skeptical movement view skepticism as a negative world view. They think all it is, is people sitting around saying 'moon landing hoaxers are morons, 9/11 truthers are idiots, etc.' Skeptics to generally hold those positions, but it is a secondary result of a skeptical outlook. In general skepticism is focused on understanding how the world works based on evidence and the scientific method. This is a positive stance that encourages learning all sorts of exciting things and is free from superstition and irrational guilt and fear.

TAM 6 Review: Dr. Novella - Dualism and Creationism

I've been meaning to do some TAM 6 blogs basically since last summer, and just never got inspired. But last night I wasn't sleeping or I was dreaming about TAM 7 in July so I guess I'm inspired now. Being the good little nerd that I am I took some pretty good notes during the talks last year, so I flipped through them and thought I'd recap Dr. Steve Novella's talk.

Dr. Novella is a neurologist and has spent a lot of time on his blog dealing with dualism. Dualism is a philosophy of the mind, that asserts that some properties of consciousness are not due to physical phenomena. This is known as Cartesian Dualism. Naturalistic Dualism holds that it is the brain that causes conscientiousness, but we don't know how.

Neuroscience supports the position that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

• there is no mind with no brain.
• brain development correlates with mental development
• if you damage the brain you damage the mind
• different states of consciousness correlate with different brain states
• able to provoke specific mental effects by stimulating the brain (MEG)

So far the material model of consciousness is working fairly well as a description of the mind. Dualism is basically a 'god of the gaps' type argument. It is invoked to explain uncertainties in scientific understanding of the brain and mind. The purpose of dualism like creationism is to provide ideological cover for a belief system not to advance human knowledge.

TAM 7

Last spring I was chatting with my buddy, Herb, who lives in Las Vegas. I hadn't seen him in awhile and wanted to visit. I also mentioned that I'd like to make it to a TAM someday. I was thinking it was just a wild idea, but Herb is better at pulling the trigger on those sorts of things than I am. I'm glad because attending TAM 6 turned out to be one of the coolest things I've done in awhile.

Now I'm looking forward to and making plans for this years TAM 7. This year's meeting will be July 9-12 at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas. There is going to be a good mix of returning and new speakers. Dr. Phil Plait, Lt. Col Hal Bidlack, Adam Savage, Dr. Michael Shermer and Dr. Steve Novella are returning presenters and I couldn't be more excited to see them again. The keynote speaker this year is Bill Prady, creator of the TV show The Big Bang Theory. This should be good though it will be incredibly difficult to equal Dr. Tyson's talk from last year. Overall it looks like a great mix of scientist, educators, journalist and entertainers.

This year I'm looking forward to knowing a few more people there, being a shameless fanboi getting books autographed and maybe getting in on some more of the afterhours programs like the Penn & Teller show.

A Proper Skeptical Attitude

I've fallen a little behind on my Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcasts. This morning I was listening to the Aug 26 episode with the Richard Saunders interview. This interview reminded me of something really important about being a skeptic. It is important to have the right attitude.

Skepticism is about a positive state of mind. It is about curiosity and open mindedness. It is about excitement and joy in the way the world works. I'd guess that most people don't see skeptics that way. I think that skeptics have a reputation for being fun wreckers. Boring, analytical, joyless and always contrary. I'm sure that some people that claim to be skeptics have earned this reputation. But my idea of skepticism is different. For me being skeptical means when you hear a claim that sounds fantastical, you obviously have doubts, but you don't stop there. You say, 'How cool would it be if that were true?' Then you ask for the data. You look at the evidence. Have your doubts, but don't have your mind made up. Be excited for the chance to learn something new and unexpected.

That said, I think one of the reasons that skeptics sometimes get a bad rap is that they often feel isolated and out-numbered. When you are the lone rational voice, it is important to be clear and unambiguous. People don't like to have their irrational beliefs questioned, so they label any well reasoned opposition as harsh. I'm not sure that reaction can be helped. So, be positive, curious, and open minded, but strongly defend the position that the evidence supports. That is being a skeptic.

New Website

In my reading this week I came across a great website. Edger is a student initiative run through the Center for Inquiry.

"

Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and celebrates international freethought activism. Written in a youthful tone, but mature in content, Edger is sure to be a driving force in the new intellectual enlightenment"

I haven't completely explored the whole thing yet, but there is lots of commentary on current events, news items and opinion pieces. I especially like the Events all around the World sidebar, listing upcoming events and activities. This is a wonderful presentation of freethought, secularism and skepticism that really breaks out of the nerdy stereotype. I think this would be the first place I'd send some one looking for more information on a godless world view. It seems more accessible than some more strictly scientific based sites. I'm adding Edger to my list of favorites.

Spoon Science

While at TAM6, as part of Dr. Richard Wiseman's presentation, we got to participate in a mass spoon bending trick that was recorded for YouTube. That video is finally up at SpoonScience.com . This was very cool.

Wackos on TV

It has been hot in Kitsap county this weekend, and my 15 month old has a case of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. That means I've been home from work and staying inside watching more TV than normal. Unfortunately most day time TV is a vast wasteland of crap. Lori likes to watch Oprah from time to time. In her defense I think she mostly like to see the shows where she gives stuff away to people or helps disabled kids go to summer camp or something.

Well, this last Friday (June 27) we were home and tuned in to see if there was some feel good fluff to watch and instead we find "The Law of Attraction: Real Life Stories".
From the Oprah web site:

Acclaimed author Louise Hay is considered the mother of positive thinking. She is back to continue the conversation about the law of attraction, which is the basis of The Secret. "The law of attraction is that our thinking creates and brings to us whatever we think about," she says. "It's as though every time we think a thought, every time we speak a word, the universe is listening and responding to us."

I'm all for having a positive outlook. If you do, you might even be a little more daring try some new things and improve your life or at least enjoy it more. But this garbage about the universe listening and responding? I'm surprised they didn't try to use quantum mechanics to "prove" the "theory".

And of course if it doesn't work for you they have the ever present Cover-Your-Ass Clause.

So why is it that some people still don't get what they want? Cheryl Richardson, life coach and author, explains that negative energy could be the cause. "I think sometimes it can be exactly what Martha said—that we're asking from a place of desperation," she says. "When you put desperate energy out into the world, you don't get back what it is you want."

Oh, and don't forget the universe gets to decide the right time too

Cheryl says the items on your list may not come to you right away. "I know that there's something called divine timing," she says. "Some of the most amazing things that have occurred to me in my life took longer to occur than I wanted because I needed to grow as a woman. I needed to evolve in some way."

I suppose Oprah does try to do some good things. There is even a chance that she means well. On the other had, she may just care about ratings. This latest episode has just strengthened my belief that she is a menace to society for giving wide spread and uncritical coverage to woo-woo stuff like this.

What is a Skeptic?

My first post-TAM weekend is approaching, and I'll be getting a chance to hang-out with some of my local friends. I found before leaving for TAM that several had basically no knowledge of what a skeptic is or that there was a skeptics movement. I'm thinking I'll use this blog post to organize some of my thoughts in anticipation of some questions about TAM and skepticism. If any one has suggestions, leave me a comment.

I guess I've already written about TAM, so I'll start on the skepticism. Basically skepticism is about encouraging good science and promoting clear, rational and critical thought. It is about finding the truth based on evidence. Skeptics provide a community service by exposing hoaxes, scams, and purveyors of snake oil. There are plenty of scammers that make money by preying on the uninformed. There are frauds like Uri Geller and Sylvia Brown that exploit loop holes in human brain function to convince people they have supernatural powers.

Then there are things like homeopaths and psychic healers that harm the credulous by telling them they can cure diseases by doing what amounts to absolutely nothing and discouraging the application of science based medicine. The skeptics mission is to resist the dangerous influences of these scammers and fraud. Some skeptics like James Randi expose the liars directly (like outing Peter Popoff on the Johnny Carson show). Others exercise skepticism by educating about science, logic and rational thought.

TAM 6

I've waited a few days to blog about TAM 6 because I was just too excited to think clearly about it. I've calmed down a little now so I'm going to try to get a few thoughts down before the Blogger outage that is coming up.

I'll admit that leading up the the conference I wondered if two days of lectures were really going to be worth the time and the money I was spending to be there. Then, on Thursday morning on our way up Herb and I passed Jay and Steve Novella from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe in the mens room. I got all giddy and star struck and I knew I was going to have a blast.

Herb and I had bought books by most of the speakers, and our goal was to get autographs and as many photographs as possible. All the celebrity scientist and entertainers (Penn & Teller, Adam Savage, Neil deGrasse Tyson, PZ Myers and of course the host The Amazing James Randi) were so accessible and willing to interact with the fans is was great. Herb and I were even in the right place at the right time for Randi to include us in a mentalism demonstration which was very cool. He didn't clue us in on the trick though.

The next day the lectures started and I was just blown away. I took two notepads full of notes so I might discuss some of the content later. All I can say is that they were all excellent, entertaining, educational, funny. Richard Wiseman showed us the talked about is quirkology videos and had Teller come up and teach the 900 member audience how to do spoon bending. We did a mass spoon bending demonstration that should end up on YouTube sometime.

It was a great time. Now I better go before blogger eats my post.

Anti-Vaxers Reviewed

My cousin who is an MD, visited us for dinner last night. We were having an interesting conversation about vaccination and the pseudo-science of the anti-vacctionationists. Lori mentioned the case fo Hannah Poling which my cousin was not familiar with. As a happy coincidence, when I pulled up Neurologica this morning I saw Dr. Novella's post about a new review in the NEJM . It gives a nice history of the US government's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The VICP was created by the government to protect companies that produce vaccines from lawsuits. As a result of several lawsuits in the 1970's and 1980's fewer companies were production vital vaccines. The government as a public health issue is clearly interested in having everyone get vaccinated to promote herd immunity . It is also true that vaccines have a certain small percentage of bad out comes. The VICP therefore was intended to provide compensation to those legitimately injured by vaccines. According to the NEJM article, it seems like the justification for some recent payout (including Hannah Poling's) were shaky.

Furthermore, the Hannah Polling case was sensationalized by the media as supporting the bogus link between vaccines and autism. Hannah Poling suffers from encephalopathy that was caused by a mitochondrial enzyme deficit. The result was some cognitive deficits similar to autism. An important point to remember is that autism is a clinical diagnosis. You can't just get a blood test for autism. It is therefore possible to twist the facts in the Poling case because the symptoms resemble those of autism even though they have a completely independent mechanism.

On a related note a good take down of Jim Carrey, Jenny Mcarthy and their so called "Green Vaccine" movement.