The Arizona Skeptic online: vol. 6, 1992-1993

Continuing the postings of The Arizona Skeptic; you can find volume 1 (1987-1988) here, volume 2 (1988-1989) here, volume 3 (1989-1990) is here, volume 4 (1990-1991) is here, and volume 5 (1991-1992) is here. Volume 6 was edited by Jim Lippard and has been available online since original publication as ASCII text. An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here. The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 6, no. 1, July/August 1992 (text version):

• "Science and Dianetics" by Jeff Jacobsen
• "A Healthy Dose of Sarsaparilla" by Jerome L. Cosyn
• "Book Review: Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan" reviewed by Chaz Bufe
• "Michael Persinger and Tectonic Strain Theory" by Jim Lippard
• "Rutkowski's Work" and "Other Critical Works" (bibliography of papers critical of TST assembled by Chris Rutkowski)
• "Book Review: Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric by Howard Kahane" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: Sai Baba's Miracles by Dale Beyerstein" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• Media Update
• Newsletter Production Volunteers Needed
• Electronic Version of the Newsletter
• Upcoming Meetings: September speaker Chaz Bufe on Alcoholics Anonymous
• Articles of Note

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 6, no. 2, September/October 1992 (text version):

• "How Much of Your Brain Do You Use?" by Mickey Rowe
• "Phoenix Skeptics and the Sedona Harmonic Diversion" by Mike Johnson
• "Jehovah's Witnesses and Earthquake Frequency" by John Rand (pseudonym for Alan Feuerbacher)
• "The Institute for Creation Research and Earthquake Frequency" by Jim Lippard
• "QUAKE DAY - Minus 7" by Mike Jittlov
• "New Skeptical Group/Magazine" (Skeptics Society/Skeptic magazine)
• Upcoming Meetings: October speaker Peter Lima on the search for the historical Jesus
• Articles of Note

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 6, no. 3, November/December 1992 (text version):

• "Report on the 1992 CSICOP Conference: Part One" by Jim Lippard
• "A Visit to Dinosaur Valley State Park" by Richard A. Crowe
• "The End of Crop Circles?" by Chris Rutkowski
• Next Issue
• Upcoming Meetings
• Articles of Note

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 6, no. 4, January/February 1993 (text version):

• "Predictions for 1993"
• "Jeane Dixon Predicts Bush Victory"
• "Report on the 1992 CSICOP Conference: Part Two" by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: Impure Science: Fraud, Compromise and Political Influence in Scientific Research by Robert Bell" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: Taking Time for Me: How Caregivers Can Effectively Deal with Stress by Katherine L. Karr" reviewed by Michael A. Stackpole
• Upcoming Meetings
• Reader Survey
• Articles of Note
• Magazine/Journal Subscription Information

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 6, no. 5, March/April 1993 (text version):

• "CSICOP Questions Truth of Movie Based on Travis Walton UFO Abduction"
• "MIS-Fire in the Sky" by Chris Rutkowski
• "Linda Napolitano UFO Abduction Case Criticized" by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: The Retreat to Commitment by William Warren Bartley III" reviewed by David A. Snodgrass
• "Camille Paglia: Astrologer"
• Skeptical News
• Upcoming Meetings
• Books of Note
• Articles of Note

Volume 6 concluded my editorship, and volume 7 returned for one more issue edited by Mike Stackpole.

NPR ombudsman on torture

About a week and a half ago, I heard NPR's ombudsman, Alicia Shepherd, defending NPR's policy on refusing to identify waterboarding as torture. Her argument was that NPR had a journalistic responsibility not to take sides on any issue, and that to identify waterboarding as torture was to take a side. She actually wrote that "I believe that it is not the role of journalists to take sides or to characterize things."

I think this is not only ridiculous, but an abdication of journalistic responsibility in favor of a bogus view of reporting "objectivity" by using only "he said, she said" descriptions, to an extreme.

Here's what I posted to the NPR blog on July 2:

There is no reasonable debate about whether waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding has been legally determined to be criminal torture by U.S. courts in 1947, when Yukio Asano was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor for it (among other war crimes). Other Japanese war criminals, such as Kenji Dohihara, Seishiro Itagaki, Heitaro Kimura, Akira Muto, and Hideki Tojo, were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for engaging in torture during WWII, including waterboarding, and several were executed for it.

U.S. soldiers who undergo waterboarding as part of SERE training receive that training in order to understand what torture is.

It is bad journalism to defend "there are two sides to every issue" as a form of phony objectivity. Sometimes there are more than two sides of merit, and sometimes there is only one (and there is *always* some nut who will take issue with any well-established claim). In this case, there is no reasonable argument by which waterboarding is not torture. It makes no more sense to call it "what some people refer to as torture" than it does to insert similar qualifications on the front of every noun used in a sentence on NPR.

Another commenter replied to point out that waterboarding has been legally torture for longer than that in the U.S.

I was glad to hear Adam Savage of Mythbusters, at TAM7, answer the question "what has been the biggest media failure of skepticism lately" by saying that the biggest failure has been the NPR ombudsman's statement that calling waterboarding torture is taking sides and they have to be "balanced."

On my way to TAM 7

I'm in the Phoenix airport waiting for my early morning flight to Las Vegas for today's conference on science-based medicine, followed by The Amazing Meeting 7, at the new South Point Casino and Hotel.

I hope to write up a summary like I did for last year's TAM 6.

A code of conduct for effective rational discussion

John Wilkins sets out "a code of conduct for effective rational discussion," a list of principles for debate and discussion that aims at approaching truth rather than winning a rhetorical battle, at the new location of his Evolving Thoughts blog.

The list of proposed principles is:

1. The Fallibility Principle
2. The Truth-Seeking Principle
3. The Clarity Principle
4. The Burden of Proof Principle
5. The Principle of Charity
6. The Relevance Principle
7. The Acceptability Principle
8. The Sufficiency Principle
9. The Rebuttal Principle
10. The Resolution Principle
11. The Suspension of Judgement Principle
12. The Reconsideration Principle
13. Fleck’s Addendum

Check out Evolving Thoughts for discussion of each of these principles.

How Chase Bank's inflexibility is costing it money

My mortgage has been purchased by Chase Bank a couple of times (after the first time, I refinanced with another bank and then Chase bought my mortgage from them), and they're my current lender. I pay extra principal with every payment, usually about 30% more. For my February payment, I decided to reduce the extra principal a bit, for various reasons including keeping a bit more cash on hand in current economic conditions.

Unfortunately, I made a $100 error in my payment. Rather than paying an extra $40.37, I underpaid the monthly payment by $59.63. I learned my mistake when I received my mortgage statement, indicating that my entire payment was in "suspense funds received" and had not been applied to my mortgage at all.

I immediately called Chase. Even though it was an hour before their call center closed, I was unable to get to a human being. Instead, after being told I was being transferred to customer service, I got an automated message saying that my call could not by completed. I looked for online options for payment, but the Chase website referred me instead to their phone-based "FastPay" system. The "FastPay" system by phone charges a $15 fee (which the phone system says can be avoided by using the online payment system) and only allows making a full payment.

I tried again the next morning, and got through to Tonja, a customer service rep who told me that I could only make a full payment through the phone (not the $100 I wanted to pay), but said if I connected an external bank account online, I could make the payment that way, and as soon as the extra $100 was received, the payment would be applied as normal. I'm also well within the 15-day grace period for a payment, so I don't have to worry about late fees.

Online, I searched through some counter-intuitive menu options--within the mortgage account, payment options send you to the page about FastPay over the phone--I finally found that from the front page I could get to an option to connect an external account. I started the process, and learned that my bank could not be connected instantly by putting in my online banking authentication information, but had to use a method of verification where Chase puts two small deposits in my account and I come back later and input those amounts back to Chase to prove that it's my account (or at least that I have access to it). It then allowed me to attempt the instant verification method, despite its previous claim that my bank didn't accept it, but that failed (and I probably shouldn't have tried--Chase shouldn't have my authentication credentials to another bank). It then said it would take up to two business days for these deposits to go through.

The next day, my bank showed me that there were two pending deposits from Chase (yet another cost Chase is incurring), so I went back to the verification page and entered those amounts. Chase's website informed me that because those deposits had not been made yet, I was not allowed to verify the amounts yet. Dumb design. I tried again later in the evening, and my verification was accepted. Now I went to the page to make a payment, only to find that once again, the only option is to make an entire payment. Contrary to what Tonja told me, I cannot pay just an additional $100, because there is an outstanding payment that hasn't been made, and my $1100 sitting in "suspense funds" doesn't count and can't be used.

Well, I've got the money in savings, so I decided that if Chase is going to make things so difficult, I'm going to go ahead and make a full extra payment and deprive them of a little more interest over the life of my loan, in addition to the overhead costs they've incurred through this episode. The website told me it would take two business days to process, so it will be applied on February 11--still during the grace period. But now I still am not sure that the $1100 will be applied to principal reduction, so I called in again and spoke with Kim. I explained what has happened, and pointed out to her that Chase is losing money from its inflexibility, and she offered to move $100 from my January extra payment to February so that I could cancel the additional payment. I thanked her for the option (which I would have needed to take if I didn't have the money to spare), but declined, since that would result in an increase in interest. I asked if she could verify that the $1100 would be applied correctly, and she suggested that I call in again after I see online that the new payment is applied--which will incur yet further costs to Chase.

This is a nice demonstration of how an inflexible payment system doesn't deal well with partial payments can cost a company money and customer goodwill.

Heartland Institute mistakes parody for reality

Just as Conservapedia is often edited with parodies that even the real conservatives there can't distinguish from conservatism (let alone everyone else), the global warming-denying Heartland Institute has mistaken a parody video for a real one, and briefly posted it on their site until they realized they'd been had. It was probably the traffic from Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog that tipped them off.

This is a problem faced by ideological groups that search for evidence to support their established positions rather than trying to honestly evaluate the evidence. This isn't the first time the Heartland Institute has demonstrated that this is how they operate, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

What Michael Phelps should have said

At The Agitator blog, Radley Balko writes what Michael Phelps should have said when a photograph of him taking a bong hit was published in a tabloid:

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Read the rest at The Agitator.

Facing the Fire: creationist video

The creationist video I was filmed for, Creation Ministries International's "Facing the Fire," a documentary about the 1988 creation/evolution debate between Ian Plimer and Duane Gish, is available on YouTube in four parts (and embedded below). I first appear around 4:34 in the first segment, at 1:06 in the second, at 1:04 in the third, and at the very beginning of the fourth segment.

I described my experience being filmed and reasons for appearing in this documentary here, my reaction to the result here (which includes links to critiques of Gish), and you can find the articles I refer to in the documentary here:

"Some Failures of Organized Skepticism," The Arizona Skeptic vol. 3, no. 1, January 1990, pp. 2-5.
"How Not to Argue with Creationists," Creation/Evolution vol. 11, issue XXIX, Winter 1991-92, pp. 9-21.
"How Not to Respond to Criticism: Barry Price Compounds His Errors," talkorigins.org FAQ, 1993.
"Criticisms from an Obscure Corner of the World," review of Plimer's Telling Lies for God.


Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Part 4:

Anchoring and credit card minimum payments

"Anchoring" is the psychological effect that, when presented with a sample number prior to being asked to estimate some quantity, people tend to stick closer to that sample number than they would if no number were mentioned, even if the number is completely irrelevant to what's being estimated.

A study by Neil Stewart at Warwick University suggests that minimum payment amounts on credit card bills cause people to pay less on their credit cards per month than they otherwise would, since the minimum payment tends to be extremely low. While it has no effect on those who intend to pay off the full monthly amount (the only reasonable way to use credit cards, in my opinion), Stewart's work suggests that those who pay less than the full amount pay 43% less on average than they would if no minimum payment were specified.

While this might be interpreted as counter to the intent of a minimum payment, I suspect it's exactly the intended effect from the credit card companies--to drag out payments over the longest possible time and accumulate the most interest.

How to get on an atheist's good side

Greta Christina writes a list of "nine tips for believers who want to reach out" to atheists:

1: Familiarize yourself with the common myths and misconceptions about atheists -- and don't perpetuate them.
2: Familiarize yourself with what it's like to be an atheist, both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.
3: Find common ground.
4: Speak out against anti-atheist bigotry and other forms of religious intolerance.
5: Be inclusive of atheists.
6: Don't divide and conquer, and don't try to take away our anger.
8: Do not -- repeat, DO NOT -- talk about "fundamentalist atheists."
9: Be aware of how religious belief gives you a place of mainstream and privilege.

Read her article for the details.

Wine accelerator from SkyMall

If there was any doubt that the SkyMall catalog is full of bogus products that are complete ripoffs for idiots, that should be removed by this product--a "wine and liquor accelerator" that "surrounds the beverage with a powerful triangular-shaped magnetic field, and in just 10 seconds, you'll taste a premium drink's smooth, mellow flavor equal to years of traditional slow aging."

And here, Alex Chiu has been telling us that magnetic devices slow aging, not speed it up.

Not to mention that aging is not something that tends to improve the quality of wine.

How delusional is John Hinderaker?

John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog writes:

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

I find it difficult to imagine the amount of delusion and cognitive dissonance that can produce such a paragraph. George W. Bush is the man whose spoken words have produced multiple books of "Bushisms," and multiple years of "Bushism" calendars with a quotation for every day of the year.

The Sadly No blog responded to this paragraph with a series of YouTube videos vividly depicting Bush gaffes. I prefer this Andy Dick contribution:

Gas station ghost: Captain Disillusion's re-edit

"Captain Disillusion" has produced a re-edited version of a news story about a ghost caught on a gas station security camera that is much better than the original.

Hell House

The Door Christian Fellowship, a creepily cultish Pentecostal Christian sect that's an offshoot of Aimee Semple McPherson's Foursquare Gospel Church, is putting on a "hell house" in Chandler. They're calling it "Hell 101," and, as usual, they are advertising it in a deceptive manner that attempts to hide the fact that it's religious propaganda. I say "as usual" because not only have they put on such "hell houses" for years around Halloween, they're also known for advertising events such as Christian rock concerts while conveniently forgetting to mention the "Christian" part.

Such deception has long been associated with Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), who was a fraudulent faith healer, alcohol Prohibitionist, and anti-evolutionist who later in life faked her own abduction in order to run off with her lover, Kenneth G. Ormiston, who had been an engineer for her radio station KFSG in Los Angeles. After disappearing for 35 days, she stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, just south of the border from Douglas, Arizona, and told a phony story of kidnapping which quickly fell apart when witnesses came forth who had seen her at a resort in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She ended up dying of an accidental drug overdose from taking too many Seconol sleeping pills, but her Foursquare Gospel Church still exists today with over two million members, mostly outside of the U.S. (Interestingly, as a teenager McPherson was an agnostic who defended evolution in letters to the newspaper.)

The Potter's House, The Door, Victory Chapel, and other Foursquare Gospel spinoff churches are Pentecostal churches that engage in faith healing, speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, and other activities of anthropological interest. They can be very hardcore in the pushiness of their evangelism, and engage in cult-like conversion techniques such as separating people from groups they come with, pairing them off with someone of the same approximate age and sex, and bombarding them with rehearsed questions designed to push someone to a conclusion that they need to accept Jesus and join their group. (The Wikipedia page on The Potter's House describes this particular sect's origins in Prescott, Arizona in 1970, originally officially affiliated with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Wikipedia biography of its founder, Wayman O. Mitchell, is also of interest. The sect's origins trace back to Los Angeles, as does the Pentecostal movement in general.)

"Hell 101"'s website calls it "Final Destination III," and describes the hell house as "a twist on a haunted house style attraction that was described by Phoenix Arizona NBC News Affiliate Channel 12 as 'scary, horrifying, suspenseful, sick....' NBC 12 News had a live video feed from our annual event where hundreds waited up to two hours in line to have the hell-scared out of them." Their FAQ has the question "If I quit because I was scared or anything else can I get a refund?" The "anything else" would include feeling defrauded by having paid money for a haunted house, but getting instead Christian propaganda. The answer: "There are no refunds if you get scared, cry, feel angry, get sick, hate it, love it or just want to run!!! Our job is to confront your senses and that we do!"

A Christian hell house can be quite entertaining, so long as you know what to expect and are prepared to exercise your right to walk away at the end when the attempts at conversion go into overdrive (they may suggest that the doors are locked and that you may not leave). George Ratliff's documentary film "Hell House" is a great way to get a preview, and shows some of the unintentional comedy that can be produced when a bunch of ignorant people try to put together a scary haunted house designed to persuade you that you're going to hell unless you believe the way they do. That documentary also shows how ineffectual some atheists can be in their confrontation of Christians, and I highly recommend that anyone planning to visit one of these hell houses for any reason give it a watch before going.

A "hell house" usually follows a common script template which the churches purchase and customize. They go through a writing, casting, and production process similar to a high school stage production. The "hell house" script typically guides a group of visitors through a series of rooms, each of which contains a brief performance by actors portraying some scene that argues for certain practices, beliefs, or actions as likely to terminate with eternity in hell, though that latter point may initially be somewhat subtle. (By the end, it is anything but.)

I attended a hell house at a Potter's House church in Tucson in 1990, from which the flyer image was obtained. (Also see this PDF of an Arizona Daily Star newspaper story about that particular hell house, which got in trouble with the local fire department for fire code violations.) That hell house followed a female character from scene to scene which included a car crash caused by teenage drinking (featuring an actual wrecked car and empty beer cans), a band of demons playing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" (suggesting that at least some rock music is demonic in origin and consequences), and the ever-popular hanging nun in hell (Catholicism is regarded by this sect as ruled by Satan) and young woman on a stretcher with a pool of blood between her legs shrieking that she's killed her own baby (the anti-abortion segment). At the end, there's a high-pressure call to Jesus which provides an opportunity to argue with someone who may be something like a street preacher in their skill of providing pre-programmed responses to common objections they've heard many times but is unlikely to have actually thought deeply about. If you do choose to visit one of these, I advise not getting involved in such a discussion if you're somebody who is likely to blow up, call people stupid, or otherwise lose your cool--that's just going to be seen as confirming evidence that you're under the control of the devil and anything you say can be dismissed without consideration.

UPDATE (October 31, 2008): New Times has a review of The Door's "Final Destination III" hell house.

A measure for crackpots

Last night at a party, a few of us were discussing some recent self-published books by crackpots that we've seen or had pushed on us. We noted that these books seem to have in common a few features. They seem to often have long rambling introductions that are missing key elements like thesis statements or an indication of what the book is about. They use words in non-standard ways, yet don't bother to explain how they are being redefined. They claim that the author has some special knowledge, yet don't provide any reason to believe it is the case.

I had a dim recollection of having come across a "crackpot index" before somewhere, and a little bit of searching yielded Fred J. Gruenberger's December 1962 publication from the RAND Corporation titled "A Measure for Crackpots" (PDF), which offers the following scoring mechanism for distinguishing the scientist from the crackpot:

1. Public verifiability (12 points)
Scientists promote public verifiability; crackpots rely on revealed truth.

2. Predictability (12 points)
Scientists promote predictability and track their record of failure as well as success; crackpots promote wild predictions and count only successes, not failures.

3. Controlled experiments (13 points)
Scientists promote controlled experiments; crackpots avoid them.

4. Occam's razor (5 points)
Scientists prefer the simplest explanation that covers all the facts; crackpots enjoy wildly complex theories.

5. Fruitfulness (10 points)
Scientists prefer theories that generate new ideas and new experiments; crackpots prefer theories that produce nothing of value for further research.

6. Authority (10 points)
Scientists seek the endorsement and validation of known authorities and tend to obtain it if their work is valid; crackpots usually fail to obtain it.

7. Ability to communicate (8 points)
Scientists tend to promote clear (if sometimes dull) communications through approved channels; crackpots tend to be incomprehensible and self-published.

8. Humility (5 points)
Humility is a desirable (if sometimes lacking) trait in scientists; it is rare in the crackpot.

9. Open mindedness (5 points)
Scientists tend to qualify and carefully couch their statements as tentative based on the current evidence; crackpots tend to make absolutely certain statements that may not be challenged.

10. The Fulton non sequitur (5 points)
I'm more familiar with this as the "Galileo Gambit," or the common crackpot claim that "They laughed at Galileo; they're laughing at me; therefore I'm right just as Galileo was." Gruenberger uses steamboat inventor Robert Fulton in place of Galileo. This logically invalid argument is refuted by the Bozo rejoinder, which is that "they also laughed at Bozo the clown." This is a negative test, lack of the characteristic is 5 points, presence is 0.

11. Paranoia (5 points)
Another negative test--crackpots tend to be paranoid about their ideas being actively suppressed by conspiracy.

12. The dollar complex (5 points)
Another negative test. The crackpot claims immeasurable value for his discoveries as revolutionary, worthy of the Nobel prize, and world-changing.

13. Statistics compulsion (5 points)
The crackpot tends to use and continuously explain statistics allegedly supporting his claim, while the scientist tends to use standard methods and assume the reader is familiar with them.

Gruenberger's index is focused on science crackpots rather than philosophy crackpots, but a number of the above features do apply to the books we were talking about.

A more recent "Crackpot Index," also focused on physics, was created by John Baez, a mathematical physicist at the University of California, Riverside:

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

A -5 point starting credit.

1. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
2. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
3. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
4. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
5. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
6. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
7. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
8. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
9. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
10. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
11. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
12. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
13. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.
14. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
15. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
16. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
17. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
18. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
19. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index, e.g. saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.
20. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
21. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
22. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
23. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
24. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
25. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
26. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
27. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
28. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
29. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.
30. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
31. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
32. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
33. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
34. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

Here's a nice crackpot response to that index.

Prosperity theology created foreclosure victims?

An article at Time magazine suggests that those following the "prosperity theology" of some Pentecostal ministers are more likely than average to have obtained mortgages they cannot afford, leading to foreclosure:

Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants -- and hence, victims -- of the current financial crisis? That's what a scholar of the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While researching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he realized that Prosperity's central promise -- that God will "make a way" for poor people to enjoy the better things in life -- had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house." The results, he says, "were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers."

Yet another case of religious trust being exploited to victimize those who have it.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Bush and Palin anti-intellectualism

Radley Balko on Palin's performance in the VP debate:

Palin was rambling, didn’t answer the questions she was asked, and the folksy stuff felt contrived. I suppose Palin did okay in that she didn’t come off like the train wreck she was in her Katie Couric interview, but Jesus, is that the standard? Is the bar that low for vice president of the United States? That seems to be the way the conventional wisdom is playing out. Oddly, the Couric interview may have actually helped her, then.

Palin seems to have crammed just enough so she could toss out key phrases here and there to give the veneer that she’s informed. But it’s pretty clear she was in way over her head for most of the debate. Pick her apart with follow-up questions, as Couric and Gibson did, and she falls to pieces.

This growing anti-intellectualism on the right is alarming. It isn’t that Palin is dumb. I don’t think she is. It’s that she has no interest in learning, no interest in reading or experiencing anything that might challenge what she already knows she believes. She thinks with her gut, as Steven Colbert might put it. She’s a female W. And they seem to love her for it. The GOP has gone populist. Knowledge, worldliness, and learning are to be shunned, swept aside as East Coast elitism. It’s all about insularity, earthy values, and simpleness. Remember the beating John Kerry took in 2004 for daring to use the word “nuance?” There’s no room for complexity on the right anymore. It’s good and evil. Black and white. Us and them.

Maybe a good butt-kicking this November will bring about some soul searching.

And Ed Brayton on Bush, quoting this ABC News story:

After some more give and take, Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, presents a five-page list of 192 economists and business school professors who oppose the plan. Bush isn't impressed. "I don't care what somebody on some college campus says," Bush says.

He might as well have said, "I ain't never had no need for book learnin'."

I agree with Balko--Palin seems exactly like a female "W" in this respect.

Sam Harris on Sarah Palin and elitism

Sam Harris has a great op-ed piece at Newsweek:

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

...

What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

...

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

Read the rest at Newsweek.

UPDATE: A letter written to The Economist (September 20, 2008, p. 26) from Sue Crane of Johns Creek, Georgia, expresses the anti-elitist pride in ignorance Harris condemns, when she writes:

Sir - Lexington (September 6) lapsed into the same mode of thinking that exists in the powdered-wig political salons and among the media twitterati in his assessment of Sarah Palin, which stopped him from understanding why she strikes a chord with America's heartland. Mrs. Palin connects with voters because she is one of us, not some elite politician entrenched in Washington's ways. John McCain had a problem with energising the Republican base, hence his choice of Mrs. Palin. I, along with many other Republicans, was prepared to sit this contest out had he chosen either Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge.

This contrasts with a letter on the same page from Michael Golay, professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, who writes:

Sir - Alaska is very different from the rest of the United States, and this difference affects the fitness of Mrs Palin to be vice-president. Fundamentally, Alaska is a pre-modern welfare state, where the economy is almost purely extractive (with the exception of defense and tourism). If you don't kill it, dig it or cut it down you don't get it. From that perspective "bridges to nowhere" are simply further extractions, or tokens for transfer payments from the rest of us, as are the annual payments to residents from North Slope oil revenues.

Not surprisingly Alaska is largely an innovation-free zone. It is also the only world that Mrs Palin has known. Along with her chronological and career inexperience this background renders her unprepared to lead the country.

In the same issue of The Economist, the Lexington column, "Richard Milhous McCain," points out that the McCain strategy in selecting Palin "is perfectly designed to create a cycle of accusation and counter-accusation. The 'liberal media' cannot do its job without questioning Mrs Palin's qualifications, which are astonishingly thin; but they cannot question her qualifications without confirming the Republican suspicion that they are looking down on ordinary Americans." It attributes this strategy to Richard Nixon, who "recognised that the Republicans stood to gain from 'positive polarisation': dividing the electorate over values."

Sex education reduces abortion rates

This doesn't seem terribly surprising, but Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out a New York Times op-ed piece that observes that the U.S. ties with Hungary for most abortions among OECD nations, even though Denmark has the most sexually active teenage girls. Denmark's teenage birthrate is 1/6 of the U.S.'s, and its abortion rate is 1/2 of the U.S.'s. The Netherlands has a teenage birthrate 1/7 of the U.S.'s, and an abortion rate 1/7 of the U.S.'s, and its teenagers start having sex on average two years after U.S. teens. The difference is that Denmark and the Netherlands have comprehensive sex education, while the U.S. has been pushing abstinence-only education that doesn't work, and about half of U.S. states now reject federal funding for abstinence-only sex education for that reason.

Factcheck.org on bogus Palin claims

Factcheck.org has a section up on "Sliming Palin." Check it before forwarding on emails, and reply to the authors who are spreading falsehoods.

Palin didn't cut Alaska's "special needs" education budget by 62% (she tripled it), she didn't ask for any books to be banned, she was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (though her husband was), she didn't endorse Patrick Buchanan for president in 2000 (she wore a Buchanan button as a courtesy when Buchanan visited Wasilla, but worked for Steve Forbes' campaign), and she hasn't tried to put creationism in schools.

UPDATE (September 16, 2008): Apparently one of the books that Palin had inquired about how to challenge and remove from the library was a book by a local Palmer, AK pastor named Rev. Howard Bess titled, Pastor, I am Gay. It does appear that there were some particular books that caught her attention which is why she made the inquiry.

UPDATE (September 16, 2008): Philip Munger of Wasilla says that Palin is definitely a young-earth creationist:

In June 1997, both Palin and I had responsibilities at the graduation ceremony of a small group of Wasilla area home schoolers. I directed the Mat-Su College Community Band, which played music, and she gave the commencement address. It was held at her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

Palin had recently become Wasilla mayor, beating her earliest mentor, John Stein, the then-incumbent mayor. A large part of her campaign had been to enlist fundamentalist Christian groups, and invoke evangelical buzzwords into her talks and literature.

As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time.

I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon "during MY lifetime," were obvious. "I can see that, maybe you can't - but it guides me every day."

Surely there must be other witnesses besides Munger to her creationist views who can provide confirmation.