2012 Olympic Prayer Testing

Great Britain's athletes are being warned about the risks of seeking divine intervention in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Recent high profile cases have seen British shot putter Sister Inviolata of the Immaculate Conception banned for four months after members of her convent tested positive for intercessory prayer.

It is this sort of thing that UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency is keen to help athletes avoid as the time approaches when the eyes of the sporting world will be focused on London.

Surveys have shown that one in ten British athletes have at one time or other dabbled with performance enhancing prayers in the hope of gaining a slight edge over their competitors. Many athletes believe that the all powerful deity of their choice will be willing to influence the outcome of sporting events to their advantage and the detriment of their fellow athletes, if they ask nicely enough.

A spokeswoman for the UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency stated that prayer abuse has been rife in many sports for years but due to the inability to record any actual measurable differences in those athletes using divine intervention, it has always been hard to prosecute.

In the run up to the London 2012 Olympics athletes are being warned that the prayer-testing authorities are being extra vigilant and will be keeping an eye out for the tell-tale signs of illegal performance enhancing prayers such as the possession of rosary beads, a travel rug or the excessive head-butting of tall walls.

With many prayers readily available these days in high street churches and mosques it is all too easy for unsuspecting young athletes to get access to mystic mantras and celestial appeals that they do not realise are on the World Supernatural Pleading Prohibited list.

The UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency will be working with many young British athletes over the coming months to educate them in basic critical thinking techniques to ensure they do not fall foul of these strict anti prayer regulations. A spokeswoman for the agency stated:

'I think it's something that everyone would agree with and is an aim for everyone involved in sport - to make it as incredulous as possible. That is what we are all working towards.'

Science Reason & Critical Thinking wish all our athletes the very best of British and advise them to keep their heads up and their hands apart.

Why Photographs of the Apollo Landing Site Will Not Convince the Denialists

As interesting and fascinating as this weeks lunar photographs showing the Apollo landing sites are, they are as much use as tits on a bull when it comes to convincing moon landing deniers of the reality of those epic and pioneering missions.

If a belief has been uncritically adopted because it aligns with existing beliefs and assumptions, was communicated by an articulate authority figure to impressionable ears, or simply panders to the subjects inbuilt paranoia, then logical reasoned arguments and even photographic evidence will struggle to overturn them.

Such beliefs become even harder to overturn as they become entrenched over time as believers invest more and more personal stock in that belief. Indeed believers are able to add more and more ridiculous beliefs to their arsenal as their initial foundations become more solidified. This is the principal deviously employed by scientology. No one in their right mind can be pulled off the street and made to believe that they are inhabited by the tortured souls of dead aliens who came to earth long ago in a big ass spaceship. This is precisely why scientology sought to restrict such information to those believers who had progressed their credulity far enough to uncritically accept such ideas. By spoon feeding nonsense in small increments it eventually becomes possible to believe in the most outlandish nonsense.

In much the same way creationism, homophobia and female subjugation can sit firmly on the solid foundation of more mainstream and acceptable religious beliefs. Moon landing denial is another example of a rather silly belief taking root on the foundations of other conspiracy “theories” which in turn often sit on perfectly plausible conspiracies. As a general rule of thumb the addition of the qualifier “theory” is usually a good demarcation marker as to when things get a bit silly.

Back to the point. Having developed and embroidered a rather nutty idea (such as moon landing denial) and spending years shoring it up with cherry picked anecdotes, it becomes a matter of routine to simply bat away any inconvenient and incontrovertible evidence that would at first sight appear to piss on that theory. In fact the more ridiculous the belief, the easier it becomes to invent ridiculous excuses to explain away inconvenient truths. I’m sure the conspiracy theory message boards will already be rammed with comments from believers claiming that NASA are “in” on the conspiracy and the photographs are therefore clearly photoshopped. Presumably there’ll be some much more elaborate excuses too.

There are countless examples of frauds and charlatans who've methods have been clearly exposed, yet the faithful continue to follow undeterred. So I suspect that even If the most ardent moon landing denialist was physically taken to the moon and shown the Apollo landing site first hand, he would no doubt still claim he'd been in a flight simulator and a film set.

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending)

In Professor Edzard Ernst’s article in today’s Guardian regarding the alternative-medicine version of detox, he states that:

"Unless someone is very severely ill, the elimination of toxins is most efficiently being taken care of by various organs – for instance, the liver, kidneys, skin, lungs and the gut. In a healthy person, the function of these systems is already optimal. No improvements are needed or can be achieved by detox therapies."

This is of course simply because the currently available alternative medicine detox techniques such as diet supplements, goji berries, and even the old hosepipe up the jacksie routine are simply not sufficiently potent enough to have any effect beyond the body’s natural detoxifying processes.

As there is clearly a market for a more effective form of alternative detox, our team of crack scientists at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking has worked through his lunch break to develop the Detox 2000 (Patent Pending).

Ernst states that currently available colon cleansing techniques have been unable to show good clinical evidence to prove that they lower toxin levels in the body. As previously stated this is probably just because the gentle nature of the currently available colonic irrigation systems are simply not aggressive enough to remove the more stubborn clingons from the colon wall. This will not be a problem for the Detox 2000 (patent pending).

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) uses a heavy duty industrial standard high pressure blaster to thrust a specially prepared cocktail of bleach, ground chillies and fun snaps at a pressure of 800 bar (1,670,834 Pounds / Square Foot) into the patient’s lower colonic access portal.  

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) is the ideal detox remedy for today’s self-indulgent consumers, allowing them to eat whatever the hell they like, whenever they like, safe in the knowledge that they can always ram their Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) up their arseholes as soon as they get home.

BTW has anyone got an email address for Duncan Bannatyne or Deborah Meaden? I’m looking for an investment of £87.70 (for a days tool hire in order to conduct a clinical trial on the dog), in exchange for 20% equity in the Detox 2000 (Patent Pending).

Scientifically Accurate Labelling of the Acupuncture Meridians and Acupoints

Acupuncturists claim to be able to treat a whole range of ailments by strategically inserting needles into various acupoints along the body’s meridian lines in order to control the flow of an invisible life energy known as ch’i or qi, and thus balance the body’s mystical yin and yang.

Following an in-depth and investigation into alternative therapies, in the bestseller Trick or Treatment, science writer Dr. Simon Singh and, Britain’s first Professor of Complementary Medicine, Prof. Edzard Ernst, summarize this basic principle of acupuncture thus:

“The traditional principles of acupuncture are deeply flawed, as there is no evidence at all to demonstrate the existence of Ch’I or meridians.”

But just because a therapy is scientifically implausible if it nonetheless produces unequivocal positive results then we must still consider it a valuable therapy. However, Singh and Ernst’s go on to conclude:

“By focusing on the increasing number of high-quality research papers, reliable conclusions from systematic reviews make it clear that acupuncture does not work for a whole range of conditions, except as a placebo. Hence, if you see acupuncture being advertised by a clinic, then you can assume that it does not really work, except possibly in the treatment of some types of pain and nausea.”

The above quote is taken from a more detailed conclusion that I would recommend reading in full. But it certainly seems from their investigation into the evidence that jabbing the patient outside of the recognised meridians or acupoints or indeed pretending to jab them with either telescopic sham needles, or simply not inserting the needles far enough, has pretty much the same effect as “proper” acupuncture for all treatments other than possibly certain types of pain and nausea.

Nevertheless, if the theatrical nature of acupuncture induces a measurable placebo effect then some may argue that there is still a benefit to its usage. However, as more and more healthcare practitioners recognise the importance of honesty with their patients we should perhaps consider more ethical methods of conveying acupuncture.

Most acupuncture patients are familiar with the standard acupuncture maps showing the body’s meridians and their various acupoints along those meridians that supposedly have distinct influences on different ailments. Rather than tall stories of ancient pre-scientific notions of an invisible and undetectable life energy why not simply state the most plausible explanations for any perceived benefit. All we actually need to do to achieve this is to simply re-label the meridian lines to describe how they are most likely to work and re-label the acupoints to describe the current unequivocally scientifically proven effect of that particular acupoint.

I’ve even done it for you …

Oh, OK I admit it, it was all just a convoluted way of strategically placing the label "Sweet Fanny Adams" on the anatomical acupuncture chart, but I can never resist a good fanny gag.

An Optimist’s Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer “What’s Next?”

Anyone who knows me or has been following my blog for a while will know that I self-identify with the label “Skeptic”.

I’ve written before about some of the unfortunate conations of the term skeptic, especially when people misuse the term to express their personal disbelief in a pre-designated concept, often as a result of indoctrination into a belief rather than as the result of following a rigours methodology.

I view scepticism rather like the scientific method itself, as a tool. I try not to simply sort ideas into either bollocks or bona fide and then seek validation for my arbitrary taxonomy. I like to think I use the critical and fair methods of scepticism to logically determine whether or not I should throw yet another belief into the bollocks bucket or not. Although to be fair, I do seem to have ended up with a rather bumper bucket of bollocks brimming with bullshit.

Another unfortunate connotation of the term skeptic is some of the words it is associated with. Here’s a screen grab from Theasaurus.com for the word “Skeptic”.

I’d be proud for most of these synonyms to be emblazoned on my T Shirts. I particularly like “Freethinker”, “Heathen”, “Profaner” and “Rationalist”. But there are two words in this list that I do not identify with:

Cynic and Pessimist

The Notes on the screen grab give a half reasonable differentiation between cynics and skeptics, although I would have preferred some usage of the word “evidence” to be included in close proximity to the word “skeptic.”

As for the term “Pessimist”, that really isn’t me at all. I am the complete opposite of a pessimist. When posed with the perennial glass half empty/full chestnut, I don’t merely see the glass as half full, I invariably suspect there’s actually probably a little bit more than half left in it and anyway I was just going to the bar so I’ll get another one if I really need to.

In short, I’m an optimist who likes to critically evaluate ideas.

How fortuitous then that a few months ago, despite no pending book orders, the book shaped package that appeared on my doorstep contained a copy of Mark Stevenson’s splendid book: An Optimists Tour of the Future.

Mark actually contacted me on Facebook just over two years ago now and sent me some very kind comments about my blog. He mentioned his devotion to critical thinking and the scientific method and he told me he was going to write a book. I told Mark how envious I was of his opportunity and wished him all the best.

I didn’t hear from Mark for a long time, presumably he was off somewhere on his exciting adventure, researching his book or whatever it is that authors do with their advances.

I have of course now read Mark’s book, and I’ve found out exactly what he’d been up to, but I’d never once imagined what a fascinating, inspirational, enlightening and heartening adventure he had been having.

In a bravely ambitious quest to find credible scientific answers to the burning question of what the future holds, Mark compiled a remarkable visiting list of pioneering scientists, entrepreneurs, world leaders and environmentalists. All of which are capable of thinking so far outside of the box you are left wondering why you ever considered the box a viable method of packaging in the first place.

Mark deftly circumnavigates the very sharpest cutting edges of science without suffering a single prick.

The first port of call regards the limitations of the human body, after all I guess it's good to know how far the future will personally concern us before we set off on our journey.

Marks delves into the bold claims of the transhumanists and emerges with a just credible vision of human longevity before exploring the advances in gene sequencing that provide clear and unarguable predictions of a revolution in a more personalised healthcare system that really does just seem to be around the corner.

Moving from man to machine Mark probes the current advances in robotics and artificial intelligence with some fascinating visits that would translate beautifully into a more visual media if Mark gets the opportunity. Mark’s impressive visiting schedule in this part of the journey includes interviews with noted pioneers Vint Cerf and Ray Kurzweil.

However perhaps the most important area where a bit of optimism is required is around the pressing concerns of climate change, environmental issues and renewable energy. Of course this is where blind optimism would in fact be more of a hindrance than a help with mere wishful thinking providing false hope and curbing more credible research into some of the planets current key issues. But surely if there were well-founded and scientifically feasible suggestions that could have a serious impact on some of these questions we would have heard about them by now? Well if you haven’t, that is exactly why you simply must read this book.

But finally, many thanks to Mark for so eloquently pointing out that my beloved scepticism does not go hand in hand with pessimism.

Winchester #SitP 25th August with Alice Sheppard

Nadine Dorries: We Should Shut Me Down During an Outbreak of Public Stupidity

Nadine Dorries is MP for Mid Narnia and a member of the council of Aslan

The question on Radio Unicorn this morning was – Should we or shouldn’t we shut me down during an outbreak of public stupidity?

I think we should.

During the first battle of Beruna in Narnia I was instantly closed down. As it happens I was stood next to the Aslan at the time explaining to him about the importance of female only lion cub abstinence. I remember it well. The precedent for silencing fuckwits like me to prevent influencing public stupidity has already been set, even though it has possibly not yet been acknowledged by the Daily Mail.

Admittedly deluded MP’s like me can be used for as source of amusement as well as stupidity.

But we must also remember that me and David Tredinnick are used to spread misinformation, to disrupt evidence based policy and to direct the deluded and dim-witted towards irrational, unscientific and illiberal policies.

In this disturbing new world, is it not time to inject a little common sense and shut me down before I say something else stupid?

Keep your knickers on.

Mad Nad

x x x

Is The 27 Club Statistically Significant?

Shortly after the sadly premature death of the undoubtably talented Amy Winehouse last night, I tweeted that yet another rock star has tragically died at the curious age of 27.

The prestigious ranks of the infamous 27 club include Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Brian Jones (The Rolling Stones), Jim Morrison (The Doors) as well as Jimi Hendix and Janis Joplin.

I was however taken to task for the non sceptical nature of my tweet, suggesting that I was perhaps implying some supernatural driver to this interesting coincidence.

I thought I was merely commenting on an interesting coincidence, but this got me thinking. But before we even consider if there is a reason, we must first determine if its is even statistically significant enough to warrant needing a reason at all.

So, ignoring age, I listed whom I considered to be the 100 most well known dead "rock" stars, and then I looked up their ages and shoved them into an excel spreadsheet. (Not completeley blinded alas as I had a fair idea of roughly how old they all were). Anyway, I've highlighted the "27 club" in red:

Of course there are many other rock stars in the 27 Club, but I selected whom I considered the most well known across the board rather than cherry picking (or indeed ignoring) any particular age. However, I accept it is only an arbitrary sample.

I then plotted the total number of dead rock stars by age, and came up with the following graph:

27 is indeed the most common age of death for the most well known rock stars, but the red line doesn't seem as if it is any longer than mere chance might produce for any random age. Indeed if I widened my sample of rock stars to a 1,000 I'd be unsurprised to see the red line even less statically significant.

But that's not to say that there are not a number of complex reasons why 27 turns out to be the mode in my graph. Perhaps those with a constitution unsuitable for the rock star life make them vulnerable after a certain amount of exposure to drugs and alcohol which commonly coincides with this age.

I think taking an interest in the 27 Club is worth while merely to revisit the unfortunate talent that has been admitted. I'm pretty sure we can do this without invoking any supernatural or paranormal false justification.

Of Course regardless of whether this unfortunate guild has coalesced around a truly random number or a number resulting from a complex array of natural and social phenomenon, the fact remains that 27 is now the magic number that has entered our culture. Like all superstitions we are now free to willfully ignore the vast majority of Rock's tragedies that do not invoke the 27 club, and ensure that we are all over it like a tramp on chips at the inevitable next initiation ceremony.




POSTSCRIPT:
Oops Entered Bon Scott twice, cant be bothered to update my graph though, you get the general idea. In fact why doesn't someone do a more controlled study?

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT:
Thanks to everyone who pointed out that as rock and pop has its roots in the 1950’s and was predominately an interest of the young, it was fairly inevitable that any early casualties s would be young. Indeed many of the 27’s clubs biggest stars acquired their membership in the early 70’s. If I conducted my crude analysis on rock stars who’ve died since say 1980, then the queer peak at 27 would disappear. I’m sure there’s many other logical reasons that also contribute to the fascinating but relatively insignificant peak of the 27 club.

AND ANOTHER THING:
Paul Clarke’s comment below is worth mentioning again above the fold. In my words: Does death at a young age and perhaps at the height of musical success help secure a rock star mega status that may well have faded if not inconveniently preserved by a premature death.

More Videos Demonstrating How Homeopathy Doesn't Work

Some of you may recall that just under a couple of years ago I posted a short video on this blog entitled: If Homeopathy Works … I'll Drink My Own Piss.

I received a comment on YouTube about that video today from powerm1985, and a link to some of his own videos. After checking them out, I wanted to share them here, so here's a few more videos demonstrating why homeopathy is a big bag of bollocks:

First, "Proving Homeopathy Wrong In Your Kitchen", is a great little science experiment that demonstrates that there is NOTHING in homeopathic remedies:

And, this Bleach drinking video is very reminiscent of my own piss drinking video, although I'm told it was made prior to seeing my video, so I'll put it down to great minds thinking alike.

Incidentally when I planned my original video I was intending to use bleach, but changed to piddle at the last minute as I thought drinking piss was slightly more amusing than bleach.

BTW, There lots more great science videos on his YouTube Channel, well worth checking out. I couldn't help but notice use of a sonic screwdriver at one point too.

AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities

I’m a big fan of the logically irrefutable critical thinking skills of Professors Grayling and Dawkins. So it’s been a bit of a disappointment lately to see all this negative coverage of “Grayling’s Folly”.

So we at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking have decided to help the mad old profs out by creating an advertisement for the New College of the Humanities.

Caricatures by the very talented Neil Davies (Originally made for the Skeptic Trumps)

Why I'm So Sad to See the Space Shuttle Come Home

On the 11th December 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last human being to walk on the natural grey satellite that orbits our fragile blue planet.

On the 27th November 2003 I lined the runway at Filton airfield just outside Bristol as the last commercial supersonic passenger plane touched from its final flight.

On July 21st 2011 I received this beautiful and poignant video montage of the Space Shuttle missions from Dr. Adam Rutherford shortly after Atlantis safely touched back down on Earth for the last time.



I wonder where I will  be  when we abandon scientific pioneering completely, and on what date we will use the wheel for the last time.

FFS humanity why cant we get back to adventuring, pioneering and truly awe inspiring science rather than investing all our cash in innovative ways to blow up people who have a different imaginary friends to us?

Doctor Who Tube Map

The London Underground Tube Map to the tune of Doctor Who …

Click the above image to access the interactive Doctor Who Tube Map.
NB Open the browser window to full screen mode and allow all of the images a few moments to fully load. Not suitable for iPads.

Hover the mouse over the main line interchanges to take a closer look at the aliens, monsters and baddies.

Hover the mouse over one of the 11 doctors on the left hand side to view their detailed line and lock the pop-up window in place using the “s” key, so you can scroll along and view the full line.

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking Time Lords

When I was a child, my favourite TV programme, at least until the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy came along, was Doctor Who.

Anyone of a similar vintage to me will, no doubt, have the same bias for the crazy-eyed, mad-haired, yo-yo-fiddling, jelly baby offering, elongated scarf-touting fourth doctor portrayed by Tom Baker.

I was reminded of this fact back in April this year when Marsh, Nicola and Mike Hall from the Merseyside Skeptics Society stayed at my house for a few days. I spent some enjoyable time reminiscing about past doctors with Mike, the skeptic communities’ resident expert on the itinerant Time Lord.

All this however seems fairly irrelevant to the remit of this blog. Which in case you’ve forgotten, is to promote the scientific method and critical thinking whilst tweaking the nose of irrational beliefs based on traditions grounded in supernatural, paranormal or pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

However, I suspect that the Venn diagram of Skeptics and Doctor Who Fans might look a little like this:

Following Mike’s visit back in April I have acquired myself a complete back catalogue of the Tom Baker Doctor Who years which I am currently using to revisit my childhood. As I’m working may through the episodes, I can’t help but notice numerous references and examples of the good doctor promoting the scientific method and critical thinking whilst tweaking the nose of irrational beliefs based on traditions grounded in supernatural, paranormal or pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

I’m unsure if the connection with science, reason and critical thinking was something that just passed me by on my first childhood encounter of the doctor, or whether some of these ideas unconsciously helped form my current way of thinking.

Either way, I consider the link between Doctor Who and skepticism valid enough to warrant a blog post or two. To this end I have spent a few weeks cobbling together an ambitious Doctor Who infographic, which is now just about finished. It may be a slight departure from my normal fare, but I’m hoping it may reach some of the people in the right hand part of my Venn diagram.

I shall be publishing it here d'rectly.

We Apologise for the Inconvenience - Normal Service Will be Resumed Shortly

Regular visitors to this insignificant little blue green blog far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the internet, may have noticed that there has been little original content appearing over the last few weeks. In fact, even that previous sentence was somewhat sparse on original ideas and contained more plagiarised text than Johann Hari's USB memory stick.

Anyway, the lack of new content is a direct result of an idea I had for a new blog post whilst watching old episodes of Doctor Who with Tom Baker. The idea has since expanded into a significant project that is eating up all of the little spare time that I have. However, being a persistent little bugger, I feel compelled to complete my TARDIS shaped folly before moving on.

Please bear with me for a few more weeks and then normal service of throwing poo in the general direction of irrational nonsense will be resumed.

Crispian

Jourdemayne: The Vampires of Rhode Island

My good friend Deborah is producing an excellent series of video podcasts on the Vampires of Rhode Island. You can watch the first part below and then head over to Jourdemayne's blog to read more.