No sense of proportion

Large and small insanities

As Douglas Adams has observed, the universe is so mind-bogglingly big that a sense of proportion can be a dangerous thing to have. That is, at least, if you want to maintain your equanimity and sense of self-worth.

Nevertheless, the absence of any sense of proportion appears to be one of society's major ills. It manifests itself in various forms of innumerate inanity and scientific delusion. I have three very different examples in mind, the toxic impact of which should be readily apparent to any minimally rational reader. Today I'll present the first one, which is a delightful mix of religion and pseudoscience.

Playing center

Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have cruelly quipped that Gerald Ford spent too much time playing center on his football team, looking at the world upside-down from between his legs. I wonder whether Robert Sungenis filled the same position on his high school's team. Whatever the case may be, he ended up as a dedicated exponent of the theory that he is the center of the universe.

Forgive me. I overstate the situation just a little. Sungenis is actually a geocentrist rather than an egocentrist (although I suppose it's possible that he could be both). An ultramontane Catholic apologist who is far outside the mainstream of Catholic thought, Sungenis is a Bible literalist who believes in young-earth creationism and argues that Joshua couldn't have ordered the sun to stop in the sky (Joshua 10:12-13) unless it circled the earth—and not the other way around. Logical, right?

Sungenis is considered an embarrassment to the Catholic hierarchy even though he is trying to defend its old accusations against heliocentrist Galileo Galilei. However, his diocesan bishop has deemed some of his essays anti-Semitic and has ordered him to stop writing such material. You'd think the Church fathers would be grateful!

I have encountered Sungenis before. Any Google search on Catholic apologetics brings up his “Catholic Apologetics International” website, although it has since been renamed the “Bellarmine Theological Forum.” I was reminded of his rabid geocentrism upon being directed to an amusing post on The Greenbelt, where The Ridger gently eviscerates the campaign by Sungenis to discredit Galileo. As she points out, “When Ken Ham finds you too wacky, you are definitely in need of help.”

To get a sense of how ridiculous it is to think that the entire universe spins about a fixed earth, consider the simple case of Neptune. The distance between Earth and Neptune averages 30 astronomical units—that is, thirty times the mean distance of the earth from the sun. Assuming that Neptune's supposed path about the earth is approximately a circle, we compute the circumference of a circle with a radius of 30 AU to obtain a distance of 60π AU. This is the distance that Neptune supposedly travels in a single 24-hour period as it wheels about the earth. So how fast does Neptune have to travel to complete that circuit in the allotted time? Since an astronomical unit is approximately 93 million miles, a little calculator work yields 730 million miles per hour. If we divide by 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour) to convert this speed to miles per second, we get a little over 200 thousand miles per second for Neptune's speed.

Oops. The speed of light is only about 186,000 miles per second. Unless Neptune has warp drive, it can't possibly be traveling faster than the speed of light.

Please note that we were discussing the simple case of a relatively close planet—one that shares the same solar system as the earth. Imagine how much more ridiculous the results would be if we merely extended them to the nearest star, approximately four light-years away. Or the Andromeda galaxy, about a million light-years away. (The folks in Andromeda must be as dizzy as hell!)

Of course, this refutation of geocentricity assumes that Einstein was right. I'm sure that Sungenis is prepared to contradict Einstein in his discussion of “Jewish science.” You know, perhaps we should revisit the “egocentric” issue in his case.

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Exorcism for fun and profit

It's not just for priests anymore!

There are two good ways to tell if a psychic is a fraud: (1) They all are. (2) They don't cringe at the name of Steve Rubenstein.

Who is this Steve Rubenstein, you ask? He writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. He has an engaging just-the-facts style that might seem out of sync with New Age woo, but his wonderfully deadpan reporting deflates all pretensions in a delightfully effective way. Have you heard the one about the swordsman whose blade was so sharp his opponent didn't realize he had been decapitated until he turned his head and the whole thing fell off? That's Rubenstein.

He sent some heads rolling in the July 6, 2011, edition of the Chronicle with an article titled “What's in your closet?” Read the whole thing on the Chronicle website (where its title was changed to “Cleaning houses with psychic Sheldon Norberg”). Below I present some choice excerpts for your delectation:

What's in your closet?

Steve Rubenstein
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

There had to be a reason why a perfectly nice $1.7 million Marin County house wasn't selling. Maybe it had something to do with ghosts.

If so, it couldn't hurt to call in an expert. And there is no greater expert in persuading stubborn and obstinate ghosts to leave a haunted house than Sheldon Norberg, 48, a slender man with a shaved head who has been driving demons, devils and negative energy from Bay Area houses for the past two decades, at $1,200 per dwelling.

“I'm not cheap,” Norberg said, sitting quietly in a lawn chair by the front door to get a feel for what he would soon be facing inside. “But selling a house is a million-dollar transaction. Why take a chance?”

How true! I mean, his remark about not being cheap. The $1200 fee seems really clever—not such a round number that it seems arbitrary. Sheldon put some thought into that!

He sat with his eyes closed, his palms upturned, to enhance reception. At last he declared that this particular three-bedroom house, on a shady corner on the banks of Lark Creek, was by no means hopeless. True, there was negative energy on the top floor and in the basement. But nothing he couldn't handle.

“We are vibrating entities,” he said. “Realtors don't like to deal with these things. They think it's all woo-woo stuff. But prospective buyers get a feeling the moment they walk into a house. If there is anger, or sadness, or unresolved feelings inside, you have to handle it.”

Please tell us, Sheldon: At what frequency do we vibrate? Is it best measured in Hertz or kilo-Hertz? Perhaps even mega? For some reason, they never tell us. The “woo-woo stuff” is apparently really hard to measure.

Although Norberg neglected to inform Rosenberg about any specific frequencies he might have detected, the self-proclaimed psychic was otherwise ready to demonstrate his powerful talents to the Chronicle reporter. The house in Marin, it turns out, was full of anger and sadness. What's more, Norberg knew where the anger and sadness were centered!

[The house] was being sold, Norberg said, because the owners were getting divorced. After two months on the market and no offers, it was time to find out why. He headed upstairs, to the master bedroom. There he closed his eyes once more and declared the room to have been the site of conflict and sadness.

Okay, folks. You have to give Sheldon this one. His awesome sixth sense has manifested its supernatural acuity. He could tell the divorced couple experienced anger and sadness in the master bedroom.

As a professional psychic, Sheldon knows enough to pretty things up a bit with some Eastern mumbo-jumbo while he's at it:

This could be, Norberg said, because of the feng shui of the room, and its orientation on the north-south axis, its proximity to the nearby creek, the lack of sunlight and the heavy crossbeam that ran across the middle of the ceiling, cleaving the energy flow.

Also there was the divorce. Perhaps that had something to do with it too, he said.

“There is anger here,” he said in a soft voice, calling on his store of psychic powers.

We scoffers must stand in awe of such a demonstration, faithfully and reverently documented by the Chronicle's ace reporter. Who can doubt Sheldon Norberg now?

The owner of the house, a young woman named Rosemary, pulled up in her Lexus to check on Norberg and see firsthand what she was getting for her $1,200. (She had already paid $10,000 to a real estate stager to make the house look nice, and that had bought her a few bowls of decorative seashells and plastic lemons, so another $1,200, she opined, was just the cost of doing business.)

“I never used a service like this before,” Rosemary said. “But if it works, it's not really that expensive.”

Oh, Jiminy Christmas! The “real estate stager” has an even better gimmick than the psychic. For a $10,000 fee I would have supplied real lemons! For an extra $5000, I'd even toss in a few limes!

Although Norberg had already demonstrated his skills were almost up to the level of the real-estate stager, he continued to strut his stuff. Rosemary was there to provide first-person validation of the psychic's amazing insights.

Norberg stood in the bedroom where Rosemary acknowledged that she and her husband had themselves some pointed misunderstandings, and the psychic announced that he was feeling chest constrictions, emotional sadness and compressed energy. Rosemary nodded. Then he descended into the basement, a dank windowless storage space with a lot of junk lying around, and said it was not the most cheerful room in the house, either.

Speaking just for myself, I have to admit that I have always regarded dank, windowless basements as cheerful places, but I guess that's because I'm not psychic. Sheldon's preternatural powers can penetrate mere façades.

To ensure that Rosemary could see that she was getting her money's worth, Sheldon banished the basement's oppressive miasma.

He proceeded to sit down and close his eyes. The psychic said he does his best work with his eyes closed. It concentrates the energy.

“I feel the Earth shifting with the relation to the rotational planes,” he said at last. “The magnetic field has changed.”

There will be scoffers, I know. Skeptics will demand to know what the heck “rotational planes” are supposed to be. People who are not entirely ignorant of science will point out that magnetic fields can be detected and measured. The absence of appropriate electronic gear suggests that Sheldon Norberg prefers not to document his psychic manifestations with hard data. It's probably because any trace of doubt is exceedingly harmful to psychic powers. I'll bet Rubenstein had to be on his absolutely best behavior.

Norberg sat motionless for three hours, until the psychic heavy lifting was done and the house, he said, was clear. Afterward, Rosemary said the house felt pretty much the same to her as it did before, but maybe that was because she was “not in touch with the major energy channels.”

Rosemary is an absolute jewel, isn't she?

I'll admit, though, that Sheldon is starting to impress me just a bit. While earning $400 per hour while sitting stock-still may sound easy, just give it a try. You'll get the fidgets within minutes. Sheldon is earning his fee. (I'll bet the entire time he was thinking about the advantages of going into real-estate staging instead.)

And now—quite obviously—it's time for the happy ending! No newspaper puff piece would be complete without it.

Two days later, her real estate agent threw open the doors to the public for an open house. Rosemary had high hopes. Seventeen couples toured the newly energized property.

“But nobody made an offer,” Rosemary said with a sigh.

I'll bet Rosemary forgot to bury a little plaster statue of St. Joseph on the grounds. You need to bury him upside-down, for some reason, but it always works. You can get one for just a few bucks from your local Catholic bookstore. (I suspect that many Catholic bookstores are surviving on the margin provided by hordes of superstitious real-estate agents.)

Well, if the story can't have a happy ending, could it at least have a twist? Rubenstein digs deep into the story behind the story and comes up with a precious nugget:

Perhaps her optimism in Norberg was misplaced, she acknowledged, and perhaps her optimism in the real estate market was, too. According to the comps, which is real estate lingo for please-get-your-head-out-of-the-clouds, the house was worth not $1.7 million but $1.4 million.

I am not a real-estate expert. Neither, probably, are you. However, I have it on good authority that it is difficult to sell a house that is overpriced by $300,000. Imagine that!

“Hiring Sheldon, I was just covering all the bases,” she said. “It's good to have the positive energy. But we might have to lower the price just a little, too.”

You think? (Evidently not.)

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Television's snipe hunt challenge

High rewards for low standards

The so-called “reality” genre of television has explored such topics as survival skills, spouse-swapping, weight-loss, courtship ritual, and cohabitation with losers. In an exciting breakthrough for this “art form,” free-lance psychic investigators are soon to be rewarded for having the sloppiest experimental protocols and the lowest standards of verification. How else are we to interpret this wry report by Kevin McDonough in his Tune In Tonight column?

A new series “Paranormal Challenge” 9 p.m., Travel) offers the untrained and apparently “unaccredited” a chance at an apprenticeship of sorts.

Hosted by Zak Bagans of “Ghost Adventures” fame, “Challenge” invites amateur spook sleuths to “haunted” sites, arms them with gadgetry and sets them loose amid the ectoplasm.

The team that returns with the most “evidence” is declared the winner. The winner's sole compensation will be a newfound “respect” in the community of paranormal believers. And we all know that's worth twice its weight in pixie dust!

I think McDonough suspects that this could be an entertainment goldmine of unintentional humor. I suspect he's right.

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Cartoon character replaced?

What is Beck, after all?

Non Sequitur's Danae has dug out Lucy Van Pelt's old counseling booth and refurbished it into a pundit station. She senses an opportunity in the imminent departure of Glenn Beck from Fox News and is offering herself as a replacement. Nature abhors a vacuum, you know. (Is that why Wiley Miller depicts her father pushing around the old Hoover? Subliminal!) Danae's scheme seems fair: One cartoon character for another. She apparently has a good grasp of suitable topics, too, since Beck and science (or, more broadly, “reality”) were never comfortable with each other.

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Forrest in Sacramento

Darwin Day 2011

California's state capital observed Darwin Day on Sunday, February 13, 2011, at the La Sierra Community Center in Carmichael. The event was co-sponsored by several Sacramento-area organizations, including Sacramento Area Skeptics (the sponsors of last year's California tour by PZ Myers), the departments of biology and anthropology at Sacramento State University, the departments of astronomy and physics at Sacramento City College, Atheists and other Freethinkers, and local chapters of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

There were about two to three hundred people in attendance. They were welcomed by Mynga Futrell, co-chair of the organizing committee, who made a special point of emphasizing that the event was in honor of Charles Darwin and not a celebration of atheism. It was apparent that the organizers were at pains to make religious people feel welcome at the event, even at the cost of making them uncomfortable by stressing so earnestly that they were among friends. The Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento had a display table in the back of the hall, but no other religious organizations were visible. Perhaps the outreach to theistic evolutionists will succeed in drawing other sects to next year's Darwin Day, but it's not an easy task to construct a big-tent approach to Darwin Day when so many of Darwin's admirers consider him the man who made God an unnecessary hypothesis in biology. I expect that Darwin Day will continue to be dominated by people for whom religion is at best a cultural artifact and at worst the mortal enemy.

The master of ceremonies was Liam McDaid, the astronomy coordinator at Sacramento City College. McDaid made for a high-spirited emcee, lapsing occasionally into an Irish brogue when he deemed that the occasion warranted. He gave a laudatory introduction to the afternoon's featured speaker, Dr. Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University, professor of philosophy in the department of history and political science, and co-author (with Paul Gross) of Creationism's Trojan Horse.

Back to the Future: Or, What Can We Learn from Louisiana's 2008 Science Education Act?

Dr. Forrest had a front-row seat in her home state of Louisiana as right-wing forces converged on Baton Rouge to push a creationist agenda through the state legislature and onto the desk of the Bayou State's new creation-friendly governor. Her Darwin Day presentation outlined the events and players that produced the nation's first anything-goes science curriculum for public schools.

The Louisiana Science Education Act is one of those legislative measures that supposedly promotes “critical thinking,” but only in the case of evolution or climate change or some other topic disfavored by the Christian right. It never seems important to fret about the lack of statutory critical-thinking guidelines in matters such as the roundness of the earth or the heliocentric nature of the solar system (but perhaps we just need to wait a little longer). It's evolution that must always be called into question and treated with arch-skepticism.

As Forrest pointed out, creationism has evolved over the decades under the pressure of natural selection. As one ploy after another fails, creationism adapts to the new circumstances and changes in response. The foes of evolution, however, never seem to notice the irony of their adherence to Darwin's model. Forrest chose her “Back to the Future” title because Louisiana had enacted an overtly pro-creationist measure in 1981. The U.S. Supreme Court famously declared the bill unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard as a violation of the separation between church and state. Having learned at least part of the lesson of the Edwards decision, creationists had redirected their efforts in the 2008 bill. Under the banner of “academic freedom,” they abandoned the mandating of creationism and focused on permitting it.

In the case of the Louisiana Science Education Act, the strategic retreat worked. The creationists crafted a permissive approach that empowered public school teachers to supplement state-approved science texts and instructional materials with whatever outside materials the teachers might choose. This opened the door wide for an influx of creationist literature that creation-minded science teachers (an unfortunately large minority among public-school faculty) could distribute to their students and use as the basis of anti-science instruction. As Forrest phrased it, under the Louisiana Science Education Act, a creationist teacher “can use whatever she wants until she gets caught.” To make matters even worse, the anti-evolutionists managed to co-opt the complaint process provided by the new legislation. Under the regulations approved by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), parents who complain about inappropriate classroom materials will find themselves dealing with a review process stacked in favor of the creationists.

The Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 was not made out of whole cloth. It had its origins in model legislation promoted by the Discovery Institute. The DI's Casey Luskin was much in evidence during the progress of Senate Bill 733 through the enactment process (the vote was unanimous in its favor in the state senate and 94 to 3 in the state house of representatives) and its arrival on the governor's desk. When Gov. Jindal was supposedly pondering the measure, science organizations across the nation sent him messages exhorting him to veto it. Even his former biology professor, Dr. Arthur Landy, issued an earnest request that Jindal not make it more difficult for Louisiana students to become doctors by debasing their science education (Jindal once planned to go to medical school). The governor ignored them all and did not bother to respond to their arguments.

Although Gov. Jindal signed the bill without any publicity on June 25, 2008, someone apparently tipped off the Discovery Institute that he was about to approve SB 733. The DI posted a victory declaration on its website within minutes of the announcement from the governor's office that SB 733 was now state law. (It now resides on the Louisiana books as Act 473.)

In an appearance on Face the Nation shortly before signing SB 733, Jindal offered TV viewers a word-salad mash-up of nouveau-creationist talking points:

I don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them.… I want them to see the best data. I personally think human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator.… Now the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness.

“Withholding information”? “Political correctness”? These phrases are mere screens for smuggling creationism into the public school classroom under the guise of promoting “the very best science.” Jindal was flying the combined banners of “teach the controversy” and “academic freedom.” Scientists told him very clearly that these framing devices were a distortion, but he chose not to listen to them. Jindal is, after all, the anointed one. Literally. As Dr. Forrest pointed out, Jindal went through a formal laying-on-of-hands ceremony in 2007 at a Christmas gathering of the Louisiana Family Forum, a group that vigorously lobbied for SB 733 the following year.

Despite the enactment of the Louisiana Science Education Act, creationism has suffered a few recent setbacks. First of all, and perhaps most significantly, BESE approved mainstream scientific textbooks for use in public school classrooms, beating back an attempt by creationists to forestall the adoption of evolution-based biology texts. In addition, creationists posing as science experts have been unmasked as frauds and exponents of discredited and outlandish theories. (Of course, this has seldom discouraged them in the past.)

Forrest stated that she and her colleagues at the Louisiana Coalition for Science will be alert to future attempts by creationists to exploit Act 473 and in particular will assist parents who complain about anti-scientific materials being used in science classes. The deck has been stacked against science in Louisiana, but pro-science forces are vigilant and fighting back. Forrest cited the example of Zachary Kopplin, a high school senior in Baton Rouge who has taken on the ambitious project of repealing the Louisiana Science Education Act. Zachary has his work cut out for him, but he is working in earnest to restore science education's credibility in his home state. Forrest referred interested parties to Zachary's website.

Dr. Forrest's talk was followed by a Q&A session and a birthday party for Charles Darwin, complete with birthday cake. Longtime participants in Sacramento's Darwin Day observations seemed to agree that the fourteenth annual event in the state capital was one of the most successful. It was Dr. Forrest's first visit to Sacramento and her reception was both friendly and enthusiastic. At least one fan was seen getting her autograph on his hardback copy of Creationism's Trojan Horse.

Resources

The National Center for Science Education has posted a video of Barbara Forrest's talk as she delivered it on April 24, 2010. The video is marginal and the audio is poor, but the content closely parallels Forrest's presentation at Sacramento's Darwin Day.

Update: Dr. Forrest's presentation in Sacramento is now posted on the NCSE's YouTube account: Darwin Day 2011.

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Trim to fit

The power of truncated quotes

I was browsing through Orac's Respectful Insolence when I stumbled across his post on the latest inanity by Mike Adams. The purchase by AOL of the Huffington Post had inspired Adams to celebrate a wonderful new opportunity for “alternative health authors.” (Why do they use so many syllables when “cranks” is so much more economical an expression?) Since HuffPo is “headed in the direction of conventional media,” its wackier writers might be pleased to hear that Mike Adams is ready to welcome them at his NaturalNews site:

Many of the site's best writers are wondering where they can go to get their alternative medicine stories published. It certainly isn't WebMD, which even the New York Times just called out as being a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry, saying “WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling”. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/m...)

Are you as impressed as I am? Imagine! Even the stodgy old New York Times recognizes that WebMD is merely a front for rapacious drug companies. Naturally I was inspired to click on the link to learn more. Just how thoroughly did the Times trash WebMD? Inquiring minds want to know!

It was really a bit of a let-down. Writer Virginia Heffernan did not exactly make the statement quoted by Adams. What she really wrote is this:

In more whistle-blowing quarters, WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling.

Oh. That's just a little bit different.

True to tell, Heffernan does not actually like WebMD. Equipped with her pertinent experience as a television critic and degrees in English literature, Heffernan goes on to complain about WebMD's product placement, advertisements, and connection to various pharmaceutical companies. She even cites an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, as if he's a reliable source (she calls him “Chuck,” for some reason). She adds that “WebMD has become permeated with pseudomedicine.”

Sounds like Mike Adams would feel right at home.

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Freaky Friday

Saturday was pretty weird, too

The four high holy days always find me back at Mom & Dad's in California's Central Valley. It's the ingrained behavior of a dutiful son. Besides, I don't want to miss the nice dinners that occur at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (even if the religious aspects may get a big cloying). I can visit with family members and catch up on the latest developments—and latest additions (six of them in the last six years). Name tags might help.

I did say four, but I mentioned only three. Were you keeping count?

The fourth high holy day is a slightly movable feast that occurs between the end of summer school and the beginning of the fall term. It's associated with the birthdays of my mother and my goddaughter. A joint birthday party is held on some convenient weekend (bundling in some other, less significant, fall birthdays). The combination of both Mom and Becky reaches critical mass for me, so it's practically a command appearance. And there's usually a nice picnic, cookout, or barbecue, so it doesn't fall too far short of a holiday feast.

Timing is everything. This year I rashly headed south on a Friday. My usual pattern is an overnight Saturday-Sunday visit, but the birthday celebration was being held at my youngest brother's home on Saturday. It was easier to travel down on a Friday, stay at Mom & Dad's, and then head north for home after the Saturday event.

That meant, of course, that I was at my parents' on Friday evening, which for them involves a standing dinner date with a coterie of friends. The Four-Wheelers have scarcely a four-wheel vehicle left among them, advancing years underscoring the imprudence of gadding about in Jeeps and muscle trucks, but the label has stuck. Having devolved into a kind of once-a-week supper club, the Four-Wheelers assemble religiously on Friday evening to break bread and bust the chops of the great Communist-Democrat conspiracy to destroy America.

Naturally Mom & Dad insisted I join them as their guest at the Four-Wheelers gathering. Oh, goodie.

On the road again

We did not go directly to the restaurant selected for that evening's event. My parents chose to leave early to allow time for a social call at the home of my father's widowed first cousin. My octogenarian father insists on being the driver instead of a rider, so I climbed into the passenger seat and Mom relegated herself to the back seat. (This is the configuration they insist on whenever I'm down there.)

Fortunately, Dad has preserved an unblemished driving record and is still fairly trustworthy on the road (except when he wants to show off how much horsepower he has under the hood, but then he has to listen to Mom grumbling like Marge Simpson from the back seat, so he usually refrains). On this particular occasion, Dad waxed eloquent about the many improvements being made to long-neglected county roads. Miles of old macadam were being built up, repaved, and restriped. The smooth, dark surface flew past beneath the car's tires as Dad nattered away.

Then he abruptly shut up, pressed his lips grimly together, and squeezed his hands like vises on the steering wheel. A bright green sign had come into view. The road projects Dad so dearly loved were being funded by President Obama's stimulus package. Apparently he had forgotten about the sign that said, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” He waited tensely for his radical-communist-socialist son to make some mocking quip and he did an unusually good job of keeping his eyes on the road—a good way to avoid seeing the small smile on my lips.

I let a few seconds trickle by. They were long seconds. Then I let him have it:

“The curves are nicely banked, too. You won't have to worry about standing water during the rainy season.”

No, the tension didn't suddenly drain out of my sire, but he did ease up just a fraction and began to tell us of the days when the roads were all dirt or gravel and how he could date the period because he remembered riding through the area with his uncle, who returned to the Azores when Dad was still a young child.

The maestro

We reached his cousin's house. She and my father are first cousins by virtue of having fathers who are brothers, hence sharing a family name. She had always been ferociously proud of her Ferox heritage, even to the point of making invidious comparisons between the accomplishments of her father's family and those of her husband's. It seems especially odd in retrospect, given that her husband built up and maintained a dairy farm every bit as large and as successful as our family's.

But de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Her late husband had achieved a posthumous canonization in her mind and become the exemplar of Azorean pluck and diligence. Dying in a nasty farm accident can do that to one. We all spoke glowingly of his accomplishments during our short visit and admired the memorial display of photographs in the living room, many months since he shuffled off the mortal coil. There is no nice, neat “closure” after such an unforeseen end to a six-decade marriage, so Dad's cousin is certain to mourn for however many years are left to her.

We made small-talk and she got distracted, which I'm sure was at least part of the reason my parents wanted to visit her. My rare appearance could also be counted upon to cause some gushing from Dad's cousin, because my professorial rank (even in the modest station of a community college) apparently evokes prideful recollections of our mutual family heritage. The label faz tudo is applied to someone who “does everything” (the literal translation of the phrase). My father and his cousin share a faz tudo great-grandfather who sported the island nickname of “mestre Francisco.” (Nicknames are important in the Azores, where it seems that ninety percent of the men share the names António, Francisco, João, José, and Manuel.) The most mundane translation of mestre is “teacher,” but to American ears that lacks the weight of the Portuguese connotations, which are better matched by “master” or even maestro.

It took no effort on our part to get Dad's cousin to recount once more the legend of mestre Francisco, who bundled up his family in the 1860s (or thereabouts) and sailed to Brazil. “Sailed” is not quite right. Francisco and his family booked passage on a paddle-steamer, which unfortunately broke down before making port in Rio de Janeiro. The ship remained becalmed in the Atlantic for two weeks while the crew unsuccessfully sought to repair the damaged drive train for its paddles. Eventually my great-great-grandfather presented himself to the captain and offered his services. In desperation, the captain let him try his hand at repairs. The mestre then spent two long days working on the ship's warped and broken gears—wooden gears—while his son fetched tools and supplies for him. When the mestre succeeded and the ship steamed into Rio, the captain gave him letters of introduction that set him up in business as a highly recommended craftsman in Brazil. Mestre Francisco prospered in Rio and eventually took his family back to the Azores with a tidy nest egg.

This was the first time I had heard the story from Dad's cousin, although it was familiar to me from tellings by my paternal grandparents. It was a good story, foreshadowing as it did my own grandfather's decision to gather up his family and seek his fortune in the New World—except that the mestre returned to the Azores after his Brazilian sojourn while my grandfather's family put down American roots too deep to transplant back to the islands. I had included it in my unpublished novel, taking advantage of the parallelism between the lives of my grandfather and my great-great-grandfather. To my surprise, the version told by Dad's cousin included details that I thought I had made up in fleshing out the tale in my manuscript. Perhaps I had heard them before and had forgotten. In any case, I was smiling at the end of the story. Our cousin showed us a photograph of her grandfather, who as a boy had helped his faz tudo father repair a paddle-steamer.

The theme of man-versus-machine runs through the manuscript of my novel, which should not surprise anyone familiar with farm life. While my great-great-grandfather experienced it in a different context, farmers spend daily life among potentially lethal devices. This my father's cousin knows all too well, but she was cheered by our visit and I kept to myself my thoughts about the travails of mestre Francisco amidst the gearworks of a paddle-steamer and the fate of our cousin's husband amidst heavy farm equipment.

She waved happily at our car as we left and turned back onto the communist-funded county roads.

Dinner among the ruins

The Four-Wheelers circulate among a handful of favored restaurants. I was familiar with the evening's choice. My family used to go there frequently during my adolescence. The subsequent forty years have not been kind to it. The plastic booths, Formica tables, and linoleum floors all look to be what's left of the originals, however patched or worn they may be. A policy of deferred maintenance has been religiously adhered to, although I assume certain minimum steps have been taken to assuage the concerns of the local health inspector.

I was surprised to see no condemnation notice posted in the window.

The real proof of a restaurant, of course, lies in its meals. Therefore, in fairness, I have to report that my cheeseburger earned a passing grade. In the tradition of old-fashioned family restaurants, the portions were generous, too. My parents and their friends—at least, those not under doctor's orders—ate hearty.

By happenstance (I think), I was seated near one end of the table, sitting next to Chuck and opposite his wife Darla. Chuck's name is familiar to me, since it appears on most of the execrable, crazy-ass, wingnut spam that my father sometimes forwards to me. (It's the kind of dreck immortalized at MyRightWingDad.net.) No doubt Dad has complained to Chuck and the other Four-Wheelers that I do not belong to their coterie of conservative conspiracists, so Chuck looked just a little uncomfortable at my presence.

I was, of course, as sunny and cheerful as ever. Darla seemed rather taken with me. Chuck eventually relaxed a bit, perhaps surprised that I had not insisted on singing the Internationale before dining or interrupting all conversations with pithy quotes from Chairman Mao. Nope. I just hunkered down and endured the occasion, munching on my burger and refraining from any action more overt than declining to guffaw with everyone else when a quip was made about the obvious hoax that is global warming. Hilarious. (They are, of course, also concerned about the completely unrelated gradual decline in average rainfall in California as average temperatures tick upward and both plant and animal species adjust their preferred ecological niches northward.)

Chuck and Darla are exactly the sort of people that Mom & Dad would have once avoided with a disdainful sniff and backward tilt of the head. I forget exactly who has what, but Chuck and Darla have seven marriages between them. The family values clique is overloaded with people who apparently value marriage over and over again. To quote Candide's Doctor Pangloss:

Why, marriage, boy,
Is such a joy,
So lovely a condition,
That many ask no better than
To wed as often as they can,
In happy repetition.

A brilliant exposition, even if I do say so myself.

The dozen or so people in attendance at the Four-Wheelers' dinner had a good time and no one appeared to glance askance at me too often. Even so, I expect the conversation was much more mild-mannered than usual and I would love to have an audio recording of the next week's event. No doubt Dad hung his head and confessed he did not know where he had gone wrong.

Silly Saturday

Since so little steam was let off at Friday's dinner, I suppose the built-up pressure was too much to withstand by Saturday morning. Dad was in high dudgeon.

“I see where Obama has endorsed the Ground Zero mosque!”

I was having breakfast in the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the table with me. Dad was yelling from the adjacent dining room, where the computer is set up.

“Indeed?” I said. “I hadn't heard.”

I turned back to the Fresno Bee, not intending to say more. There was no point in mentioning that it wasn't really a mosque and wasn't really at Ground Zero. But now it was Mom's turn.

“That's not a surprise. He's a Muslim, after all.”

I started. This was much worse than usual. Caught by surprise, I was unusually blunt.

“No. He's not. Don't say stupid things, Mom.”

Her feathers were ruffled, but she wasn't backing down.

“He is, too! He's even admitted it himself!”

“Don't be silly. He's done no such thing.”

“I heard him myself!” she declared.

Now I was angry.

“No. You. Didn't. You can't have heard it because he never said it.”

Dad is fairly hard of hearing (especially when he wants to be), but we had raised our voices. Naturally he came to his spouse's rescue. Obama's voice came booming out of the speakers of Dad's computer:

“I know, because I am one of them,” said the president's voice.

I got up from the breakfast table and stalked into the dining room.

“Now this is just crazy! I'm supposed to take an out-of-context excerpt as proof of this idiocy? What's the antecedent of the pronoun, huh? What does ‘them’ mean, huh?”

I get like this sometimes. It's not one of my more attractive features and I am usually careful to avoid intellectual bullying, but I was white hot. It also feeds my father's martyr complex about the over-educated with their fancy degrees looking down their noses at him. When I catch myself doing it, I try to ease up, but I didn't parse my question into little one-syllable words for Dad. My father's not stupid and his vocabulary was equal to the task. Was he just a bit shamefaced when he scrolled back the video clip?

Dad had the YouTube video “Obama Admits He's a Muslim” on his computer screen. He had neglected to play the preceding six seconds of the president's address to the Turkish assembly. Now it came out of the speakers:

Many other Americans have Muslims in their families, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know because I am one of them.

“Some proof!” I scoffed. “He's just saying he has Muslims in his family and has lived among them—things everyone has known for ages! Some proof!”

But Dad left the video run a bit longer. Unsurprisingly, there was the truncated clip from candidate Obama's interview with George Stephanopolous:

You're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my “Muslim faith.”

The quotes aren't visible in spoken dialog, of course. (If only he had used “air quotes”!) But the intent was obvious (even if not to poor little George) and I wasn't having any of it:

“Good grief! Obama was just saying the McCain wasn't going around claiming that Obama was a Muslim, unlike some of McCain's supporters. That's all! Damn! It's embarrassing when my parents go around saying stupid things!”

I marched off before it got any worse.

Later, of course, I wondered if Dad even bothered to read the candy-ass cover-your-ass disclaimer at the beginning of the video. I suspect he just bleeped across it:

Legal Disclaimer: The writers, producers, editors, and publishers of this video are not stating, claiming, or implying that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim, or that Obama himself claimed or admitted to being a Muslim. Rather the writers, producers, editors, and publishers of this video are only examining the evidence surrounding the rumor that Barack Hussein Obama might be a secret Muslim.

Yeah, right. This is about as persuasive a disclaimer as those at the beginning of half-hour paid-programming adverts for miracle cures:

The statements made in this program have not been evaluated by the FDA. The products offered here are not claimed to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.

Now let's learn how to cure cancer!

(Naturally my mother has a copy on her shelf of a pseudoscientific cancer-cure book by renowned health expert Suzanne Somers. I'm afraid, she's a sucker for this kind of nonsense, which infuses the health-related stories on most of the right-wing news sites. It's not just the left-of-center Huffington Post.)

Fortunately, the cooling-off period took hold and the afternoon birthday party came off without a hitch (even if I had to circle a couple of identical-looking blocks in my baby brother's neighborhood before finding the home I visit an average of less than once a year). Most of the attendees were lineal descendants of my parents or spouses of those descendants, but my sister and brother-in-law brought an old friend of theirs who quickly button-holed me and quizzed me about my novel. He had read my sister's copy of the manuscript and wanted to know when it would see print. Out of my parents' earshot, I explained that it was under review and no decision would be made till later in the year.

One of my cousins was also present. I took the opportunity to inoculate him against possible future distress in the unlikely event that he ever starts reading books—in particular, mine. I mentioned that I had written down many of the family stories in fictional form. I recounted our visit the day before to Dad's cousin and her retelling of the mestre Francisco story. I explained that I covered the big family blow-up from nearly thirty years ago, when we battled over our grandmother's estate. My cousin shook his head in recollection of those dreadful days. And he seemed unperturbed at the thought that his counterpart was in the pages of my book.

“If you wrote it as fiction, then people can't assume that real people did what your characters do.”

Yeah. Do please keep that in mind. Did I mention your father is the bad guy?

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Could Dr. Nicolosi change?

Only if he really wanted to!

The buttons on my car radio provide a very broad cross-section of the broadcast (and political) spectrum. This week I punched the one corresponding to the far right of the AM dial and found myself listening to a rebroadcast of the August 3, 2010, installment of “Catholic Answers Live.” Host Patrick Coffin was praising the hour's guest, one Joseph Nicolosi.

You may recognize the name. Along with the late and unfortunate Charles Socarides, Nicolosi is known for founding NARTH, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. That is, Dr. Nicolosi is one of those psychologists who offers “reparative therapy” to turn unhappy gays into unhappy straights. (He would, of course, dispute that.)

It helps, naturally, that there are no homosexuals. They don't exist! Dr. Nicolosi makes no bones about it when confronted with potential subjects to confess to being homosexual. “You are not homosexual,” he tells them. “You are a heterosexual with a homosexual problem.”

In case the patient is not persuaded, Nicolosi hits them with scientific reasoning: “Your body was designed for a woman. You are a heterosexual.”

It would be unkind of the patient to explain real life to Nicolosi at that point. One assumes that most don't try.

Nicolosi says that his fees are higher than those of his associates in the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, but one assumes he's worth every three-dollar bill he gets.

I listened in fascination as Nicolosi trotted out 19th century Freudian doctrine. He scoffed at the idea that sexual orientation might have a genetic component. (The correlations between identical twins must be a gigantic statistical fluke.) To Nicolosi, talk of a “gay gene” is arrant nonsense. (He's probably unintentionally right on that one: the biological components of sexual orientation seem exceedingly unlikely to reside in a compact unit on one gene.) Since he refuses to allow nature to be involved, it has to be all about nurture:

“There's so much more evidence for what we call the classic triadic relationship.” Nicolosi declaims. “Triadic as in visualize a triangle. In one corner you have the over-involved mother, in the other corner of the triangle you have the distant detached or critical father and in the other corner you have the boy who may be temperamentally sensitive, artistic, introverted, that sort of thing.”

And I presume if we reverse the sexes in the triadic relationship to posit a daughter's alienation from her mother, then we get tribadism. Hmm. Triad. Tribad. A coincidence? I think not! (Drop me a note if your university wants to confer an honorary doctorate on me for my discovery.)

Coffin spent much of his time anticipating Nicolosi's remarks and fawning on his guest, who commented, “You've been studying Freud.” Eventually, however, Coffin turned to the phones and welcomed a caller named Monica. She was concerned about her brother, who had declared himself gay and walked out of a twenty-year marriage. Monica hoped that Dr. Nicolosi could help her steer her brother back onto the straight and narrow. She commented that she had been listening to the broadcast and had recognized her family in some of Nicolosi's remarks.

“I'm very much like my mom and we're very strong women,” said Monica.

Nicolosi pounced.

“Yeah, well, typically, you know, a number of studies show that the youngest child tends to be more inclined to be homosexual than the older.”

But he had jumped too soon.

“But he is the oldest,” said Monica.

“He is the oldest?” said Nicolosi, the dismay evident in his voice. (Reparative psychologists should investigate whether coursework in cold reading would qualify as continuing education. It would certainly enhance Nicolosi's professional qualifications.)


“He is the oldest and I'm the youngest,” declared Monica.

She continued with an extensive description of her family, its ethnicity, and its spiritual life. Eventually, Patrick Coffin got impatient and tried to bring the caller back to the point. He asked her a question.

“Monica, how many kids in your family? Your brother is the oldest of how many?”

“My brother is the oldest of four,” replied Monica. “He's the only male.”

Nicolosi, who had evidently been nursing his wounds, came back to life.

“Oh, the only male, so he didn't have any really male figures. He probably wasn't close to his father. Does this fit the usual pattern of being closer to his mother?”

Eager to play along after having so cruelly disappointed the doctor earlier in the program, Monica answered promptly: “What you were saying, yes.”

Success! Another brilliant analysis by the ace psychologist!

It's science! Ish.

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Judging a book by its author

Something I don't need to read

Nepotism poster child Tori Spelling is on a signing tour to promote her new book. The formerly reputable McClatchy Company is helping out with breathless little stories like an interview article in The Sacramento Bee:

There's an anecdote in it about you contacting the late Farrah Fawcett.

It was during a reading on the phone with (celebrity psychic) John Edward. We have the same publicist. I thought, “Oh, this'll be cool, maybe my dad will come through.” Instead, John said, “Farrah Fawcett's coming through.” He was really surprised, too. She wanted me to let her family know she's happy and OK. I wrote a letter to Ryan O'Neal, explaining the story. I said, “Please don't think I'm crazy, I'm simply passing on a message.”

Gosh, Tori? Think you're crazy? Never! Think you're gullible and maybe just a little bit stupid? From now till eternity!

Perhaps I am being too mean. After all, she shares a publicist with John Edward, famous for being “The Biggest Douche in the Universe.” It may be that Tori is just a good little trouper who cooperates with her p.r. person in trying to gin up some press coverage for a fellow celebrity from the same stable. I can't tell, though, if Tori is being cynically manipulated or just cynically playing along.

In a way, of course, it doesn't matter. The stupid is right there on the page for us to see.

Let's look the other way.

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Now hear this!

Trust Dr. Rock Star

Farm life is not necessarily a bucolic idyll accompanied by the soulful lowing of cattle and the melodic twittering of songbirds. The roaring of tractors and other farm equipment may imprint you with less restful souvenirs—like a ringing in the ears.

During my childhood, no one on the farm wore ear protection during long hours in the field, driving tractors to and fro with equipment in tow. Some of the farm gear was unpowered and relatively quiet: discs, harrows, plows, and rakes. The diesel engines of the tractors provided most of the noise. Other devices raised a ruckus of their own, powered devices like balers, whirling choppers, reciprocating scythes, and stalk cutters. Then there were odd devices like the cultipacker, an unpowered farm tool that consisted of a big cylindrical axle festooned with toothed steel rings, which clashed against each other as they rolled across the field. It sounded like a continuous explosion in a cymbal factory.

One legacy of my life as a farm kid is tinnitus—a continual ringing in my ears. It's a mild case, usually easily ignored, but it varies from time to time and I wish it would go away. I unknowingly did my best to avoid it, always letting my brother volunteer for farm tasks that he would happily do while I would regard them as infringing on my reading time. Despite my shirking, the damage was done.

Naturally my ears pricked up when I heard a radio advertisement for a new remedy. Although my doctor had told me there was no useful treatment for tinnitus, hope springs eternal. Had there been a recent breakthrough? The pitchman on the radio cheerfully reported that Quietus would safely provide relief from the ringing, humming, or squealing in the ears that characterizes various forms of tinnitus. Sounded good to me.

Now you can alleviate the ringing with all-natural Quietus, a proprietary formula that helps support healthier cochlear auditory nerve function in the inner ear, to relieve that annoying internal noise.

Oops! I hear buzzwords. Do you hear buzzwords? “All natural”? “Helps support”?

I also smell something. Like a rat.

The male voice of the pitchman gave way to the female voice of a supposed satisfied customer of Quietus:

I like it that it's homeopathic and doesn't require a prescription.

Okay. Got it. Quietus is a bogus nostrum with no medical value (unless you count the placebo effect). Out of curiosity, I visited the Quietus website. That where I discovered that Quietus was “discovered by a drummer.”

Sounds like someone was inspired by Airborne, the supremely successful fraud perpetrated “by a school teacher.” Who wouldn't trust a remedy invented by a rock star? (They're way more credible than mere doctors and researchers.)

The only good part of the Quietus website was the fine, fine (really fine) print at the bottom of the page (complete with the product name misspelled!):

Queitus™ Advanced Homeopathic Medicine. **These results not typical. Individual results will vary. These real testimonials do not represent the typical or ordinary experience of users. They are for demonstration purposes only and do not accurately capture the actual results you will experience. Your results may vary and you may need to use the product for a longer or shorter period of time. Each person’s experience with Quietus is different, which cannot be determined from these testimonials.

It's a lovely bit of cover-your-ass prose, which approximately 99% of visitors to the website will not read (or perhaps even see).

We tinnitus sufferers will have to continue to wait for a genuine remedy from real scientists—perhaps something along the lines of current research, which has succeeded in regrowing cochlear hair cells in mice. In the meantime, one can find a consumer-alert message about Quietus on YouTube (although I must warn you that it has an irritatingly noisy soundtrack!). I'd rather direct you to this trenchant commentary by Dara Ó Briain, who thinks we should “bag” homeopathy. But please don't clap too loudly. My ears are delicate.

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Martin Gardner, 1914-2010

Founder of the modern skeptics movement

Sometimes little fragments of memory get stuck in your mind with preternatural clarity. I recall one such episode from 1970. It was a late spring afternoon and I had some time to kill before a scheduled meeting with a college friend to wrap up some class project. I was sprawled on my bed (the bedspread had a multicolor rectangular grid pattern on a black background) and I was paging through a book. This was not in itself particularly unusual or remarkable. I read books everywhere and at all times.

On this occasion, however, I was propped up on my elbows reading a Dover edition of Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies. I was utterly fascinated. I already knew Gardner's work from Scientific American, eagerly reading his “Mathematics Games” column every month. His book, however, was figuratively shaking me by the shoulders and waking me up. I had read J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée on their UFO theories, which had seemed quite intriguing on first glance. Now I saw that Gardner had preemptively refuted them years before they began their careers as pop icons of the UFO cults.

And I was being deprogrammed. So much for little green men (and their twisted ass-freak leaders).



Gardner overcame a fundamentalist upbringing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to become the founder of the modern skeptical movement. Although he never abandoned theism itself (he styled himself a “mysterian”), Gardner tirelessly promoted a questioning attitude toward religious claims and irrational beliefs. It is sad to note that some of Gardner's targets, like Scientology and homeopathy, continue to ensnare millions of people decades after he punctured their pretensions. Nonsense can be robust.

Fortunately, Gardner has inspired a legion of successors and the skeptical movement continues to defend rational thought against the inane nostrums and delusions of the day. Let us continue to defend his legacy of sanity and reason.

---

In addition to his millions of written words, Gardner was recorded in a number of interviews over his long life. The 1979 interview was just unearthed in unexpurgated form in the wake of his death and in that sense is new. The others represent Gardner in the later stages of his career and demonstrate his undiminished sense of curiosity and enthusiasm for recreational math and science.

• College Math Journal interview, 1979, by a panel of interviewers (including Stan Ulam and Ron Graham in supporting roles!).
• Skeptical Inquirer interview, 1998, by Kendrick Frazier.
• Cambridge University Press blog interview, 2005, by Don Albers. The interview is in five parts (click on the “Read on” prompt at the end of each part).
• Mathematical Association of America interview, 2006, by Colm Mulcahy.

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A grave injustice

Postmortem testimony

There is a long and continuing tradition of dead people who refuse to shut up. Joe Gillis (William Holden) is pretty chatty in Sunset Boulevard despite floating face down in a swimming pool. Susie Salmon has a lot to say in The Lovely Bones even though she has been raped and murdered.

You can't keep a good corpse down, so why not let the dead have their day in court? The good folks at TLC have risen{!} to the challenge.

TUNE IN
Kevin McDonough

‘Paranormal Court’ takes family feuds into afterlife

TLC ventures into seriously creepy territory with “Paranormal Court” (10 p.m. Saturday).

Robert Hansen, a psychic medium famous among people who believe in psychic mediums, will mediate disputes between family members squabbling over possessions left behind by the deceased.

Hansen goes right to the source and communicates with the “owners” to set
things straight. If it's a hit, we can expect only more superstition and ignorance passing as entertainment on the network formerly known as The Learning Channel.

My psychic powers predict that the sheep will stream in to be shorn and TLC will have a big success. Unless, of course, Robert Hansen keeps telling the suckers that the dearly departed really intended to leave all of their earthly possessions to Hansen's pet cat, with him as trustee.

If only Paranormal Court had been around when my family went at each other's throats over my grandmother's will. It would have added an entirely new dimension of insanity and inanity.

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What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Suburban superstition

Pacific Gas & Electric has been installing new meters throughout its service area. I've had one since last year. The PG&E meter reader no longer needs to bustle up to the side of my house to check on my electricity usage. Instead, my meter dutifully reports in wirelessly. No more hassles with locked gates, growling dogs, or other yard hazards.

No more meter readers, either, but I'm sure that workforce reduction was part of what PG&E was going for.

There were reportedly some initial problems when people started receiving ridiculously high utility bills. (No one complained about ridiculously low bills, so I assume there must have been none of those.) PG&E recalibrated or reprogrammed the new meters (or something like that) and the complaints faded away.

Time for new complaints!

The meters, you see, are trying to kill us.

Perhaps you thought the new complaints would be about the prospect of PG&E using the remote-control features to impose arbitrary and capricious black-outs and brown-outs during power shortages. (I think we're saving those concerns for the next round of complaints.) But, no, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the fearmongers have seized on the tiny, tiny emissions when the PG&E SmartMeters transmit their reports.

Some Sebastopol residents have questioned whether radio frequency radiation from the meters, which transmit their data to the utility via wireless communications, could threaten their health.

Their concerns grow from the heated debate over whether radiation from cell phones, Wi-Fi computers and other wireless devices can cause cancer or other ailments. They want a moratorium on installing the SmartMeters to measure electricity and gas use.

The meters are zapping us with electromagnetism! Arrggh!

There is solid science behind this concern, of course. Recall that microwaves from cell phones cause ear cancer. Or maybe not. A well-known Danish study followed a large cohort of cell-phone users for decades without finding any sign of increased incidence of cancer.

But absence of evidence is no reason to put off a panic attack. San Francisco is considering legislation to require a “radiation” warning on cell phones. Such a good idea. And, of course, concerned citizens want to stop the SmartMeters.

“We are being increasingly exposed to an exponential amount of radio frequency radiation,” said Sebastopol resident Sandi Maurer. “Now there are going to be two of these things in every home.”

Maurer is the founder of the EMF Safety Network, a clearinghouse for information on the possible dangers of electromagnetic fields. She and other residents persuaded the Sebastopol City Council this month to ask California energy regulators to stop SmartMeter installation while the possible health risks can be assessed.

Oh, good. An information “clearinghouse” is involved. Not surprisingly, the EMF Safety Network's website offers a plethora of advice and links about protecting oneself (and one's kids!) from EMF.

What we really need is a kind of early-alert system that warns concerned citizens whenever anyone installs any kind of transmission device anywhere.

We could use the radio!

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PZ does Rocklin

The Q&A at Sierra College

Three out of eight. That's how many of the talks by PZ Myers I attended during his California tour. PZ's presentation on Thursday evening at Sierra College in Rocklin (just north and east of Sacramento) was his valedictory. He chose for this occasion a slight variant of the presentation he gave his UC Davis audience last week. Ray Comfort was once again front and center as the embodiment of creationist stupidity, providing an all-too-easy target and generating lots of laughs from a capacity crowd in 110 Weaver Hall. (A sign on the wall said the lecture hall could hold no more than 133 people, but I suspect that a few more than that were actually present.)

While PZ's two-lecture repertoire for his “Complexity and Creationism” tour produces a series of similar talks for those of us who attended multiple events, each venue generated its own unique Q&A sessions with the audience. In my reports on the California tour, I've concentrated on this aspect of the presentations. After a brief recap of the main body of PZ's presentation at Sierra College, I'll give my account of the audience reaction. In my opinion, it was the most spirited of the three events at which I was present, although the number of attendees was also the smallest.

The main event

After a Mr. Deity clip, which PZ has been using at his stops to settle the crowd, Brett Ransford of Freethinkers of Sierra, the local sponsor of PZ's appearance, introduced the evening's speaker. Brett recounted PZ's expulsion from a screening of Expelled while Richard Dawkins was permitted to stroll into the movie theater unmolested. Upon taking center stage, PZ quipped that he was pleased to have been regarded as scarier than Dawkins and launched his presentation.

“Creationists have no good arguments for anything,” declared PZ, providing his audience with the central theme of his talk. He cited the example of Geoffrey Simmons, M.D., who has written a book titled Billions of Missing Links, only to demonstrate in a radio debate with PZ that he was completely ignorant of the existence of a rich trove of whale ancestors. PZ freely admitted that he was rude enough to label Dr. Simmons as ignorant (the usual definition of lack of knowledge, after all), which caused a lot of gasping and clutching at pearls among the radio station's delicate religionists.

It turned out that Simmons had limited his research on whales to a perfunctory reading of a Scientific American article on cetacean evolution—although apparently not turning enough pages to discover that the magazine had included a lengthy list of the whale's extinct ancestor species.

“That's just the standard creationist approach to research,” said PZ.

Several of PZ's slides served up jaw-droppingly stupid statements by Ray Comfort, famed banana connoisseur and the star of the evening's creationist freak show. These included Comfort's claim that Darwin thought human males and females had evolved independently, his similar statement about elephants and dogs.

It doesn't help Ray Comfort's credibility that his introduction to a special giveaway edition of Darwin's Origin of Species was a cut-and-paste job that included outright plagiarism.

PZ also touched on creationists' excessive literalness. (Well, they are rather hung up on “the Word.”) Michael Behe sees “little trucks and busses” in biological systems. “I mean, literally,” he says. In a similarly wacky vein, Ken Ham's Creation “Museum” sports signs boasting that the facility presents a “literal interpretation” of the Bible story of Genesis.

Literal interpretation? “Those are two words that don't go together,” said PZ.

Creationist Jerry Bergman once debated PZ over the question of whether intelligent design ought to be taught in school (presumably as a legitimate subject and not as a good example of pseudoscience). While PZ argued that ID creationism lacks the theoretical framework and evidence that science requires, Bergman responded that you don't need a theory—all you need are facts. (Huh?) Besides, according to Bergman even a carbon atom is irreducibly complex (Wha—?) and, as we all know, blah, blah, blah, Hitler!, blah, blah.

That sterling performance by Bergman qualified him for selection as PZ's example of the derangement of creationists. Hard to argue with that one.

PZ was also sorry to note the existence in his backyard of the Twin Cities Science Association. At its website, the TCCSA offers a gibbering essay by Bergman in which he states,

All functional systems that require two or more parts to function properly are irreducibly complex.

Michael Behe would beg to differ.

Both versions of PZ's “Complexity and Creationism” talk (the ones that I saw, anyway) conclude with his slide in support of the pillars of science—reason, evidence, critical thinking, and naturalism—and denouncing the myriad aspects of irrational belief—namely, gods, demons, angels, etc. He expressed the hope that religion would someday be nothing more than a mildly eccentric hobby, rather like knitting, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or writing poetry.

The Sierra College audience was engaged and vocal even before PZ officially inaugurated the post-talk question-and-answer session. Quips and comments abounded. (When PZ poked fun at the “design requires a designer” trope with a slide that asked, “Does thunder require a thunderer?”, an audience member asked, “Would someone who turned away from belief in a thunder god be a Thor loser?”) We also discovered that the audience included a famous young polemicist for whom Ed Brayton named an award for creationist inanity. It added some excitement.

As usual, the following is not a literal transcript (except in the few instances where I dare to enclose text in quote marks). It's an abridged narrative based on my notes and it tries to present the gist of the exchanges rather than a verbatim account. To the best of my ability, I try to give an accurate sense of the discussions. A few asides from yours truly appear in brackets. Anything labeled with a “Q.” is from the audience, but sometimes I add “[Audience]” to highlight that an exchange is occurring among the attendees (while PZ watches in bemusement).

The Q&A

Q. I feel like I must be missing something that everyone else seems to understand. What is a crocoduck?

A. In a debate between the Rational Response Squad and Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, Cameron pulled out a large picture of the “crocoduck” as an example of something that evolutionists are supposed to believe in. And it's not even original with them. They apparently got the idea from a Worth 1000 chimera contest. It's an example of how creationists don't even understand what they are attacking. This crocoduck tie was designed by Josh Timonen and is one of only two in existence. Richard Dawkins has the other one. If you see someone wearing this tie, it's either me or Richard.

[PZ may be unaware that the world of fashion is notorious for knock-offs. Zazzle.com is advertising a “Crocoduck tie like Richard Dawkins wears!” We'll all be wearing them the next time PZ comes to California.]

Q. [Robert O'Brien] “I don't know if you recognize me, PZ. In your own words, your contributions to science are piddling. Those are your words, not mine. I just happen to agree with them. To that I would add that your arguments against God are just as risible as those of Dawkins and the other occupants of the new atheist clown car. Given that, why should anyone who is not already one of your chamchas pay attention to you as opposed to others who are far more accomplished and rational?”

[O'Brien appeared to be reading his remarks and he spoke faster than I could write. As previously noted, this report is not a literal transcript. However, O'Brien showed up in the comments, as you can see below, and was kind enough to provide a definitive take on his screed. The use of the word “chamchas” is rather affected when perfectly good words like “sycophants” and “kiss-asses” are available, but perhaps it merely means that O'Brien and I share a penchant for vocabulary building.]

A. Well, it seems we have a creationist in the audience after all. And you did a standard creationist thing. You took my words out of context. When I say that my research is “piddling,” it means that my work—like that of many others—is a small contribution to the aggregate of science. That's what science is, a collection of evidence in a theoretical framework. Religion and creationism is not based on evidence.

Q. [Robert O'Brien] We have evidence, too!

A. Where, for example, is the evidence for the existence of God?

Q. [Robert O'Brien] There are many proofs for the existence of God.

A. So give us one. Which is your favorite? Which is the strongest argument for the existence of God?

Q. [Robert O'Brien] I like Gödel's ontological argument, which is a mathematical proof. The definition of God is that he possesses all positive properties. If he exists, then he has all of those positive properties. Not existing would be a negative property, which he cannot have, so he has to exist.

Q. [Audience] That begs the question. You said, “If he exists.”

Q. [Robert O'Brien] That's a starting point in the argument. It's more complicated than that. I'm not presenting a formal proof.

Q. [Audience] That's just “proof by definition.”

Q. [Robert O'Brien] No, it's not.

Q. [Audience] Yes, it is.

Q. [Audience] PZ, I won't presume to speak on behalf of all of my fellow mathematicians, but I'd like to point out that Gödel's ontological argument would make 99.99% of us into theists if it were really a rigorous proof. However, mathematicians are as big a hodgepodge as any other segment of the population. Gödel's argument is clearly not regarded as a proof by the mathematical community.

Q. [Robert O'Brien] It is a proof. Speaking as a statistician—

Q. [Audience] Then you're not a mathematician!

Q. PZ, could you not see religion used as a hypothesis for formulating things like a basis for morality?

A. Yes, but religion is a primitive hypothesis that has been falsified many times, as one religion gives way to another. And you don't need religion as a basis for morality.

Q. Isn't atheism just a dogmatic assertion that there is no God? Doesn't science require at least agnosticism?

A. There is no assertion of any proof of no God. Science is “operationally” atheist, not dogmatically. The God hypothesis is useless in the pursuit of science.

Q. If God is the sum of all positive and all encompassing, then doesn't the lack of negative qualities mean that he's not all encompassing?

Q. [Audience] That depends on what you mean by positive and negative.

Q. [Audience] Relativism for the win!

Q. What would it take to serve as evidence for the existence of God?

A. Believers need to provide a hypothesis that I can test and measure.

Q. Why is it always the Judeo-Christian God? Why not some other God or Creatrix? And what about the diversity of evolutionary beliefs among religions. The Catholic Church says that evolution is not just a hypothesis.

A. That was the previous pope. The current pope is not as clear about it.

Q. He hangs out with ID creationists like Cardinal Schönborn.

A. Right.

Q. Atheism says that there is no absolute basis for right or wrong. What if everyone agreed that the Nazis were right. Would what the Nazis did still be wrong?

A. If everyone agrees, then there would be no one to point out that they were wrong. “But the natural world will eventually bite you in the ass if you act on the basis that mass-killing is a good thing.”

Q. [Professor Vernon Martin] Moral objectivism is not a way out of the woods. It's a tricky business.

Q. [Audience] Thomas Schick has a disproof of God based on the original argument of Parmenides.

Q. Our notion of what is reasonable is always changing. Years ago it would have been perfectly reasonable for me to light up a cigarette while sitting in this lecture hall (and having quit within the past year, I really want to), but today it's unthinkable. We indulge in lots of practices without thinking about them, such as clipping the ears of Dobermans, because that's what we're used to at the time we do it.

A. That just goes to show that there is no objective morality.

Q. In your role as a figurehead of science and atheism, how would you direct all atheists to deal with religionists. What would be the most utilitarian approach?

A. If I were the figurehead, I would immediately resign. I value the diversity in the community of nonbelievers. I'm a biologist. I value biodiversity.

Q. It would be like herding cats anyway.

A. I am so tired of that analogy!

Q. Atheism is not a formal philosophy. It doesn't impose a uniform perspective on people.

Q. [Audience] But religionists are dogmatic and dangerous.

Q. [Audience] But not uniformly so.

Q. [Brett Ransford] Excuse me for interrupting, but could you please direct your questions to PZ? Mental masturbation is nice, but—

A. Masturbation? Oh, no, this is intercourse!

Q. Tell us about your blog! How do you manage to post so much on it?

A. I attribute it to poor impulse control. The key to a successful blog is to write several posts a day.

Q. Were you given a religious upbringing?

A. I was raised in a mildly religious family as a Lutheran. I consider that I was inoculated against religion by having been infected at a young age by a weak strain.

Q. I accept evolution, but I'm not an atheist.

A. You have my permission to go to church. Just don't use religion to interfere in the secular rights of others.

Q. I don't go to church. I hug trees.

A. There is the example of Loyal Rue, who is completely rational in his approach but is still a believer. He has a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and a Templeton Foundation fellowship.

Q. Have you had any conversion successes?

A. It doesn't work that way. You present believers with your evidence in as persuasive a way as you can and then you wait and see. It might be years later before anything happens. There are examples like Kurt Wise, who studied under Stephen Jay Gould, but decided he had to accept Jesus and could not accept science. That's a failure.

Q. My friend believes that evolution is God's way of working in the world.

A. Then he doesn't understand evolution. The nature of evolution is stochastic and nonteleological. It's not guided and it has no predetermined goal except survival. Religious figures like Rick Warren need God in the process to provide meaning. I haven't written much about Warren. He thinks we're all supposed to be happy slaves under the absolute dictatorship of God.

Q. Why do so many religious people reject science?

A. Because science is in competition with their religion. Evolutionary science attacks the sense of self and purpose that they need in their lives, which they can't seem to find without deriving it from religion.

Q. There will be a talk on Relics of Eden, the evidence for evolution in human genetics, on the last Friday in February. [Details, anyone? —Z]

A. Creationists think that attacking the fossil record is the best way to attack evolution. They don't seem to understand that the best evidence is being found in biology, in genetics.

Q. Creationism keeps shifting. We've had “creation science,” “scientific creationism,” “intelligent design,” and “teach the flaws.” What's next?

A. I'm hoping it's complete collapse. Creationism has not been able to gain any scientific credibility. Groups like the Discovery Institute—which pretends to be scientific—are getting more and more fundamentalist. They don't make much headway with abstract arguments. Look at Dover, which was supposedly about intelligent design and Of Pandas and People. It was pushed by the old-fashioned creationists on the school board, who probably felt betrayed when the Discovery Institute ducked out. The Discovery Institute doesn't bring in much money anymore, at least not from their creationist activities. Answers in Genesis is the big money maker.

Q. Won't creationists just create their own schools and teach their anti-scientific ideas there?

A. Many already have. They want to destroy public education, which is like the Republican strategy.

Q. Would you say the Wedge strategy has failed?

A. Yes. It has not worked out the way they once hoped.

Q. Science flourishes in an atmosphere of opposition and questioning. Haven't creationists therefore done science a favor?

A. I'd disagree. Science grows with questioning, but creationists are a side-show. Their arguments are beside the point and are not part of the scientific discussion.

Q. Groups like Wallbuilders are trying to rewrite history.

A. Yes, that's one of the things they're trying to do in Texas right now. The Texas School Board has a great influence on the nation's textbooks. The extremists on the board are turning toward history, citing non-historian David Barton as an authority.

Q. I've heard a lot of mudslinging tonight, but we won't get anywhere if we constantly disrespect each other. Religion has been part of society for thousands of years and should be treated with more respect.

A. Bad sanitation has been part of society for thousands of years, too.

Q. You can't tell people what they believe is bullshit. You need to educate them.

A. You can do both. Bad ideas deserve to be treated with complete and utter disrespect. The ideas, not the people who hold them. Getting people to understand critical thinking and evidence is a long-term effort. It doesn't happen overnight.

Q. Will people eventually evolve beyond religion?

A. No, I don't think so. Sanitation has advanced a great deal over the years, but there are still dirty people. Society has become more civilized in many ways, but we still have crime. Crime will always exist. Religion will, too. I'm perfectly fine with people having the freedom to practice their religions in private and in their churches. I don't, however, support their right to impose their religious beliefs on me or other people. I'm rather optimistic—perhaps irrationally so—because I think progress is possible and that most people just want peaceful lives to enjoy themselves and raise their families.

Q. Should we perhaps downplay evolution and emphasize critical thinking instead?

A. Better science education is important, but that includes evolutionary theory as well as critical thinking. We can't ignore it. I also think we need to teach more mathematics as part of a better science education (although I know that Zeno will think I'm pandering to the mathematicians when I say that).

Q. I'm a nonbeliever who is worried that people will know what I think. It's great for groups like this to meet and provide a safe environment to interact with others. The Internet helps, too.

A. It can be a problem to deal with family members and friends who don't have an appreciation for the scientific approach. The Internet has been a big help in getting the message out there that you're not alone. Otherwise you might feel completely intimidated. But you also need to speak out. Isn't it better to be a tiger than a mouse?

Q. Why don't most people believe in evolution?

A. Evolution doesn't generate belief in itself. There's no reason to suspect that belief in evolution contributes to the survival of a species. Some humans believe in evolution, but most creatures don't believe in it at all.

Q. More people believe in religion than in evolution.

A. There are a lot of stupid people. Evolution does not necessarily promote intelligence as a survival trait.

Q. Perhaps part of the problem is that science isn't exciting enough. You get an endorphin rush from adventures, not from rational thought?

A. Really? You don't? There is no greater rush than learning something you've never known before, in discovering something that no one knew before. “All the best drugs are from science, you know. Discovering the truth about the universe is a real rush.”

Aftermath

As some people began to disperse and others gathered around PZ, Robert O'Brien came over to brace me with a question or two, since he had discerned that I was one of the mathematicians in the audience. (The other best-represented academic department at PZ's talk was philosophy.)

“Do you deny the existence of Gödel's ontological argument?” he inquired.

“Not at all,” I replied. “I merely observed that it's not widely accepted as a proof of anything.”

“Oh, okay. I thought you might be denying its existence. But it is a proof.”

“Not likely. Not if most mathematicians aren't willing to accept it. And we don't.”

And when I say “we,” I'm not including self-described statisticians like Robert.

A day later, Robert posted a comment on his blog concerning the Sierra College event and his confrontation with PZ Myers:

I also did not expect to be asked to defend Kurt Gödel's Ontological Argument, which I was unprepared to do. (Although, even if I were prepared, I do not think I could have done it justice as a critical respondent among an, umm, unsympathetic audience.) I give credit to PZ for unexpectedly turning the tables and essentially catching me flat-footed; it won't happen again.

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