Debunking Dowsing Continued...

In the first article I wrote called "Debunking Dowsing" you watched a video of James Randi answering a Million Dollar Challenger. Another video I tracked down on YouTube is from Richard Dawkins' video series Enemies of Reason. In this video dowsers undergo a strictly controlled double blind trial. Some of them are "shocked beyond words" that they failed.

Physics of Watchmen

University of Minnesota physics professor James Kakalios discusses how he was hired to add a physics perspective to the Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. Kakalios discusses how quantum mechanics can explain Dr. Manhattan's super human powers in the film, and how he came to become an expert on the topic of the physics of superheroes. Check out Kakalios book The Physics of Superheros.

Primate's Premeditated Pitching

A friend of mine first brought my attention to this story about a week ago. He described the incident to me. Basically an old chimp was witnessed stock-piling rocks in anticipation of zoo visitors. He then used his arsenal of rocks to retaliate against visitors that laughed at or mocked him. I was trying to decided if this was a correlation or a real premeditated attack.

I found the article in question at MSNBC's website, "Zoo Chimp Plots Stone Throwing Attacks." According to the article Santino, the chimp, has a routine which includes gathering stones from the water surrounding his exhibit and placing them into piles. This was first observed in 1997 by the staff of the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden. In 1998 he added breaking off pieces of concrete from his exhibit to arsenal. Santino specifically engineered throw-able sized pieces of concrete and shaped them into discs for better distance throwing. His piles were in specific places around the perimeter of his exhibit to make them easily accessible during zoo visiting hours.

According to a Scientific American article entitled, "Planning of the Apes", every day around 11:00 A.M. Santino would put on a show of dominance which involved yelling, running, etc. When zoo visitors laughed at him they found themselves on the receiving end of one of Santino's rock attacks.

The MSNBC article stated that the new evidence was published in an issue of Current Biology by Mathias Osvath. In the abstract of his article called, "Spontaneous Planning for Future Stone Throwing by a Male Chimpanzee," he makes a point that anecdotal evidence is scarce and there are very few controlled demonstrations of planning for the future in animals. He says, "This dearth of observations is arguably the main reason for not ascribing cognitive foresight to nonhuman animals."

Osvath goes on to say:

"Over the years, Santino's operation has become increasingly sophisticated, Osvath says, progressing from simple gathering to fabrication. He has been observed chipping away at the concrete rocks on the island with his hands to sculpt dessert plate–size discs to launch at zoo visitors. In the past decade, zoo workers have witnessed him throwing stones on about 50 separate occasions. Santino has managed to hit a handful of gawkers during his assaults but, happily, none have been injured."

It was observed that Santino is extremely calm when restocking his arsenal and becomes very agitated when throwing the rocks. From Mathias Osvath's study he has concluded that chimps "can diligently take actions that will prepare [them] for future events."

Debunking Dowsing

Dowsing can almost always be explained away by the idiomotor effect. This is the same thing "powers" your Ouija board. Here is a video of James Randi, from the James Randi Education Foundation, debunking a video submitted to the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

Sanal Edamaruku

Sanal Edamaruku is the president and founder of Rationalist International, and president of The Indian Rationalist Association. He deserves the Critical Thinkers on the Front Lines award for his performance on Hindi TV in March of 2008.

Sanal challenged Pandit Surinder Sharma, a Tantric Guru, during a discussion on "Tantric Power versus Science" on Hindi TV. Sharma claimed that he could kill anyone within 3 minutes using black magic. Senal challenged him to do so right there on the air. For three minutes Sharma chanted "magic" words and performed "magic" gestures. After three minutes he was unsuccessful in killing Sanal.

The host of the show allowed Sharma to continue if he wished. So the black magic went on for two hours while Sanal calmly laughed at him. Sharma claimed that he had a sure way to kill him but it would only work at night. So again Sanal agreed to it. That night the show recieved 300 million viewers, twice as many as the superbowl! Everyone tuned in to watch Sharma fail yet again to kill Sanal with black magic.

Congratulations Sanal Edamaruku.

Skeptics 4 Life in Top 50

According to NetworkedBlogs.com, Skeptics 4 Life is number 22 in the top 50 blogs under the topic of Skepticism! If you would like to help support the Skeptics 4 Life website join us on facebook by clicking follow. Thank you in advance for your support. Happy skepticism everyone!

Borneo Snake

Last month a photo of a very long snake was submitted to London's Telegraph. They published a story with a head line that read, "Photograph shows 'giant snake' lurking in Borneo River". The caption below the photo read, "Villagers living along the Baleh river in Borneo fear a 100-foot snake could be lurking in the murky waters."

I first heard about this image on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe Podcast episode #188. They describe the context of the photo which implies that the snake is "hundreds of yards long". They also mention that the largest living snake is 33 feet long and the largest discovered snake was the Titanoboa which was 45 feet long and lived 60 million years ago.

Evan Bernstein, a host on the Skeptics Guide podcast, even mentions that proportional to the river "there is no where for it to go." Steven Novella points out that if this snake really does exist, why haven't we found a 200 ft. snake skin or a skeletons of the beast. Another red flag for a hoax is that the photo was submitted anonymously. Plus there were only two photos taken and they were in different locations. If this was really witnessed by someone would they not take more than 1 photo?

Scientific American has shed some new light on the subject. Using an image search engine called Tiny Eye, Nathan Chadwick found the original, unedited, photo. Tiny Eye is a search engine that allows you to upload an image and perform a reverse image search. According to there website you can, "submit an image to Tiny Eye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions."

Nathan performed the search and found the origin of both images. The original photo is labeled as a picture of the Congo River and there is no snake in the river. The second image that was submitted to the Telegraph was a finalist in a Photoshop contest called "Cryptozoo 2". The image was called "Snake!"

Case closed, the images were a hoax.

Richard Dawkins at OK University

This is Richard Dawkins's introduction and response to Todd Thomsen's legislative decry in a lecture at Oklahoma University on Friday March, 6th. He proclaims that representative Todd Thomsen is not representative of the state of Oklahoma. In response to Thomsen he states that if a University should only hear opinions that the citizens of their state agree with, then "you can kiss goodbye to everything that a university stands for. What on earth is a university for, if it only reinforces opinions that students already hold."

"As it happens, evolution is a scientific fact as securely established as any fact known in science."
~Richard Dawkins

Dawkins on MPR

Here is an interview on Minnesota Public Radio with Richard Dawkins. He talks about atheism and his most recent book "The God Delusion". This was recorded on the morning of March 4th, 2009.

Dawkins banned from University Lecture

Oklahoma state representative, Todd Thomsen, filed a resolution to ban Richard Dawkins from a lecture scheduled for today at the University of Oklahoma. To summarize he states that on the following grounds:

The University of Oklahoma is publicly funded;
the University of Oklahoma stands for independent thinking and free inquiry;
a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma disagree with Richard Dawkins;
and Oklahoma's tolerance for cultural diversity.

He believes these are fair arguments for banning Richard Dawkins to speak his "public statements on the theory of evolution". This sounds like a boat-load of hypocracy and intolerance! Just because he is part of a minority does not mean he is wrong, and it does not give them the right to ban him from speaking.


Todd Thomsen's decry is stated in full here:

WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry; and

WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma has planned a year-long celebration of the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s theory of evolution, called the “Darwin 2009 Project”, which includes a series of lectures, public speakers, and a course on the history of evolution; and

WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma, as a part of the Darwin 2009 Project, has invited as a public speaker on campus, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published opinions, as represented in his 2006 book “The God Delusion”, and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma; and

WHEREAS, the invitation for Richard Dawkins to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma on Friday, March 6, 2009, will only serve to present a biased philosophy on the theory of evolution to the exclusion of all other divergent considerations rather than teaching a scientific concept.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.

THAT a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the University of Oklahoma, the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Oklahoma, and the Chair of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma.

American Family Association

The American Family Association is an organization focused on promoting "Biblical Values" on a secular American society. For example, their logo has the letters AFA superimposed over the Christian's Jesus fish! They claim to "represent and stand for traditional family values" and their primary focus is on the "influence of television and other media on our society."

The American Family Association is in favor of censorship but they call it responsibility. They maintain that the definition of censorship is only government imposed. However I have found a much more fitting definition on Dictionary.com; counter-intelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy [liberals, atheists, rational people].

Under their "about us" page they have a link with the question "Does AFA Hate Homosexuals?" They start out with Absolutely Not! and then share that the "radical homosexual agenda" is a misrepresentation and that it needs to stop spreading through our culture. Then they go so far as to reach out to homosexuals and inform them that they can be "healed at the Cross of Christ." It makes me sick to think there is an organization telling homosexuals that they essentially have a disease and they need healing.

So far the AFA has proudly taken responsibility for pulling the hit show Ellen DeGeneres off of the Disney and ABC networks. They accomplished this by encouraging advertisers to drop the show because she is a homosexual. They also expose "abuses" of tax dollars used by the National Endowment for the Arts. This is directly censoring art because they don't believe some forms to be appropriate!

In 1994 the AFA launched a "war on divorce" by developing and distributing the Marriage Savers video series. The series focusses on how religious commitment will strengthen existing marriages. Funny how countries like France and Japan, who are much more atheistic, have lower divorce rates than the united states according to a 2002 study, also that atheists and agnostics are 8% less likely to divorce than Born-Again-Christians.

Unfortunately they have a political agenda page which outlines their activism. They are requesting support on a federal constitutional amendment making marriage legal only between a man and a woman. They want to fight the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. The policy required broadcasters to air contrasting viewpoints about controversial issues of public importance (as decided by FCC) or risk losing their license. For example, pro-life stories would need to include comments from Planned Parenthood or another pro-abortion group.

I absolutely despise the American Family Association and I find them to be very counter-productive. They have no place in our civil society.

100,000 Proponents vs. 200 Deniers

Evolution Wins!

This is the consensus of the scientific community! In response to the creationists' list of 200 scientists who oppose evolution, The National Center for Science Education produced a list of 200 Scientists named Steve or Stephanie who are in favor of evolution in 2003.

Today that list has grown to 1000 Steves and Stephanies that agree on the validity of Evolutionary Theory. This was published in Scientific American's article entitled, "Count On Steves to Defend Darwin." Considering that people named Steve make up one percent of the population, we have around one hundred thousand scientists who accept evolution. That sounds like a consensus to me!

Neural Stem Cell Transplant

Controversy about the ethics of stem cell research has hindered its research for the past 8 years. I was initially concerned by the headline I noticed published by Scientific American that read, "Fetal Stem Cells Cause Tumor in a Teenage Boy." According to the article the nine-year old suffers from ataxia-telangiectasia, a childhood disease that causes degeneration of parts of the brain that control muscle movements and speech. As a result his parents sought treatment in Moscow where he received multiple injections of fetal stem cells in his brain.

I did some further investigating and found a study published by the Public Library of Sciences. The study was entitled "Donor-Derived Brain Tumor Following Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in an Ataxia Telangiectasia Patient." It does say that "this is the first report of a human brain tumor developing from transplanted neural stem cells." So to conclude that stem cells can cause brain tumors is a part-to-whole fallacy or a composition fallacy. It's fallacious to assume that this one case is representative of the whole of all patients whom could benefit from this procedure.

The study states that the patient was treated with two or more donors. They concluded that the tumor in the spinal cord was donor-cell derived, although the tumor in the patient's brain has not been examined yet. The researchers suggested that the multiple masses, which were benign, probably arose independently from transplanted cells.

Furthermore, it is important to note that people with ataxia-telangiectasia often have an impaired immune system. This would make them more susceptible to complications like brain tumors because a healthy immune system would normally help reject tumor cells. It is upsetting that this incident occurred but it is very important to note that this is the first example of a donor-derived brain tumor developing from fetal neural cell transplantation. Further research is required before any causal arguments are justified.