Today's Non Sequitur comes in an arc that revolves around Danae's insistence on writing school reports off the top of her head, with no research, so that, while "a snowstorm disproves global warming" isn't breakthrough mockery material, the overall topic of foolish anti-knowledge is a worthy target.
Particularly at a juncture where the question of whether the quantity of combined fear, ignorance, laziness and stupidity at large in a society has a point where it becomes lethal.
Obviously, it does for individuals, and Wiley's own fondness for "famous last words" tombstone gags is evidence of that.
And we've seen it in small groups, which leads to the unintentionally appropriate term "drinking the Kool Aid," given that it doesn't take much research to find out that it was actually "Flavor Aid."
And of course we've seen it in large groups, where the outcome was far more ghastly, as recalled this week with the Auschwitz remembrances, and from which the lessons are many.
The most disturbing of which is that no matter how many witnesses there are, no matter how clear the factual evidence, and even if you force the collaborators to come and see what their complacency has done, you can't stop people from denying obvious and indisputable facts that do not serve their worldview.
That works both ways, too. Too firm a disbelief is the same as too firm a belief: It simply closes the mind to sensible argument and opens it to stubborn clinging to established ideas, the most foolish of which is certainty.
It's not always about genocide, as Red and Rover notes.
I used to point out the horoscope to classes when I was going through the newspaper with them, because it's got a unique niche in the Truthiness Universe:
People who don't believe in astrology obviously don't believe in the newspaper horoscope.
But people who do believe in astrology do not believe in simple-minded Sun sign astrology and certainly not in those silly columns.
So, I would say, it's the one thing we put in the paper every day that we know is not true.
And, if it was a high school class, I would add "but God help us if we leave it out."
Which is not trivial, because it also applies to the "Is this worth the grief?" question that comes up as you are writing a piece on, say, climate change or why people should vaccinate their children.
"Do I want to take the phone calls from the True Believers?"
Granted, every piece you publish should matter that much.
Also granted, every piece you publish should be bullet-proof, even though you know the angry callers won't be listening to anything you say anyway.
And there is no significant difference between True Believers and True Disbelievers, no point in attempting to reason with either a Biblical fundamentalist or with a radical rationalist.
James Randi is known for an activity in which students are asked for their birth data some time before his appearance, ostensibly so that a professional astrologer can make up an individual horoscope for them.
Then, on the day he speaks, the personalized envelopes are handed out and recipients are told to read their own horoscopes, after which he asks how many feel it was accurate.
The majority of hands go up and he then directs them to exchange papers with the person next to them, whereupon it is revealed that - gasp! - every horoscope is an identical compilation of vague, flattering generalities!
Which would certainly disprove astrology if individualized horoscopes were, indeed, simply longer versions of the nonsensical Sun sign columns in the paper.
Or if the feet sticking out of the other half of the box were, indeed, those of the lady who had just been sawn in half.
This doesn't mean that astrology is real.
It simply means that Randi isn't all that amazing.
I can't believe I haven't told this story here before, but it didn't turn up in a search, though I did come across this piece from last year on public credulity, which has some great quotes.
And today's Barn gives me a chance to expand my views on the Unamazing Randi.
When I was in radio, one of the ad people told me she had a friend who was a psychic, and that I should have her on the show. And, yes, my initial reaction was to wonder if I wanted to take the grief?
I'd have had no problem with a game of "De-pants The Psychic" if the faker had approached me directly, but this was a friend of a coworker. And I had no precedent that would allow me to gracefully turn down the offer.
So we set it up, and, doggone if she didn't show up 15 minutes into the show because of car trouble, which allowed me to ask her why she hadn't let me know ahead of time? She'd never heard that one!
But, as requested, I had brought in a metal object, a large rusty iron key, for her to "read."
She began by saying it had belonged to the respected head of a family, which was true, but, then again, that's how heirlooms get saved. Then she added that he had short legs of which he was self-conscious.
Which was true of my grandfather, but I certainly hadn't mentioned it, or anything about him except that, yes, we respected him, so the "she wheedled it out of you" explanation fails.
Then she got to the key itself, and said, "It's from back East." (We were in Colorado.)
"Well, not that far East," I said, and she insisted that it was from the East and I said, "Well, Michigan is east of here, but go on ..."
She went on, though a little upset that she had been so far off, and said, "It's to some place cold," and I said yes, that it was the key to the elevator that went down into an iron mine.
We chatted a little longer, then took some calls and she helped some people find a little lost jewelry (effectively) and gave out a little personal advice (who knows?).
It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I had expected, and a few days later, I told my folks about it on the phone.
But it wasn't the key to the elevator in Ironwood, they informed me. It was the key to the icehouse in Cornwall, Pa.
Yeah. A cold place on the East Coast.
If nothing else, we'd proven she wasn't a mindreader.
So a little later, as then-wife's keys entered their second week of being lost, I phoned Phyllis for a freebie, and I won't go into details, but after some back-and-forth, she declared that they were "under the sofa cushions, at the end near the closet," which seemed like a dead end because (A) we'd already looked under the sofa cushions and (B) there was no closet at all in the livingroom, much less one near the sofa.
Then one of the boys yelled, "I've got it!" and ran out the door, returning triumphantly moments later with the keys, which had been wedged in the bench seat of the VW camper.
The end next to the closet.
And, no, she didn't know I owned a VW at all, much less a camper. She knew nothing about me: I was on the air when she arrived at the station, I stayed on the air an hour after she left.
A few years later, I emailed all this to the Amazing Randi and asked him, not for an explanation, but simply to respond to the idea that there are things we cannot yet "prove" rationally.
Emphasis on "yet." The History of Science is full of bad explanations followed by better explanations and occasionally by definitive explanations.
Each of them advanced by people who thought at the time that science had now finally figured out the entire universe.
But he did, in fact, have an explanation:
It didn't happen. I am a liar.
And, hey, he should know: Skeptics run into liars all the time.
But True Believers and True Disbelievers alike are not easily deceived!
Walt Kelly said it best in Pogo 60 year ago, when he coined the phrase, "the confidence of ignorance"
Posted by: Kathleen Donnelly | 01/31/2015 at 12:57 PM
The single simplest Law of the Universe is: "It's never that simple."
Although if you try to apply it to itself, I think all reality will collapse. Or (to steal a joke from Douglas Adams) it already has.
My radio experience included a time as a phone wrangler for a talk show like yours, we had 'psychics' on a couple dozen times (because the host liked the 'entertainment value' and 'went along with the gag') but I never witnessed a single true OMG! incident like the one you described. I also do not recall ever having myself or anything of mine 'read' during that time, successfully or not. But several years later, I was just hanging out behind the scenes with some radio friends while a 'psychic' was doing his thing. I'd been going through a rough time and my mother was in the hospital with a stroke, and one of those friends 'dared' me to call from the office phone into the show. I did and mentioned my mother, and the 'psychic' made a very positive prognosis, with a "better than expected" recovery for her. She died from an embolism three days later.
After all my years I have become a very strong disbeliever, and I really appreciate what James Randi does in the service of rationality. I consider his 'stunt' to have been a very effective debunking of Astology PERIOD. And I am also fairly certain that most of the people who would contact him with a story such as yours were just plain lying, so I understand his reaction to you. And most of the rest would have had the story embellished in their own minds (especially after 'a few years'). I have a handful of favorite stories about my radio years (a lot of years ago), very few of which were committed to writing within a reasonable time, and I recently rediscovered a newspaper clipping about one of the events behind one of them. And you know what? I've been lying about it. But even if everything you described was accurate, we have all experienced incredibly unlikely coincidences, but the simple and undeniable Law of Averages ensure that they are going to happen, and a small number of them do occur in the presence of people's whose careers are dependent on them.
I usually agree with the opinions you express here, and even when I don't, I usually have no reason not to respect you. This is a rare exception. Like an incredibly unlikely coincidence.
Posted by: Craig L | 01/31/2015 at 06:12 PM
I expected her to be easy to bust, and was particularly aware of not responding in ways that would direct her to a "correct" answer. As I said, that's why I was reluctant to book her -- because she was a friend of a co-worker and I didn't intend to play the fool. (BTW, I had a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer in those days)
I've got three witnesses to the keys-in-the-car incident, so I'm covered on that one.
And the details are even stranger -- her first surmise, and remember we were on the phone and she had never seen my house or anyone in my family. She said, "They're in her coat pocket." No, we said. "Yes, in the green coat by the back door." The wife had a green LL Bean anorak, so she checked it again, but they weren't there. "I'm sure they are," Phyllis said.
And I realized she meant the green down jacket. "No, those are my keys," I said.
"But it's her coat," Phyllis said.
"Yes, but it fits me and she never liked it, so I wear it."
Three witnesses. And this was on my mind because my son and I were talking about it last night. He was about 11 at the time, so his memory is his own, and our memories match.
Wish I had the radio show on tape.
But I'm pretty sure we'd still disagree. That was the point of telling the story. *shrug*
No harm done.
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 01/31/2015 at 06:57 PM
So...she was completely, entirely wrong at first but happened to guess right about there being a set of keys in the pocket (a common enough place for keys to be left) of a green coat (a common enough color for a coat) by the back door (a common enough place for people to leave their coats), then came up with a second guess that was also completely, entirely wrong (in what way is "wedged into the bench seat in the van" really all that much like "beneath the sofa cushions near the closet?" Did your VW van have a closet in it?) but led your son to an intuitive leap that turned out to be correct. There are plenty of interesting coincidences in your story, but not a single thing that can't be explained by anything other than genuine psychic powers.
If she could demonstrate these Phenomenal Psychic Powers under controlled, testable conditions, that self-same James Randi who you snidely dismiss would be very happy to hand over a million dollars to her. He's been offering it for many, many years now and while a great many psychics and spoon-benders have tried, but not a single one has earned the million dollars.
I agree that it's important to be open-minded, but it's also important to subject claims to rigorous interrogation. I try not to dismiss anything out of hand, but I'll happily dismiss anything that can't be observed, tested and repeated.
Posted by: Dan | 01/31/2015 at 07:22 PM
Isn't hard to find out that Kool-Aid might also have been used. Reports use Flavor Aid because they won't get into trouble for mentioning it.
Maybe we need to know that 51% was Flavor Aid before we call people completely wrong on this point?
"This factual error has even spawned the figure of speech "to drink the Kool-Aid". Film of Jonestown many months before the Massacre show stocks of both Flavor-Aid and its leading competitor within the commune's storehouses, so it is quite possible that both drinks were used as carriers for the poison."
Posted by: tudza | 01/31/2015 at 07:43 PM
What color is my coat and where is it right now?
I think the problem with the sofa/bench seat is that you're assuming she "sees" it sharply.
A long relatively padded seat could be either, if you don't have a firm picture, and a closet is still a closet.
If I were thinking of a long seat, with the keys tucked into the cushion near the closet, and I didn't know the person I was talking to owned a van, I think sofa is a likely way to express it.
More important is this: There was one set of keys in the green coat by the back door. There was another set in the cushion of the long seat near the closet. We owned no other sets of keys, nor did she indicate any other places.
(Also: She wasn't completely entirely wrong the first time. She said there was a set of keys in my wife's green coat. The problem was that, while she was right about who actually owned the coat, and that there was a set of keys in the pocket, they were my keys because I was the person who wore the coat. Which was my wife's. And, if it has any relevance, we each had a key ring with an identical Swiss Army knife, the only difference being that she also had an office key and a key to the front door of the office building on hers.)
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 01/31/2015 at 08:05 PM
As for the Flavor-Aid, Kool-Aid thing, I'm not gonna defend the purity of the beverage involved.
The point was that people use the expression loosely with no proof that it was Kool Aid -- and that remains unproven. But it seems likely, based on witness testimony, that it was at best a mix.
Maybe they were lying. ;-)
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 01/31/2015 at 08:27 PM
The fact remains that, by your description, there is nothing about either the radio show or the phone call that is impossible to explain by any other means besides psychic powers. If we accept Occam's Razor as an axiom, it seems far more reasonable to say that she played some hunches, made a couple of lucky guesses and there was a lot of coincidence involved than to say that she truly had paranormal abilities, at least to me.
As a magician (not by trade, but a devoted hobbyist), I can tell you for sure that the human brain is vastly more foolable than any of its myriad of owners would believe or care to admit, and that memory is vastly more malleable than most of us realize. People who have learned how to exploit these traits can and do laugh all the way to the bank on that ability. Maybe the woman in this case was truly psychic; it doesn't seem likely, but I can't with 100% certainty say it's truly impossible. But if Sylvia Browne or John Edward has ever genuinely pierced the veil and communed with the dead, then David Copperfield also genuinely and truly made the Statue of Liberty vanish before the eyes of an astonished crowd.
Posted by: Dan | 02/01/2015 at 01:43 AM
She may, indeed, have known exactly what kind of plain, wrought-iron key was used in an 19th century ice house in Pennsylvania.
And she had a 50/50 shot at which grandfather to associate it with, assuming it was a family heirloom and not something I found at an antique shop.
She may have also known that both Danish and Swedish men are known for having disproportionally short legs, and yet, despite being perfectly typical, the factor makes them self-conscious. Except that I don't think that's at all true.
Maybe. But that's not Occam's Razor.
Having seen a lot of David Copperfield-style magic tricks among phony psychics, I find the most common tricks are legerdemain (palming chicken guts to simulate "psychic surgery," knocking on tables, etc.), vagueness (in either personality readings or predictions), a confederate in the audience or on an earbud, and wheedling information from the subject.
I was watching for them, and none of them were possible (the ad salesperson was a coworker, but we knew nothing about each other -- I was only at the station for my show and she was usually on the road selling. She might have known I drove a camper, but then her pal would have used it on the radio, not two weeks later -- and not to any effect.).
The simplest explanation is this: There are things we can't explain yet. Not can't explain. Gotta have "yet."
But a True Believer is not a scientist -- a True Believer starts with the premise that "Yes, psychics are real" or "No, psychics are phonies" and goes from there.
"Skeptics," in the True Believer sense, assume that they are right, and -- like creationists or 17th century scientists who did not believe that little tiny animals we can't see could cause disease or Cinderella's toe-snipping sisters -- force the facts to fit their mold.
Incidentally, here's where solicitation of information allies with vagueness: Unlike Randi's extended Sun sign reading, a full horoscope (like a Tarot card reading) is a compilation of relatively specific declarations about the person. Where it falls apart as "science" is when you have to weigh how those sometimes conflicting factors interact.
But someone who is skeptical of psychiatry could level the same charges at batteries of tests in that field.
My own opinion is that astrology, tarot and ink blots and talk-therapy are somewhat under the same umbrella and differ thereby from, say, chemistry. And, while it doesn't prove tarot and astrology are true and real, I kind of doubt Jung or Freud could "prove" their science under the conditions laid out by Randi.
My application of Occam's Razor in Phyllis's case is that I don't know how it happened.
I also don't know how some autistics can do complex math in seconds or sketch in exquisite detail a scene they glimpsed only for a moment or tell you instantaneously on what day of the week a random date falls, but I'm pretty sure they aren't cleverly faking it.
I handed Phyllis a random object and she came up with startlingly specific facts, then repeated it with lost objects on the air several times, and once again at my bidding.
I brought it up because Randi's contemptuous dismissal shows the closed-minded attitude of the True Disbeliever.
I don't believe in psychics. But, then, I don't disbelieve in them, either.
But it's like that exercise at the start of sophomore metaphysics in which the prof holds out a pencil and asks, "If I let go, will it fall?"
The answer is, "I cannot predict with absolute certainty, but I'm not standing under any suspended pianos."
Which is why you should vaccinate your children.
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 02/01/2015 at 04:36 AM
It seems to me that most people find it easy to be absolutely sure something is bad/wrong/doesn't exist/etc. when they "observe from afar." (e.g., nobody serves macaroni and cheese at Thanksgiving dinner, homosexuality is wrong, earth is the only planet in the universe with life on it, paranormal activity doesn't exist, all psychics are frauds, witches float, etc.)
However, if a person has an experience with that which previously was absolutely wrong (they eat Thanksgiving dinner with a family that served mac & cheese, they have a child come out as gay, etc.), then that absolutism tends to at least soften somewhat, if not go away.
Then there's the "yet" portion, such as life on other planets? We may never know for sure, but statistically, it now feels to be a lot more likely than when we were in school.
I started writing with the intent of describing how my absolute skepticism about psychics has softened, but that's a complicated story, and it won't change anyone's mind anyway. (Kind of like the comments section on internet political comics.)
Posted by: Bob | 02/01/2015 at 09:13 AM
I used to live near a storefront psychic who had a doorbell with an intercom.
Posted by: John Mara | 02/01/2015 at 09:18 AM