Inspirational Irrational Nonsense

I'm rather delighted that the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense is proving such an inspiration to people. Shortly after posting the YouTube video of @rossexton's Irrational Nonsense Blues, I received Bob Hale's Woo Continuum.

Any more for any more?

Irrational Nonsense Blues

I received the following tweet yesterday from @rossexton:

@Crispian_Jago Inspired by the fantastic Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense, I wrote a blues song:

And it really is rather excellent, so here it is ...

European Union Irrational Nonsense Labelling Regulations

New European Union labelling directives will soon ensure that individuals irresponsibly promoting potentially harmful misinformation will need to be clearly labelled. 

The directive will require the clear identification of individuals who endorse ideas and information based on potentially harmful and unproven pseudoscientific concepts or supernatural beliefs.

In order to comply with the regulations, Science, Reason and Critical thinking has developed the “Woo Woo Wheel”.  

 

The Woo Woo Wheel will enable consumers to immediately and clearly identify the key irrational nonsense content of each individual at a glance.

The Woo Woo Wheel is divided into 5 segments coloured in either red, amber or green to denote the level of danger for each of the 5 segments:

• Harm Potential: Identifies the potential level of harm that could be caused by uncritically accepting the misinformation espoused by the individual.
• Influence: Identifies the influential power or perceived authority of the individual
• Conscious Con-Artist: Identifies whether the individual knowingly deceives or promotes false information for financial gain or ideological reasons
• Supernatural Delusions: Identifies whether the individuals information is likely to be based on indoctrinated supernatural or superstitious traditions rather than unbiased, rational and reasoned inquiry
• Pseudo-Scientific: Identifies whether the individuals information is likely to be based on pseudoscientific beliefs not consistently demonstrable by the scientific method

As an example of I have picked some notable enemies of reason and clearly labelled them with the Woo Woo Wheel …

You get the idea. Feel free to send me any un-labelled enemies of reason you spot, and I’ll be happy to slap a label on them.

Hat tip to @Zeno001 for pointing me in the general direction of inspiration.

Winchester #SitP 26th May 2011: Mark Stevenson

How the New Rapture Date Was Calculated

Thousands of Christians were rather disappointed on Saturday when the much-anticipated supernatural genocide failed to occur.

But never fear, undercover operatives at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking have uncovered the following photograph of a dartboard from Harold Camping’s basement.

I’ve got the date in my diary already. How can it possibly fail this time?

SMALLPRINT 

ACTUAL CALCULATION METHODS MAY VARY, BUT DATES CALCULATED WILL HAVE AN EQUAL VALIDAITY TO THE ONE CALCULATED USING THE MODEL SHOWN. YOUR SANITY MAY BE AT RISK IF YOU UNCRITICALY ACCEPT THE CLAIMS OF RELIGIOUS LOONS.

Skeptic Trumps: Nate Phelps

Click Here for the full deck of cards

Get your own personalised caricature by Neil Davies

The Certainty of Harold Camping and the Oncoming Rapture

It is the morning of the Rapture.

If we are to believe Harold Camping, later on today Jesus Christ will return to earth and all the true believers will be raptured up into heaven. How very exciting for them.

According to Harold’s book of rules, I don’t qualify, so I’ll have to stay here with all the other heathens and suffer the giant earthquakes that will eventually lead to the complete and utter destructing of the earth by 21st October 2011. At first glance this sounds a tad inconvenient.

Despite previously predicting the rapture in 1994, Harold is quite certain he’s got the date nailed this time. He is completely convinced, he is über sure. There is no doubt in his mind. It is without question. It’s not up for debate. He’s double-checked his sums and it all adds up. The evidence is absolute. The rapture is assured. In Harold’s mind, and many of his followers, this is it, the big one, the end of the world as we know it.

But never fear. Harold hasn’t even been proved wrong yet and mainstream Christianity is already dismissing him as just another nut job. He’s just another Stephen Green, Pastor Fred Phelps or Pastor Terry Jones whose literal interpretations of the Bible sit uncomfortably with mainstream Christianity.

As freethinking humanists, secularists and atheists we should of course not be judging the nice friendly Christian who lives down the street by the actions of these fundamentalist fruitcakes. There is however one attributes these extremist share with the more acceptable face of Christianity, their unwavering certainty.

Harold Camping’s revelation seems all the more ridiculous because it is delivered with a straight face and unwavering certainty. The exact same certainty that many Christians have that their God will provide. The exact same unfounded and un-evidenced certainty that by chance they have been born into the one true faith.

So on one side we have a small bunch of ridiculous nutters and on the other we have a deeply respected and revered faith, but surely it must be the same neural processes that can so utterly hoodwink the human brain into such certainty without a shred of credible evidence.



POSTSCRIPT:

Well there's a surprise, its gone 6pm and I haven't seen a single soul being raptured skywards yet. But before we all knock Rev Harold Camping, and I'm sure he's in for a pretty good knocking, lets not forget that his beliefs in heaven and hell aren't really that different from the mainstream Christian views. Organised religion has  just learnt that there's less chance of looking like a bunch of pillocks if you don't actually name any specific dates, keep it vague, avoid easy testable or falsifiable claims, and you can can keep them believing.

A Closer Look at the England Cricket Team’s “Power Balance” Bracelets

Maybe it’s a trifle condescending to judge a person by their irrational beliefs, but whenever I see someone wearing a "Power Balance" bracelet, it’s very hard not to jump to the immediate conclusion that they’re not perhaps just one scotch egg shy of a picnic.

As the English cricket team prepare for their first home test of the year against Sri Lanka, I am reminded again of how my euphoria at their Ashes victory at the start of the year was seriously marred by the revelation of the team’s uncritical belief in pseudoscientific flim-flam.

Although it wasn’t too much of a surprise to learn that David Beckham is rather weak minded when it comes to the belief in bewitched bangles, I had rather hoped for better from the English cricket team.

So, use your mouse to position the sceptical magnifying glass over the power balance bracelets sported by the cricketing numpties below, and take a closer look at how they appear to anyone with an ounce of logical thought.

Still on the flipside, I guess the Darwin fish on the back of my car doesn’t speak too kindly of me in the eyes of a true believer.

The Periodic Table of Urban Biscuit Myths

A random selection of 120 urban biscuit myths, legends, superstitions and popular misconceptions that hold equal validity to the more familiar myths on which they are based.

Click the image below, then hover the mouse of each piece of delicious biscuity goodness to reveal the myth.

How to Celebrate Justice

I find this image:


of celebrations in Washington last night at the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, rather reminiscent of this image:

of a another woman celebrating what she equally perceived as "justice", almost 10 years earlier on a bright September morning.

Personally I see no cause to celebrate "justice" in either of the events that inspired these impromptu jubilations.

Of course I am pleased that a particularly nasty ideological hydra has had its most venomous head removed. And perhaps it really was the only way that this could have been accomplished, but I had always equated justice with some sort of trial.

I'm afraid each of the celebrations above look to me worryingly more like retribution, and I've got an uncomfortable feeling that that has a rather circular element to it. I hope I'm wrong.

Adam Rutherford at Winchester SitP 28th April

Yes, it's true.

The Hampshire Skeptics Society is proud to confirm that Dr. Adam Rutherford off of the telly and everything, is coming to Winchester Skeptics in the Pub on Thursday 28th April 2011.


You can catch Adam's recent BBC 4 series in the UK on BBC iPlayer here:

The Gene Code: 1. The Gene Code
The Gene Code: 2. The Book of Life

Listen to Adam on BBC radio 4's Start the week with Andrew Marr here.

Read Adam's Guardian article on the Human Genome project here.

Or better still, come to WInchester Skeptics in the Pub on Thursday. Here's the FB event.

We hope to see you there.


Ooh, and here's Adam Skeptic Trump Card.

The Crudity of Early Home Computing

When the frustration of 1K home computing became all too much to bear, I (now regrettably) sold my Sinclair ZX81 for the princely sum of £10 and upgraded to the all singing and dancing Commodore 64.

Most of my friends however went for the lower spec'd SInclair ZX Spectrum. Although the C64 had far superior sound and a fancy way of overlapping sprites without all that colour clashing you got on the spectrum, I never really mastered the art of programming the bloody thing. All those tedious PEEKS and POKES of memory addresses was a whole bunch of no fun, and time that could be better spent waiting for a program to actually load from cassette.

The Spectrum however, with its keyboard, seemingly made from dead flesh, was a much easier piece of kit for me to get my head around.

Perhaps it was because the Spectrum's had its BASIC syntax written out before you on the actual keyboard. Sir Clive even had the wit to add a special shift key to allow the user to apply the relevant operands to extend the usage of the key commands. This made it fairly simply to string together a few lines whose semantics could be successfully interpreted and executed.

Although Sinclair's language constructs were certainly pioneering in their day, it all looks rather crude now.

Blogger Farm: A Fairytale

Mr Hockeystick of the Telegraph had proofread his article and submitted it to his editor, but he was far too conceited to check his facts or link to his sources, he was after all merely an interpreter of interpretations. He pushed his keyboard away and leaned back in his chair, ‘That’ll do’ he thought to himself.

Meanwhile at a London Pub meeting, Old Davies, the prize journalist was waiting to talk about his recent book, Flat Earth News. At one end of the pub, behind a gently glowing laptop screen, Old Davies was already ensconced in the speaker’s position. He was 55 years old and had gone rather grey of late, he was still however a majestic looking writer with a wise and benevolent appearance.

Before long the bloggers began to arrive and make themselves comfortable. First came the skeptical bloggers and then the legal bloggers who propped up the bar at the back of the pub with an air of authority. The secular and humanist bloggers perched themselves at a nearby table and the political and frontline bloggers sat down in front of the legal bloggers. The two science bloggers came in together and settled themselves at a gap in a table near the front being careful not to spill the drinks of the other bloggers as they made their way through the crowd. When Davies saw that they had all got themselves a drink and were waiting patiently, he cleared his throat and began:

‘Comrades, you have been told before not to always believe what you read in the newspapers and I am now forced to admit that I work in a corrupt profession. Please now allow me to expose the truth about our news media.’

‘Due to severe cost cutting aimed at lining the already deep pockets of the media moguls, mainstream news media is forced to fill more and more print space with less and less time and resources. This has led to journalists simply churning stories from a limited number of press agencies, often with little or no additional material, research, fact checking or even comment.’

‘Journalists resort to simply reprinting verbatim press releases from PR companies anxious to promote their celebrity or product.’

‘Science stories are frequently produced by journalists with little or no scientific credibility, clumsily wedged into a standard pro forma to present it as either Frankenstein-ien scaremongering or the next miracle cure. As comrade Goldacre often says, the Daily Mail appear to be on a relentless mission to divide all the inanimate objects in the world, into to those that either cause, or cure, cancer. With coffee often cited on both sides.’

‘Studies, trials, research and surveys with a pre-destined outcome are sponsored by companies who would benefit from those predetermined results. Results which are subsequently written up by the PR agencies and tied to whatever product or service is being promoted, then simply regurgitated as news by journalists anxious to fill their required quotas.’

‘Few journalists have the resources to fully research a new news story, and local and relevant news items are often neglected, replaced instead with a never ending tide of churnalism.’

‘I will sing you a song now comrades, and when you have learnt the tune you can sing it better for yourselves. It is called “Writers of England”.’

Old Davies cleared his throat again and began to sing. His voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune. The words ran:

Writers of England, writers of Ireland,
Writers of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of a golden blogging time.

Soon or late the day is coming
When Fleet Streets’ lies no longer ooze,
And the fruitful blogs of merry England
Will be the source of breaking news.

Gossip shall vanish from our headlines,
No more knockers on page three,
So long to prejudiced propaganda
Good riddance journalist Bourgeoisie.

Blogs abundant with researched stories,
Fully linked back to their source
Politics, science and local stories
Covered by a blogging tour de force.

Bright will shine the blogs of England
Insightful will their postings be.
Nothing hidden behind a paywall,
All their content, completely free.

So we’ll toil at our keyboards,
Though many blogs get far few hits
Doctors, lawyers, scientists
Producing content when time permits.

Writers of England, writers of Ireland,
Writers of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of a golden blogging time.

The singing of the song threw the bloggers present into a wild excitement. Almost before Old Davies had reached the end they had begun singing it for themselves. All of the bloggers had mastered the tune and the especially musical bloggers had learnt the whole song by heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few preliminary tries, the whole pub burst into “Writers of England” in unison.

During the months that followed, there was much blogging activity. Old Davies’ talk had given the assembled bloggers much to think about. Many of the bloggers tidied up their blog templates; they added comrades to their sidebars and the more computer literate added links to enable their blogposts to be quickly shared on social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.

Now, as it turned out, the rise of the blogosphere occurred much sooner, and far easier than anyone had expected.

Numerous news items and events of interest to many people failed to be reported in depth by the main stream media. One such example was a science writer whose researched and valid criticism of a pseudoscientific medical therapy had landed him in the high courts facing a misconceived libel trial. This particular case was of great interest to many people as it threatened both free speech and the advancement of scientific inquiry.

One of the legal bloggers, was able to provide much insight into the case and he began to post the details of the story as they broke on his blog. His blog, like many others, became more popular and before too long they had become one of the primary sources for news and information for many people on matters of interest to them.

Flushed with the success of the blogosphere, one of the legal bloggers organised a panel debate at another pub where many of the top political and science bloggers debated with a mainstream media journalist on whether political blogging was managing to influence government policy, and what effect the new media and self published bloggers were having on the traditional media.

Many of the bloggers present at the discussion realised the significance and the power of the blogosphere. One blogger had even succeeded in reducing the principles of blogging to 7 commandments. The 7 commandments were then be posted on one of the most widely read blogs in 14 point bold font where it could be linked to from other blogs. The7 commandments of blogging ran thus:

1. Whosever writes for traditional print media is an enemy.
2. Whosever writes for blogs or twitter is a friend.
3. No blogger shall ever write for any mainstream newspaper.
4. No Blogger shall ever omit hyperlinks.
5. No blogger shall ever require the approval of a copy editor.
6. No blogger shall ever leave hateful comments on another blog.
7. All bloggers are equal.

Links to this blogpost were tweeted to the blogging community who briskly retweeted the link in complete agreement.

How they toiled and sweated to increase the number of page views of their blogs , but Google Analytics showed that they were getting even more web traffic than they had hoped.

Sometimes the work was hard; they spent long evenings in front of their computer screens researching articles. So it was decided that awards should be bestowed on some of the more eloquent bloggers to recognise their contributions to blogging. These bloggers then proudly adorned the sidebars of their blogs with either “Blogging Hero, First Class” or “Blogging Hero, Second Class.”

The wider-read bloggers where delighted with their new awards and so they triumphantly sang “Writers of England” and reposted links to the 7 commandments of blogging.

The microbloggers who used twitter however were having trouble tweeting the 7 commandments of blogging in 140 characters or less, and so it was that the microbloggers adopted a more pithy maxim. NEW MEDIA GOOD, MAINSTREAM MEDIA BAD was tweeted from all the twitter accounts of the bloggers and their supporters.

After a while it was noticed that an article by one of the more successful bloggers appeared in the Comment is Free section of The Guardian. Some of the bloggers who read the article seemed to recall that the third commandment of blogging said that no blogger should ever write for the mainstream media. The bloggers who had read the article used the blog archive to find the original post that stated the 7 blogging commandments to remind themselves what the third commandment of blogging was. The third commandment was stated quite plainly on the blog, it read "No blogger shall ever write for any mainstream tabloid newspaper."

Some of the bloggers had not remembered that the third commandment specified tabloid newspapers, so one of them left a comment at the bottom of the blogpost. The blog author quickly responded to the comment stating that the Guardian was clearly not a tabloid newspaper, and besides, the article had only appeared in the comment section, which was only available online and not in the print copy.

As time passed, more and more of the elite bloggers started to be published outside of their original blogs. One of the science bloggers had completely moved his privately hosted blog on to the Guardian’s website whilst other bloggers where writing full time for the New Statesman and other such traditional media outlets.

The eminent bloggers explained that they were able to reach a far wider audience by publishing their articles with the established news media. Besides, they said, they remained as committed to their writing as when they self published items to a smaller audience on their own blogs. Having reached a far wider audience via the mainstream media the bloggers tweeted their maxim: NEW MEDIA GOOD, MAINSTREAM MEDIA BETTER.

Having seen a number of bloggers now reaching wider audiences in the mainstream press the readers revisited the blogpost stating the 7 commandments of blogging once more. There was nothing on the blogpost now except a single commandment. It ran:

ALL BLOGGERS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME BLOGS ARE MORE READ THAN OTHERS.

The readers looked from blog to newspaper, and from newspaper to blog, and from blog to newspaper again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.




Notes:
Please do not commit the slippery slope fallacy and conclude that I am of the opinion that the fate of blogging follows a similar narrative to the tale upon which this post is based. It’s just a nice little story that superficially matches some of the events of the blogosphere. The analogy would fall down all too easily if I had attempted to pursue it further and falsely shoehorn real bloggers into Orwell’s characters. I have therefore deliberately removed many of the main characters from the post to prevent any false parallels being drawn. With the exception of a few named characters whose words are purely mine.

Night and Day: The Spectator Arts Blog

I’ve had great fun this last week masquerading as a writer.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been longlisted for the Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. The shortlist will be announced on the 26th April and will no doubt weed out pretenders like myself. Still, that gives me just over 3 weeks to go on about it, and I do intend to go on about it quite a bit.

I was also terribly pleased to be asked to write a Spotify Sunday playlist for the Night and Day Blog. For those unfamiliar with Spotify Sunday, it’s a sort of Desert Island Discs affair in the Spectator where guests select a number of songs that can be listened to via Spotify and garnished with a few choice words on their blog.

So here’s my Spotify Sunday article for The Spectator.

Admittedly my music blog has being lying dormant for the last year or so whilst I’ve mercilessly pandered to the higher traffic passing through this blog. However I found writing about music again most agreeable, especially being able to select may favourite ditties.

As a self-published blogger who has never written anything for money, with the exception of technical documentation in my professional capacity, it seemed a little strange having my words pass through an editor. I have no qualms with my editor, I’m perfectly happy that some of my thoughts need a bit of tidying up, and I accept that my choice of language may need to be tempered for a wider audience.

I was therefore perfectly happy that the phrase:

… emerging from Saturday night TV “talent” shows

to replace my original:

… shat from the arsehole of Saturday night TV “talent” shows.

although given the subject matter, I think my original was perfectly apt.


Anyway, I do hope to get the opportunity to do a bit more music blogging again, especially if The Spectator are happy to have me back to write an album review. I promise not to swear too much.

Did I mention I’ve been longlisted for the Orwell Prize?

Why I Would Be Slightly Less Proud To Have Been Longlisted for the Golding Prize

Our 1st year English teacher had a great nickname, but his real name was Mr Nankerville.

Mr Nankerville deemed me not good enough to fail O Level English, so I was placed in a class where I could fail CSE English instead.

As I was in the top groups for Maths and Science I initially resented being thrown into Dipshit English, but it turned out to have its advantages. The top English set got to read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Presumably us thickies weren’t considered literate enough for such a challenge, so we were given a nice little yarn about a farm with some talking piggies called Napoleon and Snowball instead.

I’m pretty sure that I would have stumbled upon Orwell sooner or later anyway, after all I read Golding in my own time to see what I had been missing out on, but chances are I wouldn’t have read Animal Farm until I was much older.

The books and records of our early teenage years can seem overly profound and powerful; they influence our thoughts and remain within us. When our developing minds are fortuitous enough to collide with a genuine work of art a life-long passion and appreciation is forged and our weltanschauung is no doubt knocked about a bit.

So it was that thanks to my limited grasp of the English language and a friendly kid in my class who was happy to lend out his older siblings albums that Animal Farm and The Dark Side of the Moon are buried so deep in my psyche.

It is therefore with immense pride that I slap a new banner onto the sidebar of this blog featuring George Orwell’s ugly mush in recognition of the fact that this blog has been long-listed for the 2011 Orwell Prize.

It would be far too pretentious of me to suggest that the allegorical satire of Animal Farm influenced my preferred methodology for ridiculing bullshit on this blog, What I do is more akin to the 6th form clown playing up to his audience, but I’m more than happy for you to humour me.