01 and the universe

Tracey Lee Dorny Haz Teh Dumb - A one act play in lolcat

2012-01-31T14:21:00.001+02:00

Tracey Lee Dorny: "ZOMFG! CELLFONEZ R GIVIN US CANCR!

Science: "NO. THEY ARENT."

Tracey Lee Dorny: "SRSLY GUYZ! CANCR! THARS TOWR IN FOURWAYS! IZ KILLIN TEH CHILDREN!"

iBurst: "NO. DAT TOWR IZ OFF. IZ NOT DOIN ANYTHIN. U HAZ TEH DUMB."

Smart people: "LOL!"

Tracey Lee Dorny: "4G! THAZ 2 LOTZ DA GS! IZ KILLIN TEH TREEZ!"

Smart people: *FACEPALM*

The 22seven Thing: A short, one-act play in lolcat

2012-01-30T11:23:00.001+02:00

22seven: "Hay guise. We maed u a PFM tool, and we did not eated it!"

Me: "Yay1"

Banks: "Noes! 22seven is ebil! They will nom ur cookeez!"

Me: "STFU Banks! I like them because u say they're bad! Oso becos ur dumb, and they is smart."

Me & 22seven: *does happydance*

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam...

2011-12-31T20:18:00.000+02:00

So someone has decided to ruin it for everyone, defecating spam all over my comments boards. As a result, I'm stepping up security around here. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you find this guy, punch him in the face for me.

Sangomas In Suits

2011-09-19T16:36:00.001+02:00

So, a few weeks ago I was given the awesome opportunity of participating in the 48 Hour Film Project with a team of amazingly talented people. The movies were premièred this past weekend, and now ours is up on YouTube for everyone to enjoy:

(don't worry, it's only 7 minutes long)

A glance at the credits will show you that I was lucky enough to be able to help out with the project in several different ways. It was enormously gratifying to be given the chance to do that, and cringingly awesome to see myself on the big screen.

Thanks to the team for including me in such a memorable experience. Thanks to Director Bianca Bothma for giving me jobs to do. And thanks in particular to the film's talented and lovely Art Director, Manders, for recruiting me.

If you enjoyed the movie, be sure to Like our Facebook page!

Episode #22: Ape Evolution, Mars and Poisonous Rats | Consilience

2011-08-11T20:24:00.003+02:00

Episode #22: Ape Evolution, Mars and Poisonous Rats | Consilience

Every time you listen to an episode of Consilience, the Flying Spaghetti Monster gives a kitten a little tickle on its tummy.

DO IT FOR THE KITTENS!!!!!

Meatspace vs the Cybersphere

2011-07-23T16:38:00.001+02:00

For as long as I can remember, I've had to deal with a kind of elitism from certain people: these people are the ones who are not what I would describe as 'net-natives'.

Net-natives, such as myself, are people who feel at home on the Internet. We get what the technology does for us, how it enriches our lives and makes us smarter, faster, more productive and more social.

But these other people - I shall henceforth refer to them as 'meat-fascists' (I resisted the urge to call them 'troglodytes' or 'Amish') - don't get it. They're generally at least marginally familiar with technology, and many of them use it all the time (I know a number of meat-fascists who own, and are addicted to, Blackberries), but they either can't understand or refuse to acknowledge the inherent benefits that arise from technology in general, and communication & information technology in particular.

An argument I hear from meat-fascists all too often is one that sums up their general approach pretty nicely, and it goes something like this: "Electronic communication and the Internet are not adequate substitutes for face-to-face, personal communication."

On the surface, that argument sounds self-evident. But a net-native (or other rational person), given a moment to think about it, can easily recognise that argument as complete bullshit.

There are several unstated major premises wrapped up that argument:

Face-to-face communication is the best kind of communication, and electronic communication should aspire to be as good or better in order to be considered a viable substitute;
Electronic communication aspires to be considered a viable substitute to face-to-face communication;
There is a clear, unambiguous means by which one method of communication can be measured to be superior to another.

And probably a few others that I don't care about. The first two are largely dependent on the third, so I'll address that one.

Objective Comparisons

The problem with this is that there are a number of different factors upon which the usefulness of any given communication medium can be considered appropriate for any given situation. Meat-fascists seem to imply that inter-personal relatability is the only one worth considering, but it's not. As is so often the case, it's more complicated than you think. The way I see it, there are at least four different metrics against which any given medium should be measured:

Speed. Simply, how fast can the relevant information be transferred from one person to another.
Fidelity. How likely it is that the content of the message will survive intact.
Cost. How much energy, time or money must be spent in order to transmit the message.
Persistence. After the message has been sent and received, for how long can the content of that message still be accessed for later reference?

There are, of course, other criteria that may come into play under certain circumstances. Things like discreteness, privacy and propriety are relevant sometimes. In any given situation, a communication medium must be considered against all of these different criteria before one can be chosen.

Let's go for a hypothetical example.

You're sitting in a library in Cancun, and you suddenly realise that you need to tell your friend (who is at work in Syndey) something important and urgent. Face-to-face communication, in this case, would cost you hours (if not days) to arrange (flights either to Cancun, Syndey or some other destination) and a small fortune in real money. And when you finally arrived in the same room, after you'd told your friend what you needed him to know, the information would only be stored in his brain (which is unreliable, as all human brains are at the best of times, and more so when jet-lagged).

So, in this case, Speed would be terrible, Fidelity would be pretty good (assuming the two of you met in a relatively quiet room), Cost would be prohibitive and Persistence would be only slightly better than nothing.

Compare this to an email: Speed - awesome, Fidelity - perfect, Cost - nothing, and Persistence - infinite.

"Yes," says the meat-fascist "but what about the human element?"

Well what about it? Is the content of your message dependent on the need to look the person in the eye, hold their hand and deliver it in a soft whisper? Sometimes, sure.

It's probably less pleasurable to whisper sweet nothings into your sweetheart's ear over IM. The gravitas of your doctor informing you you have a terminal illness might be lost somehow if he did so in a 140-character tweet. Getting to know your grandchildren via Facebook probably sucks.

This is why it's so important to choose the right communication medium for the message you're trying to deliver. Imagine if a representative from your bank showed up at your front door to notify you each time you performed a transaction on your account - is that really better than an SMS? Should your friend really print out every lolcat he sees, and race over to your office in the middle of the day to show it to you, instead of emailing it, or posting it on Google+?

Of course not. That would be retarded.

The Telephone's Exemption

There is one electronic communication medium that seems to have earned exemption from the meat-fascists' ire, if only by its longevity: the telephone. Somehow, it seems, the magic of hearing another person's voice makes communication more meaningful.

Again I grant that under certain circumstances, that may be the case. For example, if your spouse has gone away on a business trip for a few days, you may well prefer a chat on the phone to an exchange of SMS's. But that's probably because in that case, the phone call isn't about communicating a message, but is rather about just hearing their familiar voice, and being comforted by it. The content, in that case, is probably largely irrelevant.

Meat-fascists often tend to overlook the fact that a video-chat (while not always available) is probably a superior alternative to the telephone. So why does the phone get a free pass, while Skype is lumped together with email and the rest?

Now it should be noted that I have a personal beef with the telephone. Working, as a student, in an outgoing call-centre, I've developed a seriously crippling, emotional aversion to using the phone. But even I can acknowledge its utility under these, and a few other, circumstances. What I can't concede is that it's somehow fundamentally different to other electronic communication media. Just because it's been around longer, doesn't grant it any special status as anything other than 'just another communication medium'.

Virtual Reality

Pictured: The Internet

A fundamental misunderstanding that meat-fascists seem to have about communication technology in general and the Internet in particular is the perception that it's somehow unreal. Clearly they've seen too many bad NCIS episodes, and they've bought into the notion that the Internet is some kind of virtual world, populated by virtual people doing nothing of any value to anyone outside, in the "real" world.

That is, of course, absolute crap.

The Internet is a real thing, used by real people to do real things: have real conversations, maintain real relationships, do real work, make and spend real money and engage in real communication.

Of course there are things out there that help muddy the water somewhat: the popularity of online games like World of Warcraft, the existence of a panoply of artificially intelligent programs called "bots" designed to fool you into thinking they're real people, and the propensity we net-natives have of talking about the Internet as if it were a place as opposed to a network of computers.

Those of us who know a thing or two about technology understand that virtual worlds like WoW and Second Life, while designed to create a fictional world with which users can interact, are also filled with real people. Real people engaging in real communication and real commerce. Real. Not virtual at all.

And as for describing the Internet as a place, that's just a limitation of a language that's existed since before the notion of an Internet ever occurred to anyone. Although it's sometimes useful to think of the Internet as the "8th Continent", it really isn't anything of the sort.

The Internet Is Made of People

What the Internet (and the people who build it, like you and me) has done, is provide us with an ever-growing wealth of new communication media, never before devised. Communication platforms like email, instant messaging, video-chat, Facebook and Twitter have not only allowed us to be connected to more people, but they've allowed us to be connected in so many more ways! We're now having conversations, every day, that wouldn't be conceivable a decade ago!

Imagine trying to explain to the version of you living in 2001 that you can now take an article from your favourite website, post it on a different website where all your friends, colleagues, family and acquaintances can see it, and then engage in a public conversation about it, right there on the website! It's like magic!

Things like Google Latitude and Google+ Hangouts were considered the purview of governments and big business as recently as five years ago. Now we have access to those same kinds of tools on our desks and in our pockets, for communicating, sharing and building real relationships with the real people who are important in our lives.

Can the Internet replicate the experience of cuddling up on the couch with your significant other for a DVD on a cold winter's night? Not quite. But can you search for a hashtag, reshare a YouTube video or click "like" in meatspace? Nope.

Fact is, the Internet isn't designed to replace face-to-face communication, nor should it be. It's mostly different, and in a lot of circumstances, more useful.

Privacy for Privacy's Sake

2011-07-07T21:34:00.002+02:00

With all the Facebook and Google+ discussion flying around the Internet, one word keeps popping up over and over again: "privacy".

One phrase in particular keeps slamming my ear-drums: "I know privacy is important, but..."

So here's my question: why is privacy important?

Of course if you're a criminal or something, and you genuinely do have something to hide, privacy would be important to you. But for the rest of us who don't do anything of particular interest to anyone (even our own loved ones), why does privacy matter?

In a world where Twitter and Facebook are flooded with people broadcasting to the world what they had for breakfast, and nobody gives a crap, is privacy relevant at all?

I should point out that in general I'm a pretty private person. I feel a natural inclination towards keeping things private.

But why? What's the benefit to keeping things private? Assuming there is a rational reason for privacy, where does one draw the line between what should be kept private and what shouldn't?

Episode #17: Killer asteroids, killer apes and Dr. Adrian Tiplady | Consilience

2011-07-07T08:17:00.001+02:00

Episode #17: Killer asteroids, killer apes and Dr. Adrian Tiplady | Consilience

The universe is trying to kill you! (and bushbabies!) Find out how!

Consilience #16: Relativity, Oprah and Rebecca Watson | Consilience

2011-06-29T23:52:00.000+02:00

Episode #16: Relativity, Oprah and Rebecca Watson | Consilience

It's out! Go listen! Quickly! It's Rebecca Watson! YES!!! REBECCA WATSON!!!

Consilience Episode #6: Justice & snacking, fine wines, and the Big Bang

2011-04-20T16:14:00.000+02:00

Episode #6 of Consilience is out!

Go! Quickly! Before we run out of electrons to send it on!

Consilience Episode 2

2011-03-23T16:23:00.000+02:00

Angry Monkey says "GO NAO!"

Is out!

This week we talk about space, dinosaurs, monkeys, birds who pilot missiles and chat to Steven Novella some more.

Go to the Consilience blog now! Hurry!

Consilience: An African Science Podcast

2011-03-16T21:58:00.000+02:00

I'm very pleased top announce that as of today, I am an official contributor to a real podcast from Africa, by Africans, about science!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen! This afternoon we officially launched with the very first episode of Consilience: An African Science Podcast.

My esteemed co-contributors (co-conspirators?) are, as you might expect, Michael Meadon, of Ionian Enchantment, and Angela Meadon, The Skeptic Detective.

Unfortunately due to Apple's regulations you won't see us in the iTunes podcast directory yet (it takes a few weeks), but feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed for your weekly dose of African scienciness!

(Better yet, use Google Reader and Google Listen. Just sayin')

TMI About BMI

2011-03-10T15:06:00.000+02:00

I don't know what this means.

If you've ever been anywhere near a gym, personal trainer or fitness magazine, you have, no doubt been exposed to the notion of Body Mass Index (BMI). It's a simple calculation that produces a number that allegedly defines how fat (and therefore healthy) you are. Awesome, right?

What Is It?

In essence it's a proxy, a rough way of estimating how much of your body-mass is made up of fat tissue. It works like this:

Your mass in Kilograms divided by your height in Meters squared:

Ideally, the result should be between 20 and 25. Otherwise you would fall somewhere on this scale:

It's that easy!

Smell too easy to you? Yeah, me too.

What's Wrong With It?

Well the most obvious shortcoming is that it tries to quantify something (body fat percentage) without actually measuring that thing. This would be understandable if it was prohibitively difficult to measure body fat. If that were the case, it would make sense to use some other trick as a proxy - an alternate measurement that can provide reliable information about the thing you're interested in.

So we have two claims now:

1. Body fat is too difficult to measure directly.
2. BMI is a reliable proxy for body fat.

Let's take them one at a time.

Measuring Body Fat

As with most things, the whole idea of fat is more complicated than we might think. Firstly, there's more than just one kind of fat. Actually there are three kinds. When it comes to the kind of fat which, when found in excess, is strongly correlated with all sorts of health risks, the one we're talking about is Abdominal or Visceral Fat. That's also the one that piles up on your belly (or hips & thighs if you happen to be of the female persuasion). So that's also the one that will most likely be of interest to people going to the gym.

Visceral Fat

When it comes to measuring the fat content of your body, there are actually quite a few different ways of doing it, ranging from the impractical to the useless. And some others.

On the impractical side of things, we have the Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry technique. This method involves a full body scan using two different X-rays in order to construct an image of your body's composition. Although this is an excellent tool for finding out exactly how much fat you've got, it's cumbersome and expensive. It's not exactly something you can do at home, or even at the gym. A qualified radiologist has to do it, not a personal trainer. And access to this sort of technology is better reserved for people who need it for medical purposes - like measuring bone density in patients suffering from Osteoperosis. Chubby-checking is probably low on their list of priorities, unless you're in obvious danger.

Skin-fold technique.

On the useless end is the skin-fold technique. As the name suggests, a section of skin is pinched with a pair of calipers, and its thickness is measured. While this is a perfectly good way of measuring the quantity of Subcutaneous Fat in your hypodermis, that's not the fat we're looking for. Visceral Fat doesn't live there.

But there is a ray of hope, and it comes in the form of a infra-red light! A beam of old-fashioned IR light can penetrate the skin and muscle tissue of your upper arm and, in doing so, reveals the quantity of Visceral Fat stored inside the muscle! Now, as we said, people tend not to store much fat in their biceps, but it's a pretty reliable extrapolation from the quantity of fat in your bicep (as compared to a statistical average) to the quantity in your abdominal region.

Fat Scanner Booth

The clear advantage of the IR beam technique is that it's reliable, inexpensive and easy. it can be done with a hand-held device, by a chimpanzee wearing spandex (or a personal trainer). Although it's not the sort of device you'd be likely to buy for home use, odds are your gym has at least one lying around. (If you live in South Africa and go to Virgin Active gyms like I do, that little Discovery Health booth that measures you in all sorts of ways, and records the results on your account, has one of these devices built in.)

Right, so, measuring body fat isn't really all that hard. Although getting a precise reading is difficult, it's easy enough to get a good, reliable result.

Reliability of BMI

Here's the thing: BMI was originally developed as a statistical heuristic for comparing relative body fat levels in populations against each other. And it seems to be pretty good at that. But it wasn't really ever intended for use by individuals as a diagnostic tool.

Firstly, it's based on some pretty heavy-handed assumptions about distribution of body fat in relation to height and mass. While it may describe the average person fairly well, outliers (like athletes, for example) will be poorly represented: weight-lifters generally register as "Obese" on the BMI scale (30 and over), while marathon-runners register as "Underweight" (BMI 16 - 18.5).

In addition, the BMI classification difference between Overweight and Normal doesn't seem to be supported by epidemiological data. There's no difference in life expectancy between those two groups.

The list goes on. BMI has its uses, but it's not really meant to help you track your own, personal health. It sucks at that.

So Then?

Essentially, if you're interested in tracking your body fat percentage as a metric contributing to your own health, it's probably best to steer clear of using BMI. Rather go with direct body fat measurements instead.

Better yet, talk to your doctor about what steps you can take to manage your health. Ask how much exercise you should be be doing, and whether or not you should see a Dietitian (NOT a Nutritionist!) about managing your diet. No website or magazine can give you a reliable estimate of how healthy you are.

And please remember that personal trainers, however muscly they may be, are not medically trained. If they were, they would be working in medical practice, not in your gym. That usually doesn't stop them from offering all kinds of advice on nutrition, supplementation and even medical interventions. You should take their advice on how many reps to do on the leg-press machine, but take everything else with a grain of salt. And when in doubt, check with your doctor.

Exercise Your Right to Vote!

2011-02-25T11:33:00.000+02:00

So you Joburg sceptics are probably all aware by now that we're coming up to another Sceptics in the Pub next week. What we haven't yet decided is where we'll be doing it.

For those who have been coming for a while, you'll have noticed that we've made a habit of jumping around every month to give people from different parts of this enormous city a chance to make it who might otherwise not have been able to. Last month we had it at Cresta Shopping Centre in North-western Joburg, so we're looking to change it up again. Probably somewhere East of centre.

So where should we do it? Have your say! Tell us where you'd like to be sceptical in a pub by submitting your suggestions and voting on others over at our Google Moderator board.

And don't stop at just once... more suggestions are being thrown up there all the time. Keep coming back and voting so we know the will of the people!

(We won't necessarily use the top-rated suggestion every time though. Like I said, we like to keep it varied. But we'll try to pick from the top five at least.)

Yay! Democracy!

Cell-phones and the Brain

2011-02-23T08:19:00.000+02:00

I know it's popular to pick on established institutions and point out how much they suck lately. I'm going to resist the urge to do that, and simply point out on example of how a generally good institution, Scientific American, seems to have lost the plot.

(before I start it's disclaimer time: although I no longer work for a cellular operator, I'm a fan of cellular technology in general. So while I may have some emotional bias in this area, I try very hard to be rational about it - it's not like my livelihood depends on it or anything.)

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last ten years, you've no doubt come across the claim that cell-phones are somehow bad for your health. The most popular claim is that it somehow causes brain cancer.

While there's still scope for long-term epidemiological studies to provide further insight, the best data we have so far suggests that there is no such effect. And if there is an effect, it's probably so small as to be virtually indistinguishable from chance.

Not only that, but the whole idea that cell-phones could do any kind of damage like that is highly implausible. They just don't work that way.

For a more comprehensive look at the issue, head over to Steve Novella's Neurologica Blog. He knows way more about this than I do.

However data never got in the way of a good health scare, and misinformed people have been making a fuss over the health risks of cell-phone radiation as long as there have been cell-phones. And it's not a small fuss either - people have been losing their goddam minds over this. It's becoming a real problem!

Given that the whole cell-phone health concerns thing is such a hot-button topic right now, why the hell would a publication that has a reputation for being a bastion for reason and rationality such as Scientific American publish a steaming pile of bullshit like this: "Cell phone emissions change brain metabolism - By Katherine Harmon"?

What's the Story?

In summary, this reports on a study being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (how they got into that publication is a mystery to me). The study is an experimental one in which they expose healthy human subjects to cellphone radiation for a bit, then run them through a PET scanner to see what effect it had on the brain's glucose metabolism. And guess what? They found an effect.

Wow! That's hectic, right?

No. It's bullshit, and here's why. Without going into any deep analysis on their results, I see two huge problems with this study.

Problem the First

This was an experimental study in which they recruited volunteers to participate. Not 100 000 volunteers. Not 10 000. Not even 1000. Those would be pretty good studies. No, they recruited 47 volunteers. Forty seven.

I don't have to be a professional scientist to know that a sample of 47 is way too small to produce any meaningful results. All you need is one anomalous result and the whole graph is thrown out of kilter. That's not enough people!

Problem the Second

They found that the brain glucose metabolism in areas of the brain close to the active antenna were"significantly higher". What do they define as "significantly"? Seven percent. That's right, seven percent.

I don't have to be a professional statistician to know that 7% is not significant. It's around what you'd expect to see with random noise in the result. And considering they had such a small sample (forty seven!) that noise ratio would probably be even higher!

So What Am I Saying?

This study has produced practically nothing. At best this might be considered an interesting preliminary result, prompting further study. But I think even that would be generous. I don't think it's interesting at all - it looks like a negative result to me.

That said, I can't really fault the researchers here. Despite their willingness to speculate wildly on all sorts of ways cell-phones might be killing us, at least they're doing science (albeit bad science).

I don't even blame Katherine Harmon. While her piece was a little alarmist, she at least made an effort to include some sceptical opinion in there. While I think it leans a little too far towards the false balance side of things, at least there was balance of some sort.

No, the person I blame is the idiot Scientific American editor who put that sensationalist headline on the piece. It's clearly deliberately provocative. And thanks to that guy (or girl), the cell-phone radiation cranks will be all over this shit like teenage white girls on Justin Beiber. We won't hear the end of it!

Thanks for nothing, dumbass!

Holy Crap! 2012!

2011-02-21T10:36:00.000+02:00

Apocalypse

Yes, I know, this topic has been done to death elsewhere, but I thought it might be fun for me to try my hand at it too. Hopefully it'll be fun for you also.

Okay, so what's the deal about 2012?

There's a popular belief that the world as we know it will end next year, in 2012. Some versions of the story suggest that it will happen specifically on the 21st of December. While doomsday prophecies are nothing new, this particular date, 21/12/2012, seems to be acting as a lightning-rod for a vast array of different foretellings of disaster.

I'll look at some of the more popular predictions in depth, but first let's try and figure out why this date in particular seems to have gotten into the minds of the eschatological amongst us.

The Mayans Predicted the End of the World

Right, so, centuries ago, ancient Mayans kept a calendar that is still regarded as being a very good one. It was all very complicated and clever, and even included a fancy decimal system for measuring smaller units of time within larger ones, and so on.

That calendar comes to an end in the 21st of December 2012. Obviously that means the world is ending on that day, right?

Long Count

Let's think about that for a minute. In Western society we use the Gregorian Calendar. It's also a pretty good one; it's complicated and clever and even includes a fancy decimal system for measuring smaller units of time within larger ones, and so on. About eleven years ago everyone in the world who uses the Gregorian Calendar had to stop writing the current year as "1999", and instead had to use a different digit to represent the thousands column of the date: "2000".

A thousand years before that, the Gregorian Calendar didn't exist yet, but it's predecessor the Julian Calendar did. One day, roughly 1011 years ago, everyone who used the Julian Calendar had to add an extra digit to the date in order to express the current year: they went from "999" to "1000". The hundreds, tens and units columns rolled over to zero, and a new column, the thousands, clicked over to 1.

That's what happens to the Mayan Calendar on 21/12/2012: the Long Count Calendar's largest column (called the B'ak'tun) ticks over to zero, initiating a new, previously unused column to click over to one. That's all. It's just a function of the decimal system in action, clocking over to a new column. No biggie.

But it's the Mayans' calendar, right? Maybe we should ask them whether they think the ticking over of the Long Count is a prediction of the end of the world.

(YouTube Link)

Right, so the Mayans didn't predict the end of the world. Not in 2012 or at any other time. Doomsday prophecies clearly weren't as important a part of their culture as it is a part of ours. Interpreting the "end" of their calendar as a prediction of the end of the world is foolish at best, and an outright lie at worst. So knock it off.

But Planet X!

One of the many apocalypses (is that the correct plural?) predicted by some to take place in 2012 is the appearance of the mysterious Planet X - a major planetary body somehow bound to our Sun that will pass through the inner solar system wreaking havoc upon the Earth, either by a direct collision or just gravitational or tidal perturbation.

This isn't a new idea, in fact 2012 is just the latest in a long line of dates put forward for this inevitable catastrophe. So what is Planet X?

Not a Planet

The term "Planet X" is one used by some astronomers to describe a planet in our solar system that was predicted to exist, but had not yet been observed (and therefore not yet named). In the past, both Neptune and Pluto were referred to as Planet X before they were observed and officially named. The Planet X referred to in these prophecies is neither Neptune nor Pluto, but rather another supposed planetary body that real scientists either haven't discovered yet, or are somehow keeping a secret from everybody.

Some sceptics might recognise this Planet X is the one often called "Nibiru" by the Ancient Astronaut Theory cranks (although as far as I know, the big names in Ancient Astronauts, Zecharia Sitchin and Michael Tellinger, aren't involved in the whole 2012 thing, a lot of their cohorts and fans most definitely are). The Nibiru notion goes that our sun has a companion object, either a large, massive planet or a brown dwarf star that's on a large, highly elliptical orbit. That orbit brings Nibiru into the inner solar system every so many centuries, and while it's here, it causes all manner of catastrophes.

That all sounds very interesting and terrifying. But what does the science say?

Nada. Not a thing. There's no evidence whatsoever of such an object existing. And if it did exist, and it was only a year away, not only would professional astronomers be able to see it by now, but amateur astronomers (such as myself) would be able to see it too. On any given night there are literally thousands of telescopes pointed at the sky, all of which would be capable of detecting such an object. Yet not a single person has reported seeing it. Not one. Are all those amateur astronomers also in on the conspiracy? Are they all just missing a giant fucking planet in the sky? Or did someone make this planet up?

Occam's Razor tells us which answer to go with. (Someone made it up.) Of course the cranks have plenty of photos of what they claim to be Nibiru, but to date, every single one of those has been shown to be either fake, or a misinterpreted image of something else entirely.

(It should be noted that there is an ongoing question as to whether the Sun does have a far-out, massive companion object, often referred to as Nemesis. But that object wouldn't ever come close enough to the Sun to cause any trouble to the other planets. If it exists, it's so far away that its existence is still in question... that should tell you something)

But There's an Alignment of Things and a Polar Shift!

No.

There's a cluster of different claims about the Earth coming into some sort of "alignment" with the other planets in the solar system, the centre of the galaxy or all sorts of other things which will either cause some sort of "polar shift" or bathe us all in deadly radiation or something. This is the one that was the basis for the movie "2012".

Variously, this story goes that in 2012, all or most of the planets in the solar system will line up, causing an unprecedented effect of combining all the gravitational fields in a row, which will exert a torque on the Earth, flipping it over on its side. Which would obviously be a bad thing.

Okay, so there are two ideas wrapped up in there. Let's pull them apart.

Idea 1: There will be a major planetary alignment in 2012. Nope. That one's just wrong. These sorts of alignments are pretty common, and they've happened a number of times during history, but there are none scheduled to occur in 2012... just the usual conjunctions that happen every year.

Idea 2: A planetary alignment of this kind could change the rotational axis of the Earth by exerting a torque on it. I'm not a physicist, so I stand to be corrected here, but the Earth is a sphere (more-or-less). Its own gravitational pull has forced it into that shape to ensure a pretty even distribution of mass. In order for another object to exert an appreciable torque on the Earth, there would need to be something for that force to grab onto - a major inequity of mass distribution. But there isn't one. There just isn't.

Of course there is some effect that the moon has on the Earth with its tidal forces, but that effect is so small it takes millions of years to become noticeable. The only reason we know about it at all is through very precise measurements using lasers bounced off reflectors on the moon's surface.

And, as mentioned in the previous point, these alignments have happened millions of times in the Earth's history. This effect has never happened before... why would it happen now?

Okay, but there was another aspect to this whole "alignment" thing - the alignment of the Earth with the centre of the galaxy or something. What does that even mean?

The thing is this: if you take any two objects and draw a line between them, they are aligned. By definition. So yes, the Earth will align with the centre of the galaxy in 2012... because it's aligned with the centre of the galaxy all the time. Even right now! Oh noes! It's an alignment! Run!

But Betelgeuse Will Explode!

This is a fairly new one. In the last couple of weeks there's been a news story circulating through the mainstream media that the star Betelgeuse will explode in 2012, fulfilling the Mayan prophecy.

Okay, so what's the deal here? Will Betelgeuse explode? Yes. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star, one of the largest and brightest stars known, and in the top ten brightest objects in the sky. If you look at the constellation Orion, you'll notice that the star on his left shoulder has a reddish glow... that's Betelgeuse.

Red supergiant stars are stars many times more massive than our Sun that are nearing the end of their lives. They've spent most of their nuclear fuel and lost a lot of their mass... their gravity isn't strong enough to balance out the energy produced in their cores, so they puff out to many times their previous size. This is the last stage in a star's life before it explodes in a spectacular Supernova.

Will Betelgeuse explode in 2012? Maybe. The red supergiant phase of a star's life typically lasts for about a million years or so. The problem is we don't know if Betelgeuse has just entered the phase, or if it's been in that phase for a million years already. We just can't tell at this point. So, the odds of Betelgeuse going supernova in 2012 are around one in a million. If you want to narrow that down to the day, the odds of Betegeuse going supernova on the 21st of December 2012, that's about one in three hundred and sixty five million. You have way better odds of winning the lottery on that day.

When Betegeuse explodes, will it cause the end of the world? No. Paleontologists do theorise that some of Earth's mass extinctions in the past may have been caused by nearby supernovae, but Betelgeuse isn't close enough to us to pose a threat. Betegeuse is, however, close enough to give us a brilliant show. When it does blow, it'll likely be comparable in brightness to the moon, and may even be visible during the day.

Okay, So There Will Be Some Sort of Spiritual Change in 2012

Spiritual Person - Probably

This is an amusing claim. What's happening here is that some of the former doomsday prophets have started to see holes in their own prophecies. They recognise that when the 22nd of December 2012 rolls around, and the world didn't end, they'll have a lot of explaining to do. So they're backing away from making hard, testable claims, and instead are softening their predictions.

One that I've heard several times is that there will be some sort of "spiritual change" or "shift in consciousness" on that day, that will somehow have lasting consequences that may not be felt immediately. You see what they did there? They've made their claims so vague and wishy-washy that they've become completely untestable - in fact, they've become entirely meaningless. They can't offer evidence to support their claims, but also we can't disprove them.

These sorts of claims are what we like to call "not even wrong". They're just not sophisticated enough to even examine critically. So sure, there may well be a spiritual change or consciousness shift on that day... whatever those things mean. But you can make the same claim about any other day, and be just as right, wrong or not even wrong.

So Then What?

Since none of these predictions are likely to bare any fruit, I'm willing to offer a prediction of my own. December 21st 2012 will be a day like any other: the sun will rise, the sun will set. The tides will go in and out. People will die, others will be born. Just like every day before it, and every day after it. I, for one, will probably spend that day thinking about the fact that it's the summer solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere, and probably doing some Christmas shopping. Care to join me?

The "Google Sucks" Meme

2011-01-14T11:23:00.000+02:00

You may have noticed a meme doing the rounds lately, gracing the front pages of many of the most popular technology blogs. The gist of this meme is that Google is sucking hard: their new products are dropping like flies and even Google Search is returning worse results than ever.

I find this meme particularly objectionable since I'm an admitted Google fanboy. It's bad enough when people point out Google's failings, but when they attack Google using arguments based on speculation, ignorance and hyperbole, that pisses me off a bit. Having read one too many of these ill-informed diatribes, I feel compelled to put out a response.

Nothing I'm about to say is new, and you can find all these arguments articulated far better by Jeff Jarvis (author of What Would Google Do?) in the last few episodes of the This Week in Google podcast.

Let's look at the claims.

Google's New Products are Failing

The most oft-cited examples of this are Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google TV and the Nexus One. Let's look at each one.

Google Wave has failed as a product. It's true. Few people are more disappointed about that than I am, and I pray to the Gods of Google all the time in the hopes they'll reconsider. That said, Wave was a very ambitious project that introduced a raft of new technologies in one glorious package. All that novelty came with a pretty steep learning curve, which was intimidating to new users. Wave didn't pick up as many users as Big G wanted, so they decided to pull the plug.

But Wave isn't dead. For starters, it's still up and running. I, and many other users, still use it on a daily basis, and will continue to do so until the day Google switches it off. Secondly, Wave's new technologies are being adapted for use in Google's many other products, most notably Google Docs and Google Shared Spaces. Thirdly, the Wave project itself has been handed over to Apache, who will be releasing their own scaled-down, open-source version of Wave in the near future. So while Wave may not have met everyone's wildest hopes, it's far from dead, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Google Buzz hasn't failed. It's still up and running, and has a dedicated, if small, user-base. To date Google has made no statements about any intent to discontinue the Buzz service. There was a considerable amount of controversy surrounding Buzz's release, which has marred it somewhat from the start. But Google has acknowledged that the way they rolled Buzz out was a deviation from their standard procedures. This was a calculated risk, and one that backfired a bit, but nobody can fault Google's intent to continue their high pace of innovation, and empirically testing their own prior assumptions by deviating from their own norms from time to time.

Google TV is brand new. The first Google TV devices were only released a few months ago. Although they met with some pretty poor reviews, it's not that hard to think back as far as the first Android smartphone: the G1. The G1 also received some scathing criticism. Only a couple of years later, Android is out-selling Apple in the US smartphone market. Given that precedent, I reckon it would be a mistake to count Google TV out just yet.

The Nexus One didn't fail. It sold pretty well, actually. It was discontinued due to Google's intent to release its successor, the Nexus S, not due to poor sales. What did fail was Google's experiment in smartphone distribution. Google set up a way of buying a Nexus One on contract without going through the cellular service provider. That didn't work out, but it was worth a shot.

Given the sheer volume of new products Google releases every year, it's a statistical certainty that a proportion of them won't meet expectations, and some might fail altogether. It happens. What makes Google awesome is that they learn from their mistakes and keep rolling out new and better products all the time. Only a small-minded, headline-focussed person (like most tech journalists, actually) would conclude that a few floundered projects equate to a downturn in awesomeness.

Google Search Sucks

The problem with this argument is that it seems entirely based on anecdotes.

Remember kids: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

How does one measure the quality of search results? Relevance, right? One would hope that the most relevant result to what you're looking for would automatically be the first one on the list, right? How could Google know what the most relevant result be? Is Google psychic?

No. Google is not psychic. Google's search results are determined algorithmically, and Google's algorithm is their intellectual property. We, as users, have no visibility into it. Trying to make assumptions about Google's search algorithm by looking at search results is a bit like trying to predict the weather by looking up. Sure, you might be able to draw some broad, fairly reliable conclusions, but you'll never be able to make precise predictions.

Google's search algorithm (which includes, but is not limited to PageRank) isn't cast in stone either. There is a dedicated team of engineers at the Googleplex whose job it is to examine, refine and tweak that algorithm. When they come across a dodgy search result (which they do every day) they try to fix the algorithm to make it better. Google Search, like most Google products, is a perpetual work-in-progress.

But since relevance is a largely subjective concept, deriving actual data on the matter is difficult. There is one alternative to anecdote we can use though: a blind trial. If you're so convinced that Google Search is falling behind its competitors, I invite you to put that assertion to the test: Blind Search is a tool that compares the results of Google, Bing and Yahoo with all the branding and ads removed, allowing the results to speak for themselves. Do a random sample of a few searches (say ten or twenty diverse searches) and record the results. I predict that Google's results will be the best at least 50% of the time.

Google's Real Problems

The "Google Sucks" meme has a few more arguments that pop up in various incarnations, but the two I've dealt with here seem to be the biggest. I may decide to address the others in a future post.

What I want to be careful about here is creating the impression that Google is perfect. It's not. (Oh Googly master, please do not strike me down! Forgive me for this blasphemy!)

One particularly troubling issue is the Google/Verizon net neutrality controversy. I don't pretend to understand it all, but if it is what I think it is, it's both out of character for Google and worrying.

Another is Google's delay in rolling out international services. For example: Google's Android Market uses Google Checkout for billing purchases of Android apps. Google Checkout works in South Africa (I use it to renew the subscriptions for my various Google Apps domains), but for some reason South African Android users aren't allowed to purchase apps through the Market. No explanation is offered and no timeline given for solving the problem, which is a pain in the battery cover. There are plenty of other examples of this sort of thing: Google Books for Android, Google Voice, Google Earth for Android and so on... services that are inexplicably unavailable to non-US users.

Another gripe of mine is the fragmentation of features across different clients: Picasa Web and the Picasa desktop client are vastly different, as are Google Maps (web), Google Maps for Mobile and Google Earth (desktop)... and don't get me started on all the different Google Talk clients, no two of which have the same feature-set.

My point is there's plenty to criticise about Google. And that's good, because Google has a track record of listening to and acting on criticism. But if we're going to start attacking Google, let's get our facts straight first, okay? There's no use reading a bunch of inflamed and sensationalist headlines and then using that as a basis for an opinion... all you're doing then is making yourself look like a blithering idiot.

(Here's a little further reading on why Google is still awesome.)

Why I Celebrate Christmas

2010-12-20T10:17:00.000+02:00

I don't, actually. At least not in any meaningful sense.

I don't think that Jesus was anybody special. In fact I'm not even completely convinced he ever existed at all. I see no reason to celebrate the non-anniversary of his birth.

But I do have a Christmas Tree up in my living room, and I'll be having a turkey-dinner with family on the 25th... probably saying "Merry Christmas" a lot and exchanging gifts.

To the casual observer, that may seem something of a contradiction. And I can certainly understand why that might be the case.

Thing is, I was raised a Christian. Growing up, Christmas was always an important family event... everyone would come for a big family lunch with all the presents and crackers and fruit pudding and all of that. Other than the obligatory church service we would attend in the morning, there was next to nothing about the Christmas festivities that had anything to do with Jesus. He simply didn't feature.

Most of my family have drifted away from Christianity in various directions since that time. But we still get together every year for the sake of getting together. Christmas, like Easter and family birthdays, is an excuse for us to set aside our usual daily routines and enjoy a few hours together as a family.

Not that we really need an excuse, but it's convenient to have one.

Christmas was never really about Jesus, at least not for my family. And now that we don't bother with the church service bit, he's been removed from the whole thing as an unnecessary accessory. The only real contradiction in celebrating Christmas as a non-Christian is in using the name "Christmas".

But since that name was only added onto a pre-existing solstice festival by Christians many years after the alleged birth of Jesus, I don't feel too bad about it. I have no guilt about co-opting a holiday that had already been co-opted from someone else.

Probably the best articulated description of how I feel about Christmas is the song "White wine in the sun" by Tim Minchin. In the festive spirit, I present it here for your enjoyment:

Link

Don't Fear the Tech

2010-11-29T12:25:00.000+02:00

Yeah, I know I haven't been blogging here much lately. I'll remedy that, I promise.

Lately I've been focusing my creative energy on my new project, a technology blog called Don't Fear the Tech.

Please feel free to take a look over there and let me know what you think. I'll be back here again with more merciless scepticism in the not-too-distant future.

Cognitive Dissonance and Smoking

2010-10-12T14:36:00.000+02:00

An important skill for a sceptic is the ability to identify cognitive dissonance in yourself, and in doing so, hopefully apply reason to the situation and thereby resolve it. I've managed to identify an instance of cognitive dissonance residing in my own brain, but despite my best efforts at reasoning through it, I can't seem to resolve it.

Let's start by defining the term: cognitive dissonance is a state in which you simultaneously hold two mutually exclusive ideas to be true. The classic example (and surprisingly relevant to my topic) is the person who knows that smoking significantly increases their risk of contracting lung cancer, but decides to smoke anyway. Such a person has found a way of resolving that dissonance, which usually involves convincing themselves of a lie... in this case, that for some imagined reason, their own odds of contracting lung cancer from smoking are diminished to such an extent that the short-term gain of the nicotine buzz is worth the long-term risk of a horrible death.

My own case of cognitive dissonance also relates to smoking, although I myself am not a smoker. Here's my dilemma:

I am, and have always been, pretty strongly anti-smoking. Not only am I convinced by the evidence of harm it causes, but I also find the whole thing pretty distasteful. I hate the smell, I dislike the appearance of it, and I find it unfair that smokers are accorded all sorts of privileges (like the right to take as many breaks during a work day as they like, so as to feed their addiction). Not to mention the fire hazard.

It's because of my strong dislike for it that I am somewhat grateful to the late moron, Manto "The Genocidal" Tshabalala-Msimang. Thanks to her new legislation placing strong restrictions on smoking in public, I'm not forced to deal with the unpleasantness of it as often as I used to be.

Here's where the dissonance comes in.

The problem is that Manto used a scientific argument to justify the implementation of her anti-smoking laws. And it just so happens that that argument had about as much scientific merit as all her arguments: none at all.

Specifically she cited the "fact" that second-hand smoking (aka 'passive smoking', the act of sitting near someone who is smoking) has shown significant increase in risks of lung cancer and other smoking related illnesses. While on the surface it stands to reason that this should be true, there has been quite a lot of research done on this question (of varying quality). The literature isn't at all clear on the link between second-hand smoke and lung cancer (or any other disease) risk. Given that ambiguity, it's not really justified to claim it to be an established fact... doing so is basically a lie.

So there's my dissonance. On the one hand, I have a vested aesthetic interest in supporting the anti-smoking laws. But on the other hand, the reasons given for those laws are bullshit. And I'm not comfortable with supporting bullshit.

Given that South Africa is supposedly a liberal democracy, I can't support the notion of using the mechnisms of state to restrict people's behaviour without just cause. As long as a smoker isn't actually harming the people around him, he should be able to puff away to his heart's content. If he wants to take the risk of dying an early and excrutiating death, that should be his prerogative. As disgusting as I think it is, I kinda have to support people's right to smoke.

(There's a line that should be drawn here, and this is when the people smoking are in my family. If my spouse, parents or children were to smoke, that could have a knock-on effect on my life and wellbeing, and I would feel justified in being upset about it. I'm talking here about strangers and other people whose wellbeing doesn't directly influence mine.)

But there's another issue here: public health.

There is a substantial precedent of governments taking steps, using the mechanisms of state to manage threats to the health of society as a whole. For example: obligatory vaccinations.

Vaccines are a hot-button topic in sceptical circles. We've started seeing resurgances of vaccine-preventable illnesses in first-world countries as a result of people failing to vaccinate their children. In South Africa there is a precedent of making certain vaccinations mandatory, like in the case of the current rabies outbreak in Gauteng. It's my understanding that the CDC in the United States, and similar government organisations in other countries, are sometimes granted special emergency powers in order to deal with high-risk epidemics and outbreaks.

Since there is a precedent for government intervention on preventable illnesses, why shouldn't the government intervene in order to try and reduce instances of diseases like lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease?

I'm not talking about an all-out ban on cigarettes here. I'm talking about legislation which could make it sufficiently difficult to smoke that a statistically significant portion of smokers will be encouraged to quit, thereby reducing their risk of lung cancer. In other words, legislation not unlike South Africa's current anti-smoking laws.

I haven't seen the statistics on smoking rates since the introduction of the new anti-smoking laws (if such data exists), but I imagine there could potentially be an impact there. If I were a smoker, and the number of places I was able to smoke was reduced to rainy balconies and smelly smoking-rooms, I might be more strongly motivated to quit.

Right, so, to recap: I like the anti-smoking laws for selfish, aesthetic reasons. I can't support those laws on the basis that they impede freedoms without adequate justification. But I could see a potential alternate set of justifications for those laws which would, at least, be precidented, if not commendable and desirable.

Of course more research is needed. If the data does bare out my suspicions about the whole public health thing, that it would resolve itself. But until then, I'm stuck with these two ideas duking it out in my melon when I'm supposed to be concentrating on more important things.

Carnivals and Awards

2010-08-03T12:14:00.000+02:00

Just a quick couple of notes:

1. Check out the latest edition of the Carnival of the Africans hosted at Bomoko and Other Nonsense Words.

2. Please nominate Ionian Enchantment and The Skeptic Detective for the SA Blog Awards. Instructions on how to do that here. (And feel free to throw a nomination my way too, if you're so inclined.)

K, that's all for now.

In Defence of SETI

2010-06-22T09:44:00.000+02:00

In the last few weeks I've heard a series of interviews with Massimo Pigliucci as he plugs his newly published book Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. I haven't read the book yet, but I intend to someday. It sounds like a fascinating read. I do have one issue with it, however.

In one of the interviews (I forget which one it was now), Massimo was asked to explain his position on SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Massimo classified SETI is "almost science", which he justified by saying that although SETI is employing scientific methods in their endeavour, their hypothesis (that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists) is virtually unfalsifiable. They could literally search for a million years without producing a single result, and still not have falsified their hypothesis.

I think that's a fair assessment, and I'm sure most (if not all) SETI researchers would likely agree with it.

But Massimo didn't stop there. He went on to describe the Drake Equation as being an inadequate theory, or even hypothesis. To which my response is "Yeah... so?"

(Before I carry on, I want to point out that Massimo isn't the only one who has advanced the arguments I'm dealing with here. Not by a long shot. I hear these things thrown back and forth between sceptics and other scientists and philosophers all the time. And they make my blood boil every time. I'm only picking on Massimo because his was the straw who broke the camel's back, and inspired me to finally sit down and write this post.)

The Drake Equation is a list of variables which, if each could be assigned an approximate number, should spit out the likely number of intelligent species in our galaxy right now. Some of the variables (by Frank Drake's own admission) are inherently unknowable, such as the average life-span of a technologically sophisticated civilisation. We only have one such civilisation as an example: ours. And by the time its life-span has ended, SETI won't exist anymore.

Others are knowable, but currently beyond the reach of our ability to determine, such as the average number of Earth-like planets around stars in our galaxy. We're getting closer and closer to that one, but we're still a way off.

Frank Drake often recounts the anecdote of his creation of the equation that bears his name: it was an agenda for a conference in the early days of SETI. It wasn't ever intended to to be either a hypothesis or a theory. It's little more than a way of framing the questions to be asked (and hopefully answered) as part of SETI's progress. It's a useful and important way of thinking about SETI, but it's not a hypothesis. SETI's hypothesis is far simpler: "Extra-terrestrial intelligence exists". That's it.

Another common argument Massimo put forward in the interview was this: SETI assumes that all life in the universe must be like us, and they are therefore not looking for anything other than life like us. They're only looking for radio transmissions, and are only interested in Carbon-based life.

This argument is complete bullshit.

SETI researchers will be the first to acknowledge the fact that extra-terrestrial life could take any form. While we know that Carbon-based life works (because the only form of life we know of is Carbon-based), there's no way of knowing how many other forms of life may exist elsewhere in the universe, or even here on Earth. Because we only know of one kind of life so far, that's what we're looking for. When it comes to life forms of some unknown type: how would we go about looking for it? How can you search for something if you don't know what it looks like? Nobody is assuming that all life must be Carbon-based. But nobody knows how to look for life that isn't Carbon-based.

Horta: not Carbon-based

Secondly, SETI isn't only using radio astronomy to search for signals. That was the first tool that was used (by Frank Drake himself who pointed his radio antenna at the sky back in the 60's), and is probably still the most widely used tool for SETI research. This choice is based on two things:

Our atmosphere is opaque to most of the elecromagnetic spectrum. Only sections of the radio and visible light parts of the spectrum can get through largely unhindered.
Radio astronomy is cheaper than optical. It's a lot easier to build giant radio detectors (like Aricebo or the VLA) than it is to build giant mirrors for optical telescopes. And since SETI has always had funding issues, thrift is a virtue.

Cheap

That said, Optical SETI is a real thing. Nobody's ignoring that part of the spectrum. SETI researchers who can get their hands on funding for it are going at it as hard as they can.

SETI isn't assuming that any intelligent species out there must use radio (or even light) to communicate with us. Once again, they're going with what they know: radio and light. Humans use radio and light for communication, so we know that it works, and there's a possibility that ET would know that too - and might decide to exploit it the same way we do.

Once again, it's a practical concern. Nobody is claiming that ET would only use radio to talk to us. Nobody is even claiming that ET would talk to us at all... we just hope they will, and we hope they'll use something we can detect.

The third claim Massimo made (although less strongly) is that SETI hasn't changed their methods at all since Frank Drake's first attempt in the 60s.

This claim is also complete bullshit.

Although it's certainly true that the biggest weapon in SETI's arsenal is the same one Drake used: radio astronomy, as I've said, SETI has added at least one weapon to that arsenal in that time: Optical SETI. Also, SETI is constantly looking for ways of refining their search: Figuring out new tricks and techniques for optimising their telescope time, and figuring out what they should be looking for.

SETI has been utilising data and ideas generated by the more mainstream ongoing hunt for exoplanets as a guide, and coming up with insightful and hopefully fruitful new methods. For example: spending more time surveying stars that line up with the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun, since inhabitants of those stars would be more likely to have detected our presence through the transit and wobble methods that today's exoplanet hunters employ. And therefore would be more likely to try and make contact with us, if they're so inclined.

The SETI Institute has a whole staff of Phd's whose job it is to figure this stuff out. They literally sit around all day trying to come up with new and useful ways of improving their search, new things to look for, what we should do about it if we ever pick up that signal and being totally awesome.

If you're genuinely interested in learning more about what SETI actually does, as opposed to what the general public opinion about them seems to be, I highly recommend listening to Are We Alone - a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the SETI Institute and hosted by Dr Seth "The Alient Hunter" Shostak.

Ensign Shostak waiting for a signal

And guys, please. Do a little reading before attacking people like SETI. Those guys are far too nice to stick up for themselves. They've got a hard enough job as it is. Can you imagine working in a career knowing that there's a significant probability that you may never find what you're looking for in your lifetime? Especially since finding what you're looking for could be the most important discovery mankind has made ever. Cut them a little slack, okay?

Hypocrites

2010-05-30T11:10:00.000+02:00

Are you a hypocrite? Let's find out.

Do you believe any of the following things?

Evolution didn't happen, or if it did, it doesn't explain the origin of the humankind.
Climate change is all hype.
Homeopathy works.
The age of the universe is measured in thousands of years, not millions and certainly not billions.
The Earth is flat, not spherical or spheroid.
Quantum physics explains the existance of the soul.
The pyramids could only have been build by aliens. Humans of that period weren't clever enough to pull it off.
People can bend cutlery using only the power of their mind.
It's possible to predict the future reliably by interpreting celestial signs, tarot cards, gazing into crystal balls or just thinking about it really hard.
Vaccines cause autism.

If you do believe in any of those things (or anything similar), and you're reading this, congratulations! You are a hypocrite!

Why? I'll tell you!

The methods used to learn, parse, understand and apply the principles used to create computers and the Internet (the thing you're using to read this right now) are the very same methods used to understand the following reliable bits of understanding about the world:

The Theory of Evolution (including the notions of common descent and natural selection)
Anthropogenic Climate Change
The Germ Theory of Disease
The Big Bang Theory
The Theory of Gravity (both Newtonian and the theories of Relativity)
Quantum mechanics
Structural and material engineering.

And so on.

So, I propose this: either rethink your belief in those crazy notions, or do the rest of us a favour and stop using the Internet - since it clearly doesn't fit into your "worldview". Also: stop using gravity.

Kthxbai!

MTN Customer Disservice

2010-05-25T13:30:00.000+02:00

After the ordeal I went through in migrating my cellphone contract from Nashua Mobile to MTNSP two years ago, I was kind-of expecting a easier time of it when my contract came up for renewal.

As usual I was well prepared, and I had selected which device I wanted to upgrade to months in advance: the HTC Desire. I monitored press releases of the local distributor, Leaf, to see when it would become available in South Africa.

I believed that I would only be due for upgrade in June, 24 months after I opened the contract. I wanted to narrow down the date, so last week Wednesday I called in to check my upgrade status. The computer told me that I was already due for upgrade. Which was awesome.

So I set about the process of acquiring my new Desire.

My first stop was the relatively new MTN Direct website. From there, I should have been able to process my renewal and order my new device with only a few clicks. It was not to be so. I found the site to be months out of date, showing none of the newest offers, and the Desire wasn't yet listed on it.

So I decided to call in. I dialled the MTNSP Customer Support line and followed the voice prompts until I found myself on hold, waiting for a human to answer. I held for ten minutes before the call dropped. I tried again a little later: 32 minutes in, the call dropped again. I tried one more time: One hour and eight minutes of holding later, the call dropped.

So I tried another strategy: I relented and decided to go into an actual MTN store to do the upgrade. The client where I'm currently stationed is too far from the main MTN service centre in Sandton for me to get there during office hours, so I found the closest branch and went there: The Boulders Shopping Centre.

Within ten minutes or so, I had filled in all the required paperwork. The staff were friendly and helpful, and they were regretful about the fact that they didn't have the Desire in stock on the premises. The assured me they could order it, and it would most likely arrive on the Friday.

It didn't.

It also didn't arrive on the Monday. And I've just been told that it won't arrive today: it's still sitting at the Fourways Crossing branch, waiting to be shipped. A week after I ordered it, it has yet to make the 20-minute trip from Fourways to Midrand.

View Larger Map

So now I'm left with two choices: I can either wait another day (or another week, or longer), or I can drive to the Fourways branch myself and redo all the paperwork there. Neither of those is acceptable, really. I suppose if I want my new device today (and I really really do), I have little option but to take time out of my work day and make the trip. The very trip I was trying to avoid all along, by using the customer service systems MTN supposedly provides.

I even tried complaining to @MTNSouthAfrica on Twitter, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears too.

If I hadn't been burned before my the arduous and painful of experience of moving from one service provider to another two years ago, I would seriously be considering making another move right now.

Thanks for nothing, MTN. And don't think I haven't noticed the declining 3G reception where I live. If there isn't a serious turnaround in customer service in the next two years, I'll have to re-evaluate my decision not to move.

UPDATE: As you can see in the comments, I've just had a response from Mr Bagley, who apparently mans the @MTNSouthAfrica Twitter account. Let's hope it works out!

UPDATE 2: I ended up going to the Fourways branch. A fortuitous confluence of unrelated events led to me happening to be driving through the area in the mid afternoon. I signed the papers again and left with my shiny new HTC Desire. While driving home I received a phone call from an MTN representative regarding my tweet. It would have been an interesting experiment to see how long it would have taken to resolve my complaint had I not gone to the other branch. But it's an experiment I think I'm better off for not having run.

It's Googlemas!

2010-05-20T09:54:00.001+02:00

Google I/O, Google's annual developer conference is underway. What does that mean? Lots of new Google-riffic toys for us to play with!

Rather than inundate you guys with an unending torrent of updates in Twitter, Reader and Buzz, I thought it might be better to collate the most exciting announcements in one place. And since one of the first exciting announcements was the opening of Wave to the general public (no more invites needed), what better way to do it than inside an embedded wave?

Foursquare Etiquette Questions

2010-05-03T12:03:00.000+02:00

I recently posted about my decision to start using Foursquare, the location-based social networking tool.

I'm still having fun with it, but a few questions have come to mind regarding the proper etiquette for using it. I've also found a few resources that have answered my questions, but I've got a few that remain unanswered.

I'm going to tap into your collective wisdom to try and find the answers:

If I went on holiday and stayed at a hotel or something, should I check in only when I arrive, or every day as long as I'm there?
Should I check in at a place if I'm just there looking at/for something, but don't make an actual purchase? Like if I'm window-shopping, or if I'm looking for a specific item and they're out of stock.
If one place is nested inside another place (like a coffee shop inside a shopping mall), should I check into both, or only one? Which one?

Some Things I've Changed My Mind About

2010-04-30T14:49:00.000+02:00

I argue that the defining characteristic of someone dedicated to the sceptical paradigm is the singular ability to change one's mind and opinions based on the presentation of new evidence. As soon as you're bound to a particular conclusion, you're no longer acting sceptically, and have become an ideologue.

It's the process of scepticism that's important, not the conclusions it leads you to. The "truths" about the world that scepticism reveals must, necessarily, be secondary - because they're always provisional, and should, ideally, constantly be re-evaluated based on new information.

With that in mind, I think it's a valuable exercise, as a sceptic, to pat oneself on the back from time to time, by identifying some of the things you've changed your mind about, based on new evidence or arguments coming to light. I hope to make this a regular series, but since this is the first instalment, I'm going to look at some of the biggest issues I've changed my mind about in my life.

UFOs

I've always been fascinated by space. Before I knew how to spell the word, I wanted to be an Astronomer (either that or a Paleontologist, which I also couldn't spell at the time). I was mesmerised by Saturday night presentations of Star Trek and Space 1999 (even though I barely understood them at the time). I was also transfixed by Carl Sagan's haunting speeches in the Cosmos series about the possibilities of extra-terrestrial civilisations, and the hope that we might someday communicate with them.

Somehow or other (probably through my school library) I came across the notion of UFOs and alleged encounters with extra-terrestrial beings. Being the credulous lad I was, I bought it. I was thrilled and terrified at the prospect that visitors from other planets were visiting us, and I eagerly awaited the day official First Contact would happen.

It never did.

One day, while looking for awesome pictures of Star Trek ships online, I stumbled across a website that astounded me: www.badastronomy.com. Phil Plait's simple, elegant and humourous explanations exposing the flawed assumptions, innaccurate information and simple logical refutations of the things I had believed were overpoweringly persuasive. After only a few days' worth of reading, I had no choice but to reverse my belief in UFOs. The evidence and logic where too clear not to.

Alternative Therapies

In my early twenties, one of my first full-time jobs was for a company planning a health and fitness expo. It was my job to cold-call possible exhibitors and then meet with them to try and get them to buy some floor-space at the expo.

I was terrible at it.

Nevertheless, I was encouraged to seek out anyone and everyone selling something relating to the pursuit of health. Since I didn't know any better at the time, I basically opened up the Yellow Pages to "H" and started calling. On the whole, I found the purveyors of alternative therapies to be far more willing to meet with me, and to buy floor space. During those few months I met with a bevvy of homeopaths, naturopaths, massage therapists, acupuncturists, iridologists and assorted other well-dressed people with fancy-sounding titles (including one lady who informed me with a giggle that she enjoyed sitting in her hyperbaric chamber between appointments with her "patients")

Like this. Seriously.

I recall being taken aback when I met with one man, an actual MD, who asked what sort of other exhibitors would be present. He was outraged when I mentioned the word "homeopath", and the sales call ended then and there. I hadn't the foggiest idea why at the time.

It would be years before I learned about the distinction between medicine and alternative medicine (aka: not medicine), and finally came to understand that doctor's reaction. I learned that the faith I had placed in advertising was misplaced... a faith that even three years of studying advertising at college hadn't shaken. I learned to mistrust people claiming to be authorities, and instead evaluate the claims on their own merit.

God

I was raised a Christian. Not the evangelical, biblical literalist kind. I was raised in a traditional presbytarian church. I didn't resist my religious indoctrination at all - I trusted my parents and other elders to give me the right information. I went to church every Sunday. I sang in the choir. In my late teens, I even qualified and practiced as a Sunday School teacher for a while. I bought it.

A likely contributing factor to why I bought it was the somewhat moderate nature of the doctrine I was fed. I was simultaneously taught about the scientific explanation of the origins of the world and about the biblical account of creation in Genesis. I was told that there was no contradiction between the two, since the former was scientifically accurate, and the latter was more of a metaphor, used by God to explain to bronze-age people the fact that he created the universe, not so much how he did so.

After my introduction to organised scepticism via Bad Astronomy, I did a lot of reading. It was a lengthy process in which I systematically evaluated and then abandoned a lot of my former beliefs. The last big one to go was God. For the better part of a year I remained ambivalent on the question of God. I wasn't a Christian anymore (although I still called myself a "Philosophical Christian", whatever that means"), but I wasn't ready to abandon the whole idea. I couldn't bring myself to adopt the label "atheist" or even "agnostic".

Only after reading The God Delusion was I able to shake off the invisible sky daddy once and for all. There was no magic bullet - no single problem that I wasn't able to reconcile. But if I had to choose the argument that I found most persuasive, it was Russel's Cosmic Teapot.

Jesus (twice)

After adopting the label of 'atheist', I wasn't sure what to do with my ideas around the historicity of the bible as a whole, and Jesus in particular. Just how fictionalised were the accounts contained therein? How much was metaphor, exaggeration, copy-error and pure fabrication?

The first person who helped me to answer this question was Robert M. Price, in his appearances in the Bible Geek episodes of the Infidel Guy Show podcast. Through Price I learned that whole sections of the bible had been copied from other, pre-existing documents; that there's little to no archaeological evidence supporting any of the "historical" narrative in its pages, and that at least a few serious biblical scholars doubt that there ever was a historical Jesus.

I found his arguments persuasive, and came to conclude that there likely was no historical Jesus. Or, at the very least, the one described in the bible had been so distorted that he likely bore no resemblance to any actual, one person.

Not an actual person

More recently, I've read some of Bart Ehrmans' work. In Jesus, Interrupted he argues that a substantial portion of the biblical account of Jesus' life was likely fictionalised, but that with careful scrutiny quite a lot of it can be determined to likely be historically accurate - suggesting that Jesus probably was an actual guy, a teacher of sorts who started some shit in ancient Palestine.

My interest in the bible and the origins of the Christian religion is ongoing. One of the things I'm particularly interested in is evaluating the claims about certain traits that Christians claims are unique to them. Are they unique to Christians? Where do they come from? Are the useful or not? Fascinating stuff.

Free Will (twice)

A tough pill to swallow has been the existence of free will. I think we all assume, probably automatically, that we have a will of our own, that is somehow independent of our circumstances and environment.

But in a deterministic universe (as I now believe to be the one I live in) it simply can't be so. Decisions are made in the brain, which is a physical structure that conforms to deterministic physical laws - it can't do otherwise. Even in a quantum universe, where randomness is always a factor, randomness isn't the same as free will. Free will, so defined, is a persistent illusion.

Don't think about a yellow beetle.

I've recently called this conclusion into question. Not so much because I think my assumptions about it are wrong, but rather because I think I've been defining the terms incorrectly. If, instead, I consider free will to be my own ability to make decisions free of imposition from other causal agents (in other words: other people) I'm happy that it's free enough to be considered 'free'.

Assuming I'm not under the influence of another person's manipulations, my decisions are effectively free. That's not to say that my brain isn't still a deterministic machine, subject to environmental influences - it's more of a metaphysical redefinition of 'freedom' in this context.

I can live with the fact that my brain will do what it does, because it can't do otherwise. But when I feel that my choices are being manipulated or forced by another person who is deliberately limiting my options, I start to get annoyed. That's when my 'free will' is being compromised.

It's because of this, that I'm starting to re-evaluate my long-held position in favour of some form of communism. I'll keep you posted on where I get to on that one.

Geo-based Social Networking

2010-04-28T10:52:00.000+02:00

I've known about the location-based social networking tool, Foursquare, for a while now. I've always thought it was rather silly - checking into places and earning points and badges along the way. Not to mention earning the dubious title of "mayor" of your favourite hang-out.

I was perfectly happy with the other geo-based social tool I was already using: Google Latitude. It was more convenient (automatically broadcasting my location to my friends, no check-in required) and didn't have that silly gaming element to it - so it was more serious.

When Google Buzz was released, it added an extra dimension to my geo-social world. Suddenly the tool I was already using for Latitude (Google Maps for Mobile) allowed me to post things, attaching them not only to coordinates on a map, but to places that have been indexed by Google Maps.

My biggest gripe with it was, and is, if the place I wanted to buzz about hadn't been indexed, as is far too often the case, the whole thing got kind of messy. I had to try and link it to an address, or to my own current location (which, if I am indoors and can't get a GPS signal, can sometimes be off by a couple of Kilometers).

A couple of weeks ago I started noticing something interesting: there was a sudden upswing in the number of Buzz posts in and around Joburg in Google Maps for Mobile. Looking at the posts, I noticed that almost all of them were coming through from Twitter. I knew that Twitter supported geo-tagging of tweets (provided you have a Twitter client that lets you do it), and it seemed that those geo-tags were being pulled through into Buzz via the Twitter integration. Awesome.

Lots of Buzz in Joburg today

Upon further scrutiny, I noticed that a substantial portion of those buzzes were being posted via Twitter from Foursquare. I was intrigued, so I took a look another look at it.

I still think the gaming side of it is rather silly. But the one thing I particularly like about Foursquare that Google Buzz lacks, is the ability for end users (like me) to add new places to the database if the place I'm sitting in isn't there already. Although there's still a little fiddling with addresses and things to create the place to begin with, once it's in there I (or anyone else) can check into it with no further fuss.

So, I'm giving Foursquare a go. I'm still not entirely happy with the manual check-in process. Also, the fact that there's no native app for my mobile device means that I'm forced to rely on the mobile website, which can also be a bit of a hassle (my network's DNS isn't exactly the fastest).

So far I'm liking it. I'm finding it a rather fun addition to my existing suite of geo-social apps (not a replacement, a supplement). I haven't had any situations where it filled a serious need. We'll see if it does that.

In the mean-time, I'd suggest you try it out too, and add me as your Foursquare friend so we can compete on points and stuff. See you there!

Making Choices

2010-04-26T13:27:00.000+02:00

I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with some friends, about the processes involved in making choices. I learned that not everyone has heard as much about these sorts of things as I have. And since I've found the knowledge to be liberating and tremendously useful, I thought it might be a good idea to present it here.

First, a disclaimer: I'm neither a psychologist nor a neurologist. My understanding of these things comes from the sorts of books and blogs I like to read, and podcasts I like to listen to. Usually, the sources they come from are experts (often actual psychologists and neuro-scientists), so I'm pretty confident in their reliability. That said, I'm going to be reproducing a lay-person's understanding of these things, which is probably not a reliable source (read: it's probably way over-simplified and most likely wrong in a lot ways). If you're interested in a more detailed (and probably more accurate) understanding of this, I'd suggest further reading. But I hope you'll find this a useful and enlightening starting point.

The first thing we need to agree on is that the brain is where all the action happens. It's not only where memories are stored, but it's where all sensory information is processed and consciousness is somehow generated. We know that this is true, because decades of medical records show that damage to the brain impairs the ability to recall memories, to perform tasks and to process sensory information.

But it goes one step further: damage to specific parts of the brain can impair specific functions. That implies that the brain has a kind of modular structure: different bits have different functions. When they work together they do the things we know the brain does. Neuro-scientists have very sophisticated instruments that can observe those different areas operating distinctly, but together, and working to produce the subjective experience of life.

But they've also learned some other interesting things. When a certain part of the brain is damaged, the person isn't necessarily aware of the damage. They might not even notice that a certain set of tasks they used to be able to perform are no longer available to them. This could be some missing memories, an inability to recognise faces, even an inability to see (something you'd think people might notice!).

What that tells us is that the brain isn't very good at internal diagnostics. It's not really capable of doing a self-check to make sure that everything's in working order... it just keeps going as if the damaged part is working normally. That means that our conscious experience doesn't really include any awareness of how our brain is functioning: There are processes going on inside us that we're completely unaware of, even in a perfectly healthy brain.

Another important point is the way the different parts of the brain are put together. They're not just all squeezed together in a lump - there's a specific structure at work. To understand this structure better, we need to understand a little about evolution.

Although all living things on Earth are related to each other, not all living things have brains. Only a small portion of us have those. Most multi-cellular animals have a kind of nervous system - a specific set of cells that act as a communications network between the the various parts of the body. The nervous system helps to coordinate things, like moving around, breathing, eating, pumping blood and so on. Many of the more complex kinds of animals have a central core, where the processing of commands for the nervous system happens - that's what the brain is.

Larger and more complex animals have brains that can do more than just coordinate things and process sensory information: they can store memories, evaluate threats in the environment and make decisions about how to react to a given set of circumstances.

A small sub-set of those can do even more complicated things: they can recognise specific individual members of their own species (which allows them to interact socially and collaborate on rearing offspring), they can coordinate activities like hunting or evading a predator. A tiny minority can even think in abstract terms: Recognising themselves in a mirror, inventing and using tools and constructing complex communication systems. Humans are a member of that minority.

Over many millions of years of evolution, our ancestors started out with a primitive nervous system, then developed a brain. That brain grew in complexity, and new regions and areas grew out of old ones, until now we have the familiar-looking brain we recognise. An important thing to note is that those old, primitive brain regions haven't gone away - they're still a part of our brains today. Evolution has just added new 'modules' to the brain, piling them up, one on top of the other.

Human Brain

So when we look at the structure of the human brain, we see the oldest, simplest structures at the bottom (the spinal cord) and the newest, most complex parts at the top (the frontal lobe). Those old structures still do what they always have (coordinating bodily functions and processing sensory information) and the newer parts do the things we tend to think of as being uniquely human (compassion for others, planning for the future, art, logic, philosophy, language and so on). The cerebral cortex is also the part where most of our consciousness happens.

The brain is also wired up according to that pattern of development. Since the eyes developed long before the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information sits in one of the older parts. There's also a part of the cerebral cortex devoted to processing visual information, but it only does so once the older part of the brain has had its first pass. We know this because there is a condition where people have damage to the visual cortex, and thus are unable to see - but they can somehow still evade obstacles in their path. This means they're still processing visual information, but that information isn't being passed through to the conscious mind.

This is important, because it seems that there's another part of the brain, separate from the conscious mind, that makes decisions.

That's what researchers see in experiments. Neuro-scientists have a very useful tool called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) which allows them to look at a brain as it's working. They're able to plot out the parts of the brain which are busy by literally seeing which bits light up on the screen while the test subject performs a task.

"I like the pretty lights"

When a test subject is given a choice to make, the first part of the brain to light up is the limbic system. This is a group of components of the brain that form part of the "brain-stem" - a very old part of the brain, just above the spinal cord. This is a part of the brain known to be associated with emotion and processing sensory information (also where the famous "fight-or-flight" reaction lives). Once the subject has made the decision, the reasoning and creative parts of the brain light up, as they start to explain how they arrived at that decision.

So what does that tell us?

It strongly implies that it's our primitive mammalian (or even reptillian) parts that are in charge of making decisions. The 'higher' brain functions are then tasked with rationalising those decisions after they've already been made.

Let's think about that for a little while. It means that the little ferret-like thing living inside you (the legacy of your ancestor from hundreds of millions of years ago) is the one in charge - making your decisions and running your life. It's making those decisions based on simple emotional responses to sensory information, and its primitive little analysis of the world it's living in. The big, clever, human part of you is pretty much along for the ride - making up the story of your life after it happened. That's kinda scary, isn't it?

Who's the boss? This thing.

I said at the beginning of this post that I found this understanding liberating and useful. What's so liberating about having a rodent in the driver's seat of your life?

It's this: I'm no longer bound by my own irrational decisions. I'm able to recognise (sometimes with difficulty) that the choices I've made about my life haven't always been the best ones. How could they be? How can my inner weasel possibly comprehend the complexity of modern human life? If I found that I've made a bad decision along the way, I can go back and revisit it: re-evaluate the story I told myself about it, and try to come up with a better choice based on the real facts of the matter.

I picture myself taking my inner hamster out of his little wheel, giving him a little saucer of things to eat, and explaining to him why his decision was wrong. I give him a bunch of new facts that he probably didn't consider first time around. I show him some mental pictures of how things could have been if he'd acted differently. When we agree on what to do next, I put him back in his little wheel, and get on with it.

My limbic system

I believe that recognising the fact that your own decisions may have been bad, no matter how rational they seemed at the time, is an important revelation. Whenever possible, I try to have that little bonding moment with my Paleomammalian brain before I do anything foolish. I'd suggest that you try that too.

I've gone on about this for far too long already. But I'd like to close with one thing to keep in mind: when making a potentially important decision, try to ask yourself "What would a marmot do?"

Homeopathy Awareness Week

2010-04-11T10:25:00.000+02:00

Yay! It's everyone's favourite week about nothing at all!

So, in celebration, I would like to repost this for your entertainment and edumacation:

So what's the harm?

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's my Back to Basics post.

And just for fun, here's the one where I (metaphorically) punched a homeopath in the face.

Facebook Foolery

2010-04-10T11:37:00.000+02:00

Yesterday a Facebook friend of mine posted a status update that got me thinking. I haven't asked his/her permission to reproduce it here, so I won't mention names unless that person decides to identify themselves in the comments.

The Status update was as follows:

"Scientists have discovered yet another link their evolutionary chain: a couple of supposedly several-million-years-old skeletons of "humanoids" that resemble orangutans. Has it occurred to any of those brilliant scholars that those really ARE orangutans?? Hello?"

Without going into too much detail, this person is intelligent, creative, well educated and has an interest in the sciences. How, then, could someone like that be so completely wrong in every detail?

Before I delve into that question, let's first look at why it's wrong.

Given the timing of the post, I'm assuming that it refers to the recently announced discovery of two skeletons belonging to what is being called Australopithicus Sediba - a supposedly previously undiscovered hominid species native to the area surrounding Johannesburg, South Africa (my home - one of the reasons I'm particularly interested in it).

Australopithicus Sediba

As with any proposed new species, particularly those that are claimed to be part of the human ancestral line, there's a considerable scientific controversy about it. This is a normal part of the scientific process: whenever a new discovery is made and a claim put forward as to its place in the scheme of things, it falls on those discoverers to defend their argument from the scrutiny it will receive from the rest of the scientific community. If they're successful in doing so, their new idea will eventually become part of the scientific consensus.

Questions usually raised in cases like this are things like "Is this really a new species?", "Is it really as old as it seems to be?", "Does it really represent a species that is ancestral to Homo Sapiens, or is it only a cousin?" and so on. You may recall the back and forth we've seen over the discovery of "Homo Floresiensis" several years ago. The questions in that debate haven't yet been finally settled, and it may be several more years before they are. The same will likely be true of Australopithicus Sediba as well. John Hawks has written an excellent overview of the controversy surrounding it.

Okay, so that's the background, let's look at the actual claims in the status update:

"Scientists have discovered yet another link their evolutionary chain"

Describing the taxonomical classification of various species as a "chain" shows a pretty clear misunderstanding of how evolution works, and particularly the notion of common descent. For this reason, scientists almost never describe it as such anymore, and seldom, if ever, use the term "missing link" to describe new species either. Simply because those analogies aren't very useful or descriptive. You're far more likely to hear scientists referring to "branches" or "twigs" on the "Tree of life", because that imagery more closely resembles the actual structure of phylogeny. That doesn't stop tabloid newspapers from using the term "missing link" at every available opportunity... but if we haven't learned by now not to trust the mainstream and tabloid media for science news, we are truly lost.

Tree of Life

"...a couple of supposedly several-million-years-old..."

"Several" is an interesting choice of words here. The paper clearly states that the skeletons are less than 2 million years old - between 1.78 and 1.95 million, to be precise. That's not to say that those dates are subject to possible revision, but nobody is claiming right now that they're any older than that. Why implicitly inflate the age?

"...skeletons of "humanoids"..."

The correct term here is "hominid". "Humanoid" is a term used in science fiction to describe species closely resembling humans, but who don't necessarily have any biological relation to us. "Hominid" is a term used in paleoanthropology to describe a subset of ape species that are human-like, including Homo Sapiens - us.

"...that resemble orangutans..."

This is an even stranger choice of words. Why orangutan? Why not gorilla or chimpanzee?

Let's look at a little background in ape phylogeny. Today there are two subfamilies under the family of the "Great Apes" (Hominidae): Pongo (orangutans) and Homininae (gorillas, chimpanzees and humans). That means we're all pretty closely related. But it doesn't mean we're equally closely related to each other. The common ancestor between the Pongo subfamily and the Homininae subfamily lived a lot longer ago than the various common ancestors of the different species within the Homininae subfamily. That means orangutans are our most distant relatives within this family.

Ape Phylogeny

The subfamily Homininae is itself divided into two tribes: Gorillini (gorillas) and Hominini (chimpanzees and humans). That means that within that subfamily, gorillas are our most distant ancestor.

In turn, the tribe Hominini is divided into two subtribes: Panina (common chimpanzees and bonobos) and Hominina (all the different species of humans). Whether or not Australopithecus Sediba is indeed a new species, there is no doubt that it does fall within the Hominina subtribe, which makes it a human species. Which means that it most closely resembles other human species. It less closely resembles chimpanzees. And even less closely resembles gorillas. And even less closely resembles orangutans.

So why choose orangutans to compare it to? I don't get it.

"Has it occurred to any of those brilliant scholars..."

A scholar is a specialist in the humanities: art, history, philosophy. These people are not scholars, they are scientists. Describing a scientist as a 'scholar' is a subtle way of undermining their credibility.

"...that those really ARE orangutans?"

Although I can't read the minds of the scientists involved, I'm pretty certain that this thought has occurred to them. In fact, it's not necessary to be a scientist to make that determination, we can all do it right here together.

Here is the skeleton of Australopithicus Sediba:

The Malapa Skeletons

Here is a skeleton of an orangutan:

Orangutan

They certainly bear a striking resemblance - as do the skeletons of all the great apes. But they are clearly not the same. Even an untrained eye can see the clear differences between them.

Which brings me back to my original question: why would someone say something like this?

I suspect the answer is twofold:

First, the person is very religious (probably a Young-Earth Creationist) and therefore has a vested ideological interest in refuting the claims of paleoanthropologists.

Second, given that, I'm guessing the person relies on a combination of mainstream media (which is incompetent) and Christian publications (which have the same ideological bias, and are also incompetent) for their information.

I think it's pretty sad, really. A combination of selection and confirmation biases have conspired to make this person make a fool of themselves on the Internet. Unfortunately it's not the first time this has happened to someone, and it won't be the last.

Patriotism

2010-04-09T13:57:00.000+02:00

There's something that's pretty much always bothered me, and it seems to have come to a head recently, what with the You Know What just around the corner. That something is patriotism.

Patriotism is a love for and devotion to one's country. Of all the things to love and be devoted to, a country seems like a pretty strange one to me. What is it about a country that inspires or is deserving of such devotion? Devotion of that nature seems to be based around the assumption that one's own country is somehow superior to all other countries - I call this 'the patriotic assumption'.

Patriotic car

I've been seeing car after car, advertising and shop windows, even people's clothing displaying the South African national flag, often accompanied by the logos and colours of our national sports teams (for obvious reasons). Why is it that these people do this? Why do they decorate their cars and themselves with these things? Why do I get funny looks when I say that I'm not at all patriotic?

Funny looks or looks funny.

Let's take a look at the components that make up a country: Territory, nation and state.

Territory

This refers to the physical land area contained within the official borders of the country. When it comes to South Africa, I don't deny that we have some pretty beautiful places here. Table Mountain, the Waterberg, the Drakensberg, the Wild Coast, the Karoo and so on... all awesomely beautiful places endowed with a lush biodiversity. Aesthetically pleasing to look at and even scientifically interesting.

Not bad

But is South Africa somehow better than anywhere else? Is Knysna a better rainforest than the Amazon? Is the Fish River a better canyon than the Grand? Are the ruins of Mapungubwe better than those at Macchu Pichu or Giza? No, of course not. They're all lovely in their own right, but I don't see any valid argument supporting the notion that our physical terrain is qualitatively superior to any other.

I don't see any grounds for the patriotic assumption here. Moving on.

Nation

This describes the human population of the country: The people themselves, their history and culture. Are the South African people better than anyone else? How would we measure that anyway?

Let's postulate a metric, one that's often mentioned in tourist material as being a distinguishing characteristic of the South African people: ethnic diversity. Sure, we have quite a variety of ethnicities present here, some indiginous and many others who have settled here more recently. Is South Africa more diverse than anywhere else? Is it more diverse than China, or even the United States? No. And even then, the metric itself is problematic in that the definition of a distinct ethnic group is fuzzy at best.

"Rainbow Nation"

The same goes for just about any other metric one could postulate: economic, psychological, academic... you name it. There is always a better country somewhere, and in many cases we're near the bottom of the pile. There just doesn't seem to be any objective measure that could be used to support the notion that the South African people are somehow better than anyone else.

State

This refers to the administrative aspects of the country: the government, the law and the principles upon which the country was founded. Are these any better than anywhere else?

The South African government, while not the worst around, are known to be riddled with corruption - even our current president is a known fraudster who used political pressure to escape prosecution, while simultaneously lying about it to the public. Escalating riots around the country inspired by lack of service delivery demonstrate that the government is not only corrupt, but also incompetent. I submit that our government is an embarassment, not something to be proud of.

President Jacob Zuma

What about our laws and principles? Surely our constitution would be the embodiment of that. While it's a pretty good one, compared to many other national constitutions, there are a number of fundamental flaws in it. Among them, the lack of an explicit separation of church and state, the awarding of taxpayers' money to "traditional leaders" who are given limited government powers despite not having been democratically elected, and so on.

In the areas where our constitution is strong, like in guaranteeing freedom of speech, the press and other civil rights, it is vulnerable to perversion and even revision by the corrupt successors of the people who drafted it to begin with.

In short, the state of South Africa has little to nothing about it worthy of admiration, and I therefore see no grounds for the patriotic assumption here.

So what now?

Why do South Africans still fly the flag? Why do they clutch their chests and get all misty-eyed when they sing the National Anthem? Why do they wear Bafana Bafana shirts to work every Friday? Why do they care who the Springboks or Proteas have or haven't beaten this week?

I don't know. I really don't. If there was some kind of real or imagined benefit to doing so, I might understand it. But as far as I can see there is none. Although the manifestation of this patriotic fervour seems similar to a kind of religious devotion, at least in religion there's a kind of expectation that the deity in question will likely bestow blessings upon you in return for your worship and dedication. There doesn't seem to be anything like that when it comes to patriotism... there isn't even an implied suggestion of tax breaks or improved service delivery.

Patriotism, it seems to me, is even less rational and more useless than religion.

SpeakZA - Bloggers for a Free Press

2010-03-24T07:23:00.000+02:00

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

Blog Roll

http://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwane
http://rwrant.co.za
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/
http://blogs.news24.com/needpoint
http://capetowngirl.co.za
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo
http://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmith
http://letterdash.com/one-eye-only
http://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.com
http://amandasevasti.com
http://blog.empyrean.co.za/
http://letterdash.com/brencro
http://6000.co.za
http://chrisroper.co.za
http://pieftw.com
http://hamishpillay.wordpress.com
http://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.com
http://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessa
http://watkykjy.co.za
http://fredhatman.co.za
http://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/
http://www.clivesimpkins.blogs.com/
http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com
http://nicharalambous.com
http://sarocks.co.za
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://01universe.blogspot.com
http://groundwork.worpress.com
http://iwrotethisforyou.me
http://fionasnyckers.book.co.za
http://attentiontodetail.wordpress.com
http://blogs.women24.com/editor
http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com
http://snowgoose.co.za
http://dreamfoundry.co.za
http://www.vanoodle.blogspot.com
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://cat-dubai.blogspot.com
http://alistairfairweather.com
http://www.zanedickens.com
http://www.nickhuntdavis.com
http://guysa.blogspot.com
http://book.co.za
http://baldy.co.za
http://skinnylaminx.com
http://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa
http://www.mielie.wordpress.com
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten
http://stii.co.za
http://blogs.news24.com/FSB_AP
http://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.com
http://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/
http://trinklebean.wordpress.com
http://commentry.wordpress.com/
http://matthewbuckland.com
http://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-fran
http://gormendizer.co.za
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://www.harassedmom.co.za
http://ravingfans.co.za
http://khadijapatel.co.za
http://simon.co.za/speakza
http://gnatj.com
http://moralfibre.co.za
http://www.exmi.co.za

Sceptics in the Pub!

2010-03-23T18:51:00.000+02:00

Yes! It's that time again! Well, almost... it will be in about two weeks time.

Joburg sceptics will be gathering in a pub to be all sceptical!

This month we're back in the East at Dros on the corner of Modderfontein and Van Riebeeck roads, Edenvale.

View Larger Map

Would Warp Drive Kill You?

2010-03-09T08:08:00.000+02:00

No. At least, not the way William Edelstein claims it would.

In a nutshell, Edelstein claims that when a ship travelling at near the speed of light comes into contact with free-floating Hydrogen atoms in space, the relative velocities of the ship and the Hydrogen would turn it into a lethal blast of radiation, killing the crew. Edelstein used the crew of the Starship Enterprise as an example saying "Well, they're all dead."

I'm not going to argue the physics with a physicist, but when he starts talking smack about Star Trek he's on my turf. There are several reasons why interstellar Hydrogen (and anything else that happens to be floating around in space) presents little to no threat to the crew of the Enterprise.

Reason 1: Navigation Deflector.

In the Star Trek universe, Starship designers have anticipated the problem of floating interstellar debris: be it asteroids, dust or molecular Hydrogen. As a solution, every Starship is fitted with a vital piece of equipment: the Navigational Deflector (also occasionally called the "Asteroid Beam"). Its function is to project a high particle-density stream of radiation out ahead of the ship so as to bump any small obstacles out of the way.

You'll recognise the Navigational Deflector as the large, glowing (usually) blue thingy in the front of the ship:

Glowing Blue Thingy

Larger obstacles present a challenge for the Navigational Deflector, and must be navigated around. Hydrogen is not a problem.

Reason 2: Bussard Collectors

Encountering Hydrogen in space is, for a Starship, actually a very good thing. Reason being that Starships are powered by Hydrogen. For this reason, Starship designers have equipped most Starships with devices called Bussard Collectors, or Ramscoops. The second name being more descriptive as to their function.

These are the glowing red (usually) thingies at the front end of each Warp nacelle:

Glowing Red Thingy

These devices project a strong magnetic field out ahead of the ship, capturing free-floating Hydrogen (having been ionised by the Navigational Deflector) and funneling it into a collector. From there it gets processed and eventually ends up in the ship's fuel tanks, ready to be annihilated with some antimatter.

Reason 3: Warp Drive

This is a tricky one. Although Warp Drive allows people in the Star Trek universe to travel at velocities far in excess of the speed of light, they're not really travelling faster than light. Because, well, that would be impossible.

Instead, the Warp Drive uses incredibly powerful artificial gravity and electromagnetic fields to curve (or warp) space-time, thus effectively reducing the distance between them and their destination. The ship then travels at nice, comfortable, sub-light speeds through the newly warped space. As soon as the ship has passed through a particular region of space, it snaps back to its normal dimensions.

You may have wondered why the image of the ship stretches out as we see it go to Warp... well, that's why. It's not really stretching, it's just travelling through a region of warped space-time.

Not Really Stretching.

Even if the Navigational Deflector and Bussard Collectors were to go offline, that free-floating Hydrogen wouldn't pose much of a threat to a ship travelling at an actual speed (relative to the space around it) of a few thousand kilometers per hour. Friction? Yes. Lethal blast of radiation? Hardly.

So don't worry. Despite inflammatory headlines on MSNBC, Captain Kirk and the gang are quite safe on the Bridge of the Enterprise. They have more to worry about from Klingons and Romulans than free-floating Hydrogen.

If you're interested in learning more about the physics and technology of the Star Trek universe, I recommend The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence Krauss and Star Trek: Science Logs - Andre Bormanis.

A Matter of Faith

2010-03-08T15:19:00.000+02:00

Recently I have been called to task on my seemingly religious devotion to Google. I have been accused of straying from the path, and worshiping false gods. That the one true creator of the universe would not abide my apparent infidelity.

But I submit to those, my detractors, that I have not strayed! I remain ever faithful to my creator! I submit to them, and to you, that Google and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are one and the same!

FSM Google Doodle

See? The FSM's meatballs are the two O's in the name 'Google'. And the eyes on stalks: they represent Google's ever-present, omniscient and unblinking gaze upon the Internet!

And if you require more proof than this, I offer you the one argument that will forever convince you.

1. Google is the Internet.
2. The Internet is a series of tubes.
3. What else is a series of tubes?

Noodly Appendages

If that hasn't convinced you, then nothing will. I will ~~pray~~ search for your soul. RAmen.

Google Buzz (and Wave) on Symbian S60 devices

2010-03-01T11:30:00.000+02:00

I recently expressed some dismay over the fact that it was impossible for me to view my full Google Buzz stream on my Nokia N95 8GB.

I've since learned that the S60 3rd Edition browser is more than capable of running the Google Mobile web-app created for the iPhone. It supports most of the same standards, including AJAX. Apparently the only thing preventing a Nokia user from viewing the iPhone webapp is that Google only presents it to browsers identifying themselves as an iPhone (or presumably also an Android device).

I can only guess why Google would decide to do that. But until that policy changes, or I get my new Android device on my next upgrade, I'll have to work around it.

And I've figured out a way to do it. It's clumsy and inelegant, but it will work in a pinch. The added bonus is that it also works for Google Wave... albeit equally clumsily.

The workaround is pretty simple: install the Skyfire mobile browser.

Skyfire uses some sort of web proxy magic so as to present the full desktop version of a site. That includes Gmail (with Buzz), Google Wave, and presumably any other desktop site you need to display on your mobile device.

Gmail on Skyfire (with my awesome LCARS custom theme)

Google Buzz on Skyfire

Google Wave on Skyfire

As a rule I prefer not to use 3rd-party browsers on my device because there's no way to set them as the system default. I also find Skyfire rather awkward to use, what with all the panning and zooming. But in an emergency it'll do the trick.

If anyone knows of a better trick, share!

Predicting the Future

2010-02-26T10:56:00.000+02:00

Predicting the future with accuracy isn't easy. I've tried it before with limited success. But today I'm going to make three very specific predictions about the near future. In less than a week, we'll know how accurate I will have been.

Let's begin.

Prediction #1

Tomorrow morning (Saturday the 27th of February 2010) the Johannesburg contingent of the USS Dauntless (or "Away Team Alpha" as they are known) will be getting together to donate blood en masse. Here's the best part: you're welcome to join us!

If you'd like to donate blood with us, or just share in some awesome Star Trek conversation, meet us at McDonald's in Bruma for a hearty breakfast at 10:00am. After breakfast, we'll head across the road to the local SANBS branch and donate some blood.

Hope to see you there!

Prediction #2

On the evening of Wednesday the 3rd of March 2010, there will be a gathering called Joburg Sceptics in the Pub! Yay!

We'll be meeting at Dros in Cresta Shopping Centre at 19:00. We've been seeing new faces at SiTP every month. This time we hope to see yours!

Prediction #3

In the next few days, Simon Halliday over at Amanuensis will be posting the next edition of Carnival of the Africans. If you've written something sceptical or sciencey either in or about the African continent recently, please head over there and send it to him.

Right, so, give it a week and let's see how well my predictions hold up!

Google Buzz

2010-02-23T11:25:00.001+02:00

In case you're some kind of Luddite and don't yet know what Google Buzz is (in which case, why are you reading this?), it's Google's new venture to crack into the social networking space currently dominated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Its launch a couple of weeks ago has been surrounded by some controversy, as many people were taken by surprise by some of Buzz's features. And they were loud an obnoxious about it. And Google were pretty surprised about that. So was I.

As a long-time Google user, the way Buzz worked was intuitive to me. It made perfect sense, and still does. Although I can see why some people may have been upset about it, for the most part my response has been "These things have been standard in various Google products since forever. There's no point acting all surprised about it now."

Controversy aside, I really enjoy Buzz. The way it so neatly plugs into my pre-existing Google services makes me happy. Although I'm using it enthusiastically, and now consider it my primary social networking tool, I'm not ready to delete my Facebook or Twitter accounts just yet. Here's why.

Mobile Access

I'm a big mobile user, but I don't yet have an Android device (and I'll never be buying an iPhone). As a result, my options for interacting with Buzz are severely limited: I can post and read geo-relevant buzzes via Google Maps for Mobile, I can submit new posts via email, I can read (but not respond to) my friends' comments as the notifications appear in my Gmail inbox and I can share (and comment on) items via Google Reader's mobile interface. (I use the iPhone/Android version of that, not the standard one. My Nokia's browser handles it just fine). Problem is I can't access my full Buzz feed anywhere via mobile.

In contrast, mobile access to Facebook and Twitter are pretty strong. The Facebook mobile site, while not fully featured, at least allows me to interact with my contacts at a basic level. The Twitter mobile site is also adequate, but a 3rd-party app, Gravity, gives me almost as much Twitter power as Hootsuite (my desktop Twitter client of choice).

I assume Google Buzz will be rolling out a more comprehensive mobile interface in the near future. If not, I expect to see some 3rd-party apps to handle it.

Event Planning

Facebook's Events feature is unparalleled in the services I've seen. I use it often. Google Calendar, while a good alternative to Microsoft Outlook (particularly within the context of a Google Apps domain), lacks the social features Facebook Events include. While practical, Google Calendar is pretty cold and business-like, not social. All of that is academic, since Google Calendar doesn't currently interface directly with Buzz anyway.

I hope to see Google Calendar including some more social features, and/or perhaps an "Add to Buzz" button. I expect we'll see something like that eventually... I just hope it's soon.

Groups

When it comes to running the USS Dauntless, we have a strong presence in the social networking space. Our strongest is in Facebook where we have both a Group and a Fan Page. Lately the fan page has seen the most action, since it's hooked up to our Twitter account, making content syndication practically effortless.

Twitter's Lists feature, while nowhere near as useful as Facebook's Groups and Fan Pages, is a start, and we use that too.

Buzz currently doesn't have anything like it. In order to replicate the functionality in Buzz, I'd have to create a new Google account under the Dauntless's name and switch back and forth between it and my own account. Which would be a pain.

I hope to see Buzz introduce some kind of groups feature. Perhaps using a model similar to FriendFeed's (since Buzz is so much like FriendFeed in other ways already). It might even be cool to see some sort of integration with Google Groups (which we also use) along the lines of how Google Wave has done it.

Friends

Over the years I've built up a sizable list of friends in Facebook. While a fair number of them are also linked to me via Google Buzz already (via the auto-following feature borrowed from Google Talk), most of them are not. It would take quite some effort to migrate all my friends across from Facebook to Buzz. Especially since a few of them either don't have Google Accounts (I know, right?) and others have some sort of moral objection to using Buzz because of the privacy controversy.

I'm hoping that this is something I won't have to deal with. If either Buzz, Facebook or some third party developer produces a nice integration tool that effectively puts all my Facebook tools inside Buzz, I'll be perfectly happy. I predict, however, that at some point I'll have to decide whether or not to cut loose those of my friends who refuse to move over.

If you'd like to avoid being one of those, I'd suggest you head over to my Google Profile and follow my Buzz stream.

What are your thoughts on Buzz? Are you planning to leave Facebook and Twitter at some point too?

Fight!

2010-02-23T07:38:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, in a private forum, I tried to engage in a debate with conspiracy theorist and climate crank Ivo Vegter on the subject of his nonsense climate change denialist rants.

I quickly found myself out of my depth. A combination of my own lack of familiarity with both the climate science and denialist pseudoscience, and Vegter's skill with the combo of logical fallacies Changing the Goal Posts, Gibberish and a bunch of others thrown in forced me to back down.

Fortunately, there are those among us who are more skilled than I at this sort of thing. Such a person, Michael Meadon of Ionian Enchantment, has stepped forward to engage Vegter on his nonsense.

Although I missed the initial exchange of fire on Twitter (cos I was on a beach somewhere when it happened), I recommend you read Michael's first broadside. And then Vegter's frenzied and limp response. (a game of Name That Logical Fallacy, anyone?)

Although I'm certain that Vegter himself is too ideologically bound to his position to budge, I do look forward to seeing a balanced, well-informed and rational counterpoint to his ravings being available on the Internets.

Grab the popcorn, folks. This one's gonna be awesome!

Nerdies 2010 - The Results

2010-02-12T18:20:00.000+02:00

Well, it's over. Nerdmag's 2010 Nerdies awards have come and gone, and the winners announced.

Congratulations to @BecauseI and @NickHuntDavis! It was a rough contest, but you guys performed excellently. Enjoy those awesome prizes!

To my readers: thank you all for the support, forwards, blog posts, retweets, arm-twisting, and most importantly, the votes you guys offered. I had no idea my cause would be taken up so strongly by all of you, and I reckon I owe you all pretty big :)

To whoever may or may not have been cheating on my behalf: I don't know who you are or condone your actions, but I do appreciate your intent. Thank you for your apparently dedicated, if misguided efforts. I never thought I'd see the day when someone (or perhaps several someones) would be willing to hack a poll to get me to win (assuming that was the goal). Who knew?

Thank you also to The Skeptic Blacksheep for giving me the push to enter the competition. Thanks to my running mate, The Skeptic Detective, for sharing her publicity with me. Thanks also to @SheeBeeGee for running the whole thing.

I hope we'll see another Nerdies contest in 2011, and I hope we'll get a chance to do it all again (hopefully with less drama next time).

Decision Tree

2010-02-09T09:15:00.000+02:00

From SFWeekly via Michael Meadon.

Nerdies 2010 - Final Round

2010-02-08T12:02:00.000+02:00

Okay gang, it's the final stretch. Thanks to you awesome humans I managed to get into the final round of the contest. Woohoo!

I'm going to have to ask for your indulgence one more time, and this is the time when it really counts.

To read the announcement about the final round, go here.

If you'd like to skip the announcement and go straight to the voting make like thus:

For the boys' part of the contest, go and vote for me.
For the girls' part, please vote for Skeptic Detective.

Thanks again, gang... I owe you all multiple high fives!

In case you're new here and doubt my worthiness, check this out.

Put This In Your Face

2010-02-05T16:30:00.000+02:00

Michael Meadon over at Ionian Enchantment has published a sceptical tour de force: In Praise of Deference.

Money quote:

The scientific method, far from denying human failings... exists exactly because of them: it is because the human mind is so prone to error and bias that we need this vast, expensive and seemingly inefficient set of institutions, norms and practices we call “science”.

Go on. Put it into your eyes. It will make them happy!

Cheers, ZA Tech Show

2010-02-04T15:12:00.000+02:00

I hate unsubscribing from things. I especially hate unsubscribing from podcasts. I dunno, I guess I feel a sense of loyalty to a show once I've added it to my list. I'll patiently put up with a fair amount of crap before I'll consider going through the effort of removing it from my Google Reader. After all, it costs me nothing more than the time it takes to listen to it... time that would otherwise have been spent unproductively anyway.

So it was with a heavy heart that I unsubscribed from the ZA Tech Show podcast this week. I've been a listener of theirs pretty much since the beginning.

At first I particularly enjoyed the show because it offered a much needed portal into the South African tech scene. It provided useful and valuable information and filled a very empty niche. Awesome podcasting.

But as the show has "progressed", it's changed. They've mentioned on the show the oft-repeated criticism they've received for harping on Apple products all the time. The "ZA Mac Show" was the term used. Not being an Apple fan myself, I found it kind of annoying too. But I was willing to look past it for the good stuff. Besides, I'm a also a fanboy, if not for Apple. I get it.

But at some point in the last few months the quality of the content tipped the balance. The Apple Fanboy Circle-jerking started occupying a larger and larger portion of the show, with the grandiose claims being made about Apple and its products growing in grandiosity from one episode to the next. The giddy fawning over the Apple iPad in last week's episode was the culmination of that.

The rest of the content simultaneously deteriorated in quality, with more and more major errors creeping into their reports and with little or no attempt to correct or recant bad information given out after the fact. If I, a layperson, can spot their errors off the top of my head without having done any deliberate research into the matter, surely something is amiss? And these are professional technology journalists!

Once it gets to the point where I'm shouting at my phone in the car because the voices coming out of it are saying nothing but crap, it's time to say goodbye.

So, goodbye fellas. But before I go, there's one last thing I want to say for the record: Apple didn't invent the touch-screen smartphone. The iPhone was not the first smartphone capable of running downloadable third-party apps. Let's do a little research before stating things as fact, okay? You know, journalism.

My Nerd-Cred

2010-02-02T12:29:00.000+02:00

As part of the 2010 Nerdies hoopla, fellow nerd-sceptic-blogger Angela, the Skeptic Detective, has tagged me to present my nerd resume, so here goes!

If this post is too long for you to read, you should know only this: I have actually used the following statements in real-life online conversations:

"[James T. Kirk] never pursued a J'Naii or a Vissian cogenitor... they're both vaguely female. [He only pursued] species that have a clear male/female dimorphism with human-like female characteristics."
"Ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny!"

In case you need more convincing, here goes:

First: Star Trek

I am very likely the biggest Trekkie you'll meet. And yes, that's "Trekkie". True Star Trek fans don't bother with the whole bogus Trekkie vs Trekker nonsense. To prove this, I present the following:

I own, and often wear, several Starfleet uniforms. I even got married in one of them:

Yes. My wife is awesome.

I run a Star Trek fan club, the USS Dauntless. I also sit on the board of directors of the Dauntless' parent organisation STARFLEET the International Star Trek Fan Association Inc. I hold the rank of Fleet Captain, (one higher than Captain) hence the five gold pips on my collar in the photo above. Don't believe me? Check out my STARFLEET CV.

I speak Klingon. I'm not quite fluent, but I did once have a short-lived, regular spot on Christina Knight's show on 5fm giving Klingon lessons.

I've been an invited guest speaker at several Star Trek conventions, where I gave a series of lectures on The Transporter, "Treknology", character archetypes in Star Trek and Exobiology. I also helped to run a Star Trek convention... and I hope to see you all at this year's TrekCon SA.

I was once a Tournament Director and "Ambassador" for Decipher Inc's Star Trek-based card game. I directed and played in the first Star Trek CCG National Tournament back in 2002.

I know Star Trek trivia better than you. Go ahead... ask me anything.

Next: Scepticism And Stuff

After being inspired by Phil Plait, Richard Dawkins and others to abandon my beliefs in the supernatural, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, I incorporated a lot of what I'd learned into this very blog.

My adventures as a sceptic and blogger include being zapped by Scientologists at a Mind, Body, Wallet Festival (the article I wrote about that one has sadly since been taken down), a Homeopathic Suicide Attempt documented for posterity on YouTube (long before those 10:23 guys did it :P) and playing multiple roles along with some fellow nerds in the satire series God Idols produced by my awesome wife Heidi.

I've been going to our local Sceptics in the Pub for some time, participating in the South African Skeptics forum from time to time, and picking on Homeopathic "doctors" who made the mistake of mentioning my name.

You may recognise me from the Skepchick blog where I'm known as "some South African skeptic".

As part of all of this, I read science books for fun. I know most of you guys probably do too... but that just gives us all some awesome nerd cred. High fives all around! I'd rather read The Demon Haunted World or The Ancestor's Tale over Harry Potter or Twilight. Awesome.

Generic Geekness

I am a Google Fanboy. More than you can imagine. Probably the only Google service I don't use is Google Voice... and that's only until I can figure out how to set it up from outside the US.

I try to read the whole Internet everyday. Srsly. I have over 300 feeds in my Google Reader. But I'm not selfish... I'll share with you.

I was a Boy Scout. I can identify most South African bird species by sight. Also, I can track larger animal species, survive in the bushveld indefinitely, make a raft out of sticks and start a fire without a match.

In high school, I didn't play sport. I was in the debating team, the pipe band and I worked in the tuck-shop. I still don't play any sports. And I don't watch any either.

I can think of more things... but I'm guessing my point is made. I am probably one of the biggest nerds you'll ever come across. So go ahead! Vote!

Probably the only other nerd I know of in my nerd-league is Angela, the Skeptic Detective. You need to vote for her too.

The Skeptic Detective

For starters, she's a far more prolific writer than I am. Seriously, follow her blog for plenty of good reading. I wish I had the dedication to produce that amount of content.

And not only is her content voluminous, but it's also high quality: loaded with nerdy goodness! In browsing her archives you will find a broad variety of sciencey and sceptical topics from Organic Farming to Boobs. Also, you will find references to at least two Star Trek Captains (other than me, of course). Go look!

Also, Angela (along with another good, nerdy friend of ours James) founded the Johannesburg Sceptics in the Pub back in 2008. She was one of my co-stars in God Idols and she's gotten link-love from none other than Phil Plait himself!

So? Why are you still here? Go vote!

Nerdies Semifinals... Apparently

2010-02-01T15:10:00.000+02:00

So last week my comrade-in-reason, The Skeptical Blacksheep, nominated me for the 2010 Nerdies run by Moralfibre's Nerdmag. Awesome.

By some random interdimentional anomaly, I somehow made it into the semifinal round of the competition. Awesomer.

I'm gonna need your help now though. If you've got a few seconds to spare, please head over to the semifinals page and post a comment voting for me either with my name or my Twitter handle (@owenswart).

While you're at it, please consider voting for another South African sceptiblogger who's in the running: The Skeptic Detective.

If all goes according to plan, I'll begging again next week you guys to vote for me in the finals, so stay tuned!

Thx!

That's How I (Blog) Roll!

2010-01-28T12:18:00.000+02:00

African science and sceptical blogs! Yay!

Note: The picture of toilet paper is, in no way, intended to imply anything about the content of the blogs listed above. I just think it's funny cos "blog-roll" sounds like "bog-roll".

I know.

Anonymous Comments

2009-11-21T12:44:00.000+02:00

I'm pretty tired of putting up with not only stupid comments, but anonymous stupid comments.

So, anonymous commenting is now turned off (again). I welcome you to discuss anything you like here on my blog (stupid comments included), but you're going to have to take some level of ownership of what you say.

Kthxbai.

Carnival Time!

2009-09-28T15:22:00.000+02:00

This month's Carnival of the Africans is up over at The Skeptic Detective. Go thither!

Thank You, Dr Borlaug

2009-09-14T12:39:00.000+02:00

You won't hear or see this story in the mainstream media, because they are ignorant and stupid.

This weekend, the greatest human being who ever lived, Dr Norman Borlaug, died at the age of 95.

Dr Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. He was more awesome than every other awesome person ever, combined.

Thank you, Dr Borlaug. Thank you.

Answering "Dr" Prinsloo

2009-08-31T15:19:00.000+02:00

My comrade-in-reason Angela, the Skeptic Detective, alerted me to an anomalous article she picked up on her Skep-dar. On his website named 'Biocura' a Homeopathic "doctor" named Johan Prinsloo (Jnr) has written a lengthy article in which he claims to address the questions and challenges to Homeopathy posed by sceptics.

He's certainly not alone in this attempt, and ordinarily I wouldn't have given the page a second glance, but Angela pointed out that he refers to lil' ol' me in his article, by name. I'm far too arrogant to let that slide, so here begins my response to his article.

(Update 2009-09-03: Since I posted this, Prinsloo has made some non-trivial changes to the text of the page. Luckily I saved a copy of the text as it was when I was composing my response. You can find that here. Google Cache has a copy of it too, that's here.)

He begins the piece with this:

"It is against my principles to debate the validity and efficacy of Homeopathy with ignorants."

Setting aside his attempt to turn an adjective into a noun, thus coining a new term, he then contradicts this assertion by launching into a tirade of no less than 5600 words attempting to do exactly that: debate the validity and efficacy of Homeopathy with "ignorants".

He then defines an "ignorant" as follows:

On this page, reference to the word ignorant shall mean :
Any so-called scientist or "expert" that expresses him/herself on the subject of Homeopathy, it's validity or efficacy, but who -
Is not a qualified Homeopath;
Has not studied Homeopathy to the extent that a Homeopath does;
Has not conducted extensive research on Homeopathy in accordance with the scientific principles of Homeopathy under the supervision of a qualified Homeopath;
Does not possess sufficient experience in the practical application of Homeopathy in a clinical setting;
Who is not registered as a Homeopathic Practitioner in South Africa and / or does not meet the requirements for such registration;
Who is not an expert on applied Homeopathy.(*)With respect to Homeopathy, that is an ignorant in my opinion and someone not worthy of my time.

(*) Howard Stephen Berg, The World's Fastest Reader, defines an expert as "someone who has read at least 25 books on a particular subject".

You see what he's doing here? This is a textbook case of the Argument from Special Pleading. In essence, he is asserting that only somebody with special knowledge (knowledge that he, himself, just happens to possess) is qualified to engage in any sort of meaningful discussion on the topic of Homeopathy. He seems to be of the opinion that this will allow him to summarily dismiss the arguments of anyone who does not already possess it as being worthless.

(Before we go any further: isn't it interesting that he excludes any and all Homeopaths who are not South African? What's that about?)

Let's play a game. Let's take his definition and see if we can apply it to another situation. I hereby coin a new term, I shall call it "Flarpojip". A Flarpojip is a person who is:

Is not a qualified film and television producer;
Has not studied buses to the extent that a film and television producer does;
Has not conducted extensive research on film and television productions in accordance with the scientific principles of film and television producer under the supervision of a qualified film and television producer;
Does not possess sufficient experience in the practical application of film and television producer in a commercial setting;
Who is not registered as a Film and Television Producer in South Africa and / or does not meet the requirements for such registration;
Who is not an expert on applied film and television production.

By Prinsloo's argument, someone who is a flarpojip can have no valuable positions when it comes to films or television. Just about any film critic you may encounter (like Barry Ronge) shouldn't be paid attention to, and you would be justified in refusing to discuss last night's episode of Lost with any of your friends or family who happen to be flarpojips.

It is interesting, then, that Prinsloo includes in his website a page he calls "Legal Stuff". Is Prinsloo a qualified attorney or advocate? If not, what justification does he use to post anything of a legal nature on his website? Has he even read 25 books on the subject? I doubt it.

Forgive my brief foray into an Argument from Absurdity... but I take it my point is made. It's not necessary to hold any sort of formal qualifications in a subject in order to have valuable and accurate information on it. While I can't guarantee that the information I possess about Homeopathy is either valuable or accurate, I can still present it in the context of an argument, in the interests of the pursuit of an adequately precise approximation of the truth.

And, unfortunately for Prinsloo, since I am the one advocating the Null Hypothesis, the burden of proof falls more heavily on him to substantiate his extraordinary claim: that Homeopathy works.

Let's move onto his argument.

No wait... looks like there's some more logical fallacies first.

Under the section entitled "Allow me to explain", Prinsloo asserts that

"the vast majority of medical practitioners and specialists have good working relationships with the South African Homeopathic fraternity and there exists a healthy mutual respect between the medical professions and the Homeopathic Profession in South Africa."

An interesting claim, to be sure. I'd be interested to see the evidence Prinsloo has to support it. But wait... he doesn't offer any.

Instead he continues his rant against "ingorants", and makes this alarming claim:

"Unfortunately, as with anything else in this world, there is always a small number of self-centred individuals with their own agendas and probably backed by some pharmaceutical company or grouping, that has to infect our healthy source of drinking water with some unwanted pest or virus."

Yikes. I certainly hope he was speaking metaphorically there. The suggestion that there is some sort of Big Pharma conspiracy working to contaminate the water supply is worrying. If he was speaking metaphorically, however, it's only slightly less worrying: it means that despite all the qualifications he claims to possess, Prinsloo can't seem to string together a coherent analogy... at least not one that makes any sense to me.

He then makes references to the three (yes, three) institutions who offer post-graduate courses in Homeopathy in South Africa. He points out that these courses are offered exclusively to medical post-grads... in other words, real doctors.

What he's attempting to do here is called the Argument from Authority. He's trying to ~~usurp~~ borrow an air of legitimacy by demonstrating that these otherwise respectable institutions and medical practitioners have offered some measure of endorsement to the enterprise of Homeopathy. Unfortunately, we can't infer that legitimacy at all. Only three institutions offerring courses seems a little low, and Prinsloo declines to mention any of the so-called medical practitioners by name who he claims support Homeopathy.

So not only was that a fallacious Argument from Authority, but it was a bad attempt at one too.

Okay, on to the actual argument.

No, wait. It seems we're not there yet. In the section titled "The creators of filth" Prinsloo takes some more time to cast scorn upon 'ignorant' experts who appear on television, radio and print media attempting to discredit Homeopathy. It seems that these authorities are not to be listened to, according to Prinsloo.

So let me get this straight: We should be paying attention to the experts who agree with Prinsloo, but not to those who don't. The sole differentiator between them, it seems, is the fact that they either agree with him or not... not on any other professional grounds. Interesting.

Okay, next stop... the argument.

No wait, another delay. First we must stop at the section labelled "But why not?" in which Prinsloo summarises and restates the article so far. Nothing new here. Let's press on to the argument.

So, we're about a third of a way through, and we finally see something that seems to actually be about Homeopathy: the section entitled "Highly Diluted Immeasurable Substances". Hooray!

This is where it starts getting confusing.

Prinsloo asserts that not all Homeopaths advocate the Homeopathic "Law of Infinitessimals", or the dilution of preparations to the point where not a single molecule of active ingredient remains. (Actually he says that "The issue of dilution of Homeopathic substances has NOTHING to do with Homeopathy." That's a pretty blatant falsehood, but I'll generously chalk it up to hyperbole, and give Prinsloo the benefit of the considerable doubt). Again he declines to provide any evidence of this, but luckily I happen to know how to use Google. It seems that there really is an ongoing debate over this amongst Homeopaths. I find this encouraging... it means that not all Homeopaths are quite as insane as I thought. Thanks for enlightening me, Prinsloo!

Perhaps I've misjudged Prinsloo. Maybe he's not a complete idiot.

Oh dear.

"one milligram / 1mg means one part per million(1:1,000,000) of the active ingredient".

Um, no. It seems I have been too generous. One milligram (1mg) of ingredient diluted into 1mg (one milligram) of solution is a ratio of 1:1. It seems that Prinsloo suffers from the same inability to count zeroes as his super-diluting colleagues do.

Prinsloo then gives us a brief, inadequate and inaccurate lesson on Homeopathic dilution codes. The innacuracy stemming from the error I mentioned above. It seems that they don't teach arithmetic at Homeopathy School.

Then he says

"You will find that most Homeopathic medicines on the open market fall within [the range of 1:10 and 1:10 000]. Now where is the "highly diluted", immeasurableness in that?"

Another interesting claim. I wonder what he bases it on. Unfortunately I'll have to continue wondering, as he yet again declines to provide any citation. (I guess since he's the expert, we're just supposed to take his word for it.)

Next stop, the section labelled "Lack of Scientific Research in Homeopathy".

To summarize Prinsloo's argument here, he claims that it is humanly impossible for any given practitioner to possibly read any and all research papers that are published, and that some selection bias is at work. Therefore, when a medical practitioner claims that there is insufficient research into Homeopathy, he is only revealing his own selection bias, in that only Homeopaths would take the time to read the research papers on Homeopathy. (That's a pretty heavy summation... Prinsloo seems to lack the rhetorical sophistication to use terms like "selection bias". Perhaps he prefers to invent new words, like using "ignorant" as a noun, or "murking".)

Surprisingly, this argument is actually logically viable. I quite like it. Or rather, I would like it if it weren't profoundly misinformed. ("profound" is my new favourite word. I wonder if I can turn it into a noun.)

The thing is, we are now living in the 21st century. Research papers and scientific journals are still published on paper, but fewer and fewer people use them that way: because its inefficient. It's far easier and quicker to use a search engine, like Google. That's what I use. Alternatively there are services that archive reputable journals digitally, and make them available to the public online... one such service is PubMed. Any seeker after truth with adequate access would likely use one of these resources before making a claim that research into Homeopathy is infrequent, of poor quality or sparse.

In fact, quite a few seekers after truth have done just that, and guess what they found? That there is a considerable amount of research into Homeopathy. They also found that the trend in this research suggests that the better the study, the smaller the purported effect, and the best studies show that Homeopathic preparations perform no better than placebo.

So, Prinsloo: good argument. But wrong.

Now we get to the good bit. It's good because I'm in it: "The IGNORANTS" (his allcaps, not mine).

Prinsloo starts by making this curious statement:

"The one thing that always catches my attention is the fact that generally the skeptics of Homeopathy also tend to be anti-religion or at least skeptical of religion." (emphasis not mine)

Funny... I've noticed the same thing. Here's my question: so what? He doesn't appear to draw any connection between that observation and whether or not the criticisms we sceptics offer are viable. A poorly executed attempt at Poisoning the Well perhaps? Who knows?

He points to the South African Skeptics forum as being the lair of "another typical bunch of ignorants". For those of you who are not familiar with it, it's pretty much what is claims to be: a web-based forum for South African sceptics. I've posted there from time to time, but I don't participate as often as I'd like to.

First, he cites the post I made about my Homeopathic Suicide Attempt. He offers a very erudite and well-measured evaluation of my argument:

"Quite amusing".

Seriously? That's all you have to say? I thought it was hi-freaking-larious! You don't even want to take the time to address the glaring errors and logical fallacies I employed in those videos? Fine.

Prinsloo then picks on a user called johanvz (with whom I am not acquainted. Johanvz commented on the thread wothout offerring any real criticisms of Homeopathy. I suppose that's why Prinsloo chose him: Prinsloo doesn't seem to like dealing with actual arguments.)

Then... oh then... Prinsloo makes the mistake of setting his sights on the aforementioned Skeptic Detective. Oh dear.

He starts by referring to Angela's jokes about Christianity. Again, so what?

Thankfully, he doesn't stop there. He quotes a comment she made in some or other article he posted online, in which she cites some of the examples in which Homeopathy was shown to be ineffective (specifically James Randi's expose of Jacques Benveniste's flawed research back in 1979).

Prinsloo's rebuttal (paraphrased): "James Randi and Jacques Benveniste are not Homeopaths". Wow. That was awesome. Tell us again how that makes Angela's comment innaccurate? I think I missed that part.

In the next section, "A Few Surprising Facts on Research in Medicine", Prinsloo lists about thirty "facts". He doesn't mention any citation for those "facts", nor does he provide any context on how they relate to his argument. I guess we're just supposed to assume that they support it, and that we should take his word for them.

In the following section, Prinsloo quotes an article from the Royal Society of Medicine which states the (pretty obvious) claim that research papers submitted by teams who recieve funding from the pharmaceutical industry will tend to demonstrate a degree of bias in favour of the intervention being tested. Again, he does so without making any allusions to how (if at all) this study supports his argument or refutes those of "ignorants".

It seems that at this point in the article, Prinsloo has grown as weary of writing as I have of critiquing his babbling. Instead of concluding his position, he finishes off by posting another lengthy article from the Alternative Medicine Digest (a clearly impartial source) ill-informedly (see what I did there? Turned an adjective into an adverb!) dismissing the concepts of "science" and "proof". And again, Prinsloo neglects to demonstrate the relevance of it.

So, what have we learned from all of this?

Well, I learned that the Law of Infinitessimals isn't adhered to by all Homeopaths. I also learned that if his thinking is an incoherent as his writing, it doesn't surprise me at all that "Doctor" Prinsloo has devoted his professional career to the advancement of a nonsense pseudoscience, and the unethical "treatment" of patients with intervetions that have no reasonable support for their efficacy.

Oh, and we learned that you don't have be an expert terminologist in order to be able to make up words.

Carnival of the Africans #10 - August 2009

2009-08-29T16:17:00.000+02:00

That's right, gang, it's Carnival time right here on 01 And The Universe! And what a carnival it will be... it's been an exciting month in the world of scepticism and science in Africa.

With no further ado, I present to you, in no particular order, this month's featured posts:

Let's start with Angela, the Skeptic Detective. In "How To Eat Fruit" Angela examines a sample of woo she picked up at work - supposed health benefits of eating fruit in particular ways. In "Bullshit is Organic Too" Angela exposes some of the silly claims surrounding organic agriculture in light of new research.

Next is Richard Harriman, the Botswana Skeptic. Richard has been Irritating "traditional doctors" in the name of consumer protection, and to our ongoing entertainment.

In a similar vein, Doctor Spurt from Effortless Incitement has been posting some morbidly amusing fliers from traditional "healers" and woo practitioners in his area. Specifically Dr Raju, Dr Mama Simba and Dr Maama Mzei Ndimungoma.

More seriously, George Claassen from Prometheus Unbound reveals some alarming statistics regarding science education in a number of countries, and most notably South Africa and Egypt.

Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas from The Science of Sport posted this illuminating piece on a topic that has saturated local media for the last few days: Caster Simenya.

Michael Meadon of Ionian Enchantment gave us this intriguing piece on a related subject: Fun With Sex.

Simon Halliday from Amanuensis touched on a similarly topical issue: Health Care, Insurance and Credit Markets.

The anonymous author of Bullshit Fatigue examines some questionable budgeting decisions in the office of South Africa's new Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor.

Bongi from Other Things Amanzi shares a frightening anecdote of his own brush with sangomas stealing body parts for "muti".

Tim Beck from Reason Check brings us up to speed on the World Health Organisation's position on homeopaths treating African HIV patients with nothing more than water and happy thoughts.

Michelle, the Skeptic Blacksheep, performs an extensive analysis on a number of particularly odd products, all of which are made of woo.

When you're done with all that reading, it's time to relax with some easy listening: Leonie Joubert of Scorched was interviewed by Jenny Crwys-Williams on Radio 702 about her new book, Invaded. Here's the podcast!

That's about it for this month. One more thing before we go: the latest version of the African Science Blogroll:

01 and the universe

The Science Of Sport

That's it, gang. Live long and prosper!

Carnival of the Africans - Call For Submissions!

2009-08-19T15:08:00.000+02:00

Guess what! Carnival of the Africans is coming to 01 & the Universe again! That's right, I'll be hosting all the sceptical and sciencey goodness for Africa right here in a few days' time.

So, if you've got some goodies about science or scepticism in Africa, send me some links so I can include it! Send it to owen(dot)swart{at}gmail(dot)com. Please try and get them to me by the 27th.

Don't forget to take a look at the guidelines over at Ionian Enchantment. Okay, go!

Sceptics for Hire!

2009-08-07T13:18:00.000+02:00

Carnival of the Africans #8 (Rather Late Than Never Edition)

2009-07-02T13:14:00.000+02:00

Hey gang. This is a few days late, but in case you missed it, here's your (hopefully) monthly dose of science and scepticism from and about Africa: Carnival of the Africans!

This month hosted by Simon Halliday over at Amanuensis! Yay!

Go on... the party is there, not here. Off you go then!

Sceptics in the Pub - Gauteng

2009-06-30T12:22:00.000+02:00

It's that time again!

Is Science a Religion?

2009-06-12T14:56:00.000+02:00

No.

If only I could leave it at that. But unfortunately I am all-too-often confronted with the accusation that science is just like any other religion. The accusation invariably comes from believers of some or other supernatural thing - something that scientists have been unable to verify (or have perhaps conclusively disproven). In other words, it's a kind of ideological attack tactic, intended to bring science down to the level of a religion, and to thereby make the findings of science just as questionable and open to interpretation as any silly superstition or fantasy.

Fortunately for those of us who value reality, calling science a religion does not make it so. But why? What is it about science that separates it from religion? Is it not true that adherents of just about any other religion would describe their faith as something other than religion (be it a "personal relationship with Jesus", a "philosophy" or a "way of life")?

To understand this, we must first define the terms. What are science and religion?

What is Religion?

Simply put, religion is a kind of belief system that necessarily incorporates some sort of supernatural power. That power exercises some manner of control over the lives and destinies of humans, and is generally an object of worship or at the very least adulation. The proclamations of that power are recorded in some way by a prophet or avatar who receives those proclamations via personal revelation, and generally form the basic canon of sacred texts upon which the practice of that religion is based.

In most cases, the practice of religion takes the form of a series of rituals designed to invoke the supernatural power and call its blessings upon the faithful. This will also often extend to a code of behaviour by which adherents are supposedly bound - often taking the form of moral guidelines and restrictions on food and sexuality.

The core feature of a religion is that it is based on personal, divine revelation where the supernatural contacts the prophet (and sometimes the individual adherents) directly and privately in a way that cannot be verified by any objective observer. Remember that part for later.

What is Science?

In it's simplest form, science is a mechanism for separating fact from fiction. It is a process consisting of asking questions about the world, and attempting to answer those questions. The fundamental backbone of science is the scientific method, which goes more-or-less as follows:

A phenomenon is observed.
An explanation is invented as to why the phenomenon took place.
A test is derived to determine the accuracy of the explanation (which has now become a hypothesis).
The test is performed and the results recorded.
If the hypothesis is shown to be false, it is discarded, and a new explanation is invented. If the hypothesis is confirmed by the test, the entire history of the project is recorded in writing and submitted to a journal for it to be published.
Once published, the report is evaluated by the community of other scientists interested in that kind of phenomenon. Some of them will attempt to replicate the experiment to see if they obtain similar results. If they don't, the original study is discredited. If they do, the hypothesis becomes a theory, and the human race's understanding of the world in enhanced a little bit.

The exact tools and methods employed by scientists in this process vary as widely as there are phenomena to observe. Each specialty and sub-specialty has its own particular tools which are constantly being improved through the same scientific process.

The most important aspect of all this is the repeatability in the peer-review part of the process. If the results aren't replicable, they are worthless. Science rests on public revelation: the necessity for anyone with the appropriate tools and methodology to be able to obtain the same results regardless of who you are.

So What's the Difference?

The core difference is that between public and private revelation. While religion rests on things that must be believed to be seen, science rests on things that must be seen to be believed. In this way, science is the polar opposite of religion.

Science assumes that something must be proven before it can be accepted - defaulting to the null hypothesis. Religion insists that faith is a virtue, and belief without evidence (or in spite of evidence to the contrary) is a necessity.

What About the Big Questions?

This is an area of some contention. Many people believe that both science and religion are attempting to answer the big questions in life: "What is the meaning of life?", "Why is there something rather than nothing?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and so on. Perhaps that is true.

The key difference comes in the approach to those questions. Religion and its adherents attempt to answer those questions with a simple, placating response: "God did it." Science is not satisfied with this as a response, for two main reasons: God cannot be shown to exist, and telling us who did it tells us nothing about how it was done.

In fact, religious dogma often gives us demonstrably false information instead of satisfactory answers. The book of Genesis gives an account of the beginning of the universe that is wrong in just about every possible way - every factual claim is incorrect, and can be shown, through public revelation, to be so. Where religion attempts to hold onto false and archaic myths, science discards the incorrect and creates new myths: ones that have the distinct advantage of being true.

The perception of science as a dogmatic institution with lab-coated, crazy-haired theorists and researchers as its clergy is a false one propagated by the religious. I would suggest thinking twice before invoking the "science as a religion" argument next time - in doing so you are only revealing your own ignorance.

Last Two Instalments of God Idols Are Up!

2009-06-11T16:06:00.000+02:00

That's right, the first series of God Idols is over... check out the last two episodes!

Satanism:

And Scientology:

Keep your browsers peeled for the next project from HeiOnLife Productions. It's gonna be awesome!

God Idols - Judaism

2009-04-30T14:07:00.000+02:00

Kick it old school, yo. DJ Heime's about to bust a rhyme up in heyaaaaaaa!

Linky.

It's Over

2009-04-06T12:00:00.004+02:00

At the risk of sounding pessimistic and defeatist, after seeing this morning's NPA announcement, it seems like it's time to pack up and go home.

Only problem is, this is home.

Sceptics in the Pub - Gauteng #5

2009-03-30T10:42:00.002+02:00

If you live in South Africa's Gauteng province, and you're reading this, you're probably the sort of person who would be interested in joining me and a host of other local sceptics for a night at the pub!

We'll be meeting next Monday (the 6th of April) at Ogilvy's Pub on Tonnetti Street in Midrand. We'll start arriving around 18:30 and we'll be there as long as they keep serving us drinks.

View Larger Map

For more of the fun, join us on Facebook where you can catch a preview of our motley crew of regulars.

See you there!

I Get Voicemail, Unfortunately

2009-03-19T08:00:00.001+02:00

Since the announcement of Google Voice last week, I've been thinking a lot about telephone etiquette, particularly when it comes to cellular phones, and extra-particularly when it comes to voicemail and Internet-enabled smartphones.

I've never really been comfortable talking on the phone. I find it to be awkward, inefficient, impersonal and intrusive.

Voicemail and answering machines have mitigated the intrusiveness of it to some extent - if my phone rings and I'm not able or inclined to answer it, the caller can leave a message for me to respond to later. But given more recent advances in real-time communication, namely the Internet-enabled handheld device, voicemail has become more of a cumbersome annoyance than a useful tool.

For example, if I happen to be in a meeting (which unfortunately happens with increasing frequency these days) I'll probably be unable to answer an incoming call. Which means I'll have to wait until after the meeting before I can check my messages, write down phone numbers and things on a scrap of paper (which I don't possess - I don't use paper) and call the person back to have an inefficient voice-only conversation that will almost certainly have to be followed-up with an email afterwards anyway. Or, more likely, I will have to leave a message on their voicemail system, and wait for them to call me back again.

A colossal waste of time.

If, instead, the original caller had simply sent me an email, it would have been delivered discreetly to my mobile device in real time. During the meeting I could take a glance at it (since I use my device for taking notes in meetings anyway), and, if it's urgent, fire off a quick response then and there. Plus I would have on record the caller's email address, thus allowing me to see who it came from, and therefore be able to contact them with ease again in the future. Easy, quick, efficient, and no trees needed to die.

This is why I need a service like Google Voice - it transcribes voicemail messages to an email and captures the caller's contact details too. Since I live in the 3rd World, and can't get Google Voice, I've had to resort to changing my outgoing voicemail message to instruct callers to send me an email instead of leaving a voice message. They still leave me voice messages anyway, but that's another story.

How do you feel about voicemail? Essential business tool , or antiquated white elephant?

God Idols - Buddhism

2009-03-18T16:33:00.001+02:00

This week's action-packed episode features my amazing wife, wearing a sheet! Woohoo!

Watch, rate, favourite...

Here's the link.

Zuma is (still) an Idiot

2009-03-09T14:12:00.006+02:00

The entity designated Kingdom Mabuza penned this article in the Sowetan today in which he rattles off some quotes that ANC President Jacob Zuma spewed at a rally attended by religious leaders over the weekend.

Zuma is still pushing his imagined divine mandate message. Here's the money-shot:

“We in the ANC know God. When the ANC was born, it was baptised. We have respect, we are beautiful, we conduct ourselves in a good way.”

It was at that point that my irony-meter exploded.

In the very same article, ANC ~~Crybaby~~ Youth League President Julius Malema is quoted:

“Helen Zille was a political toddler... That is the same with all those who left the ANC after stealing from us. They are corrupt and that includes the arms deal.”

If this is the sort of behaviour that Zuma claims is "beautiful" or "good", then my concerns for the future of our country deepen. The contrast of double standards is so stark, I can't imagine how it wouldn't be obvious to any ANC supporter.

God Idols - Pentecostal

2009-03-09T10:52:00.003+02:00

Woohoo!

It's time for the next episode of God Idols. This week we're hearing from (Pastor) Cletis from Topeka, Kansas!

Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/dbst6r

God Idols - Amish

2009-02-26T17:56:00.002+02:00

Holy barn raisin'! I haven't posted this one yet!

Go and watch this week's episode of God Idols at once! And don't forget to rate it!

God Idols - Jean Claude

2009-02-16T10:57:00.005+02:00

The next episode of God Idols is up! This is the one in which I sing for the Internets for the first time. That's right, I'm now an Internet Celebrity, check me out:

I Get Hate Mail - I Think

2009-02-11T08:00:00.002+02:00

I'm so excited! I just recieved this email:

Check this out.
I like Star Trek.
I like the old ones, the "next generation", the movies ect [sic].
In fact I have probably watched and seen everything even slightly related to Star Trek.
I have read uncountable sci-fi books, magazines ect. In fact lately I have been noticing more and more people who don't have the foggiest idea that Omni magazine ever excisted [sic] or what it was about.(I am getting old)

I beg you not to take this as a [sic] attack of any kind.

Dude you have to lose the star fleet [sic] uniform, the whole star fleet [sic] officer as a [sic] "occupation" shit.
Because that is what it is if you are relating it to who you are, and what you do.
Quit blogging and go out and meet real people for the first time face to face,
please.

DEl

P.S. if you can count how many women you've had on one hand leave the computer off until you can't be sure if you have forgotten some when counting.

It's difficult to follow, but despite the author's assertion that it is "not [an] attack of any kind" I think this is hate mail!

I particularly enjoyed this bit: the author took the time to add me to his Gmail Contacts. Look at the name he used (I've obscured my email address):

What do you guys think? Does this qualify as hate mail?

God Idols: There Can Only be One

2009-02-10T10:50:00.003+02:00

After many weeks of tireless effort (on the part of my lovely and talented wife, Heidi), dressing funny (on my part) and even shaving my beard (yikes!), the first episode of our new YouTube reality series God Idols is up for your pleasure and entertainment!

Many thanks to our dedicated team of co-conspirators: Michael Meadon, Angela Butterworth, Gustav Bertram and James Hough (who also sacrificed his beard to the cause).

Keep your browsers warmed up for the next riveting episode!

I've Been Slacking

2009-02-06T20:24:00.001+02:00

I've been so wrapped up with YouTube, predictions and Klingon Kriminals that I've been falling behind on my sceptical duties!
Let me catch up on that quickly.
First of all, Monday night was the third Joburg Sceptics in the Pub. Fortunately James over at Acinonyx Scepticus posted an excellent write up of it here.
Secondly, the first 'for real' post has gone up on our team blog, Intrepid Aardvark. Angela (aka The Skeptic Detective) posted this damning criticisism of Acupuncture. Go. Read. Subscribe.
Okay, we're up to speed again!

In Which I Get Link-love from TV.com

2009-02-06T17:20:00.002+02:00

Imagine my surprise when Heidi noticed that I had suddenly shot up on the Afrigator stats this afternoon. The traffic here increased by about 500% in the last two days! Holy crap!

After a little looking around, I found out that the good folks over at TV.com had picked up my post on the "Klingon Kriminal" yesterday, and sent hordes of faithful readers headed my way.

So, to you new guys... uh... welcome!

The Klingon Kriminal

2009-02-05T11:37:00.011+02:00

My news feed is all a-flutter this morning about a kid in Colorado Springs who robbed a couple of convenience stores armed with what journalists describe as a "Klingon Sword".

*sigh*

It's not true. Here's an image from the surveillance footage:

Granted, that weapon he's holding certainly has a Klingon look to it. Here it is, zoomed in:

The few media reports who have done a little research claim that he's wielding a "batleth" (Klingon for "sword of honour"). Here's a picture of a batleth:

The batleth is a four-pronged, two-handed sword. It's wielded in such a way that all four prongs are facing forward, like this:

If you look back at the surveillance footage, you'll see that kid is brandishing a two-bladed dagger, that kinda looks like a batleth to the untrained eye, but the mere fact that he's holding it the wrong way round should tip you off that it's not one.

What's he's holding there is this:

The Valdris. A two-bladed, fantasy-styled dagger, roughly 60cm long, made of stainless steel (so it's designed to be an ornament, not an actual weapon).

This kid probably is a nerd, and may well be a Star Trek fan, but this is no Klingon weapon. It's not even a Star Trek weapon. Just to set the record straight.

I suspect that the journalists in question recognised the vague shape of the dagger as being reminiscent of the batleth, and jumped at the opportunity to belittle the offender by labelling him as a "Star Trek nerd."

UPDATE: Turns out the clerks at the convenience stores identified the weapon as a batleth. They were both wrong.

How Did I Do?

2009-02-05T08:00:00.003+02:00

I'm sure you remember that at the beginning of 2008, I made a list of 22 predictions for the coming year. (Or rather, I hope you remember... I completely forgot.)

Although it's already February, I guess now is a good time to look back at how I did:

1. The winner of the United States presidential election will be a tall, good-looking man. Or will at least be the tallest and/or best-looking of the available candidates. He will be a Church-going Christian.

Well we all know who won the 2008 US presidential election: President Barack Obama (woohoo!). Let's look at all the things I predicted about him:

[He] will be a tall, good-looking man.

President Obama is 186cm tall. That's about 8cm taller than your average African American male (and about 9cm shorter than I am... FYI). That makes him pretty tall. In fact it makes him a full 13cm taller than his rival, Senator John McCain.

As for good-looking, you decide:

I think it's pretty clear which of these two men is better looking. And yes, despite rumours to the contrary, President Obama is, in fact, a Church-going Christian.

Okay, so that's one hit so far.

2. Scientists will make startling new discoveries about Dark Matter and/or Dark Energy that will threaten to overturn our understanding of the cosmos.

Well, not really. While there were a bunch of interesting stories about discoveries relating to Dark Matter and Dark Energy in 2008, none of them really came close to threatening to overturn our understanding of the cosmos. While some psychics might claim it as a hit, I'll take it as a miss.

3. The South-East coastal regions of the United States will be lashed by several severe storms during the summer.

That was an easy hit. There were seventeen such storms.

4. Many people will be left homeless and some will be killed in Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and parts of Mozambique in the first quarter of the year as a result of floods.

Hit.

5. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people will die in natural disasters (such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes or tsunami) in the Pacific regions and parts of the Middle-East.

Hit.

6. Danie Krugel will not acknowledge our challenge.

I have no web links to back this one up, but I assure you it was a hit.

7. Astronomers will discover many new exoplanets and identify several new places where life might exist.

Fifty new exoplanets were discovered in 2008. And one new place where life might exist was identified: Enceladus. Hit!

8. I will complete my 29th trip around the sun.

Hit! In fact right now I'm well into the second half of my 30th trip!

Next I made a cluster of four related predictions:

9. The petrol price will increase substantially after the oil price increases.
10.The petrol price will increase substantially after the oil price decreases.
11. The petrol price will increase substantially after the Rand/Dollar exchange rate improves.
12. The petrol price will increase substantially after the exchange rate worsens.

The gist of the first two was that the fluctuations in the petrol price were not related to fluctuations in the oil price.

You can see in the graph above that the petrol price (blue line) does seem to track more-or-less with fluctuations in the price of Brent Crude (red line). So I'll give myself one hit for that one.

The next two made a similar claim with regards to the Rand/Dollar exchange rate.

As you can see, there is virtually no link between the Rand/Dollar and the petrol price, despite the frequent claims to the contrary. I think I deserve two hits for that one.

13. A prominent South African government official will be accused of fraud or misappropriation of funds, but those accusations will disappear and never result in formal charges.

I wasn't able to find any specific examples of this, but considering the ANC's decision in 2008 to disband the Scorpions, they have effectively all gotten away with any and all corrupt and fraudulent activities they may have committed (and probably did commit). I didn't get the details right, and I severely underestimated the scope of what was going on. That being the case, I'll take another miss on this one.

14. A formerly obscure website will suddenly become very popular, prompting "experts" to claim that it will drastically change the way we communicate or do business.

One word: Twitter. Hit.

15. It will not substantially affect the way we communicate or do business

I'm still using Facebook. And Email. And IM. And the telephone. What about you?

Hit.

16. The South African Reserve Bank will increase the prime lending rate.

Tricky. Prime was increased in June 2008, but then it was lowered again to it's former level in December. I didn't say that they wouldn't lower it again, I suppose, so I'll generously grant myself another hit.

17. It will be revealed that Iran was never attempting to produce nuclear weapons. This will not prevent President Bush from claiming that Iran is a major threat.

Miss.

18. A number of people will be trampled to death by a crowd in Saudi Arabia in the last weeks of the year.

Close, but it's a miss.

19. Israel will engage in violent encounters with its neighbours. There will be casualties on both sides, but Israel will report that they have fewer than the other side.

Hit. 330 to 4 at last count.

20. The flying car will not be released to the consumer market.

Hit.

21. A woman in either North Africa or the Middle East will be treated to unfathomable cruelty after breaking an oppressive and misogynistic law. She will then be pardoned after significant international pressure is exerted on her government. The law will not be changed.

Miss. She wasn't pardoned.

22. The world as we know it will not end.

Hit.

That was a fun game, wasn't it? I scored 16/22. I win!

The point of this whole exercise was to demonstrate that with a little bit of common-sense, some vagueness, a dash of general knowledge and a touch of science, it's quite easy to make a set of predictions with a high rate of accuracy. No psychic powers necessary!

Unified Feed

2009-02-04T10:58:00.006+02:00

I had an idea for a new (for me) use for the otherwise very useful RSS tool, Yahoo! Pipes.

Up till now I've been using it to help filter some of the feeds I have coming into my Google Reader, to try and remove some of the clutter. But it occurred to me that I could use it for my outgoing feeds too.

So that's what I've done. I've created a pipe that aggregates the feeds from my various publishing sources into a single feed.

So for those of you who have previously subscribed to my blog, Google Shared Items or Facebook items, you can now subscribe to one feed and get all of those, along with my Twitter updates, Picasa Web Gallery, and even my few and far between YouTube videos.

It's one-stop Owen Swart shopping! Woohoo!

So yeah, there's a little badge on the sidebar to your right. Or else you can visit the pipe itself and subscribe from there. I can't decide if it's awesome or just unbelievably arrogant, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case any of you guys wanted it.

If you like it, or dislike it, or have something similar set up for yourself, please drop a comment!

The Wedding - The Movie!

2009-02-03T09:50:00.000+02:00

My lovely and talented wife has just uploaded a short version of our wedding video (that she edited herself) set to The Nearness of You - Norah Jones (our song).

Enjoy!

Theme for the Day: The Stupid People Are Winning

2009-02-02T16:53:00.004+02:00

After spending some time this weekend reading and dealing with commenters on the Internet (not you guys, the other commenters), I have drawn the conclusion that the stupid people are winning.

Here is more proof:

The 5 Most Popular YouTube Pages (Are All Retarded) -- powered by Cracked.com

Carnival of the Africans #6

2009-01-29T11:10:00.004+02:00

Where did the time go? It's Carnival time again! Woohoo!

Go take a look over at The Skeptic Detective to see the latest instalment of the Carnival of the Africans - a carnival of blogs relating science and scepticism in Africa.

Go on then!

The Wedding

2009-01-27T13:35:00.006+02:00

At the Sceptics in the Pub last month, Ivan asked me whatever happened in my search to find a secular marriage officer. So I thought it might be a good idea to do a follow-up post.

As regular readers will know (and new readers can quickly find out) in September 2008, Hide and I got married.

One of my duties in planning the wedding was to try and track down a marriage officer. This was no mean feat. Neither of us are religious, so we wanted to keep religion out of the ceremony. The problem was that in South Africa, you need to be either a magistrate or a member of the clergy of a state-recognised religion in order to perform weddings.

I was hoping to find a former clergyman who had apostatised or something, but those were near impossible to find too. So eventually we settled on a Christian pastor, Conrad Kruger, who was prepared to perform what he referred to as a "civil" ceremony.

We basically wrote a script for him, which he recited more-or-less correctly for the ceremony. We based the script on a "traditional" one we found online, and basically stripped out and reworded the religious references. If you like, you can read it here.

If you're keen to see the wedding photos, check them out here.

Back to Basics: Homeopathy

2009-01-27T10:56:00.007+02:00

I've touched on the idea of homeopathy several times in the past, but I thought it might be a good idea to go through a quick description of what it is and why it doesn't work.

What is it?

Homeopathy is an alternative theraputic modality. It was invented by a man named Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th century, when mainstream medical technology still included things like leeches, bloodletting and trepanning. Hygiene hadn't been invented yet, and imbalances in the Four Humours were thought to be the cause of disease.

At that time, a patient undergoing medical treatment was more likely to die from secondary infections and and side effects from treatment than to recover, so Hahnemann created what he believed to be a gentler alternative: Homeopathy.

Homeopathy is based on two main principles: Similia Similubus Curentur and Dilution. Let's look at each of those separately.

Like Cures Like

Similia Similubus Curentur (or Like Cures Like) is based on a "fight fire with fire" approach to handling disease. An idea not all that dissimilar to the use of vaccinations in modern medicine, but in a much more primitive form. It's primitive because Homeopathy employs this approach reactively and at a symptomatic level, rather than pre-emptively dealing with the cause.

The process begins with a "Proving", in which a healthy patient is given a dose of a particular substance, and is observed to see what symptoms it induces. Once the symptoms have been documented, that substance is then used to treat sick patients who demonstrate that same cluster of symptoms.

For example: caffeine would inhibit the ability to sleep in a healthy patient. So the Homeopath will treat an insomniac (who is already unable to sleep) with caffeine. Or the Homeopath might treat a patient suffering from a fever with chilli, and so on.

On the surface this seems counter intuitive. And that's exactly what it is. There is simply no known mechanism through which this might work. It's simply a ridiculous idea, and Homeopaths would need to present some pretty extraordinary evidence to prove that it works. The problem is that that evidence simply isn't forthcoming.

Dilution

Somehow, Hahnemann got into his head a very strange idea: that the more you dilute a substance, the more potent it becomes.

When we talk about dilutions in the context of Homeopathy, we're not talking about dissolving a teaspoon of sugar in a glass of water. That wouldn't be potent enough! We're talking about dilutions so great that we need superscripts to be able to write the numbers!

For instance, it's not uncommon for us to see Homeopathic remedies available at 200C. This is Homeopathic code for a dilution of 1 part active ingredient to 10^400 parts of water. (10^400 is a number with a 1 in the front and 400 zeroes behind it. I'm not going to type all that out. As far as I know, that number doesn't have a name.)

The problem comes in with a well-understood concept in both chemistry and physics called Avagadro's Constant. Avagadro's Constant tells us that once you get to a solution of 1:10^23 , you only have one molecule of the active ingredient left in the mixture.

So as soon as you get to a solution of 1:10^24, you have a one in ten chance of there being a single molecule in the mixture. 1:10^25 takes that to one in a hundred, and so on. Once you get to 1:10^400, the chances of there being even a single molecule of the active ingredient in the preparation are far too small to even consider.

So what are they selling? Pure water? Yup. Sometimes they'll dilute the substance in something other than water: alcohol or sugar pills, perhaps. But then they're simply selling pure alcohol or just plain sugar pills. In other words, Homeopathic preparations are nothing more than a placebo.

Homeopaths claim that during the dilution process, if they shake the mixture just right, the properties of the active ingredient are somehow passed into the water, through some sort of magical "water memory". If that's true, then surely the water would still hold the properties of every other substance it's ever come into contact with, wouldn't it? All the water we currently drink could just as easily be considered Homeopathic Dinosaur Urine or Homeopathic Primordial Soup.

But Why do People Still Buy It?

This is a very good question. One that could just as easily be asked about any number of other fake medicinal preparations. The answer seems to be a little complicated.

It appears to be as a result of a cluster of known bugs in the human brain:

The placebo effect: since we often can't tell the difference between a sham intervention and real medicine, we sometimes feel better after taking a placebo.
Mistaken causality: the human brain is an extremely sophisticated pattern-recognition engine. It's far too easy for us to assume a causal link between two unrelated instances - the idea that A came before B, therefore A caused B.
Anecdotal evidence: hearing the stories of other people who felt better after taking Homeopathic remedies, we'll tend to believe them, and then confirmation bias comes into play - remembering the stories and experiences that confirm our beliefs, and ignoring or explaining away the ones that don't.

What's the Harm?

Another good question: if people feel better after taking a placebo, why not just let them take it to make themselves feel better?

In general I would agree with that. The problem comes in when people turn to Homeopathic remedies first, and don't seek proper medical care that could save their lives. There is a growing list of such such instances over at whatstheharm.net.

Why do people laugh at Creationists?

2009-01-23T17:13:00.002+02:00

An intelligent and witty series of videos dissecting a great many Creationist arguments in remarkable detail. Highly recommended!

(Be warned. This playlist includes 27 separate videos at the time of this posting, and seems to be continually growing. If you don't have the time to sit and watch them all in one go, I suggest you subscribe to Thunderf00t's channel, and work through them in more manageable serving sizes.)