 Metal Underground | New Metal Tracks From Atheist And More Hitting The Rock Band Network Metal Underground It's a slimmer week for new metal tracks getting added to the Xbox 360 edition of the Rock Band Network, but there are still a few interesting choices such as new material from Atheist and Halcyon Way. The complete list of newly added Xbox 360 metal ... |
Jan
27
Jan
27
Are Republican politicians as racist as they appear to be, or are they just courting the bigot vote out of desperation?
Jan
27
One of the problems with Christianity is that it is a very pessimistic belief system which pretends to be optimistic.
Jan
27
Staks Rosch has posted on the concept of Original Sin and how it does not withstand the scrutiny of reason.
Jan
27
One of the favourite fallacies used by creation 'scientists' to give spurious credence to creationism and its fashionable (and very lucrative) version, Intelligent Design, is the argument from design, or the teleological argument.
This argument has a long history but perhaps its most famous exponent was William Paley, the English theologian and philosopher. Briefly, his argument, which pre-dated Darwin's Origin of Species by 57 years, was that, if you found a watch on a piece of heathland, the most logical conclusion would be that someone had dropped it there and that it had been designed by one or more watchmakers and not by natural forces.
And of course, this is unarguable for a watch, for the simple reason that there is no other mechanism which could explain the watch's production, nor how it came to be where it was found. And of course, that explanation requires no mystery. There is nothing required which can't be readily understood and certainly there is no need to include an unproven supernatural hypothesis in the explanation. The explanation that a watch was designed by a watchmaker is complete and the most parsimonious answer available.
Moreover, if we look inside the watch we would not find any redundancy in the design. There would be no cogs spinning purposelessly away, no springs holding back levers for no reason at all, no overly elaborate mechanisms using several cogs and levers where one or two would do, no mistakes having to be compensated for by hugely inefficient work-arounds and no evidence of earlier designs still included but having no current function at all. The watch would be efficiently and accurately designed with obvious intelligence by someone who had a complete over-view of the purpose of his design and who knew how to make it as simply, and therefore as efficiently and accurately as possible. Additionally, if you were to look in different models of watch made by this watchmaker you would certainly see the same solutions used to overcome the same engineering problems; you would see the same springs, cogs, levers and bearings being used in the same way. You might even see exactly the same mechanism, just in a different case.
And, with the state of our knowledge of biology and biological systems in 1802, there seemed to be no reason why this analogy did not apply to living animals as well. Living animals appear to be designed in that they have component parts which need to be arranged in the same order, though, curiously, there are no wheels in nature so any movement has to rely on levers with lots of pushing and pulling, acceleration and deceleration and not the far more efficient rotary action of wheels (imagine a car with legs!) but that's by the by.
Now, what purpose does a living animal have which is in any way comparable to the utility value of a watch? Living things exist only to produce other living things. Not so watches. Watches have a very specific purpose and that is to keep an accurate record of the passage of time.
There is an even more fundamental way in which watches are not like living things. Watches do not need elaborate mechanisms for finding their own energy source and to avoid becoming some other timepiece's energy source, they do not need excretory and circulatory systems to supply energy to it's component parts and to carry away the waste, and, most significantly, watches do not need mechanism for finding mates and for producing and caring for offspring. because they do not need any of these things they do not need sensory and locomotory systems. They don't need any of these things because they are designed and made by humans, for humans and humans provide their energy to them by winding them up. Without humans, watches have no purpose, no function, and no existence. Watches are merely human artefacts. Living creatures existed before humans and would undoubtedly exist without us. For the most part, living creatures are self-reliant and self-replicating because they have no designers and have no purpose other than existing for their own sake.
Unlike watches, living things have masses of inbuilt redundancy. The DNA of most living things is vastly more than is needed. There is DNA which does nothing other than produce copies of itself, for example. There is DNA which is added to the ends of chromosomes for no good reason because of a flaw in the copying mechanism and which just keeps being added to. There are vestigial organs to be found in most species, like evidence of legs in whales and the human appendix. There is evidence of work-arounds for earlier mistakes such as a complicated neural function to compensate for the blind spot in the mammalian eye because the wiring of the retina is backwards.
There is evidence of repeated new 'designs' of structures like wings and eyes and not the re-use of earlier solutions, such as a watchmaker would use. No intelligent watchmaker would think to re-design springs and cogs each time he decided to make a new watch.
In short, living things show evidence of design, but not of intelligent design.
So, does that apparent design point to a god, but just not a very intelligent one perhaps, or one with a fixation with beetles, of which there are some 500,000 different 'designs' alone?
What Paley, and those who were convinced by his argument, which incidentally included a young Charles Darwin, did not appreciate, in addition to all the redundancy, and in addition to failing to appreciate that watches have an obvious purpose which is not paralleled by living things, was that design does not necessarily indicate a designer, nor intelligence. This was never more than an argument from personal incredulity - I can't understand it therefore it must have been a god. They failed to appreciate this not because they were stupid or dishonest; they could only work with the state of knowledge of the times. They failed to appreciate it because they lacked one essential piece of knowledge, because science had not discovered it then.
What they failed to appreciate was that a natural process exists which can explain ALL these things, and which does not include an unexplained mystery for which no hypothesis can account for, nor does it require magic. All the components of this system can be seen and understood, just like all of the components of the system for making watches can be seen and understood. No mystery, no magic and no supernatural component need be included in the explanation.
The explanation, as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace showed in 1859, is natural selection. Natural selection by a selective environment from amongst variants of self-replicating systems which produces variations on a basic theme, is BOUND to lead to the appearance of systems which superficially look designed for the purpose of living and reproducing in that environment. Design is not the sole prerogative of intelligence. Design can also be performed by nature providing the thing being designed is self-replicating in a selective environment in which it competes with other living things and especially with variants of itself.
And given the system in which natural selection operates, the result is inevitable.
Natural selection is the most parsimonious explanation both for the appearance of design and for the appearance of a stupid designer. Living things look exactly as you would expect them to look if designed by a utilitarian, mindless, purposeless design process given direction only by the environment in which it operates.
Now that we can stand on the shoulders of giants like Darwin and Wallace, we can see further than other men. We can now see further then the Bronze Age goat-herder who thought up the creation myth and who couldn't even see over the horizon and thought the earth was flat.
We can see now that there is nothing supernatural required and nothing supernatural involved. (Tweet this)
And we can say "Wow! This is vastly more wonderful, more complex and more majestic than the prophets and priests told us" and we can ignore the ignorant gibberings of superstitious simpletons who insist it was all the work of their own small gods and the clamour of the parasitic charlatans who feed off their ignorance.
And of course, this is unarguable for a watch, for the simple reason that there is no other mechanism which could explain the watch's production, nor how it came to be where it was found. And of course, that explanation requires no mystery. There is nothing required which can't be readily understood and certainly there is no need to include an unproven supernatural hypothesis in the explanation. The explanation that a watch was designed by a watchmaker is complete and the most parsimonious answer available.
Moreover, if we look inside the watch we would not find any redundancy in the design. There would be no cogs spinning purposelessly away, no springs holding back levers for no reason at all, no overly elaborate mechanisms using several cogs and levers where one or two would do, no mistakes having to be compensated for by hugely inefficient work-arounds and no evidence of earlier designs still included but having no current function at all. The watch would be efficiently and accurately designed with obvious intelligence by someone who had a complete over-view of the purpose of his design and who knew how to make it as simply, and therefore as efficiently and accurately as possible. Additionally, if you were to look in different models of watch made by this watchmaker you would certainly see the same solutions used to overcome the same engineering problems; you would see the same springs, cogs, levers and bearings being used in the same way. You might even see exactly the same mechanism, just in a different case.
And, with the state of our knowledge of biology and biological systems in 1802, there seemed to be no reason why this analogy did not apply to living animals as well. Living animals appear to be designed in that they have component parts which need to be arranged in the same order, though, curiously, there are no wheels in nature so any movement has to rely on levers with lots of pushing and pulling, acceleration and deceleration and not the far more efficient rotary action of wheels (imagine a car with legs!) but that's by the by.
Now, what purpose does a living animal have which is in any way comparable to the utility value of a watch? Living things exist only to produce other living things. Not so watches. Watches have a very specific purpose and that is to keep an accurate record of the passage of time.
There is an even more fundamental way in which watches are not like living things. Watches do not need elaborate mechanisms for finding their own energy source and to avoid becoming some other timepiece's energy source, they do not need excretory and circulatory systems to supply energy to it's component parts and to carry away the waste, and, most significantly, watches do not need mechanism for finding mates and for producing and caring for offspring. because they do not need any of these things they do not need sensory and locomotory systems. They don't need any of these things because they are designed and made by humans, for humans and humans provide their energy to them by winding them up. Without humans, watches have no purpose, no function, and no existence. Watches are merely human artefacts. Living creatures existed before humans and would undoubtedly exist without us. For the most part, living creatures are self-reliant and self-replicating because they have no designers and have no purpose other than existing for their own sake.
Unlike watches, living things have masses of inbuilt redundancy. The DNA of most living things is vastly more than is needed. There is DNA which does nothing other than produce copies of itself, for example. There is DNA which is added to the ends of chromosomes for no good reason because of a flaw in the copying mechanism and which just keeps being added to. There are vestigial organs to be found in most species, like evidence of legs in whales and the human appendix. There is evidence of work-arounds for earlier mistakes such as a complicated neural function to compensate for the blind spot in the mammalian eye because the wiring of the retina is backwards.
There is evidence of repeated new 'designs' of structures like wings and eyes and not the re-use of earlier solutions, such as a watchmaker would use. No intelligent watchmaker would think to re-design springs and cogs each time he decided to make a new watch.
In short, living things show evidence of design, but not of intelligent design.
So, does that apparent design point to a god, but just not a very intelligent one perhaps, or one with a fixation with beetles, of which there are some 500,000 different 'designs' alone?
What Paley, and those who were convinced by his argument, which incidentally included a young Charles Darwin, did not appreciate, in addition to all the redundancy, and in addition to failing to appreciate that watches have an obvious purpose which is not paralleled by living things, was that design does not necessarily indicate a designer, nor intelligence. This was never more than an argument from personal incredulity - I can't understand it therefore it must have been a god. They failed to appreciate this not because they were stupid or dishonest; they could only work with the state of knowledge of the times. They failed to appreciate it because they lacked one essential piece of knowledge, because science had not discovered it then.
What they failed to appreciate was that a natural process exists which can explain ALL these things, and which does not include an unexplained mystery for which no hypothesis can account for, nor does it require magic. All the components of this system can be seen and understood, just like all of the components of the system for making watches can be seen and understood. No mystery, no magic and no supernatural component need be included in the explanation.
The explanation, as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace showed in 1859, is natural selection. Natural selection by a selective environment from amongst variants of self-replicating systems which produces variations on a basic theme, is BOUND to lead to the appearance of systems which superficially look designed for the purpose of living and reproducing in that environment. Design is not the sole prerogative of intelligence. Design can also be performed by nature providing the thing being designed is self-replicating in a selective environment in which it competes with other living things and especially with variants of itself.
And given the system in which natural selection operates, the result is inevitable.
Natural selection is the most parsimonious explanation both for the appearance of design and for the appearance of a stupid designer. Living things look exactly as you would expect them to look if designed by a utilitarian, mindless, purposeless design process given direction only by the environment in which it operates.
Now that we can stand on the shoulders of giants like Darwin and Wallace, we can see further than other men. We can now see further then the Bronze Age goat-herder who thought up the creation myth and who couldn't even see over the horizon and thought the earth was flat.
We can see now that there is nothing supernatural required and nothing supernatural involved. (Tweet this)
And we can say "Wow! This is vastly more wonderful, more complex and more majestic than the prophets and priests told us" and we can ignore the ignorant gibberings of superstitious simpletons who insist it was all the work of their own small gods and the clamour of the parasitic charlatans who feed off their ignorance.
If you've enjoyed my blog please show your appreciation
by giving to a great cause - Oxfam http://bit.ly/9VsjZU
Be Humankind. Feed the world.
Jan
27
 The Guardian | Atheist writers clash over how to not worship a nonexistent God Los Angeles Times Two prominent British atheist authors are clashing over the best way to not worship a lack of a God. Writer Alain de Botton wants to erect a $1.5-million "temple for atheists" in London, complete with a 151-foot tower reaching toward a godless sky. Does atheism need a 'temple for non-believers'? Dawkins spurns the tenets of de Botton's temple for atheists Do atheists need a temple? |
Jan
27
Irwin Schiff on the Biggest Con and the Federal Mafia
I remember listening to Irwin Schiff (father of Peter Schiff) many years ago on local radio talk station KABC out of LA with host Ray Briem, as Schiff was a guest on the show many times. Briem would always advise listeners not to take Irwin's advice and instead stay within the law while fighting the income tax.
More on Irwin Schiff at: PayNoIncomeTax.com
I remember listening to Irwin Schiff (father of Peter Schiff) many years ago on local radio talk station KABC out of LA with host Ray Briem, as Schiff was a guest on the show many times. Briem would always advise listeners not to take Irwin's advice and instead stay within the law while fighting the income tax.
More on Irwin Schiff at: PayNoIncomeTax.com
Jan
27
What's your view on school prayer in Rhode Island school? msnbc.com The prayer promotes christian mythology and infringes on the beliefs of others whether they are Atheist,Hindu,etc......It is obviously unconstitutional. I am an atheist after being raised in a Catholic family I found that I do not believe. |
Jan
27
The Atheist Revolution blog has posted on the fallacy of atheism's public relations problem. Atheists do not have a public relations problem. Atheists have a problem with bigotry from theists.
Jan
27
It takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer in Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father. Especially if you look at science!
Check out answersingenesis.com Wake up and use your brain instead of relying on All this garbage the world has fed you about evolution and self-worship.... Our society has indoctrinated us for so long through the lies fed us from school and gov't, we just swallow it cause it is in our textbooks, do some research and try to not assume what you "know" is truth. Revelation!!
I was wrong. Peggy is a true believer. She has two favorite books: “Bible” and “The Bible”
But why should I have been taken by surprise by this quintessential example of Christian self imposed stupidity? After all we live in a country where willful delusion is a virtue while intellect, science and reason are suspect.
A land where the majority belief system is corrupted by people who see education and “book larnin” as elitist; learned experts as liars or fools; and who have never cracked the cover of the source materials they reject, even if they were literate enough to absorb it.
A nation where speculation and superstition is accepted as fact, and its degree of truth or falsehood determined not by investigative analysis but by the number of people willing to blindly accept it as fact.
A society that puts its faith in religious apologetics sites whose mission is to confuse their sheeple with religious doctrine disguised as science; to dismiss objective evidence for reality; turn fiction into fact; endlessly repeat patently silly and discredited suppositions (i.e. "Why are there still monkeys if..." , "How come there is no crocoduck if... ?"); and to massage scripture to suit their agenda of preserving the spell of a discredited book of nonsense.
A union that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to build a creationist theme park as a veritable governmental endorsement of backwardness and Medieval Think, spitting in the face of modernity and reason. [Google: “
There wasn’t much to say after reading Peggy’s post. All I could do was thank her for her testimony. Peggy unwittingly did more in that one paragraph to demonstrate the fruits of the religious virus and give credence to my years of rants, blogs and books than anyone ever has or ever will.
Once again, thank you Peggy. If I could I would put you in a glass dome on a pedestal for the entire thinking world to point to and laugh at, eventually having you stuffed and preserved as a reminder to future generations of Americans just how far they have advanced.
Jan
27
It takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer in Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father. Especially if you look at science!
Check out answersingenesis.com Wake up and use your brain instead of relying on All this garbage the world has fed you about evolution and self-worship.... Our society has indoctrinated us for so long through the lies fed us from school and gov't, we just swallow it cause it is in our textbooks, do some research and try to not assume what you "know" is truth. Revelation!!
I was wrong. Peggy is a true believer. She has two favorite books: “Bible” and “The Bible”
But why should I have been taken by surprise by this quintessential example of Christian self imposed stupidity? After all we live in a country where willful delusion is a virtue while intellect, science and reason are suspect.
A land where the majority belief system is corrupted by people who see education and “book larnin” as elitist; learned experts as liars or fools; and who have never cracked the cover of the source materials they reject, even if they were literate enough to absorb it.
A nation where speculation and superstition is accepted as fact, and its degree of truth or falsehood determined not by investigative analysis but by the number of people willing to blindly accept it as fact.
A society that puts its faith in religious apologetics sites whose mission is to confuse their sheeple with religious doctrine disguised as science; to dismiss objective evidence for reality; turn fiction into fact; endlessly repeat patently silly and discredited suppositions (i.e. "Why are there still monkeys if..." , "How come there is no crocoduck if... ?"); and to massage scripture to suit their agenda of preserving the spell of a discredited book of nonsense.
A union that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to build a creationist theme park as a veritable governmental endorsement of backwardness and Medieval Think, spitting in the face of modernity and reason. [Google: “
There wasn’t much to say after reading Peggy’s post. All I could do was thank her for her testimony. Peggy unwittingly did more in that one paragraph to demonstrate the fruits of the religious virus and give credence to my years of rants, blogs and books than anyone ever has or ever will.
Once again, thank you Peggy. If I could I would put you in a glass dome on a pedestal for the entire thinking world to point to and laugh at, eventually having you stuffed and preserved as a reminder to future generations of Americans just how far they have advanced.
Jan
27
It takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer in Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father. Especially if you look at science!
Check out answersingenesis.com Wake up and use your brain instead of relying on All this garbage the world has fed you about evolution and self-worship.... Our society has indoctrinated us for so long through the lies fed us from school and gov't, we just swallow it cause it is in our textbooks, do some research and try to not assume what you "know" is truth. Revelation!!
I was wrong. Peggy is a true believer. She has two favorite books: “Bible” and “The Bible”
But why should I have been taken by surprise by this quintessential example of Christian self imposed stupidity? After all we live in a country where willful delusion is a virtue while intellect, science and reason are suspect.
A land where the majority belief system is corrupted by people who see education and “book larnin” as elitist; learned experts as liars or fools; and who have never cracked the cover of the source materials they reject, even if they were literate enough to absorb it.
A nation where speculation and superstition is accepted as fact, and its degree of truth or falsehood determined not by investigative analysis but by the number of people willing to blindly accept it as fact.
A society that puts its faith in religious apologetics sites whose mission is to confuse their sheeple with religious doctrine disguised as science; to dismiss objective evidence for reality; turn fiction into fact; endlessly repeat patently silly and discredited suppositions (i.e. "Why are there still monkeys if..." , "How come there is no crocoduck if... ?"); and to massage scripture to suit their agenda of preserving the spell of a discredited book of nonsense.
A union that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to build a creationist theme park as a veritable governmental endorsement of backwardness and Medieval Think, spitting in the face of modernity and reason. [Google: “
There wasn’t much to say after reading Peggy’s post. All I could do was thank her for her testimony. Peggy unwittingly did more in that one paragraph to demonstrate the fruits of the religious virus and give credence to my years of rants, blogs and books than anyone ever has or ever will.
Once again, thank you Peggy. If I could I would put you in a glass dome on a pedestal for the entire thinking world to point to and laugh at, eventually having you stuffed and preserved as a reminder to future generations of Americans just how far they have advanced.
Jan
27
The Irrelevance of Choosing to Be Gay Steve = piss and vinegarFaith in Doubt Adam = philosophical and eloquent It’s official! Internet overuse causes brain damage! Oh wait…no, it doesn’t…Think I really thought this was well done. God, Rid Me of God It saddens me that this needs to be written & that people still cling to that which injures them.Look forward to the death of organized
Jan
27
One of the difficulties of being a skeptic interested in claims of the paranormal is to determine what is meant by "credible evidence."
Today and tomorrow we'll take two of the most common paranormal claims -- ghosts and UFOs -- and consider what it would take to turn someone like me into a believer. Then we'll look at one (of each), representative recent claims of a ghost and a UFO respectively, and see if they meet some kind of baseline of evidential support.
Today's topic: ghosts.
Aficionados of hauntings usually have a variety of arguments in favor of the existence of ghosts. An experience of seeing the spirits of the dead, they say, is ubiquitous. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of an afterlife, and virtually all of them describe the experience of meeting a relic of the dead. Anecdotal accounts probably number in the millions. Ghostly photographs, of course, are also common, and some are undeniably creepy (whatever you can say about their authenticity). Newer, higher tech methods are cropping up, including the use of electromagnetic field sensors and sensitive audio equipment, and modern ghosthunters claim that both of these tools have yielded positive results.
Okay, now for the skepticism. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of a deity, and even if you accept that some conception of god is right, they can't all be right because their gods differ wildly from each other. So even accepting, for the sake of argument, that some sort of god exists, 99% of cultures on Earth got the majority of his/her/its attributes wrong. Simple ubiquity as an argument for a belief is mildly suggestive, nothing more. As far as photographs, they are becoming increasingly easy to fake (which doesn't mean that they all are fakes, but simply that it might be difficult to tell the fakes from any out there that are real). And you have to wonder if the claims that new equipment picking up EMF and suspicious sounds aren't mistaking correlation for causation -- perhaps EMF or peculiar sounds exist in a place because of some purely natural phenomenon, and those are then interpreted by us as evidence for a ghostly presence. (This last statement is pure speculation, of course, but you might want to recall the famous case of a low-frequency standing sound wave in a building causing an illusion of ghosts -- read about it here.) In order to convince me, I'd have to see a ghost myself, under conditions that precluded the possibility of trickery, or else have some sort of experiment done, with an adequate set of controls, that showed hard data indicating the presence of some sort of "ghostly energy" (a frequent claim by ghosthunters).
Now for the case study.
A derelict Victorian guesthouse in Kendal, Cumbria, England was scheduled for demolition a couple of weeks ago, and the demolition supervisor took some photographs of it for his company's records. After having the photographs printed, he noticed something pretty peculiar in one of them:
Let's look at a closeup:
Okay. So, what is it? Well, apparently the demolition supervisor, who is named David Armstrong, was pretty creeped out when he saw this. In Armstrong's words, "There was only a black wall behind the window, we had taken everything out – there were no visible features or anything with a skin color." Couple this with the claim of one of Armstrong's workmen, Stuart Shan, that the place is haunted: "The day before we took the photo we were stripping the building inside and I noticed the chandelier swinging on its own. We said at the time the place felt strange. My hairs were standing on end when I saw the photo. I believe it is a ghost."
Given all of the scary stuff happening, Armstrong brought the story (and the photograph) to the attention of the property owner, David Grimshaw. And Grimshaw took one look at the photograph -- and said that the figure was clearly that of of his deceased mother, Frances Grimshaw, who used to "stand looking out of that very window, and wore large earrings and a bow on her dress just like the figure in the window."
So, what do we have here? I have to admit that the photograph is pretty odd, whether or not it actually is depicting an old lady's ghost. Let's, for the moment at least, admit it into evidence. What about Shan's story of a swinging chandelier? Well, you'll note from his statement that he made his claim after seeing the photograph, so you have to be at least a little skeptical at this point, wondering if perhaps he wasn't adding a story of a ghostly presence pushing the chandelier to bolster his boss' claim that the photograph was of ghostly provenance (or, possibly, to get in on the publicity that was sure to come -- which worked, didn't it?).
Then, we have the claim by David Grimshaw that the figure looked "just like his mother." Well, one of the sources I used actually had a photograph of the late Mrs. Grimshaw, so let's take a look:
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the figure in the window looks nothing like Mrs. Grimshaw. The figure in the window has what looks like brown hair, possibly pulled back into a bun, and a high forehead, and seems to me to be on the skinny side. Then we have blonde, curly-haired, stocky Mrs. Grimshaw. Any resemblance between the two certainly escapes me.
Well, perhaps the figure isn't Mrs. Grimshaw, but could it still be a ghost? Myself, I just can't take a single photograph, however creepy, and turn it into evidence for an afterlife. Because, honestly, that's all we have. Meaning no disrespect to Mr. Shan's reputation, but corroborating the photographic evidence after the fact with a story of the chandelier swinging really doesn't meet what I would consider the minimum standards of reliable evidence.
As far as the photograph, there is just too much chance of fakery, or (failing that) our old friend pareidolia (the tendency of humans to see faces in random patterns of color, light, and shadow) to put too much weight on it as evidence. So with the Kendal haunting, we're right back where we started; weakly suggestive evidence that really doesn't provide what a true skeptic would consider convincing.
Again, to reiterate: that doesn't mean that ghosts don't exist. All it means is that the jury's still out. As befits a true skeptic, we don't have to decide now -- the jury can remain out forever, until we have enough in the way of hard evidence to make a judgment.
Tomorrow: a UFO collides with a bird?
Today and tomorrow we'll take two of the most common paranormal claims -- ghosts and UFOs -- and consider what it would take to turn someone like me into a believer. Then we'll look at one (of each), representative recent claims of a ghost and a UFO respectively, and see if they meet some kind of baseline of evidential support.
Today's topic: ghosts.
Aficionados of hauntings usually have a variety of arguments in favor of the existence of ghosts. An experience of seeing the spirits of the dead, they say, is ubiquitous. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of an afterlife, and virtually all of them describe the experience of meeting a relic of the dead. Anecdotal accounts probably number in the millions. Ghostly photographs, of course, are also common, and some are undeniably creepy (whatever you can say about their authenticity). Newer, higher tech methods are cropping up, including the use of electromagnetic field sensors and sensitive audio equipment, and modern ghosthunters claim that both of these tools have yielded positive results.
Okay, now for the skepticism. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of a deity, and even if you accept that some conception of god is right, they can't all be right because their gods differ wildly from each other. So even accepting, for the sake of argument, that some sort of god exists, 99% of cultures on Earth got the majority of his/her/its attributes wrong. Simple ubiquity as an argument for a belief is mildly suggestive, nothing more. As far as photographs, they are becoming increasingly easy to fake (which doesn't mean that they all are fakes, but simply that it might be difficult to tell the fakes from any out there that are real). And you have to wonder if the claims that new equipment picking up EMF and suspicious sounds aren't mistaking correlation for causation -- perhaps EMF or peculiar sounds exist in a place because of some purely natural phenomenon, and those are then interpreted by us as evidence for a ghostly presence. (This last statement is pure speculation, of course, but you might want to recall the famous case of a low-frequency standing sound wave in a building causing an illusion of ghosts -- read about it here.) In order to convince me, I'd have to see a ghost myself, under conditions that precluded the possibility of trickery, or else have some sort of experiment done, with an adequate set of controls, that showed hard data indicating the presence of some sort of "ghostly energy" (a frequent claim by ghosthunters).
Now for the case study.
A derelict Victorian guesthouse in Kendal, Cumbria, England was scheduled for demolition a couple of weeks ago, and the demolition supervisor took some photographs of it for his company's records. After having the photographs printed, he noticed something pretty peculiar in one of them:
Let's look at a closeup:
Okay. So, what is it? Well, apparently the demolition supervisor, who is named David Armstrong, was pretty creeped out when he saw this. In Armstrong's words, "There was only a black wall behind the window, we had taken everything out – there were no visible features or anything with a skin color." Couple this with the claim of one of Armstrong's workmen, Stuart Shan, that the place is haunted: "The day before we took the photo we were stripping the building inside and I noticed the chandelier swinging on its own. We said at the time the place felt strange. My hairs were standing on end when I saw the photo. I believe it is a ghost."
Given all of the scary stuff happening, Armstrong brought the story (and the photograph) to the attention of the property owner, David Grimshaw. And Grimshaw took one look at the photograph -- and said that the figure was clearly that of of his deceased mother, Frances Grimshaw, who used to "stand looking out of that very window, and wore large earrings and a bow on her dress just like the figure in the window."
So, what do we have here? I have to admit that the photograph is pretty odd, whether or not it actually is depicting an old lady's ghost. Let's, for the moment at least, admit it into evidence. What about Shan's story of a swinging chandelier? Well, you'll note from his statement that he made his claim after seeing the photograph, so you have to be at least a little skeptical at this point, wondering if perhaps he wasn't adding a story of a ghostly presence pushing the chandelier to bolster his boss' claim that the photograph was of ghostly provenance (or, possibly, to get in on the publicity that was sure to come -- which worked, didn't it?).
Then, we have the claim by David Grimshaw that the figure looked "just like his mother." Well, one of the sources I used actually had a photograph of the late Mrs. Grimshaw, so let's take a look:
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the figure in the window looks nothing like Mrs. Grimshaw. The figure in the window has what looks like brown hair, possibly pulled back into a bun, and a high forehead, and seems to me to be on the skinny side. Then we have blonde, curly-haired, stocky Mrs. Grimshaw. Any resemblance between the two certainly escapes me.
Well, perhaps the figure isn't Mrs. Grimshaw, but could it still be a ghost? Myself, I just can't take a single photograph, however creepy, and turn it into evidence for an afterlife. Because, honestly, that's all we have. Meaning no disrespect to Mr. Shan's reputation, but corroborating the photographic evidence after the fact with a story of the chandelier swinging really doesn't meet what I would consider the minimum standards of reliable evidence.
As far as the photograph, there is just too much chance of fakery, or (failing that) our old friend pareidolia (the tendency of humans to see faces in random patterns of color, light, and shadow) to put too much weight on it as evidence. So with the Kendal haunting, we're right back where we started; weakly suggestive evidence that really doesn't provide what a true skeptic would consider convincing.
Again, to reiterate: that doesn't mean that ghosts don't exist. All it means is that the jury's still out. As befits a true skeptic, we don't have to decide now -- the jury can remain out forever, until we have enough in the way of hard evidence to make a judgment.
Tomorrow: a UFO collides with a bird?
Jan
27
One of the difficulties of being a skeptic interested in claims of the paranormal is to determine what is meant by "credible evidence."
Today and tomorrow we'll take two of the most common paranormal claims -- ghosts and UFOs -- and consider what it would take to turn someone like me into a believer. Then we'll look at one (of each), representative recent claims of a ghost and a UFO respectively, and see if they meet some kind of baseline of evidential support.
Today's topic: ghosts.
Aficionados of hauntings usually have a variety of arguments in favor of the existence of ghosts. An experience of seeing the spirits of the dead, they say, is ubiquitous. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of an afterlife, and virtually all of them describe the experience of meeting a relic of the dead. Anecdotal accounts probably number in the millions. Ghostly photographs, of course, are also common, and some are undeniably creepy (whatever you can say about their authenticity). Newer, higher tech methods are cropping up, including the use of electromagnetic field sensors and sensitive audio equipment, and modern ghosthunters claim that both of these tools have yielded positive results.
Okay, now for the skepticism. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of a deity, and even if you accept that some conception of god is right, they can't all be right because their gods differ wildly from each other. So even accepting, for the sake of argument, that some sort of god exists, 99% of cultures on Earth got the majority of his/her/its attributes wrong. Simple ubiquity as an argument for a belief is mildly suggestive, nothing more. As far as photographs, they are becoming increasingly easy to fake (which doesn't mean that they all are fakes, but simply that it might be difficult to tell the fakes from any out there that are real). And you have to wonder if the claims that new equipment picking up EMF and suspicious sounds aren't mistaking correlation for causation -- perhaps EMF or peculiar sounds exist in a place because of some purely natural phenomenon, and those are then interpreted by us as evidence for a ghostly presence. (This last statement is pure speculation, of course, but you might want to recall the famous case of a low-frequency standing sound wave in a building causing an illusion of ghosts -- read about it here.) In order to convince me, I'd have to see a ghost myself, under conditions that precluded the possibility of trickery, or else have some sort of experiment done, with an adequate set of controls, that showed hard data indicating the presence of some sort of "ghostly energy" (a frequent claim by ghosthunters).
Now for the case study.
A derelict Victorian guesthouse in Kendal, Cumbria, England was scheduled for demolition a couple of weeks ago, and the demolition supervisor took some photographs of it for his company's records. After having the photographs printed, he noticed something pretty peculiar in one of them:
Let's look at a closeup:
Okay. So, what is it? Well, apparently the demolition supervisor, who is named David Armstrong, was pretty creeped out when he saw this. In Armstrong's words, "There was only a black wall behind the window, we had taken everything out – there were no visible features or anything with a skin color." Couple this with the claim of one of Armstrong's workmen, Stuart Shan, that the place is haunted: "The day before we took the photo we were stripping the building inside and I noticed the chandelier swinging on its own. We said at the time the place felt strange. My hairs were standing on end when I saw the photo. I believe it is a ghost."
Given all of the scary stuff happening, Armstrong brought the story (and the photograph) to the attention of the property owner, David Grimshaw. And Grimshaw took one look at the photograph -- and said that the figure was clearly that of of his deceased mother, Frances Grimshaw, who used to "stand looking out of that very window, and wore large earrings and a bow on her dress just like the figure in the window."
So, what do we have here? I have to admit that the photograph is pretty odd, whether or not it actually is depicting an old lady's ghost. Let's, for the moment at least, admit it into evidence. What about Shan's story of a swinging chandelier? Well, you'll note from his statement that he made his claim after seeing the photograph, so you have to be at least a little skeptical at this point, wondering if perhaps he wasn't adding a story of a ghostly presence pushing the chandelier to bolster his boss' claim that the photograph was of ghostly provenance (or, possibly, to get in on the publicity that was sure to come -- which worked, didn't it?).
Then, we have the claim by David Grimshaw that the figure looked "just like his mother." Well, one of the sources I used actually had a photograph of the late Mrs. Grimshaw, so let's take a look:
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the figure in the window looks nothing like Mrs. Grimshaw. The figure in the window has what looks like brown hair, possibly pulled back into a bun, and a high forehead, and seems to me to be on the skinny side. Then we have blonde, curly-haired, stocky Mrs. Grimshaw. Any resemblance between the two certainly escapes me.
Well, perhaps the figure isn't Mrs. Grimshaw, but could it still be a ghost? Myself, I just can't take a single photograph, however creepy, and turn it into evidence for an afterlife. Because, honestly, that's all we have. Meaning no disrespect to Mr. Shan's reputation, but corroborating the photographic evidence after the fact with a story of the chandelier swinging really doesn't meet what I would consider the minimum standards of reliable evidence.
As far as the photograph, there is just too much chance of fakery, or (failing that) our old friend pareidolia (the tendency of humans to see faces in random patterns of color, light, and shadow) to put too much weight on it as evidence. So with the Kendal haunting, we're right back where we started; weakly suggestive evidence that really doesn't provide what a true skeptic would consider convincing.
Again, to reiterate: that doesn't mean that ghosts don't exist. All it means is that the jury's still out. As befits a true skeptic, we don't have to decide now -- the jury can remain out forever, until we have enough in the way of hard evidence to make a judgment.
Tomorrow: a UFO collides with a bird?
Today and tomorrow we'll take two of the most common paranormal claims -- ghosts and UFOs -- and consider what it would take to turn someone like me into a believer. Then we'll look at one (of each), representative recent claims of a ghost and a UFO respectively, and see if they meet some kind of baseline of evidential support.
Today's topic: ghosts.
Aficionados of hauntings usually have a variety of arguments in favor of the existence of ghosts. An experience of seeing the spirits of the dead, they say, is ubiquitous. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of an afterlife, and virtually all of them describe the experience of meeting a relic of the dead. Anecdotal accounts probably number in the millions. Ghostly photographs, of course, are also common, and some are undeniably creepy (whatever you can say about their authenticity). Newer, higher tech methods are cropping up, including the use of electromagnetic field sensors and sensitive audio equipment, and modern ghosthunters claim that both of these tools have yielded positive results.
Okay, now for the skepticism. Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of a deity, and even if you accept that some conception of god is right, they can't all be right because their gods differ wildly from each other. So even accepting, for the sake of argument, that some sort of god exists, 99% of cultures on Earth got the majority of his/her/its attributes wrong. Simple ubiquity as an argument for a belief is mildly suggestive, nothing more. As far as photographs, they are becoming increasingly easy to fake (which doesn't mean that they all are fakes, but simply that it might be difficult to tell the fakes from any out there that are real). And you have to wonder if the claims that new equipment picking up EMF and suspicious sounds aren't mistaking correlation for causation -- perhaps EMF or peculiar sounds exist in a place because of some purely natural phenomenon, and those are then interpreted by us as evidence for a ghostly presence. (This last statement is pure speculation, of course, but you might want to recall the famous case of a low-frequency standing sound wave in a building causing an illusion of ghosts -- read about it here.) In order to convince me, I'd have to see a ghost myself, under conditions that precluded the possibility of trickery, or else have some sort of experiment done, with an adequate set of controls, that showed hard data indicating the presence of some sort of "ghostly energy" (a frequent claim by ghosthunters).
Now for the case study.
A derelict Victorian guesthouse in Kendal, Cumbria, England was scheduled for demolition a couple of weeks ago, and the demolition supervisor took some photographs of it for his company's records. After having the photographs printed, he noticed something pretty peculiar in one of them:
Let's look at a closeup:
Okay. So, what is it? Well, apparently the demolition supervisor, who is named David Armstrong, was pretty creeped out when he saw this. In Armstrong's words, "There was only a black wall behind the window, we had taken everything out – there were no visible features or anything with a skin color." Couple this with the claim of one of Armstrong's workmen, Stuart Shan, that the place is haunted: "The day before we took the photo we were stripping the building inside and I noticed the chandelier swinging on its own. We said at the time the place felt strange. My hairs were standing on end when I saw the photo. I believe it is a ghost."
Given all of the scary stuff happening, Armstrong brought the story (and the photograph) to the attention of the property owner, David Grimshaw. And Grimshaw took one look at the photograph -- and said that the figure was clearly that of of his deceased mother, Frances Grimshaw, who used to "stand looking out of that very window, and wore large earrings and a bow on her dress just like the figure in the window."
So, what do we have here? I have to admit that the photograph is pretty odd, whether or not it actually is depicting an old lady's ghost. Let's, for the moment at least, admit it into evidence. What about Shan's story of a swinging chandelier? Well, you'll note from his statement that he made his claim after seeing the photograph, so you have to be at least a little skeptical at this point, wondering if perhaps he wasn't adding a story of a ghostly presence pushing the chandelier to bolster his boss' claim that the photograph was of ghostly provenance (or, possibly, to get in on the publicity that was sure to come -- which worked, didn't it?).
Then, we have the claim by David Grimshaw that the figure looked "just like his mother." Well, one of the sources I used actually had a photograph of the late Mrs. Grimshaw, so let's take a look:
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the figure in the window looks nothing like Mrs. Grimshaw. The figure in the window has what looks like brown hair, possibly pulled back into a bun, and a high forehead, and seems to me to be on the skinny side. Then we have blonde, curly-haired, stocky Mrs. Grimshaw. Any resemblance between the two certainly escapes me.
Well, perhaps the figure isn't Mrs. Grimshaw, but could it still be a ghost? Myself, I just can't take a single photograph, however creepy, and turn it into evidence for an afterlife. Because, honestly, that's all we have. Meaning no disrespect to Mr. Shan's reputation, but corroborating the photographic evidence after the fact with a story of the chandelier swinging really doesn't meet what I would consider the minimum standards of reliable evidence.
As far as the photograph, there is just too much chance of fakery, or (failing that) our old friend pareidolia (the tendency of humans to see faces in random patterns of color, light, and shadow) to put too much weight on it as evidence. So with the Kendal haunting, we're right back where we started; weakly suggestive evidence that really doesn't provide what a true skeptic would consider convincing.
Again, to reiterate: that doesn't mean that ghosts don't exist. All it means is that the jury's still out. As befits a true skeptic, we don't have to decide now -- the jury can remain out forever, until we have enough in the way of hard evidence to make a judgment.
Tomorrow: a UFO collides with a bird?
Jan
27
The Guardian | Do atheists need a temple? The Guardian Do you think atheists need their own temple? Alain de Botton wants an atheist's temple in London, do you? Image: Thomas Greenall & Jordan Hodgson We already have the Holy Trinity of Earth, Sea and Sky. But it'll be a nice building to herd cats in. Battle of the atheists! Alain de Botton plans 'temple for the non-believers ... Atheist Temple: Nonbelievers To Get Place Of 'Worship' In UK Richard Dawkins Rejects Plan for £1M Atheist 'Church' in City of London |
Jan
27
Atheist's faith a leap too far for science The Barrie Examiner However, while his atheist manifesto, the book God Is Not Great — presented with all the fervour of an ardent new convert — succeeded in making many valid criticisms of religion in general, his central thesis was greatly mistaken. |
Jan
27
I was going to write a piece on the Republican debate tonight, but what’s the point? Criticizing Republicans is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. It’s easier than noticing fish in a barrel. It’s even easier than being near a barrel, since when was the last time you saw a barrel?
Jan
26
Student Faces Town's Wrath in Protest Against a Prayer New York Times But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years. |
