I have long been amazed at the speed of decline of ability of the average first-day university student. Not so long ago, I'd have been astounded to come across one without the ability to construct simple sentences.
Then, there's this.
I am speechless.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
A hut in darkness.
I hope this one enlarges on clicking. You'll need to zoom in on it, because I've posted the whole photo and the bit I want you to find is small. A sort of 'Where's Dead Wally', if your sense of humour is as twisted as mine. Depending on Blogger's adjustment of contrast and brightness (things I post always seem darker than my copy) you might want to fiddle with those too.
It's the same place as the previous photo, which is here, but taken two months earlier.
Same deal - digital camera, set to monochrome, nobody around and only a streetlamp behind me, facing the other way. Most of the image is infrared picked up by the camera.
Well, do you see anything? Don't shrug and walk away if you don't. I need the 'no' answers as much as the 'yes' because I won't have a Great Photo until I have one where the ghost is unmistakeable.
I can't decide that for myself because I'm biased, and because I see these sort of things too often. So I need impartial observers to tell me what they see.
Remember, 'No' is a valid response here. If you see nothing, say so. If you see something, tell me what you see.
Note - the diagonal streaks are branches from a bush in the foreground.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Going round in circles.
Disclaimer first - I don't study crop circles, never have, never will. So don't ask me for details because I don't care enough to look for them.
The only reason I'm talking about them is because they serve to illustrate something important.
Here's how it goes. Years ago, circular formations started appearing in crops. Nobody was seen making them, they just appeared. There was even a film which appeared to show a circle forming spontaneously.
These formations became ever more complex, including mathematical formations such as the Julia set and the diagrammatic representation of the first ten digits of pi.
Many theories were expounded - unusual weather could form the simple circles, but the complex ones defied such natural explanation. It came down to one of two options. Either they were made by a non-human force that nobody had seen (either spirits or UFOs), or they were made by humans in the dead of night.
The 'spirit' theory cut no ice with me. There was no reason for a ghost to communicate in this way. If they wielded sufficient power to make 60-metre circles in crops, then they had enough power to walk up and say hello. The spirit theory faded away fast anyway.
So it became a battle between UFO believers and non-believers, with the latter determined it was a hoax. I was not involved on either side, and I'm still keeping out of it.
Eventually a group came forward - well, partially forward, since damaging crops is vandalism and can lead to arrest - and admitted they'd been doing it.
"Aha," said the sceptics. "We knew it."
"Nonsense," said the believers. "You can't have made those complex diagrams in the dark."
The self-proclaimed hoaxers explained how they did it. They demonstrated their technique. They showed the diagrams worked out beforehand, the measurements, the means by which they planned out their formations and how they produced the swirling patterns in the crops.
"Humans can't form complex patterns visible only from the air" remained the cry. I beg to differ. Look up the 'Nazca plains' to see it done on a much grander scale, many, many years ago by people who had no GPS or laser alignment devices. Humans most definitely are capable of making these circles. The only argument is - did they?
The hoaxers say there are some circles they didn't do. They can't say that those circles weren't made by another group of hoaxers because nobody is going to stand up and say "Yes, it was me. I flattened a thousand pounds' worth of crop last night". So the mystery is not totally solved.
However, there is enough evidence to suggest that crop circles, in the main at least, are human-made and not alien-made. There remain a few doubtful ones but with no evidence for alien activity, my mind settles on a non-paranormal explanation as being most likely at the moment.
You would think, then, that logically, the crop circle story is pretty firmly done and dusted. Unless someone films a spaceship in the process of making one, the evidence available all points to a human hoax.
No. There are many who insist that the hoaxers are lying. In effect, that the hoax is a hoax. They insist that the circles are of alien origin and that no human could produce such accurate renditions using wood and string.
To be impartial, it should be noted that a lot of people made a lot of money selling books on crop circles, proclaiming their alien origins. Those people stand to lose book sales if the whole thing falls down. It's not all about belief, some of it is about money.
Anyway, there's no way to win for either side now. If the sceptics show how the hoaxers did it then they're just making up evidence to suit themselves. If the believers insist the aliens did it, they have no evidence to prove it. The whole subject is now a circular argument and can never be resolved. Neither side can disprove the other. Neither can offer incontestable proof.
Once a subject reaches this point, there's no purpose in discussing it further until one side or the other reaches an absolutely unassailable position. In this case, the only side that could reach such a position are the believers. Film of a UFO doing the deed would win their case for them. Replicating circles will never win the case for the sceptics. That just shows how it could have been done, it doesn't prove how it was done. Argument is futile. The subject is dead until new evidence shows up.
I feel much the same about the creation/evolution argument. Although I don't see why evolution specifically denies creation since I'd have thought that was an argument between big-bang theory and 'let there be light', which may yet turn out to be the same thing anyway.
Creation cannot be proven or disproven unless God shows up, in which case the world ends for most of us anyway. Evolution can be proven if sufficient incontestable data is amassed. There is considerable data, in fact, but there are holes still and those holes must be plugged for evolution to be definitively and finally proven.
But will it be proven to the creationists? If you have fossil 'A' which you say is a precursor to animal 'Z', then you will be challenged to produce intermediate forms. There is a gap.
If you find a fossil 'M' which is intermediate, you will be challenged to produce forms intermediate between 'A' and 'M' and between 'M' and 'Z'. Now you have two gaps. And so on.
Such challenge is not unreasonable, since it's how science works. You say 'M' developed from 'A', every scientist on the planet will say 'Prove it'. However, turning that challenge into a fight isn't how science works.
On the other hand, creationists say 'God made everything'. Responding with 'Oh no he didn't' isn't science, it's pantomime. Prove it. Creationists, prove he did. Scientists, prove he didn't. Without proof on either side the argument is futile. That's why I won't argue either side. There's no point.
The crop circle enthusiasts will never listen to the arguments put forward by the sceptics, no matter how compelling. The sceptics will never listen to the arguments put forward by the enthusiasts, no matter how logical. Stalemate.
Creationists will never accept that there is 'enough evidence' for evolution. No matter how much there is, they'll only see the holes. Science will not listen to the arguments for creation, even where such arguments present no conflict with what we know about the origin of the universe. (caveat: 'enough evidence' is a contestable position, and 'no conflict' does not prove agreement).
Stalemate.
Continuing to battle on when stalemate is reached achieves nothing. It descends into name-calling and silly things happening on both sides. In both the above cases, it would be better for each side to shake hands, go away and spend their energies proving their position.
And so we come to my own field of work.
I could insist, day after day on here, that there are ghosts and that I've met them. I could shout at sceptics like Dikkii until my throat bleeds, and he could shout at me. It would change nothing. It would achieve nothing. We'd both just get sore throats and high blood pressure. There can be no resolution through argument, only through research and study.
Of the two examples above, I'm closer in principle to the crop circles. Sceptics can never prove the statement 'there are no ghosts' but they can, in all fairness, reasonably hold that view in the absence of proof to the contrary. It's my job to find the proof, not theirs to find the disproof.
The question is, what constitutes proof? The photo a few posts ago? Dikkii has already stated he found nothing. SW did, without prompting, see what I saw in there. I don't need to convince SW of the existence of ghosts anyway. She's seen some of her own. So what would Dikki see as proof?
Not a photo. Photos can be faked so easily these days. Not a voice recording,. That's easier to fake than a photo. EMF meter readings, temperature records, video - all can be faked and without much difficulty.
What I need is a means by which anyone can see a ghost for themselves. I don't mean a tame spirit I can send over to your house to rattle the china. I mean a device whereby anyone, anyone at all, can visualise a spirit. Ideally, a device which would allow two-way communication but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
But how much proof is enough? If I can come up with a means which would make a moving outline visible, would that be enough? Or does it need to be a fully visible human form? Spirits don't always have a full-shape human form anyway. Will any shape do? It comes back to the other argument - how much evidence is enough evidence?
There will always be some fundamentalists on both sides of any argument. There are, after all, really people out there who think the Earth is flat, that the sun orbits the earth and that politicians can be trusted. Some people will never, never be moved.
There will always be some people who will never accept that their position is wrong. It's best not to worry about that because there is nothing anyone can do about it. If you can convince the mainstream, then, as far as I am concerned, the job is done.
I admit, of course, that the job is far from done. I'm not going to argue about it, I'm not going to fight with sceptics because as I've spent many words saying, it won't achieve a thing. Sceptics are entitled to their opinion. I know otherwise but can't prove it to them so their opinion is valid in the context of their experience. It's no good shouting at a sceptic because that won't change their minds. It just makes the shouter appear deranged, and that does not advance the argument - at least not in the right direction.
Working is more productive than arguing.
I'm working on it.
The only reason I'm talking about them is because they serve to illustrate something important.
Here's how it goes. Years ago, circular formations started appearing in crops. Nobody was seen making them, they just appeared. There was even a film which appeared to show a circle forming spontaneously.
These formations became ever more complex, including mathematical formations such as the Julia set and the diagrammatic representation of the first ten digits of pi.
Many theories were expounded - unusual weather could form the simple circles, but the complex ones defied such natural explanation. It came down to one of two options. Either they were made by a non-human force that nobody had seen (either spirits or UFOs), or they were made by humans in the dead of night.
The 'spirit' theory cut no ice with me. There was no reason for a ghost to communicate in this way. If they wielded sufficient power to make 60-metre circles in crops, then they had enough power to walk up and say hello. The spirit theory faded away fast anyway.
So it became a battle between UFO believers and non-believers, with the latter determined it was a hoax. I was not involved on either side, and I'm still keeping out of it.
Eventually a group came forward - well, partially forward, since damaging crops is vandalism and can lead to arrest - and admitted they'd been doing it.
"Aha," said the sceptics. "We knew it."
"Nonsense," said the believers. "You can't have made those complex diagrams in the dark."
The self-proclaimed hoaxers explained how they did it. They demonstrated their technique. They showed the diagrams worked out beforehand, the measurements, the means by which they planned out their formations and how they produced the swirling patterns in the crops.
"Humans can't form complex patterns visible only from the air" remained the cry. I beg to differ. Look up the 'Nazca plains' to see it done on a much grander scale, many, many years ago by people who had no GPS or laser alignment devices. Humans most definitely are capable of making these circles. The only argument is - did they?
The hoaxers say there are some circles they didn't do. They can't say that those circles weren't made by another group of hoaxers because nobody is going to stand up and say "Yes, it was me. I flattened a thousand pounds' worth of crop last night". So the mystery is not totally solved.
However, there is enough evidence to suggest that crop circles, in the main at least, are human-made and not alien-made. There remain a few doubtful ones but with no evidence for alien activity, my mind settles on a non-paranormal explanation as being most likely at the moment.
You would think, then, that logically, the crop circle story is pretty firmly done and dusted. Unless someone films a spaceship in the process of making one, the evidence available all points to a human hoax.
No. There are many who insist that the hoaxers are lying. In effect, that the hoax is a hoax. They insist that the circles are of alien origin and that no human could produce such accurate renditions using wood and string.
To be impartial, it should be noted that a lot of people made a lot of money selling books on crop circles, proclaiming their alien origins. Those people stand to lose book sales if the whole thing falls down. It's not all about belief, some of it is about money.
Anyway, there's no way to win for either side now. If the sceptics show how the hoaxers did it then they're just making up evidence to suit themselves. If the believers insist the aliens did it, they have no evidence to prove it. The whole subject is now a circular argument and can never be resolved. Neither side can disprove the other. Neither can offer incontestable proof.
Once a subject reaches this point, there's no purpose in discussing it further until one side or the other reaches an absolutely unassailable position. In this case, the only side that could reach such a position are the believers. Film of a UFO doing the deed would win their case for them. Replicating circles will never win the case for the sceptics. That just shows how it could have been done, it doesn't prove how it was done. Argument is futile. The subject is dead until new evidence shows up.
I feel much the same about the creation/evolution argument. Although I don't see why evolution specifically denies creation since I'd have thought that was an argument between big-bang theory and 'let there be light', which may yet turn out to be the same thing anyway.
Creation cannot be proven or disproven unless God shows up, in which case the world ends for most of us anyway. Evolution can be proven if sufficient incontestable data is amassed. There is considerable data, in fact, but there are holes still and those holes must be plugged for evolution to be definitively and finally proven.
But will it be proven to the creationists? If you have fossil 'A' which you say is a precursor to animal 'Z', then you will be challenged to produce intermediate forms. There is a gap.
If you find a fossil 'M' which is intermediate, you will be challenged to produce forms intermediate between 'A' and 'M' and between 'M' and 'Z'. Now you have two gaps. And so on.
Such challenge is not unreasonable, since it's how science works. You say 'M' developed from 'A', every scientist on the planet will say 'Prove it'. However, turning that challenge into a fight isn't how science works.
On the other hand, creationists say 'God made everything'. Responding with 'Oh no he didn't' isn't science, it's pantomime. Prove it. Creationists, prove he did. Scientists, prove he didn't. Without proof on either side the argument is futile. That's why I won't argue either side. There's no point.
The crop circle enthusiasts will never listen to the arguments put forward by the sceptics, no matter how compelling. The sceptics will never listen to the arguments put forward by the enthusiasts, no matter how logical. Stalemate.
Creationists will never accept that there is 'enough evidence' for evolution. No matter how much there is, they'll only see the holes. Science will not listen to the arguments for creation, even where such arguments present no conflict with what we know about the origin of the universe. (caveat: 'enough evidence' is a contestable position, and 'no conflict' does not prove agreement).
Stalemate.
Continuing to battle on when stalemate is reached achieves nothing. It descends into name-calling and silly things happening on both sides. In both the above cases, it would be better for each side to shake hands, go away and spend their energies proving their position.
And so we come to my own field of work.
I could insist, day after day on here, that there are ghosts and that I've met them. I could shout at sceptics like Dikkii until my throat bleeds, and he could shout at me. It would change nothing. It would achieve nothing. We'd both just get sore throats and high blood pressure. There can be no resolution through argument, only through research and study.
Of the two examples above, I'm closer in principle to the crop circles. Sceptics can never prove the statement 'there are no ghosts' but they can, in all fairness, reasonably hold that view in the absence of proof to the contrary. It's my job to find the proof, not theirs to find the disproof.
The question is, what constitutes proof? The photo a few posts ago? Dikkii has already stated he found nothing. SW did, without prompting, see what I saw in there. I don't need to convince SW of the existence of ghosts anyway. She's seen some of her own. So what would Dikki see as proof?
Not a photo. Photos can be faked so easily these days. Not a voice recording,. That's easier to fake than a photo. EMF meter readings, temperature records, video - all can be faked and without much difficulty.
What I need is a means by which anyone can see a ghost for themselves. I don't mean a tame spirit I can send over to your house to rattle the china. I mean a device whereby anyone, anyone at all, can visualise a spirit. Ideally, a device which would allow two-way communication but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
But how much proof is enough? If I can come up with a means which would make a moving outline visible, would that be enough? Or does it need to be a fully visible human form? Spirits don't always have a full-shape human form anyway. Will any shape do? It comes back to the other argument - how much evidence is enough evidence?
There will always be some fundamentalists on both sides of any argument. There are, after all, really people out there who think the Earth is flat, that the sun orbits the earth and that politicians can be trusted. Some people will never, never be moved.
There will always be some people who will never accept that their position is wrong. It's best not to worry about that because there is nothing anyone can do about it. If you can convince the mainstream, then, as far as I am concerned, the job is done.
I admit, of course, that the job is far from done. I'm not going to argue about it, I'm not going to fight with sceptics because as I've spent many words saying, it won't achieve a thing. Sceptics are entitled to their opinion. I know otherwise but can't prove it to them so their opinion is valid in the context of their experience. It's no good shouting at a sceptic because that won't change their minds. It just makes the shouter appear deranged, and that does not advance the argument - at least not in the right direction.
Working is more productive than arguing.
I'm working on it.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Hand over the cash or my dog will stab you.
Following hot on the heels of the ban on knives, the yobs of the UK have found themselves a new weapon.
They take their dogs for a walk.
There's nothing illegal about walking a dog, after all, and it'll take a seriously lunatic government to ban dog-walking in this country. We have such a government. I'm waiting for them to try it.
The new routine is 'hand over your valuables or we set the dog on you'. So what kind of dog? Rottweiler? Pitbull? Alsatian?
No, the dog of choice is the Staffordshire bull terrier. A squat and strong animal with a head that looks like it's carved from a single piece of titanium. The thugs dress the animal up with a spiked collar and wander the streets.
There's only one problem. The Staffordshire bull terrier is one of the friendliest dogs around. It can afford to be since there's not much you can do to hurt one of these armour-plated beasts. Safe to leave with small children, and a boon to burglars because if you bribe him with a good piece of meat, he'll show you where the silver is. This is not an attack dog, unless you're a cat or a hedgehog in which case you're done for.
If the thug says 'Get him', this dog will attempt to lick you to death, or drown you in drool.
Of course, you wouldn't think that if you didn't know the breed. They look very fierce, but they're big softies inside. Just don't dress up as a squirrel.
I'd be more scared of a poodle. Those things are deranged.
They take their dogs for a walk.
There's nothing illegal about walking a dog, after all, and it'll take a seriously lunatic government to ban dog-walking in this country. We have such a government. I'm waiting for them to try it.
The new routine is 'hand over your valuables or we set the dog on you'. So what kind of dog? Rottweiler? Pitbull? Alsatian?
No, the dog of choice is the Staffordshire bull terrier. A squat and strong animal with a head that looks like it's carved from a single piece of titanium. The thugs dress the animal up with a spiked collar and wander the streets.
There's only one problem. The Staffordshire bull terrier is one of the friendliest dogs around. It can afford to be since there's not much you can do to hurt one of these armour-plated beasts. Safe to leave with small children, and a boon to burglars because if you bribe him with a good piece of meat, he'll show you where the silver is. This is not an attack dog, unless you're a cat or a hedgehog in which case you're done for.
If the thug says 'Get him', this dog will attempt to lick you to death, or drown you in drool.
Of course, you wouldn't think that if you didn't know the breed. They look very fierce, but they're big softies inside. Just don't dress up as a squirrel.
I'd be more scared of a poodle. Those things are deranged.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
The perils of smoking.
Smoking can make people do very strange and unsavoury things.
Fortunately, smoking in public conveniences is no longer allowed so this particular peril no longer applies.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Seeing might, or might not, be believing.
The photo above is straight from a digital camera. Unedited in any way. Okay, you have only my word for that because you can't all visit and examine the file directly on my computer, nor can you examine the camera. Then again, this is not a laboratory. It's a blog. So take my word for it.
This photo was taken at night at the limits of the camera's capabilities so it's grainy. The camera was set to monochrome. The only light source was a streetlamp behind me and to my left, and that faced the road, not this scene. No cars passed while I took the photo, no planes crossed overhead, nobody was around.
I think I see something here. I Emailed a clipped portion of this photo to someone, with no explanation, and that person responded that they'd seen something too. Our observations matched.
Some of you will try hard, too hard, to see something in this picture. Some will dismiss any apparent imagery as a camera anomaly or a trick. That's okay, the range of perceptions will form a curve and the distribution of that curve will let me know something important. It will let me know whether what I think I see in this picture is the same as what most others think they see. It will allow me to more accurately judge whether I'm seeing an optical illusion or something potentially real.
So have at it. I uploaded the full image so I hope you can click on it, enlarge it, download it and mess around with it to your heart's content.
What do you see?
Monday, June 02, 2008
The lonely places.
Fortean Times has an article on haunted lighthouses. Apparently many of them, especially deserted ones, are claimed to be haunted.
It seems odd, since there have been very few recorded deaths in lighthouses. The sceptical part of me notes the unusual acoustics of a tall, circular building combined with the noise of the sea and the human imagination after dark. Even so, there have been too many reports to dismiss in this way.
Some involve sightings (from outside) of a figure at the top of a locked and abandoned lighthouse. These are not easy places to break into. Many reports of sightings and voices took place in daytime.
A lighthouse keeper is a solitary individual by nature. It's not a job for the socialite, it's for those who prefer to keep away from people. Those who might, in other times, have become hermits. It is therefore likely that, after death, the spirits of these people would seek sanctuary in the place they felt most comfortable. It's also not surprising that most reports involve antagonistic spirits who want to be left alone. That's all they ever wanted when they were alive. They don't want to cross into whatever spirit realm there might be. They want solitude.
Access to lighthouses is difficult. Working lighthouses naturally don't want anyone getting in the way because if an investigator blew a fuse and put out the light, it would put shipping in danger. It's not a responsibility any investigator should take lightly since there could be some serious legal repercussions. I have 'professional indemnity insurance' in case I damage someone, or someone's property, during the course of my work. It won't cover the sinking of a trawler!
Abandoned lighthouses are likely to be extremely dangerous structures and are often inaccessible. Getting permission to spend the night in one will be difficult and if something happened (something physical, like falling down the stairs) it would take a long time to get help. If a storm blew up you might be stuck there.
I have never investigated--or even set foot in--a lighthouse but I'm certainly going to see if it's possible. It might not be but it's worth a try. Most of my investigations take place in lonely places, away from the hubbub of the town and the constant interference of wildly fluctuating electric fields. I find the real silence and the real darkness away from the town and the streetlights relaxing, and much easier to work with. Fewer interfering variables and almost no interfering living people makes an investigation so much more likely to succeed.
I hereby add lighthouses to my list of potential places. One day, I might get that chance.
It seems odd, since there have been very few recorded deaths in lighthouses. The sceptical part of me notes the unusual acoustics of a tall, circular building combined with the noise of the sea and the human imagination after dark. Even so, there have been too many reports to dismiss in this way.
Some involve sightings (from outside) of a figure at the top of a locked and abandoned lighthouse. These are not easy places to break into. Many reports of sightings and voices took place in daytime.
A lighthouse keeper is a solitary individual by nature. It's not a job for the socialite, it's for those who prefer to keep away from people. Those who might, in other times, have become hermits. It is therefore likely that, after death, the spirits of these people would seek sanctuary in the place they felt most comfortable. It's also not surprising that most reports involve antagonistic spirits who want to be left alone. That's all they ever wanted when they were alive. They don't want to cross into whatever spirit realm there might be. They want solitude.
Access to lighthouses is difficult. Working lighthouses naturally don't want anyone getting in the way because if an investigator blew a fuse and put out the light, it would put shipping in danger. It's not a responsibility any investigator should take lightly since there could be some serious legal repercussions. I have 'professional indemnity insurance' in case I damage someone, or someone's property, during the course of my work. It won't cover the sinking of a trawler!
Abandoned lighthouses are likely to be extremely dangerous structures and are often inaccessible. Getting permission to spend the night in one will be difficult and if something happened (something physical, like falling down the stairs) it would take a long time to get help. If a storm blew up you might be stuck there.
I have never investigated--or even set foot in--a lighthouse but I'm certainly going to see if it's possible. It might not be but it's worth a try. Most of my investigations take place in lonely places, away from the hubbub of the town and the constant interference of wildly fluctuating electric fields. I find the real silence and the real darkness away from the town and the streetlights relaxing, and much easier to work with. Fewer interfering variables and almost no interfering living people makes an investigation so much more likely to succeed.
I hereby add lighthouses to my list of potential places. One day, I might get that chance.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Crunching numbers.
I'm not the only one analysing paranormal data with a serious approach. There are others out there. A lot.
The way you see an investigation portrayed on TV isn't real. We don't just wave EMF meters at random, we don't run to places where there might have been a 'clunk', we definitely don't run at the hint of something paranormal.
The actual investigation process, if TV were to show it, would be very dull indeed. It's methodical and slow, deliberate and progressive. There are several cameras involved, most on tripods, which have to be checked for battery and recording time and batteries/tapes/memory cards replaced as necessary. Voice recorders too - although these new digital ones have so much recording time there's no need to worry about that. Just their batteries.
No rewinding during the investigation, no matter what you think you saw. All analysis comes afterwards. The investigation is data collection. Times of potentially interesting events are noted for later, but nothing--nothing--is rewound and looked at at the time. Rewinding is the best way to miss something important or to accidentally overwrite whatever you found.
A discontinuous recording also smacks of tampering. It's impossible to prove the recording wasn't tampered with if it's in short, broken chunks. It might have been assembled later. The original must be in one continuous stream.
So the actual investigation won't make good TV. Analysis of the data won't make good TV either - watching someone sit, eyes closed, with headphones on while they track through sound for EVP's, or staring at a screen waiting for movement is hardly riveting.
It's therefore not surprising that the newly started beginner, even when they find something, is shrugged off by the sceptics. The TV shows give entirely the wrong impression of how to run an investigation. But then, that's TV. It's entertainment. If it doesn't entertain, it doesn't get the ratings.
It does, at least, raise people's interest in the subject which is good. On the plus side, it means that paranormal investigators are less likely to be labelled 'nut'. On the negative side, it means that anyone who thinks they have a haunting expects to cash in. I don't charge for an investigation - but I won't pay to go to work.
A good example is on the Paranormal Database, where they have analysed their database of UK paranormal reports by region. This is data collection and analysis put to good use.
The regions are, or course, arbitrary because they are based on counties/countries. The borders aren't defined by any kind of paranormal parameter so they aren't a perfect basis for the distribution of paranormal events. Nonetheless, since we have no other parameter at present, they will do.
London tops the list, because it has the highest population density and the least 'blank' space (space where nobody lives).
Wales is down at no. 43 - but then Wales is taken as a whole and not split into counties. Much of Wales is occupied only by sheep and shepherds, and large areas don't even have those. Most of the population is concentrated in towns in the easily accessible parts. I suspect, if it was split into counties, the same effect would show as in the overall database. There are more reports in areas of high population density.
I'd also like to see the data collated in terms of how long each settlement has existed. New towns, built on green space, I'd expect to have fewer incidences than those built on previous Roman or even Pictish sites, simply because many more people have lived (and died) there.
That sounds like it's worth doing because if there is a correlation between length of occupation/size of town and paranormal reports, surely that's useful evidence?
It is. It's evidence. It's still not proof because there are alternative explanations for such a correlation. For example, the more people live in a place, and the longer they live there, the greater the chance of stories being invented and handed down until they are eventually passed off as fact. So it's not proof.
Dividing the paranormal events by arbitrary regions doesn't allow any kind of statistical analysis. A better (though much more labour-intensive) method would be to draw a grid over the UK, determine the paranormal events/current population density/average age of settlements for the area under each square of the grid. The smaller the squares, the better.
That's a lot of squares. Statistically, you don't need to examine every single one. You could take, say, ten percent of squares and pick them at random by throwing a dart at the grid. No cheating and aiming for London all the time!
You'd then determine the parameters for each square and test for a correlation between paranormal activity and one or more of the variables listed. If you get a significant result it would then be worth doing all the rest of the squares.
It sounds dull. It is dull. It's slogging away at numbers for hours upon hours.
That's what science is really like. Playing with the gadgets, hanging around locations, travelling, yes it's all part of the deal but the biggest part involves sitting with a calculator and working out standard deviations.
If I find the time I'll have a go at the Paranormal Database myself.
The way you see an investigation portrayed on TV isn't real. We don't just wave EMF meters at random, we don't run to places where there might have been a 'clunk', we definitely don't run at the hint of something paranormal.
The actual investigation process, if TV were to show it, would be very dull indeed. It's methodical and slow, deliberate and progressive. There are several cameras involved, most on tripods, which have to be checked for battery and recording time and batteries/tapes/memory cards replaced as necessary. Voice recorders too - although these new digital ones have so much recording time there's no need to worry about that. Just their batteries.
No rewinding during the investigation, no matter what you think you saw. All analysis comes afterwards. The investigation is data collection. Times of potentially interesting events are noted for later, but nothing--nothing--is rewound and looked at at the time. Rewinding is the best way to miss something important or to accidentally overwrite whatever you found.
A discontinuous recording also smacks of tampering. It's impossible to prove the recording wasn't tampered with if it's in short, broken chunks. It might have been assembled later. The original must be in one continuous stream.
So the actual investigation won't make good TV. Analysis of the data won't make good TV either - watching someone sit, eyes closed, with headphones on while they track through sound for EVP's, or staring at a screen waiting for movement is hardly riveting.
It's therefore not surprising that the newly started beginner, even when they find something, is shrugged off by the sceptics. The TV shows give entirely the wrong impression of how to run an investigation. But then, that's TV. It's entertainment. If it doesn't entertain, it doesn't get the ratings.
It does, at least, raise people's interest in the subject which is good. On the plus side, it means that paranormal investigators are less likely to be labelled 'nut'. On the negative side, it means that anyone who thinks they have a haunting expects to cash in. I don't charge for an investigation - but I won't pay to go to work.
A good example is on the Paranormal Database, where they have analysed their database of UK paranormal reports by region. This is data collection and analysis put to good use.
The regions are, or course, arbitrary because they are based on counties/countries. The borders aren't defined by any kind of paranormal parameter so they aren't a perfect basis for the distribution of paranormal events. Nonetheless, since we have no other parameter at present, they will do.
London tops the list, because it has the highest population density and the least 'blank' space (space where nobody lives).
Wales is down at no. 43 - but then Wales is taken as a whole and not split into counties. Much of Wales is occupied only by sheep and shepherds, and large areas don't even have those. Most of the population is concentrated in towns in the easily accessible parts. I suspect, if it was split into counties, the same effect would show as in the overall database. There are more reports in areas of high population density.
I'd also like to see the data collated in terms of how long each settlement has existed. New towns, built on green space, I'd expect to have fewer incidences than those built on previous Roman or even Pictish sites, simply because many more people have lived (and died) there.
That sounds like it's worth doing because if there is a correlation between length of occupation/size of town and paranormal reports, surely that's useful evidence?
It is. It's evidence. It's still not proof because there are alternative explanations for such a correlation. For example, the more people live in a place, and the longer they live there, the greater the chance of stories being invented and handed down until they are eventually passed off as fact. So it's not proof.
Dividing the paranormal events by arbitrary regions doesn't allow any kind of statistical analysis. A better (though much more labour-intensive) method would be to draw a grid over the UK, determine the paranormal events/current population density/average age of settlements for the area under each square of the grid. The smaller the squares, the better.
That's a lot of squares. Statistically, you don't need to examine every single one. You could take, say, ten percent of squares and pick them at random by throwing a dart at the grid. No cheating and aiming for London all the time!
You'd then determine the parameters for each square and test for a correlation between paranormal activity and one or more of the variables listed. If you get a significant result it would then be worth doing all the rest of the squares.
It sounds dull. It is dull. It's slogging away at numbers for hours upon hours.
That's what science is really like. Playing with the gadgets, hanging around locations, travelling, yes it's all part of the deal but the biggest part involves sitting with a calculator and working out standard deviations.
If I find the time I'll have a go at the Paranormal Database myself.
Another 'Roswell Autopsy' or is this better?
I hear tell there's a chap in Denver who claims to have film of a live alien.
All I have is a short news article concerning one Jeff Peckman.
Has anyone out there heard more of this?
All I have is a short news article concerning one Jeff Peckman.
Has anyone out there heard more of this?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The reason, or one of them.
Some time ago, I was in a long discussion with a devout sceptic, Dikkii, about the very existence of the subject area I study and one of his points was that there was no practical application for what I’m researching.
I dodged the question.
He also asked why I didn’t take Randi’s million-dollar challenge. I said I didn’t think that much money was enough. I also pointed out that I can’t make a ghost show up on demand, so wouldn’t win it anyway other than by sheer luck.
He, and others, asked me to show my data. I refused.
I won’t be showing the data. A million would not be enough. I dodged that question for a reason.
Here it is.
Imagine you asked that same question to an engineer who worked on, say, hologrammatic projection. He claims he can encode a hologram in a piece of quartz and have it replay, in three dimensions, when someone passes or when light hits it in the right way or in response to a particular sound or… well, whatever you want.
Sceptics laugh at him and say ‘If you can do this, show the data’.
He says ‘Not yet, I don’t have enough to patent this’.
Sceptics continue to laugh.
Why won’t he show them the data? He’s close to perfecting his technique so where’s the harm? Doesn’t he want to prove he can do this?
Imagine walking through a museum or a botanical garden. You touch a rock and a 3D image appears of a curator, explaining the details of what you’re looking at.
Imagine a rock you place in your garden that takes the energy of sunlight and produces a hologram of exotic birds complete with birdsong.
Imagine books with embedded crystals that produce full size images in the room while you read.
How much do you think that would be worth? In that engineer’s shoes, would you just give it away to any stranger who asked?
Now, consider one of the two aspects I study. The ‘replay’ apparition. Suppose I succeed in working out how those images and sound become encoded in the environment, and what triggers the replay? There are no spirits in these apparitions. They replay in exactly the same way every time. They never interact with observers. They are recordings. What's more, they are not all triggered by the same thing.
No application? One million dollars? Should I post everything I’ve found so far?
What would you do?
Now, about those ghosts.
There are spirits that I currently consider to be the ghosts of dead people. There are others that appear not to be. It is possible that all the spirits are human and that some can pretend not to be. It is possible that none of them are human and some can pretend to be so. Or both. Or something else. There’s a lot of work to do yet.
Now, I can’t prove to you that they’re there but suppose I could? Suppose I could not only prove it but show you how to communicate with these spirits? Suppose I could get clear and consistent conversations with them? Does that have no application?
I doubt the military, for one, would agree, although I would prefer not to get involved in all that.
There’s no need anyway. Applications – let’s just skim a couple.
A burning building. Firefighters want to know if there’s anyone alive in there and where they are. The better the information, the less risk to the firefighters and the faster they can get people out. Who better to wander the building than someone unaffected by fire and smoke? At the moment, if a ghost did this, who would they tell?
A nuclear reactor has a problem. Staff suspect a coolant leak but going inside the core would be deadly unless it’s completely shut down. Very expensive and hardly quick. Does it really have to be done? What if they had access to someone unaffected by radiation and who doesn’t even need to open the door? If there is a leak, the ghost can’t fix it but they can tell staff to start the shutdown and minimise time in the core by telling the repair crew exactly where the problem is. If there isn’t a leak, it saves time, money, and means the staff don’t spend a lot of time looking for the problem in the wrong place.
This application is much more difficult to achieve since it means persuading a thinking being—a ghost—to do something we can’t pay them for. I don’t know what they want and I suspect that, just like the living, they don’t all want the same things.
This one is further away also because of its nature. Producing a hologram won’t surprise anyone and it’s hard to refute the evidence of your eyes. Even if I could get a sceptic to hear a ghost’s voice, they’d accuse me of ventriloquism. If I could get a sceptic to see a ghost, they’d say it was a hologram.
Hologram production would also be reproducible. Getting a ghost to cooperate is a whole different game.
There are reasons I dodge questions, refuse to show much data, have no interest in Randi’s money or bow to the demands of sceptics. For the same reasons, I despise fakes because they get in the way and waste time.
Have I never posted anything supernatural on the blog? No ghost photos at all?
Look again. I’m not hiding it all.
Addendum: Reading over that, it looks like I'm in it for the money. That's not the case - I doubt my investigations of ghosts will ever make me rich.
It's just that I see the potential in this, although there's more potential return (in my lifetime) in the rock/hologram data than in the real-spirit data.
At some point, I'm going to need an engineer and probably a geologist and a few other specialists. If you're in one of those categories, stick around. I'll be in touch when I have enough to convince you it's worthwhile!
I dodged the question.
He also asked why I didn’t take Randi’s million-dollar challenge. I said I didn’t think that much money was enough. I also pointed out that I can’t make a ghost show up on demand, so wouldn’t win it anyway other than by sheer luck.
He, and others, asked me to show my data. I refused.
I won’t be showing the data. A million would not be enough. I dodged that question for a reason.
Here it is.
Imagine you asked that same question to an engineer who worked on, say, hologrammatic projection. He claims he can encode a hologram in a piece of quartz and have it replay, in three dimensions, when someone passes or when light hits it in the right way or in response to a particular sound or… well, whatever you want.
Sceptics laugh at him and say ‘If you can do this, show the data’.
He says ‘Not yet, I don’t have enough to patent this’.
Sceptics continue to laugh.
Why won’t he show them the data? He’s close to perfecting his technique so where’s the harm? Doesn’t he want to prove he can do this?
Imagine walking through a museum or a botanical garden. You touch a rock and a 3D image appears of a curator, explaining the details of what you’re looking at.
Imagine a rock you place in your garden that takes the energy of sunlight and produces a hologram of exotic birds complete with birdsong.
Imagine books with embedded crystals that produce full size images in the room while you read.
How much do you think that would be worth? In that engineer’s shoes, would you just give it away to any stranger who asked?
Now, consider one of the two aspects I study. The ‘replay’ apparition. Suppose I succeed in working out how those images and sound become encoded in the environment, and what triggers the replay? There are no spirits in these apparitions. They replay in exactly the same way every time. They never interact with observers. They are recordings. What's more, they are not all triggered by the same thing.
No application? One million dollars? Should I post everything I’ve found so far?
What would you do?
Now, about those ghosts.
There are spirits that I currently consider to be the ghosts of dead people. There are others that appear not to be. It is possible that all the spirits are human and that some can pretend not to be. It is possible that none of them are human and some can pretend to be so. Or both. Or something else. There’s a lot of work to do yet.
Now, I can’t prove to you that they’re there but suppose I could? Suppose I could not only prove it but show you how to communicate with these spirits? Suppose I could get clear and consistent conversations with them? Does that have no application?
I doubt the military, for one, would agree, although I would prefer not to get involved in all that.
There’s no need anyway. Applications – let’s just skim a couple.
A burning building. Firefighters want to know if there’s anyone alive in there and where they are. The better the information, the less risk to the firefighters and the faster they can get people out. Who better to wander the building than someone unaffected by fire and smoke? At the moment, if a ghost did this, who would they tell?
A nuclear reactor has a problem. Staff suspect a coolant leak but going inside the core would be deadly unless it’s completely shut down. Very expensive and hardly quick. Does it really have to be done? What if they had access to someone unaffected by radiation and who doesn’t even need to open the door? If there is a leak, the ghost can’t fix it but they can tell staff to start the shutdown and minimise time in the core by telling the repair crew exactly where the problem is. If there isn’t a leak, it saves time, money, and means the staff don’t spend a lot of time looking for the problem in the wrong place.
This application is much more difficult to achieve since it means persuading a thinking being—a ghost—to do something we can’t pay them for. I don’t know what they want and I suspect that, just like the living, they don’t all want the same things.
This one is further away also because of its nature. Producing a hologram won’t surprise anyone and it’s hard to refute the evidence of your eyes. Even if I could get a sceptic to hear a ghost’s voice, they’d accuse me of ventriloquism. If I could get a sceptic to see a ghost, they’d say it was a hologram.
Hologram production would also be reproducible. Getting a ghost to cooperate is a whole different game.
There are reasons I dodge questions, refuse to show much data, have no interest in Randi’s money or bow to the demands of sceptics. For the same reasons, I despise fakes because they get in the way and waste time.
Have I never posted anything supernatural on the blog? No ghost photos at all?
Look again. I’m not hiding it all.
Addendum: Reading over that, it looks like I'm in it for the money. That's not the case - I doubt my investigations of ghosts will ever make me rich.
It's just that I see the potential in this, although there's more potential return (in my lifetime) in the rock/hologram data than in the real-spirit data.
At some point, I'm going to need an engineer and probably a geologist and a few other specialists. If you're in one of those categories, stick around. I'll be in touch when I have enough to convince you it's worthwhile!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Psychic as career.
One last post from me tonight and then sleep. My Circadian rhythms have been seriously messed with over the last few days and it's catchup time.
Every time I find Randi's face I go over to look at his site, www.randi.org. To see if he's seen the errors in his thinking. Not yet.
One of the things he slates there is the medium. 'There can be no real mediums in the world,' he declares (paraphrased). 'They are all fakes and charlatans'.
There are real mediums. I know at least two.
There really are dead people wandering around. I've met them.
What the sceptics should say is 'There are no real mediums on TV' because that is absolutely true.
Real mediums make a living from other jobs. No real medium makes a living from being a medium for one simple reason.
It cannot be done.
You cannot set up a half hour show and expect exactly three spirits, all of whom are related to someone in your audience, to show up on time.
You cannot expect to set up that show without sometimes finding that none of the spirits who do show up match with anyone in the audience.
You cannot set up that show and expect any spirits to show up at all.
One hundred percent success guarantees fraud. There is no other way to do it. The TV psychics never fail. They always get the right number of matches for the show. Always. They never have a show where none of the spirits they contact have any relationship to the audience. They never have a show where no spirits turn up. What do they do, make them sign contracts? All TV psychics are faking it and I say that precisely because they never fail. If they log a failure in the next few weeks I'll know they read this blog. Too late - you're faking it and I know it.
Real mediums know that ghosts do not come when you call. They are not pets. They are dead people and are just as capricious as the live versions. Ghosts show up when they have something to say. They don't follow TV schedules. They don't follow their relatives around 24/7. Come on. If you were a ghost you'd find something else to do, right? What if you had eight kids? How would you follow them all? If Kid #3 was at the show and you were busy looking over Kid #5's new baby, would you heed the call of the TV cameras or say 'Screw them'? I know what I'd do.
It is not possible to make money as a medium. Customers will not accept success rates of 10% or lower. Ghosts will not do as they are told. They will not conveniently show up for readings.
All TV psychics are fakes, yes, but that does not mean that all psychics are fakes. That is the fallacy in the sceptic's thinking. The real medium cannot make money using their ability. The real medium isn't going to knock your door and give you a message from the Great Beyond because they know they'll get laughed at and possibly punched. Real mediums are out there but they will never be famous for it. There is no way for them to prove it since they can never be sure of when a spirit will choose to speak to them, and they can't 'book' a ghost to coincide with a lab appointment.
The logic is there if you look for it.
Every time I find Randi's face I go over to look at his site, www.randi.org. To see if he's seen the errors in his thinking. Not yet.
One of the things he slates there is the medium. 'There can be no real mediums in the world,' he declares (paraphrased). 'They are all fakes and charlatans'.
There are real mediums. I know at least two.
There really are dead people wandering around. I've met them.
What the sceptics should say is 'There are no real mediums on TV' because that is absolutely true.
Real mediums make a living from other jobs. No real medium makes a living from being a medium for one simple reason.
It cannot be done.
You cannot set up a half hour show and expect exactly three spirits, all of whom are related to someone in your audience, to show up on time.
You cannot expect to set up that show without sometimes finding that none of the spirits who do show up match with anyone in the audience.
You cannot set up that show and expect any spirits to show up at all.
One hundred percent success guarantees fraud. There is no other way to do it. The TV psychics never fail. They always get the right number of matches for the show. Always. They never have a show where none of the spirits they contact have any relationship to the audience. They never have a show where no spirits turn up. What do they do, make them sign contracts? All TV psychics are faking it and I say that precisely because they never fail. If they log a failure in the next few weeks I'll know they read this blog. Too late - you're faking it and I know it.
Real mediums know that ghosts do not come when you call. They are not pets. They are dead people and are just as capricious as the live versions. Ghosts show up when they have something to say. They don't follow TV schedules. They don't follow their relatives around 24/7. Come on. If you were a ghost you'd find something else to do, right? What if you had eight kids? How would you follow them all? If Kid #3 was at the show and you were busy looking over Kid #5's new baby, would you heed the call of the TV cameras or say 'Screw them'? I know what I'd do.
It is not possible to make money as a medium. Customers will not accept success rates of 10% or lower. Ghosts will not do as they are told. They will not conveniently show up for readings.
All TV psychics are fakes, yes, but that does not mean that all psychics are fakes. That is the fallacy in the sceptic's thinking. The real medium cannot make money using their ability. The real medium isn't going to knock your door and give you a message from the Great Beyond because they know they'll get laughed at and possibly punched. Real mediums are out there but they will never be famous for it. There is no way for them to prove it since they can never be sure of when a spirit will choose to speak to them, and they can't 'book' a ghost to coincide with a lab appointment.
The logic is there if you look for it.
Are frauds harmless?
I won't put any more YouTube videos up tonight, I promise, but James Randi (a sceptic and therefore an enemy by default, as well as a man whose methods I don't like) has a very valid point in this video.
Frauds don't just waste time. They ruin careers and cost money.
In this case, many careers and an awful lot of money.
I have no patience with frauds and no sympathy for them when they get caught.
It is NOT a 'bit of harmless fun'.
James Randi and The Psychic Chemist
I saw this one a long time ago and have only just managed to find it again. I think the clip ends before any explanation of how it was done comes up.
It's easy. The initial liquid is a weak alkali and the coloured liquid is a pH indicator. The high stirring speed is essential because all that's needed to change the pH from alkali to acid is carbonic acid. Which is what you get when you dissolve carbon dioxide in water. Which is what happens when you breathe into rapidly-stirred water. The rapid stirring means his breath dissolves faster.
All he's doing is breathing into the water. A drop of alkali changes it back, and all he needs do is breathe into it again.
This is one of those fakes that makes life very difficult for me and others, and I despise him for it.
The scientist, if she is one, is either in on the act or is a completely useless idiot. I suspect the former.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
UFO? SEP
If you type ‘UFO Ghost’ into any search engine you’ll get a whole slew of results. Many, many sites cover both ghosts and UFO’s, along with cryptozoology and telepathy and telekinesis and… well, anything you can think of.
I think that’s a mistake.
The thing is, all these subject areas are different. They are lumped together under ‘paranormal’ because science likes to use the name as a dumping ground for stuff it doesn’t believe is worthwhile studying. Some of us scientists like to rummage around in that dump for discarded gems, but most scientists stay away. I know of several who’d deny that the paranormal existed at all, even in theory.
Hey, you can’t blame them. The scientific establishment is very, very conservative and doesn’t take too kindly to its rising stars associating with kooks like me. If you have plans on climbing the hierarchy, a CV that includes even one paranormal study is going to slow you down. If you want to study the paranormal, don’t set your sights on chancellorships for your old age. That’s just the way it is.
Many will reinforce their mainstream attitude by public ridicule of all those paranormal subjects. Few bother to come up with any kind of logical, evidence based argument. The statement ‘It’s all a load of bunk’ is all they need to get cheers from the gallery. The most common is ‘Well, I’ve never seen a real paranormal event so it can’t be true’.
Well, I’ve never seen a planet around another star, nor have I seen subatomic particles, a coelacanth, a Tamarind monkey, or Buckminster-Fullerene. I don’t deny those things exist because other scientists have provided evidence that they do. I don’t wave away their evidence with ‘Bah. It’s all hokum’. I don’t say ‘Well I haven’t seen it so it can’t be true’.
Let’s take subatomic particles. You can’t show me one. You can’t produce one. You can’t put one on display. All you can show are lines on photographic film. Lines produced by particle collisions that you say demonstrate the existence of quarks and other atomic debris. What do I see? I see what appears to be a doctor’s prescription form. A lot of squiggly lines. Yet I don’t deny the existence of those particles. I’m not a physicist. I haven’t studied the subject. When it comes to quarks, I put my faith in those who have studied physics. I do not dismiss someone else’s chosen subject of study as ‘chasing squiggles’.
So I don’t dismiss UFO’s but I don’t study them either. They represent an entirely different phenomenon which requires an entirely different approach to study. The mass of information available means that taking on such a subject would be a daunting task. UFO’s, and all those other subjects, I file under SEP*
Just as in the study of ghosts, UFO’s have spawned a heck of a lot of out-and-out frauds, along with many cases of mistaken identity. That’s where the resemblance between the subjects ends. UFO’s, if they are real, are metallic flying craft. From this world or another, or both, who knows? They are not spirits in any way, they are not ghosts, and the techniques I use will neither find them nor prove their existence.
Telepathy and telekinesis are human interactions with other humans and/or the environment. No ghosts, and no spaceships. A different field of study. Astrology looks at planetary movements and relates them to human life. A different field again. Cryptozoology looks for real, as-yet undiscovered animals. Not ghost dogs, not space cats, not telepathic voles and not astrological creatures. It’s not all the same.
Putting it all in one place makes it appear to be all the same. Setting yourself up to cover all of these subjects, and more, blends them together in the eyes of the sceptics who, remember, aren’t actually studying any of these subjects. They are looking for targets. Putting all those targets in one place makes it easy.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told ‘So you’re into all that paranormal stuff, eh? Say hello to the little green men next time you see them.’
I’ve seen meteor showers. I’ve watched satellites pass overhead. I’ve seen Venus and Mercury. I’ve seen many aircraft lights at night. I have never seen a UFO. I haven’t even been looking.
Oh, I’m interested in all those other subjects. I’m interested in biology, chemistry and physics too. There’s a lander approaching Mars as I write. I hope it gets there safely because I want to hear about the information it sends back. I’m interested in all subjects of science and in many subjects outside science.
I cannot study them all. Nobody can. I study the phenomenon referred to as ‘ghosts’. That’s it. No Russian women move paperclips under glass in my lab. Nobody takes telepathy tests. Nobody gets healed. I’d be very interested to read of any positive results in those cases but I don’t perform the experiments.
If you want to study a subject in detail then you have to specialise. Spreading yourself over a whole range of disparate fields just means you get a superficial impression of each and an in-depth knowledge of none. The edges blur in your mind until it becomes difficult to separate each subject. When a sceptic pounds you with ‘there is no proof of telepathy so UFO’s aren’t real either’, there should be no problem slapping them down. After all, alchemy has been discredited so its younger cousin, chemistry, must be bunk too, right? It’s the same argument.
If your sceptic can bounce from one subject to another, pouring liberal quantities of scorn, how will you defend yourself? It’s far easier if you stick to one subject and refuse to be deflected. Try to catch me out with a scathing critique of faith healing? Never studied it. Back to ghosts. Telekinesis? Never studied it. Back to ghosts.
Specialise, people. Sceptics are looking for cracks. Every subject, paranormal or mainstream, has a crack or two. Every subject has a ‘we don’t know yet’ section. If it didn’t, it would be closed and stamped ‘finished’. Don’t put all your work into the paranormal’s equivalent of ‘general science for remedials’. Specialise. Focus. Concentrate your efforts.
There are a host of subject areas all mixed together under the paranormal heading. It’s time to separate them out.
Time to get some real results.
_________________
*Someone Else’s Problem.
I think that’s a mistake.
The thing is, all these subject areas are different. They are lumped together under ‘paranormal’ because science likes to use the name as a dumping ground for stuff it doesn’t believe is worthwhile studying. Some of us scientists like to rummage around in that dump for discarded gems, but most scientists stay away. I know of several who’d deny that the paranormal existed at all, even in theory.
Hey, you can’t blame them. The scientific establishment is very, very conservative and doesn’t take too kindly to its rising stars associating with kooks like me. If you have plans on climbing the hierarchy, a CV that includes even one paranormal study is going to slow you down. If you want to study the paranormal, don’t set your sights on chancellorships for your old age. That’s just the way it is.
Many will reinforce their mainstream attitude by public ridicule of all those paranormal subjects. Few bother to come up with any kind of logical, evidence based argument. The statement ‘It’s all a load of bunk’ is all they need to get cheers from the gallery. The most common is ‘Well, I’ve never seen a real paranormal event so it can’t be true’.
Well, I’ve never seen a planet around another star, nor have I seen subatomic particles, a coelacanth, a Tamarind monkey, or Buckminster-Fullerene. I don’t deny those things exist because other scientists have provided evidence that they do. I don’t wave away their evidence with ‘Bah. It’s all hokum’. I don’t say ‘Well I haven’t seen it so it can’t be true’.
Let’s take subatomic particles. You can’t show me one. You can’t produce one. You can’t put one on display. All you can show are lines on photographic film. Lines produced by particle collisions that you say demonstrate the existence of quarks and other atomic debris. What do I see? I see what appears to be a doctor’s prescription form. A lot of squiggly lines. Yet I don’t deny the existence of those particles. I’m not a physicist. I haven’t studied the subject. When it comes to quarks, I put my faith in those who have studied physics. I do not dismiss someone else’s chosen subject of study as ‘chasing squiggles’.
So I don’t dismiss UFO’s but I don’t study them either. They represent an entirely different phenomenon which requires an entirely different approach to study. The mass of information available means that taking on such a subject would be a daunting task. UFO’s, and all those other subjects, I file under SEP*
Just as in the study of ghosts, UFO’s have spawned a heck of a lot of out-and-out frauds, along with many cases of mistaken identity. That’s where the resemblance between the subjects ends. UFO’s, if they are real, are metallic flying craft. From this world or another, or both, who knows? They are not spirits in any way, they are not ghosts, and the techniques I use will neither find them nor prove their existence.
Telepathy and telekinesis are human interactions with other humans and/or the environment. No ghosts, and no spaceships. A different field of study. Astrology looks at planetary movements and relates them to human life. A different field again. Cryptozoology looks for real, as-yet undiscovered animals. Not ghost dogs, not space cats, not telepathic voles and not astrological creatures. It’s not all the same.
Putting it all in one place makes it appear to be all the same. Setting yourself up to cover all of these subjects, and more, blends them together in the eyes of the sceptics who, remember, aren’t actually studying any of these subjects. They are looking for targets. Putting all those targets in one place makes it easy.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told ‘So you’re into all that paranormal stuff, eh? Say hello to the little green men next time you see them.’
I’ve seen meteor showers. I’ve watched satellites pass overhead. I’ve seen Venus and Mercury. I’ve seen many aircraft lights at night. I have never seen a UFO. I haven’t even been looking.
Oh, I’m interested in all those other subjects. I’m interested in biology, chemistry and physics too. There’s a lander approaching Mars as I write. I hope it gets there safely because I want to hear about the information it sends back. I’m interested in all subjects of science and in many subjects outside science.
I cannot study them all. Nobody can. I study the phenomenon referred to as ‘ghosts’. That’s it. No Russian women move paperclips under glass in my lab. Nobody takes telepathy tests. Nobody gets healed. I’d be very interested to read of any positive results in those cases but I don’t perform the experiments.
If you want to study a subject in detail then you have to specialise. Spreading yourself over a whole range of disparate fields just means you get a superficial impression of each and an in-depth knowledge of none. The edges blur in your mind until it becomes difficult to separate each subject. When a sceptic pounds you with ‘there is no proof of telepathy so UFO’s aren’t real either’, there should be no problem slapping them down. After all, alchemy has been discredited so its younger cousin, chemistry, must be bunk too, right? It’s the same argument.
If your sceptic can bounce from one subject to another, pouring liberal quantities of scorn, how will you defend yourself? It’s far easier if you stick to one subject and refuse to be deflected. Try to catch me out with a scathing critique of faith healing? Never studied it. Back to ghosts. Telekinesis? Never studied it. Back to ghosts.
Specialise, people. Sceptics are looking for cracks. Every subject, paranormal or mainstream, has a crack or two. Every subject has a ‘we don’t know yet’ section. If it didn’t, it would be closed and stamped ‘finished’. Don’t put all your work into the paranormal’s equivalent of ‘general science for remedials’. Specialise. Focus. Concentrate your efforts.
There are a host of subject areas all mixed together under the paranormal heading. It’s time to separate them out.
Time to get some real results.
_________________
*Someone Else’s Problem.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Eugenics by any other name...
Have you ever taken an IQ test?
It consists of a variety of questions. There's usually at least one anagram in there. You can either do these or you can't. I know some very intelligent people who have dyslexia, so could never work out an anagram. That's one question they'd never get right.
For myself, if I don't get it in the first few seconds, chances are I won't get it at all.
There are a lot of 'which of these things is out of place', 'what's the next in sequence', and spatial organisation questions. Plus some general knowledge.
General knowledge, like the anagram, is a matter of either you know it or you don't. The other questions test thinking skills rather more directly. Even so, you can improve your score on this type of test if you practice that kind of thinking.
If you're taught to think logically. If you're taught well, in other words.
No, this is not a rant against teachers. They do the best they can under the mountains of ridiculous restrictions and beurocratic paperwork that are set up with the sole purpose of making their job impossible.
Yet there are, as in all careers, very good teachers and not-so-good teachers. And, naturally, some utterly worthless oafs.
These are not evenly distributed among schools and colleges. Oh, no. The best teachers get the best jobs with the highest pay. The worst get stuck in cesspits, where they'd be better off with an animal handling degree than a teaching one. Again, that's the same as any other profession.
So where a school can offer higher salaries, there will be many applicants for any vacant post. Many to choose from. That school can be very selective. Where salaries are low, the best people don't apply. It's not complicated but this simple equation seems to have eluded the school system. Also many colleges and a few universities.
It has certainly eluded this man.
Quote:
Bruce Charlton, reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, suggested that the low numbers of working-class students at elite universities was the "natural outcome" of IQ differences between classes.
The man is an idiot. Low numbers of working class students reflects a simpler fact. The best teachers are in well-paid jobs in the public schools. The schools where the chinless wonders, the monocled morons and the pampered pansies of the rich spend their time bullying each other and (if rumour is to be believed) indulging in unsavoury practices involving fruit. Nonetheless, they have access to better teachers and some, certainly not all, will derive considerable benefit from this.
The working class have access only to the PC-riddled, micromanaged and overlegislated state schools. It's not that their IQ's are lower. They rarely get a chance to develop the talents in their heads.
Before all this pandering to the lowest common denominator in schools, before teachers were forced to restrict the thinking of anyone who showed signs of rising above the ranks of the retarded lest they embarrass those to whom evolution is a distant future dream, I went to school.
If you were an idiot, you were told so. In those words. If your destiny involved nothing more taxing than collecting trolleys in a supermarket car park, you were told so. Teachers used sarcasm like a rapier, to great effect. Faced with an adult sigh, accompanied by 'Well, I suppose the world needs road sweepers too', some would shrug and practice with a brush. Others, incensed by the remark, would turn away from spending their weekends with illicit beer and force knowledge into their heads. Some I, and others, thought were doomed to a wastrel life in the early years surprised everyone by changing their ways and passing their exams.
Why? Because they were told they were useless and they fought back.
When I lectured, I saw exactly the opposite of what Bruce Charlton suggested. The rich kids were mostly lazy, worthless individuals who intended to rely on Daddy's money, and had no real need to work. Not all, by any means, but certainly most.
Those from less advantaged backgrounds were prepared to put in the time and do the work. They'd already had to work hard to get as far as they had. They knew how to work. Again, not all. Some saw University as a way to avoid getting a job for three years. Overall though, those who fought their way up from the looming dole queue were motivated. They were intelligent. They would work.
They worked because they had been told by teachers, in their early years, that they could never amount to anything and they were determined to prove those teachers wrong.
Nowadays it's all the wrong way round. Teachers (and lecturers) are not allowed to write 'fail' on papers in case we bruise their fragile little egos. I was continually in trouble for this, and more so when I asked a student if he was in possession of a brain. He said yes. I asked if he'd read the manual. He complained. I said he was a weak-minded oaf whose brain, at his death, would be eligible for reassignment since all it contained was his name and even that wasn't spelled correctly. There were red faces and wagging fingers. Once more, I was nearly fired but some core of reason remained within the ageing custodians of university life. I suspect they longed for the old days. I also suspect most of them have been replaced by now.
I would have resigned, but I knew the department was to close so I waited for the redundancy payout so I could set up on my own. I'm happier not teaching. Writing 'not achieved' instead of 'fail' or 'give it up and practice lifting bins' just wasn't me. Apparently even 'not achieved and not likely to' was unacceptable to the deadly vipers of the PC crowd.
Teaching now panders to the weak and the stupid. Those who show signs of intelligence are held back, forced to play dumb and fit in. Oh, sure, 'swots' have always been a target. There used to be a lot of us, and we were organised, smart, and not all of us were small and feeble. The teachers generally supported the intelligent against the stupid - not least beause the intelligent knew how to manipulate a situation. The 'swots' could look after themselves.
No more. The 'swots' are split, underground, hiding in shadows. The drooling thugs now rule the schools, and the intelligent are stamped on not only by our ancestral forms in school uniform, but by teachers too.
Schools claim a zero tolerance approach to bullying, but bullies must not be punished. They must be understood. Well, I'd like these thugs to understand me and I have some heavy and sharp objects I'd like to use to help explain. Teachers can't do that. They can't even threaten to do that. The teachers of my day had the option of using a cane on a miscreant's tender parts. I was lucky in that the headmaster at my school rarely resorted to that - but we all knew he could, if we pushed too far. If all headmasters had been so controlled then we might not have had the tweed-clad hand-wringers stopping any form of punishment. Instead of controlling the few headmasters who overindulged, they banned everything. Well, surprise.
If I had gone home and complained that I'd been caned, my father would have been furious. He would likely have punished me again, on the grounds that I must have been extremely naughty in order to have deserved such punishment. Nowadays, parents sue the school. They are less concerned with the temporary red marks on Little Wayne's backside than they are with the chance of free cash.
This is where the disparity between rich and poor in the big universities comes from. Not from IQ, because that's not determined by how wealthy your family is. It's partially genetics and partially teaching. No, it comes from the difference in teaching quality in the schools these kids attend.
Our state schools are turning out weak minds in weak bodies. Overconfident thugs with a belief in their own invincibility and certain that the world owes them a living. They have gone through a school system where the adults capitulate to their every whim. Zero tolerance for bullies? The schools produce little else. Fortunately all that's needed is bared teeth and a snarl to shock them into silence.
If any of those future benefit scroungers get this far - which I doubt because there are more than two syllables in some of the words - consider this. You do not have a 'right to life'. That right doesn't exist.
Count yourselves lucky that the rest of us don't have the right to kill you. Yet.
(What the hell is an 'evolutionary psychiatrist'? How many more stupid jobs are we going to make up just to get 'evolution' in the title? What's next - 'evolutionary fireman'? It's really not helping.)
It consists of a variety of questions. There's usually at least one anagram in there. You can either do these or you can't. I know some very intelligent people who have dyslexia, so could never work out an anagram. That's one question they'd never get right.
For myself, if I don't get it in the first few seconds, chances are I won't get it at all.
There are a lot of 'which of these things is out of place', 'what's the next in sequence', and spatial organisation questions. Plus some general knowledge.
General knowledge, like the anagram, is a matter of either you know it or you don't. The other questions test thinking skills rather more directly. Even so, you can improve your score on this type of test if you practice that kind of thinking.
If you're taught to think logically. If you're taught well, in other words.
No, this is not a rant against teachers. They do the best they can under the mountains of ridiculous restrictions and beurocratic paperwork that are set up with the sole purpose of making their job impossible.
Yet there are, as in all careers, very good teachers and not-so-good teachers. And, naturally, some utterly worthless oafs.
These are not evenly distributed among schools and colleges. Oh, no. The best teachers get the best jobs with the highest pay. The worst get stuck in cesspits, where they'd be better off with an animal handling degree than a teaching one. Again, that's the same as any other profession.
So where a school can offer higher salaries, there will be many applicants for any vacant post. Many to choose from. That school can be very selective. Where salaries are low, the best people don't apply. It's not complicated but this simple equation seems to have eluded the school system. Also many colleges and a few universities.
It has certainly eluded this man.
Quote:
Bruce Charlton, reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, suggested that the low numbers of working-class students at elite universities was the "natural outcome" of IQ differences between classes.
The man is an idiot. Low numbers of working class students reflects a simpler fact. The best teachers are in well-paid jobs in the public schools. The schools where the chinless wonders, the monocled morons and the pampered pansies of the rich spend their time bullying each other and (if rumour is to be believed) indulging in unsavoury practices involving fruit. Nonetheless, they have access to better teachers and some, certainly not all, will derive considerable benefit from this.
The working class have access only to the PC-riddled, micromanaged and overlegislated state schools. It's not that their IQ's are lower. They rarely get a chance to develop the talents in their heads.
Before all this pandering to the lowest common denominator in schools, before teachers were forced to restrict the thinking of anyone who showed signs of rising above the ranks of the retarded lest they embarrass those to whom evolution is a distant future dream, I went to school.
If you were an idiot, you were told so. In those words. If your destiny involved nothing more taxing than collecting trolleys in a supermarket car park, you were told so. Teachers used sarcasm like a rapier, to great effect. Faced with an adult sigh, accompanied by 'Well, I suppose the world needs road sweepers too', some would shrug and practice with a brush. Others, incensed by the remark, would turn away from spending their weekends with illicit beer and force knowledge into their heads. Some I, and others, thought were doomed to a wastrel life in the early years surprised everyone by changing their ways and passing their exams.
Why? Because they were told they were useless and they fought back.
When I lectured, I saw exactly the opposite of what Bruce Charlton suggested. The rich kids were mostly lazy, worthless individuals who intended to rely on Daddy's money, and had no real need to work. Not all, by any means, but certainly most.
Those from less advantaged backgrounds were prepared to put in the time and do the work. They'd already had to work hard to get as far as they had. They knew how to work. Again, not all. Some saw University as a way to avoid getting a job for three years. Overall though, those who fought their way up from the looming dole queue were motivated. They were intelligent. They would work.
They worked because they had been told by teachers, in their early years, that they could never amount to anything and they were determined to prove those teachers wrong.
Nowadays it's all the wrong way round. Teachers (and lecturers) are not allowed to write 'fail' on papers in case we bruise their fragile little egos. I was continually in trouble for this, and more so when I asked a student if he was in possession of a brain. He said yes. I asked if he'd read the manual. He complained. I said he was a weak-minded oaf whose brain, at his death, would be eligible for reassignment since all it contained was his name and even that wasn't spelled correctly. There were red faces and wagging fingers. Once more, I was nearly fired but some core of reason remained within the ageing custodians of university life. I suspect they longed for the old days. I also suspect most of them have been replaced by now.
I would have resigned, but I knew the department was to close so I waited for the redundancy payout so I could set up on my own. I'm happier not teaching. Writing 'not achieved' instead of 'fail' or 'give it up and practice lifting bins' just wasn't me. Apparently even 'not achieved and not likely to' was unacceptable to the deadly vipers of the PC crowd.
Teaching now panders to the weak and the stupid. Those who show signs of intelligence are held back, forced to play dumb and fit in. Oh, sure, 'swots' have always been a target. There used to be a lot of us, and we were organised, smart, and not all of us were small and feeble. The teachers generally supported the intelligent against the stupid - not least beause the intelligent knew how to manipulate a situation. The 'swots' could look after themselves.
No more. The 'swots' are split, underground, hiding in shadows. The drooling thugs now rule the schools, and the intelligent are stamped on not only by our ancestral forms in school uniform, but by teachers too.
Schools claim a zero tolerance approach to bullying, but bullies must not be punished. They must be understood. Well, I'd like these thugs to understand me and I have some heavy and sharp objects I'd like to use to help explain. Teachers can't do that. They can't even threaten to do that. The teachers of my day had the option of using a cane on a miscreant's tender parts. I was lucky in that the headmaster at my school rarely resorted to that - but we all knew he could, if we pushed too far. If all headmasters had been so controlled then we might not have had the tweed-clad hand-wringers stopping any form of punishment. Instead of controlling the few headmasters who overindulged, they banned everything. Well, surprise.
If I had gone home and complained that I'd been caned, my father would have been furious. He would likely have punished me again, on the grounds that I must have been extremely naughty in order to have deserved such punishment. Nowadays, parents sue the school. They are less concerned with the temporary red marks on Little Wayne's backside than they are with the chance of free cash.
This is where the disparity between rich and poor in the big universities comes from. Not from IQ, because that's not determined by how wealthy your family is. It's partially genetics and partially teaching. No, it comes from the difference in teaching quality in the schools these kids attend.
Our state schools are turning out weak minds in weak bodies. Overconfident thugs with a belief in their own invincibility and certain that the world owes them a living. They have gone through a school system where the adults capitulate to their every whim. Zero tolerance for bullies? The schools produce little else. Fortunately all that's needed is bared teeth and a snarl to shock them into silence.
If any of those future benefit scroungers get this far - which I doubt because there are more than two syllables in some of the words - consider this. You do not have a 'right to life'. That right doesn't exist.
Count yourselves lucky that the rest of us don't have the right to kill you. Yet.
(What the hell is an 'evolutionary psychiatrist'? How many more stupid jobs are we going to make up just to get 'evolution' in the title? What's next - 'evolutionary fireman'? It's really not helping.)
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