I don't want to leave you hanging....

` I regret to say that I have failed to remember that I've forgotten that the end of my next Noci-Notes post has not been completed and I will not get a chance to do so until Monday, as I am about to retreat to the mountains on a specimen-collecting expedition.
` Finally; a chance to test my prototype hiking boots!
` Nevertheless, I don't want to leave without providing some sort of bizarre post while I am gone. And so, here is about the strangest draft I have on stock:

` In recent weeks, I have come across some very unusual credit card spam. What made it so odd and unusual was the fact that it was in tricksy spam language, which is evidently a disguise to make it look somehow significant!
` To hopefully generate perplexedness in your minds, I have removed the credit card links and have displayed it in a poem-like format.

volley:arrays:pejorative!
lurches disambiguation aboard mailings
shaping shrilled:Cenozoic?nook
Heckman deprave.
imperialism pill kitchenette cytoplasm
sequester Juddering Guenther applied incoherently Rorschach:
illustrator boggled pledge farmyards cuttings?
listless belie unfamiliarly Czech diagrammatically:
awry Stamford dealership!
pond fostering?
munitions Asheville aimlessly
Shiite moneys remotest crafty!
replica.revisiting Iliad mares?
smithereens emergencies levels.
Gauls?sheeted vexed
vex peeled provision drunken aiming?
insoluble:McPherson including bobbin neigh,contemplative
Stirling waived tiresomeness rationalizes!
promenade withdrawn hinting
imperviously arouse harshness symptoms
phosphate undetermined narration
lumped climatology extrovert.
interpretation biconvex matrimony.
swollen Sperry nonconsecutively couch functioned besotter!
caste nicker Donahue album

` Indeed. Random, computer-generated words. ...But they're such nice words!!!
` Strangely, this wad of gibberish actually seems to be quite similar to what Xenophon would compose and read - in his booming and beastlike voice - except that he at least displays proper grammatical usage of such words as 'Heckman' and 'biconvex'.
` I really must go now; anticipate my return on Monday!

The day Achau Nguyen faced his debunkers

` Just because I so enjoy making fun of so-obviously-unpsychic people as Sylvia Browne, please don't assume that I always glare and laugh at them. In fact, not all such people realize that they aren't actually psychic!
` For example, self-proclaimed psychic Achau Nguyen went down to the Steve Allen Theater to test his mental 'transmitting' abilities in a preliminary evaluation trial for the James Randi Foundation Million Dollar Challenge! While Achau worked at sending twenty words he had chosen at random, his friend, E. did his best to receive them in a downstairs room.
` Other details of the way the test was carried out can be found in this article.

` The highly-caffeinated Achau was quite excited as he sent the words out to his friend, sure that he was doing a fairly good job. Understandably, he was crushed when he saw the score:

To tabulate the results, we brought out a white scoreboard which displayed columns for “Word Sent,” “Word Received,” and “Running Score”. The sequence “sent,” “received,” “score” was read for all 20 words. No “Sent” words were even close to the “Received” words. (e.g. The first word he sent was “ovary”, though E. received “shopping mall.”) The running score became a column of zeros. [Pictured here.]

Achau seemed initially surprised, then a bit angry, then disappointed, and a bit humiliated. We tried to soften the blow by explaining that people make these mistakes and that he should use the test he just took to check himself in the future.

` Ouch! ...Though, despite this, Achau was unshaken in his belief.

He e-mailed us the next day with the following:

Hello Jim and the rest of the IIGWest staff,

I just wanted to thank you guys for everything again, I also wanted to apologize for the way I was after the test. I must admit I was really upset, not of any of you guys though, but at my recipient, (E.) I know he didnt even try to put an effort to help me out, everything he wrote was straight out of his ass, Im sorry to say. I guess you can say that's sorta my exscuse for failing, but whatevers, I did wanted to mention it when Jim invited us into his office after the test and was asking us if we had any ideas or reasons of the failure, but I didnt wanna make a scene.

I know since it was a failure in the testing, that pretty much says, that I do not possess these powers I claim to have, but within all honesty Jim, Derek, Sherri, Brian, Bernie, and Owen if you guys all can actually look me straight in my face and tell me im just halluscinating about everything, and misbelieved about these powers I possess, I totally respect that, but if you can somehow acknowledge and say that I do possess these powers, (that needs alotta tweaking) even though the test was a failure, that would mean the world to me, I guess what im trying to say is I need your guys stamp of approval, so that maybe I could go to soemone (sic) or they could come to me that'd be willing to help me out, and we could like learn and understand to control these powers together, you knows?

I mean winning the million and shutting down Randi would be great, but what I really need rite now is people who know actually know about these things, and can help me out. I know it was my fault for bringing the wrong recipient, and not actually trying these tests more and what so nots, but i beg you guys PLEASE and try to help me out somehow, like I've mentioned when I first came to Randi, I was asking him to help me out, and all he told me was, something like im not here to back up the paranormal, im here to debunk it, or something in that matter, so I beg you guys PLEASE dont do the same to me. I really do believe I possess alot of potential in this field, and even though I failed the test, I hope atleast finally I got somebody, or a group who are very respected and looked up upon in this field, like you guys to acknowledge that the powers are real, I'll be more than happy. But if you honestly can say, im delusional and just straight tripping and need to go get some help, I totally respect that, and will take up your guys advice on that.

In closing, thanks again for everyhting, especially sherri, she was like a maid for me, (LOL), and thanks EVERYBODY for all of the help and time you guys tooked out today on helping me out with the testing, especially when all I could produce for you guys was nothing at all, a 0 out of 20 score, and my deepest apologies again for my behavior after the testing, usually I do get like, where I cant breathe and start stuttering and what so nots, its the side affects, but mostly it was because that I was mad at (E.), it was like he just stabbed straight in my back, and apologies again if I took out that anger on you guys. I just hope though, some how you guys can help me out, you guys are pretty much my only hope. Thanks again.

Achau Nguyen

` I can certainly sympathize with Achau. I remember when I used to believe I had psychic powers; it was certainly crushing and frustrating to be faced with contrary evidence! It is not surprising, therefore, that I can understand how easy it is to be deceived by events that are most simply explained as physical.

At a post-test discussion, we concluded that Achau had made no effort to deceive us, and was sincere in his belief that he possessed the power of telepathy. We all felt a little bad for him, as his expectations of success were clearly not met.

We all made a concerted effort to be kind to him throughout the testing process, but felt no regret that the test had been conducted. We think the reaffirmation of the laws of physics and the methods of science is more important than the comfort of one individual.

` As do I.

Noci-Notes - 'Skeptics and True Believers' - #3

(First of this Series.)
` It should be clear by now that I revel in my Skeptichood, though I have trouble understanding the True Believer mindset. But don’t think that with all this talk about experimentation and faith that Skeptics are supposed to be more sane and rational than True Believers!
` Raymo begins Chapter Two: Decoding the Mystery of Life:

The difference between Skeptics and True Believers is not that Skeptics believe what is sensible and obvious, while True Believers accept what is fanciful and far-fetched. Often, it is the other way around. Scientific concepts can be extraordinarily bizarre, as strange to our notion of what is a proper landscape as are the mountainous frozen oceans and sulfur fountains of Jupiter’s moons.

` Looking upon an electron microscope photo of DNA in the journal Science, Raymo noted that it appears to be a tangled mess. The author of the article described it as looking like an ‘elaborate fishnet’. “Yet somehow the fishnet manages to reproduce itself.” (Check out Science 247 (feb 23 1990): 913 to see yourself!)
` Yes, because that sounds utterly, barking mad.
` It’s not that hard to understand. As I had written in the previous post, DNA clones itself by splitting down the middle like a spiral-shaped zipper: Because each half is complementary and can only be assembled in one possible way, each half serves as a template for an entire strand which then builds itself out of the surrounding material.
` Simple, yes? Or is it?

If you stretched out the DNA in a single human cell, it would reach from fingertip to fingertip of your outstretched arms. In the trillions of cells in the human body, there is enough DNA, if stretched out, to reach the Sun and back a dozen times!

` Please, take a moment to cast your eyes to the ceiling contemplate just how far-fetched this fact sounds.

The DNA in a cell is tangled into forty-six chromosomes. Replication starts at hundreds or thousands of sites, at precisely defined moments in the cell’s reproductive cycle. Billions of chemical units in the DNA must be copied exactly, exactly once, no more, no less. Any foul-up could be damaging or fatal to the organism.

` And yet, how often do we humans mutate and/or become cancer-ridden? Most of us do not suffer that greatly from mutations, if at all! (This is not to say that some mutations can't be fun!)

The genetic material is active not only during cell division; it is writhing and twisting all the time, zipping and unzipping here and there along the strands, generating fernlike traceries as it spins off RNA and builds proteins – a whirling-dervish dance of life. Look again at that electron microphotograph of the tangled strand of DNA. It is not just lying there, static, like a cast-aside string of pearls. It is a pulsing, undulating farrago of threads, feathers, knobs and whiskers, a microscopic lace maker frenetically making a lace called life.
` That this should happen, minute by minute, hour by hour, in every cell of our bodies, without resulting in a hopeless tangle is – to put it bluntly – unbelievable….

` It is, isn't it? And yet, as far as everything that can possibly be determined, all of that stuff is true. The same goes for the glaciations of the ice ages. Even so, Raymo has a neighbor from his seasonal home in Ireland (on a hillside track they call ‘The Fairies’ Road’) who fears the wee folk said to live under the hill. She said to him; “It is easier to believe in fairies under the hill than ice on top.” Raymo adds; ‘And of course she’s right.’
` Once again, I am stumped at just why he reiterates that it is easier to believe in anthropomorphic beings such as fairies, humanoid gods and gray aliens than it is to accept what is evident in the basic workings of nature. I do not understand how some people could come to expect to see their own species projected into things that do not directly relate to humans!!
` My guess is that it has to do with our instinct to project our own selves into the minds of others, in order to understand, and predict the actions of, other people. (Sadly, mine was not able to develop until I was about nineteen years old, so this is normally a struggle for myself.) We also tend to do the same sort of thing with dogs, pigs, and monkeys, because it is obvious that they have motives and can think and learn. It is therefore not a large step for Homo sapiens to think up the idea that weather and other aspects of nature could also have personalities – that storms and rivers really are temperamental!
` Over the millennia, people have seen conscious beings like themselves everywhere, in everything, probably because we humans only have our own human minds to relate to (and understand) the world. How many people have there been throughout time to say otherwise?
` I suppose that sounds logical enough, and yet I do not know why anyone would want to do such a thing. What is this need for spirits and aliens and personified astronomical bodies that people want to fulfill? Even when I believed in strange and pseudoscientific things, I am not aware of ever having such a need.

` …Tangents aside, the next thing that Raymo writes is; ‘So why do I believe in the unerring fandango dance of the DNA, which I cannot fully imagine no matter how hard I try, and not fairies, which any child can imagine?’
` Well! Perhaps my ability to imagine has something to do with my own inability to understand True Believers! Growing up, the only way that I could remember what something looked like was if I translated the experiences into sentences and then remembered the words I used. I could not remember images directly – only descriptions of them. Visualization had eluded me until my late teens, and I am still struggling with the concept.
` Maybe the reason a lot of people want to believe in supernatural creatures and such is because many of them are so anthropomorphic and therefore more easy to both relate to and picture. And yet, I had a very hard time both picturing things and figuring out what was going on in other people’s heads.
` …Curiously, I have always been capable of drawing pictures of things I wasn’t looking at, and then drawing the same thing again, even when the only thing I could think of were a verbal description and the blank paper in front of me: If I wanted to see something imaginary, from my own mind, I would first have to draw the thing before I could see it!
` Therefore, it never mattered to me whether or not I could see something, or really even relate to or understand it. As long as I had a reason to think it was true.

` Second tangents aside, I think I’m starting to understand why I’m a Skeptic: It’s difficult to believe something you can’t imagine without some form of evidence that surely exists outside of people’s minds.
The physicist-philosopher Henry Margeneau made a point to invent a diagrammatic scheme that shows a distinction between the two.
` It involves a vertical line, and in the left field, circles are placed which represent things that are ‘out there’; the world ‘as it is’ through our senses. To the right, one places circles which represent ‘mental constructs’; the world ‘as we know it’ in our head.
` My ‘lucky’ glass coffee mug, for example (the only one that was not smashed in the ‘Battle of the Shiny, Metal Objects’); how would the mere act of seeing it appear on this map? To the immediate right of the perception plane-line, one would see circles that stand for concepts such as ‘green’, ‘reflective’, ‘transparent’, and ‘ridges’. These would be connected via lines to another circle somewhere a little further to the right, which stands for everything I conceptualize about the coffee mug, including its name.
` And, if we assume that I am overwhelmed by toxic fumes at the moment and am not really sure if it exists or not, picking it up and drumming it with a fingernail would yield the sensations of ‘cool’, ‘smooth’, ‘heavy’, and ‘clinking sound’. (Hopefully.) Those sensations would contribute yet more links to my mental construct of ‘glass coffee mug’, thereby reassuring me that it was really there.
` Not everything is so well-reinforced in this way, however: Fairies can be inferred if one notices that a gardening tool cannot be found, or if one hears a mysterious singing noise, and links these occurrences to the construct ‘fairies’. ‘What is missing from out map are lines connecting the construct “fairy” directly to immediate sensations. No one has actually seen a fairy.’
` On the contrary, I have seen a fairy, and he was so adorable I was almost sad that any attempts of seducing him on my part would be for naught. But, I’m getting off the subject. Raymo! What else do you have to say?

”DNA replication” is a construct far removed from the perception plane. There is almost nothing about the construct that relates to ordinary experience, which is why the construct is so difficult to imagine. The perceptions upon which the construct is based are highly technical – for example, X-ray diffraction photographs and demanding chemical assays.
` The construct “double-helix DNA” is connected with reality by way of many other technical constructs, circles connected to circles in a vast web, by as many paths as we can devise and test, until at last we reach the relevant immediate perceptions – blackened grains in a photographic emulsion, for example, or a reading on a microbalance in the chemical lab – perceptions that mean nothing except in the context of the entire web of constructs.
` The scientist looks for taut and unambiguous connections between constructs and perceptions that can be subjected to quantitative and reproducible experimental tests.

` And yet the construct ‘fairy’ is closer to the plane of perception than DNA. Why does the Skeptic doubt the fairy so?

The noise might just as well be explained by the construct “wind,” with links that are firmer, more reproducible, and more widely acknowledged. The missing tool might be attributed to absentmindedness or human theft, both of which are universally acknowledge parts of our common experience. In other words, “fairy” is connected to immediate sensation by few and arbitrary lines. Snip away the construct “fairy” and the rest of the map stands firm, no sensations go unexplained.

` And just so we’re clear on the fact that I am not making up things about the concept of science, I am giving Mr. Raymo here a large amount of room to explain:

Our understanding of DNA replication, on the other hand, is embedded in a vast and resonant web of interconnected constructs. It is the essence of scientific skepticism to test and retest each link in the web, to try to prove it faulty, to look for more concise patterns of constructs and connections that will adequately explain our immediate sensations – the blackened grains in the photographic emulsion, the results of the chemical assay. If we have succeeded in constructing a resonant web of constructs, then any observer, Skeptic or True Believer, should be able to trace the links back to the perceptional source along vibrant lines of connection.
` It is the firmness of these many connections, based upon tens of thousands of exact, quantitative, reproducible experiments, that anchors the construct “double-helix DNA” to reality. Snip a line of connection here and there – the web still holds. Remove the construct entirely, and sensations go unexplained. And that’s why we [accept] the seemingly impossible dance of the DNA.
` But it isn’t easy. Many of the links in the scientist’s map of the world are highly technical. Only narrow specialists will comprehend some of the connections. Any one scientist must trust the veracity of all other scientists, which is why so much effort goes into quantitative data keeping, citation of relevant prior research, and peer review. A scientist giving a talk to fellow scientists, even to close colleagues, is unlikely to get very far before someone interrupts with “Now wait a minute, about that last step…”
` I have often watched the skeptical engine of science at work – winnowing, pruning testing the resilience of the web. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of this kind of collective scrutiny unless your ducks are well in line.

` Yes, all of that! You didn’t hear it from me, you heard it from Chet Raymo. Once again, that is the tried-and-true process! Though I very well know how to explain the concept of science, I’ve been steering clear as much as possible because I’m just not sure how many people will trust me.
` Must be all the madness and struggling in my life. People have a tendency to misunderstand my ways.
` Anyway, yes, scientists do accept anything to be true as long as it makes sense of many observations. This includes the very fact that a strand of DNA is several feet long, and yet it is tightly wadded into the nucleus of a microscopic cell. It is difficult to imagine, yes? Keep in mind, however, that an animal cell is about fifteen millionths of a meter in diameter, while the double helix is but three billionths of a meter across!
` When Raymo calculated this impossible-sounding size ratio, he found ‘that an arm’s length of DNA is hundreds of times less voluminous than a cell…. Moral: Mathematics can be an indispensable aid to the imagination.’
` Really our scientific concepts are quite difficult to picture if they are not immediately familiar. The fact that DNA works seems only conceivable when one considers that computers – though not nearly as complex – can also function with their hundreds of millions of switches turning on and off at breakneck speed for years without once malfunctioning.
` And just when I thought MAL was invincible, I discovered that one of his components was faulty.
` Thankfully, though those of us granted with life are not invincible, we are not machines: We are so much more complex and much hardier than them. And yet, mechanical metaphors are indispensable to the biologist for describing their own findings – they are just too difficult to describe without some degree of familiarity.
` Such are the limits of the human brain. Personally, though, I think that such things often get in the way of actual ideas. In fact, when I grasp such a concept without first being presented with a familiar analogy, I find that the analogy is what gets in the way.
` On top of this, I often find that when I grasp a metaphor that I am merely grasping a metaphor rather than what it stands for.

` Sigh… is there not anyone out there who is mentally defective the way I am?

` Ah, okay, that is my off-the-subject conclusion to this post. And if you have any opinions about whether I'm being way too plagiaristic or personal in my essays, please tell me. I have a tendency of constantly analyzing what is going on in my head when I write.
(Next of this series.)

The Fakelore of the Easter Bunny

` I imagine that many of you are probably worn out from all that extensive reading, if you have even deigned to attempt it. That is why I have decided to give you a small break:
` Yesterday, as you all may know, was Easter. As the library was closed - or at least not open very long, being a Sunday - I was off in my lab doing important dissections [left].
` I recall reading a pamphlet last year explaining that the word 'Easter' is derived from the name of the pagan goddess 'Eostre', which was documented - if dubiously - by the Venerable Bede. In any case, the lunar month of April was known to pagans as 'Eostre-monat'.
` The pamphlet also said that the Oschter Haws (Easter Hare) comes from a legend where Eostre comes across a wounded bird lying in the snow. To help it survive the winter, she turns it into a hare - except it can still lay eggs, which it decorates and gives to her in thanks.
` If that legend, or similar ones, were told by ancient pagans, then why does the first citation of it appear sixteen years ago in a book by Sarah Ban Breathnach? (The book in question is Mrs. Sharp's Traditions: Nostalgic Suggestions for Re-creating the Family Celebrations and Seasonal Pastimes of the Victorian Home.)
` It makes me wonder; where do these 'legends' come from? I know that the fakelore of Paul Bunyan was invented by a lumber company in the early twentieth century, so he can be attributed to advertisement writers. That is straightforward enough, but... who would even want to make up the Easter Bunny legend? (...Perhaps reading Sarah's book might give me a hint!) I mean, why do people do this stuff? I just don't understand!
` Then again, I am of a mind of reporting the truth. It's the scientific way.

Noci-Notes - 'Skeptics and True Believers' - #2

(Previous installment.)
Chapter One – Miracles and Explanations

` As Point of Goodness has commented (on my last post), Skepticism is a paradigm because it makes assumptions. When I had the chance, I countered that its only real assumption is that objective reality exists outside of our heads. (By the way, Galtron, I like that joke about the Red King. You bad.)
` Indeed, objectivity is the core assumption of science and Skepticism in general – a ‘real world’ exists, and we can all agree upon it. And since the world is not relative to different people's existences, experimental results are consistent with one another (as long as conditions are identical).
` Even if we have to imagine a concept – say, the atom – without the benefit of direct evidence, there is still more than enough consistency in the workings of the world to infer its existence. And yet, there is no certainty that it exists, because atoms have never actually been observed.
` As Raymo puts it:

Science is based upon our ability to imagine what we cannot see: nuclear reactions in the cores of stars, the spinning of galaxies, the dervish dance of DNA…. Science takes as given that a real world exists “out there,” and that it can be represented, albeit imperfectly, in the world of ideas. We struggle mightily to make the partition between the imagined world and the real world as transparent as possible.
` No scientist will dispute that “atom” is a made-up concept; however, the concept “atom” is the most concise way – perhaps the only way – to make sense of our detailed, quantitative experience of the material world. Without the concept “atom,” chemistry, X-ray crystallography, nuclear energy, thermodynamics, and other broad territories of external experience make no sense at all. Indeed, so transparent is the partition between “atom” and experience that most scientists would say that atoms are “facts,” or at least so close to being facts that no quotation marks are called for.

` So you see, many things cannot be seen to exist directly, and yet scientists reason that they must exist on account of their being so plainly practical to make sense of the real world!
` Biologist Richard Dawkins has suggested that the way in which children are so eager to accept what their parents tell them has been strengthened by natural selection because those kids who mind a parent’s warning are not as likely to put themselves in danger. (“Putting Away Childish Things”, Skeptical Inquirer, Jan-Feb 1995.) In other words, taking the word of someone who has experienced danger that you have not may save your life, therefore increasing your chances of passing down your genes. (And, of course, genes probably have some influence over just how obedient one is, at least early on in life when people are young and ignorant.)
` It is this credulity, you see, that also makes children receptive to other ideas, such as the Tooth Fairy. Eventually, however, children question these things and eventually discover that there is no evidence for them – perhaps even evidence against them (parents caught in the act of swapping money for lost teeth).
` Here is where the Tooth Fairy, mentally mapped as ‘something that exists’ becomes a mental map of ‘neat-but-pretend’ childhood mythology.
` Many times, however, these children grow up into adults who do not at least try very hard to distinguish between what they map as ‘true’ and what they map as ‘neat-but-pretend’ abstract conventions. They do not bother to seriously question other ideas that have just as little evidence for them, even if there is evidence against them! This is because they require certain emotional and aesthetic needs to be met.
` What these needs are, I can’t say I understand yet myself. All I require for my mental well-being is to be healthy and mentally acute; to have a lab that is in working order; to have the ability to be creative, and to educate myself; to have my mad scientist friends, and means of communicating with them.
` It’s quite simple, really. However, I trust that other people know what they are talking about when they say that they themselves or others have a ‘deeper need’ in life. As far as what Raymo has to say:

We get in trouble when the two kinds of [mental] maps are confused, when we objectify elements of make-believe solely on the basis of inner need….[M]any of us accept the astrological influence of the stars on our lives because it satisfies an inner need, even in the face of convincing evidence to the contrary (every objective test of astrology has proved negative).
` The True Believer retains in adulthood an absolute faith in some forms of empirically unverifiable make-believe (such as astrology or the existence of immortal souls), whereas the Skeptic keeps a wary eye even on firmly established facts (such as atoms). Both Skeptic and True Believer use made-up maps of the world.

` In other words, it takes imagination in order to perceive the world, no matter if one is a True Believer or a Skeptic.
` For example, it takes imagination to think of the way carbon dating works. There are two kinds of carbon isotopes – one is called carbon-12 (six protons, six neutrons) and the other is carbon-14 (six protons, eight neutrons). Carbon-12 nuclei are stable, while those of carbon-14 are radioactive and will decay. Precisely every 5,568 years, half of the carbon-14 atoms will disintegrate. But, because carbon-14 is being created at a constant rate, the ratio of the two isotopes are fairly stable in the atmosphere, and in living things.
` When an organism dies, it stops taking in either isotope: The carbon-12 levels in its remains will actually stay the same while the carbon-14 decays more and more, changing the ratio of isotopes.
` We know that the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,568 years because it has been matched to objects with a known age: For example, it has been calibrated against both historical objects of various times as well as the ring count of ancient trees.
` So, it is an evident fact of nature that carbon-14 decays at a certain rate, though it takes some real mental imagery to picture the atoms and their pattern of disintegration. It is not directly observable with the naked eye, and so it is no surprise that some people have doubted carbon-14 dating in all or at least certain cases, usually for faith-based reasons.

` Case in point, says Raymo, is the Church-commissioned study of the Shroud of Turin. (P.E. Damon, D.J. Donahue and B.H. Gore, “Radioactive Dating of the Shroud of Turin,” Nature 337 (Feb 16, 1989): 311-15) Having been woven from flax, its fibers were once alive and growing. In the light of carbon-14 dating, the question is; ‘When did the plants die?’
` Answering this was a complex process – first, there needed to be controls in order to keep the experimenters blind as to the identity of the shroud, as well as more than one team involved in order to see if the test was repeatable.
` For the controls, a 900-year-old piece of linen from a Nubian tomb was commissioned, along with a bit of St. Louis D’Anjou’s clothing from 800 years ago, and a snippet of second-century linen from Cleopatra’s mummy.
` One set of these controls were sent with a bit of the Shroud to a lab in Zurich, another was sent to Oxford, and another was sent to Tuscon, Arizona. Each team was not told where any of the samples were from, and none of them communicated with one another until they had completed the tests.
` As it turned out, all of the labs came up with the correct results for the control samples, and each determined that the flax making up the Shroud of Turin was harvested during the mid-fourteenth century – a time of many false shrouds and similar artwork. This is consistent with historical evidence, because there is no record of its existence before that time.
` The test was carefully controlled and objective, nothing was suspicious, and so the Church officials accepted the results. The end.

` Keep in mind, however, that scientific tests of any kind cannot prove anything with absolute certainty, though such well-designed tests, where everything adds up, are convincing enough for a Skeptic. True Believers, on the other hand, have the ability to ignore scientific tests as relatively airtight as these and try to explain them away.
` One argument for this one is that the body of the risen Christ added extra neutrons to the carbon-14, making it only appear as young as its first appearance in historical documents. In other words, the argument involves adding on something that no one has any reason to think has ever happened, nor can anyone explain why a neutron discharge would occur (physically or with reference to the bible).
` Other arguments involve bacteria adding on carbon-14, and the presence of pollen from Jesus’ burial grounds. However, no such bacteria or pollen (nor first-century Roman coins, etc.) have been detected under the closest scrutiny.
` ...I may be going off on a rant here, but I don’t even understand how blood or other fluids on a dead body could be expected to imprint the body parts they cover on a burial cloth in only two dimensions - something that wraps all the way around a body could only be printed in three dimensions: The nose, for example, would be about three inches wide, and the ears would be five inches or so from either side of the nose!
` Anyone familiar with this concept would expect the image of a body on a burial shroud to resemble the distorted-looking shape of a stretched-out animal hide rather than a picture of the same animal when it was alive, because that animal’s skin once covered its entire body.
` However, it turns out that – despite claims to the contrary – the rust-colored substance on the shroud is red ochre paint and does not contain blood or embalming fluid. In other words, it was evidently painted by an artist. Nevertheless, even if it were a real burial shroud of some sort (or at least made by wrapping a bloodied person in a linen cloth), that the flax was evidently alive until the 1300’s tells us that there is no reason to think it could be a burial shroud of anyone before that time.

` Ah, but I am rambling in my clarification. Back to the book:

` Raymo recalls that, as a young boy going to Catholic school, “the Shroud of Turin was offered to me as evidence for the risen Christ, and therefore for the truth of Christianity.” Back then, miracles were the evidence for his beliefs. Until he began college.

The text we used for my freshman theology class was Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity, the thrust of which was that any sane person must be a Roman Catholic, so persuasive is the evidence for the objective truth of that faith. Meanwhile, I was studying science and discovering a way of constructing mental maps of the world that allowed no place for miracles.
` This is not to say that science proves miracles are impossible. One does not prove the invalidity of a miracle by showing that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature. It is the nature of miracles – the strength of their force as evidence – that they violate natural law. Science works by finding consistent patterns in nature; miracles, if they occur, are by definition one-time things. In my university science classes, I did not learn that miracles are impossible, but that there is no reliable evidence that they occur.

` He explains that on its own, any one miracle can be explained by things already familiar to science – it is only when you add up all these supposed miracles that evidence for them appears to be substantial. Then again, one does not need ‘one-time’ miracles to be amazed.
` Says Raymo; ‘None of the miracles I had been offered in my religious training were as impressively revealing of God’s power as the facts I was learning in science.’ Also, said John Donne in 1627; ‘There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which is therefore done every day, but would seem a miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.’
` Of course… of course! Plenty of mundane things do seem miraculous – the changing colors of leaves in the fall, their death, and then the rebirth of new leaves. If that only happened once, I am sure that everyone who bore witness to this would flip out. Can you imagine people saying; “The leaves! They turned orange! And then they fell out – for months we thought the trees were cursed! But then, each and every leaf was replaced with a new one… it was like nothing had happened!”
` Or, what about gravity? Buoyancy? The fact that anyone can walk? The process of dead things rotting and becoming plant food? The fact that plants take in their energy from the sun? It is all fairly wondrous, and I’m sure that the idea would seem so for anyone confined to a space station without much in the way of terrestrial life and such.

` But, for our non-space-station confined readers, Raymo gives the example of the life cycle of a sandpiper called the red knot, which travels over 18,000 miles every year in a specific pattern: At one step in the cycle, the birds spend the southern summer in Tierra del Fuego in order to moult and build up their strength in preparation for the long journey north. In early February, flocks of hundreds or thousands of birds sail through the sky over Argentina and Brazil, occasionally stopping to eat at the same specific points along the way. By the time they get to the northern coast of South America, they take a nonstop flight over the Atlantic ocean until, in mid-May, they finally ground themselves in the marshlands of Delaware Bay.
` At this time, the horseshoe crabs are laying millions of eggs, and so the red knots, hungry from their flight, begin feasting: One bird can eat 135,000 of these eggs. After this crucial gorging, the now-replenished birds head off north of Hudson Bay to the Canadian archipelago.
` By this time, it is summer in the northern hemisphere, and so it is fine weather for the birds to pair up and start families. Soon after the chicks hatch, they are developed well enough to walk, and they continue to rapidly develop until they are both properly feathered and robust enough to fly.
` Halfway through July, the females take off by themselves for the south, and the males follow a few weeks later. The young ones, by this time, are quite tough enough to take care of themselves, so it is not until late August that they also head south.
` This is the most astonishing part: They follow the migration route used by their ancestors – using the exact same feeding grounds and everything! – from northern Canada, to the shores of New England, across the Atlantic to Guyana and Suriname, and along the eastern coast of South America.
` So, the amazing ‘miracle’ is this; how do the juvenile birds, without having ever left their natal grounds, spontaneously spring into the air and travel 9,000 miles along a specific string of stopping points and across an ocean, to a place they have never seen before? Even with the help of the earth’s magnetic fields, polarized light, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the question remains; how do they know that route?

` Obviously, that specific course must be ‘plotted’ into the migratory instincts of this species, as they take no other way, nor are they likely to get lost. It is a very specific course, and there is little room for error. Apparently, the animals that had a faulty idea of what they needed to do for survival were removed from the gene pool, thereby reinforcing the correct route. Only the survivors – ones that proved themselves able to fly south and then back to the breeding grounds – were able to breed, thereby passing on their genes.
` Truly, DNA is a wonderful thing, and yet it is so simple: Two twists of phosphate and sugar molecules joined in the middle by four different types of nucleotides – adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thyamine (T). To make things even less complex, adenine can only pair with thymine, and cytosine can only pair with guanine, so the only linkages found in DNA can be A-T, T-A, G-C and C-G. (Of course, this limited pairing is the reason why DNA can replicate – it ‘unzips’ itself down the middle and so each half can only be assembled into a whole in only one way.)
` Considering that each strand of DNA contains billions of nucleotides, the pieces of it that actually constitute genetic code are not very substantial. And yet, this small bit of four-letter-coded information is enough to create an entire organism, including a bird that comes pre-wired with a map and strategic navigation skills, no learning necessary.
` …How this came to be in the first place, I don’t know. (It might help me to have ornithologist friends here.) Perhaps the ancestors of red knots actually stayed with their young ones and guided them to Tierra del Fuego. Eventually, the migration route began to program itself into the wiring of the birds’ brains, as it is a matter of life and death to keep oneself on course – the ones which strayed off the path were the ones who died.
` The survivors, which were born with at least a rough idea of the course, did not necessarily need to fly with their parents. At that time, the adults could begin migration whenever it was most convenient to avoid competition with one another over food and whatnot.
` Plausible as my top-of-the-head hypothesis might be, it may have actually happened another way. After all, the migration of Monarch butterflies requires a series of generations – each butterfly migrates but one leg of the journey, reproduces, and then dies. Yet, though this sounds baffling, the process of attaining this genetic information might be deceptively simple.
` I’d have to ask an entomologist/geneticist for ideas. In any case, things that really do happen every day are quite astounding when you think about them. Who needs miracles to wonder at when you have red knots?

` That is all for today. Though, as I now have more of these completed, I promise not to force any interested person to wait terribly long for the next installment. And if you thought it couldn’t get any better, the next one has a pretty, shiny picture in it!
(Next Installment.)

Noci-Notes – ‘Skeptics and True Believers’ - #1

` This post is a really long one. It’s also worth reading.
` Update: It's not as long as it had looked until now! I had previously somehow posted it multiple times, making it appear to be ridiculous in length.

` Recently, I’ve been tossing out posts that make fun of fraudsters, though it’s obvious that not everyone can expect to understand why. So, I thought I’d finally start posting Noci-Notes, though from different material than the ones I had started in January.
` This particular set is from a book by Chet Raymo that propagated my understanding of what critical, scientific thought is - and what it isn’t. I confess that before then I had been a clueless fan of the pseudosciences, which are belief systems that appear to be science-based, via ploys such as faulty or hoaxed experiments and the distortion of real scientific findings.
` Since I have learned how to distinguish between what does and does not constitute science, I not only want to pursue a career in science – I know what being a scientist actually means!
` Imagine that.
` Sadly, and for a variety of reasons, most people (in general) don’t really understand what the words ‘science’ and ‘critical thinking’ refer to. Consequently, when one talks about actual science and critical thinking, most people do not - at least entirely - understand the true meaning of what is really being said.

` As you may imagine, not being critical can cause problems both in day-to-day life, as well as what could be called ‘national ignorance epidemics’.
` And what do I mean by ‘critical’? The definition sounds just as harsh as the word itself: ‘Critical’ is when you say; “This is what we (or others) think might be true. Therefore, let’s try to prove it wrong!”
` That’s basically how science works: It falsifies as much data as possible, while piecing the rest into explanations that are found to work in real-life practice. Such working explanations are known as theories.
` The idea is that anything that survives this process therefore has a chance of being true: Therefore, like a sculptor chiseling off superfluous marble to create a sculpture, the scientific method was designed to whittle away at hypothetical ideas in order to create a sharper and more accurate image of the universe.
` In clearing away such faulty ideas, progress can avoid being completely blocked by the barrier of questions that can be summed up thusly; ‘Is this not true? …Because if it isn’t, my hypothesis could never become a theory!’

` Is this making sense to everyone?

` A familiarity of skepticism is not only important for scientific understanding – it is also best for working out everyday puzzles. Ah, but Raymo and I will both elaborate: In this post, I am testing my note-making skills out for the Introduction of Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection Between Science and Religion.

` We humans are odd life forms on this rock in that we can think to ask questions that go so far beyond the capabilities of any other animal living today. For thousands of years, we have asked; ‘What is this reality that we live in? Where did it come from? What will happen to it in the future? And where do we fit in?’
` As a byproduct of the human ability to reason beyond one’s means and necessities, the most primitive types of mythologies have apparently come from trying to explain everyday events that seem to be more than physical cause and effect.
` This is because human brains are capable of finding causal patterns in happenings where it is very questionable – you can see this in the ‘modern world’ in those who believe that wearing a certain pair of socks will give them good luck when attempting a non-sock-related endeavor.
` Logical? Not really. What kind of influence could socks exercise over the situation? If one wanted to, one could see if they could prove this superstition wrong by performing a carefully-controlled experiment that addresses the question; ‘Is there any difference between the outcome of whether or not the socks are worn or not?’
` That is essentially the way of science and critical thought.

` But what determines whether or not someone is more prone to believing in such superstitions just because they think they see something, rather than systematically trying to rule it out? For whatever reasons, there are two basic ways that people might look at the world - though I think it would be more appropriate to refer to them as ‘two extremes of a continuum’.
` This is where the terms ‘Skeptics’ and ‘True Believers’ come in. And, while the preceding was all-original, I shall now steal some text from Raymo:

Skeptics are children of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. They are always a little lost in the vastness of the cosmos, but they trust the ability of the human mind to make sense of the world.

` So it is with me (and my Skeptic friends): I know that knowledge of everything ever is not exactly probable, though there is so much to learn that I doubt we can ever become bored with scientific progress.

They accept the evolving nature of truth and are willing to live with a measure of uncertainty. Their world is colored in shades of gray.

` Glad to be uncertain if necessary? I'd say it is better than saying; “I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I will take my best guess and just believe that.” Call me crazy, but somehow I get the idea that a large measure of such caution is the vital attitude for Skepticism.

They tend to be socially optimistic, creative, and confident of progress.

` You bet’cha! Today’s societal woes getting you down? Someday, they will be a thing of the past! Eventually. Perhaps after a war or two, maybe the collapse and rebuilding of society itself. It may take a few centuries…. But they will pass!

Since they hold their truths tentatively, Skeptics are tolerant of cultural and religious diversity. They are more interested in refining their own views than in proselytizing others. If they are theists, they wrestle with their God in a continuing struggle of faith. They are often plagued by personal doubts and prone to depression.

` This makes sense, considering that most people I tend to hang out with have always been Skeptics, theistic or not, and that at least one of them is obsessed with being as logically consistent as humanly possible. One thing that we all have in common is that we celebrate relying on oneself for both physical and mental sustenance.
` On the other hand, a couple of Christian True Believers that I know of have stated that this mentality is somehow egotistical or self-centered because you cannot ever really do anything ‘by yourself’ (without God). For reasons that largely seem mysterious to me, they need to seek out a niche in the world and will despair if they cannot find it.
` Some of them don’t even appear to be capable of confidence unless they believe they are being assisted. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that Raymo writes this next:

True Believers are less confident that humans can sort things out for themselves. They look for help from outside – from God, spirits, or extraterrestrials. Their world is black and white. They seek simple and certain truths, provided by a source that is more reliable than the human mind.

` This is not to say the human mind doesn’t deceive itself! After all, many kinds of self-deception have been thoroughly scientifically documented! ;)

True Believers prefer a universe proportioned to the human scale. They are repulsed by diversity, comforted by dogma, and respectful of authority. True Believers go out of their way to offer (sometimes forcibly administer) their truths to others, convinced of the righteousness of their cause.

` And I have partly figured out why: A True Believer might think that, because a sacred, Esteemed Authority is the source of their beliefs, then likewise filling other people’s minds with the repetition of the same doctrine is nothing more than acting as an extension of this Esteemed Authority: Therefore, they too have the authority (or sometimes even an obligation!) to do so!
` ...Though I suppose that this may be obvious to most people.

They are likely to be “born again,” redeemed by faith, apocalyptic. Although generally pessimistic about the state of this world, they are confident that something better lies beyond the grave.

` I guess that’s what keeps some people going! However, I would guess that a lot of this ‘True Believer’ mentality may be based on the average of Western True Believers rather than all of them worldwide - though there are some similarities across the board.
` …Come to think of it, I too was once convinced that an afterlife would be better than the life I had, though now it is plain to see that just about anything is better than my childhood! A hectic adulthood, for example, is much more relaxing….
` As has been mentioned, not all religious people are True Believers – some have a mostly Skeptical way of seeing things and would rather find their own interpretation to their own faith. Conversely, some scientists would also rather not practice Skepticism by having unwavering belief of their ideas in the face of falsifying evidence.
` Of course, by nature, a scientist is not really allowed to do that:

Einstein once remarked that the most important tool of the scientist is the wastebasket. A scientist must be skeptical of her most cherished theory; if she is not, then others within the scientific community will do it for her. Indeed, science is little more than organized skepticism. A successful scientific idea must run a fierce gauntlet of peer review…. Generally, the competition of scientific ideas acts – as in biological evolution – to redefine the status quo, sharpening the match between theory and perceptions.

` In other words, ‘dysfunctional’ ideas are selected against, so as not to cloud the views of those who are busy trying to build concepts for functional use. And, since True Believers are basically those people who are most attached to their beliefs and would rather not give them up for anything, it is easy to see how this kind of thought can interfere with scientific research.
` Unwillingness to let go would explain why True Believers prefer the subjectivity of personal experience over the objectivity of multiple, independent sources of confirmation. It keeps them clustered into like-minded and often mutually-exclusive groups.
` And, upon further reflection, I realize that the more militant such groups are, the more people they exclude, and so any one such tight circle is not very likely to dominate the entire True Believer world. Furthermore, such groups may differ to the point that they cannot join forces with almost any other.

` Religious Skeptics, on the other hand, are much more capable of joining forces, for it may be that their particular ways of worshipping and believing are irrelevant to one another. And unlike True Believers, they do not proselytize their beliefs as much as they try to describe them in a logical manner, despite their admission that there is ‘no logical reason’ for them.
` As far as I can tell, Skeptics characteristically enjoy discussing other viewpoints with other people who may or may not hold them. Why? Because it’s a neat thing to do.
` And, concerning the rare attempt at swaying a True Believer away from a faith-centered mentality, the Skeptic could not be expected to succeed - probably because there are no ‘Skeptic-beliefs’ (much less preferable ones) to offer.
` I make this observation based on each and every case in which I have seen a Skeptic try to get their point across to a True Believer. The True Believer always has said; ‘I understand that, but I don’t agree because I would rather believe what I believe, because that’s what I was taught, and that’s my choice. End of story.’
` Solid faith was valued over logic every time. I think the True Believer’s choice may have to do with the fact that they cannot seem to function without belief, and the firmer, the better: If a person cannot release this conviction, a viewpoint that isn’t as faith-centered will seem downright unappealing.

` Fascinating.

` As you have probably noticed, it is true that I sometimes enjoy making fun of fraudsters in a humorous and/or possibly obnoxious fashion. And, if anyone should disagree with me, all I can do is to unproductively ask them to try to understand where I’m coming from.
` Yet, understanding we need: I’ve actually been asked by someone just how it is that I can ‘believe in skepticism’, especially since it ‘changes so much!’ As I (and Chet Raymo!) have extensively explained here, Skepticism is not a belief system – it is a scrutinizing system. This is why there are people who can both be characterized as Skeptics, yet may nonetheless choose to hold quite illogical beliefs.
` Rather, a more appropriate question here is; “How do you keep yourself from becoming attached to what you think is true when it turns out that it’s not?” Well, then! Actually, I think Raymo puts it best….
` To be sure, the means for which skepticism itself is kept from degenerating; ‘is a highly evolved social structure, including professional associates and university departments, peer-reviewed literature, meetings and conferences, and a language that relies heavily on mathematics and specialized nomenclature. The point of this elaborate apparatus is to minimize individual backsliding into the false security of True Belief. Political, cultural, linguistic, and religious idiosyncrasies are suppressed in favor of the common endeavor.’
` In other words, it’s a lot of work.

` One more point, however: As Raymo has observed from the letters elicited by his many, many years of writing a science and nature column for the Boston Globe, that most people will ‘warmly embrace the technological and medical fruits of science’ and that they ‘concede that science has proved spectacularly successful as a way of understanding the world,’ many of these people will also flat-out discount the very implications of scientific and critical thought!
` Now, what kind of logic is that?
` The parts of science that come into the most conflict are specifically those which imply that we are but humble animals that are not really special in any cosmological way, and that the world does not revolve around us.
` Some of these unsatisfied people may instead prefer various fundamentalist religions, pseudosciences, New Age superstitions, and other faiths which emphasize the idea that we ‘have our place’ and are important in the universe.
` Other True Believers might think of their doctrines alongside science as ‘complementary ways of knowing’ so that contradictory information does not come into conflict. In other words, this is a form of doublethink in which; “This is true here, yet it cannot be true there, and I can find no inconsistencies.”
` And, we cannot forget that there are also those who capitalize on (and sometimes exaggerate) the limits of scientific knowledge and make room for their beliefs in the steadily-retreating gaps of mystery. This way of thinking, and the scientist’s drive for finding solid and certain knowledge in the tangible rather than the speculative, would explain why the opening page includes a quote from physicist Paul Davies:

To invoke God as a blanket explanation of the unexplained is to make God the friend of ignorance. If God is to be found, it must surely be through what we discover about the world, not what we fail to discover.

` I ask; “Will the gaps ever be too small?” For some, perhaps not. All I can say is that we are human and it is possible to pursue objective reality from our standpoint. ...Especially considering that it is quite amazing what we can do with mere scientific methodology and the humble, earthly materials available to us:
` So far, we’ve discovered how to determine what stars are made of, how to make utterly new kinds of substances, and how to travel through space. We’ve even discovered that all earthly organisms are made of nearly identical molecular components, as well as reams of mechanisms that can allow us to manipulate them. Our computers are even able to display some forms of intelligent behavior – and who knows to where that could lead?
` In other words, something as simple as highly-organized and controlled critical thinking has brought us numerous possibilities so grand that they are also frightening. That just goes to show you how well science works. And yet… not everyone is willing to give it due respect?
` Even this is difficult for me to comprehend.


` Well! What did you, loyal readers, think of this post? Don’t be afraid to let me know!

` (If you'd like to keep reading, I have the second installment - and more! -up and running!)