The Amazing Meeting 7: ethics of deception panel, Bauer, skepticism and media panel, Plait

This is part five of my summary of TAM7, now up to Saturday, July 10. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, and my coverage of the Science-based Medicine conference begins here.

Ethics of Deception Panel
D.J. Grothe moderated a panel discussion on the role of magic in skepticism and the ethics of deception, featuring Penn Jillette, Teller, Ray Hyman, and Jamy Ian Swiss. D.J. began by asking whether magic teaches critical thinking, to which Jamy Ian Swiss responded yes, and pointed to Danny Hillis hiring a magic tutor for his kids so that they could learn how methods of deception work. Everybody else on the panel disagreed, beginning with Ray Hyman, who observed that there are kooky magicians. Swiss agreed that there are magicians who are gullible and that learning magic doesn't make you a skeptic, but said that it was useful to him. This brief exchange then occurred:

D.J.: Teller, did you have a comment?
Teller: No.
D.J. Just as we rehearsed.

As it turned out, Teller did have a comment--he said that while some magicians think that doing the trick and saying "this is not real" is just as good as explaining it, it isn't--and "you should explain it." Ray Hyman seconded the point, saying, "exposing tricks that can be done in multiple ways gives people a false sense of ability to detect fakery." Faraday's explanation of spiritualist table-tipping caused Alfred Russell Wallace to become convinced of the existence of spirits when a medium used a different method on him. Hyman said this is what is known as being "half-smart," which is the card cheat's term for a guy who knows something about card cheating. The card cheat then asks him what he knows, and then adapts his methods to not use those and not get caught. (Penn Jillette's recent book, How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker, discusses this very subject.)

The topic then turned to mentalism, about which Ray Hyman said, you can teach the methods of cold reading in one day. Mentalists will complain about it, but not magicians. About the Psychic Entertainers Assocation, Jamy Ian Swiss said "they are neither psychic nor entertaining." Hyman said that psychic entertainers are now mostly people competing with psychotherapists. Penn said that cold reading should be exposed, as it's being used to deceive people.

D.J. asked about the "poor man's psychotherapist defense" of such "psychic entertainment"--isn't it similar to Rogerian psychotherapy (named after Carl Rogers)? Ray Hyman pointed out that they can cause harm in many circumstances, such as their inability to recognize suicidal symptoms. Penn went further and said, "lying always does harm and is mmoral, it has no justification"--but then offered "exceptions for loved ones and medical situations." Hyman pointed out the distinction between lying by commission and lying by omission, and both he and Penn agreed that "lying by omission is also a lie" (quoting Penn). D.J. observed that that's a very uncompromising position on lying. But Penn then said, "how can you love someone without lying to them," and suggested that kindness and politeness requires lying of the sort that he made exceptions for in his previous statement.

D.J. then brought up mentalists who are also skeptics and who don't make psychic claims, such as Derren Brown and Banachek (who was at the conference, but unfortunately not part of this panel--I think his viewpoint would have been a very worthwhile addition). D.J. pointed out that Brown claims a "deep understanding of human psychology," while Banachek will say that he is drawing inferences based on posture or facial expression. He asked the question, "Are they equally unethical?"

Teller said that he has argued with Brown, and Brown is moving to a more honest position--his latest book says that he's doing tricks, and says things like "I have special ways of dealing with information," which is true. He said that in Penn & Teller shows, they give no hint of the supernatural, so "we get the credit." Penn said that there are two places in their current show "where I say I'm doing one thing and am actually doing another. I wrestle with the ethical implications. If you admit you're lying, it's more like an actor playing a role. But there are two places in the show where I pretend to be speaking earnestly but am not."

Ray Hyman said that Jerry Andrus was the most honest guy in the world, but he said that a magician on the stage has a license to lie. It's theater. (In my notes, I wrote--"But does 'it's TV' suffice?"--a topic that came up shortly.)

Jamy Ian Swiss says that he is working to develop some mentalist techniques which present things that are convincing looking, but which obviously cannot be happening. He suggests that the effect will be more impressive if he can give the audience confidence that he cannot do what he then appears to do.

Ray Hyman said that a distinction between magic and mentalism is that mentalism is boring, and can only be dragged on (to show length) if people think that it's real. "If you believe the stuff is real, what's the appeal of mentalism?" Teller seconded that point--"if you pretend it's possible, it's just nature."

D.J. brought up the example of Mark Salem, who "claims a well-developed understanding of the human mind," and asked, "why do we give skeptical mentalists a pass?" Jamy Ian Swiss then criticized Salem. Ray Hyman said that when he performed, he would say that he has no special powers, and "whatever I can do, you can do. There's nothing abnormal or paranormal about it." Teller said, "The correct answer to how it's done is--it's a trick." Penn said that if people come up to him after a show and really want to know how it's done, he'll tell them. But he gave the example of a very famous magic trick (he didn't say which one) that fooled everyone who saw it, is protected by a patent, that you can look up. There's a multi-page description of how it's done, but few people bother to read past the first few pages. He said, "[Jim] Steinmeyer says magicians are guarding an empty safe. If we explained the bullet catch trick, it would not be interesting. The tricks we expose are the ones where the secret is interesting and clever. In the bullet catch we're hiding messy ugliness. ... Valentino, the masked magician, couldn't reveal the real good-looking tricks because they don't have the 'aha!' cleverness." Teller observed that people have accurately described how the bullet catch is done online, but it still looks amazing. Penn pointed out that there are also inaccurate descriptions of the bullet catch on the Internet, so he'd hate to see somebody else try to do it. Teller suggested that Adam Savage put them to the test on Mythbusters.

D.J. said that "believers will always be with us--are disclaimers necessary?" (He observed that he was reformulating a quote from Jesus that "the poor will always be with us.") Ray Hyman suggested that disclaimers create an "invited inference problem," taking away any reason to challenge or question, and thereby promoting belief. Penn commented that "There was no Jesus, so the quote is wrong."

Finally, D.J. turned to the question of using magicians in scientific investigations, as James Randi has long recommended, to which Penn said, "it depends upon the magician." Ray Hyman said that "scientists do not do tests," and that "magicians can hurt the process." He pointed out that Milbourne Christopher was fooled by Uri Geller, and made up a bogus explanation for metal bending in terms of chemicals on his hands that became a parody scientific explanation like "swamp gas" for UFOs. Randi then came up and said that "magicians for parapsychology tests need to have a deep and broad knowledge of magic, not just know how to do a few tricks. Half-smart is not smart at all. Be all-smart or forget it." He went on to make his common point that Ph.D.s can easily be fooled even though they're not dumb. Randi also said that there is a place for "white lies," giving an example that will appear in his biography, being written by Tim Steinberg. He sent a letter to his grandfather shortly before his death at the age of 94, in which he said "I believe you will be with your wife at death," in order to give comfort in a situation where the lie did no harm. He said that he's glad to see Derren Brown coming clean, and said that "Uri Geller is trying to come clean, but he's fucked--he lied to governments and research institutions. ... He now says he wants to be known as a 'mystifier.'" He suggested that the media should ask Geller, "yes or no, have you ever used psychic powers that do not involve trickery," but when they do, he'll hang up the phone and refuse to answer the question.

In the Q&A, the first question was about Criss Angel, David Blaine, and "street magic," and in particular the way that the TV audience doesn't see the same thing that someone there would see. Jamy Ian Swiss said that David Blaine made some early irresponsible claims. Teller said that when you watch TV, "it's the proscenium," which seems to me an erroneous comparison that could be used to justify all sorts of misrepresentation in the name of entertainment. Jamy Ian Swiss said that TV specials on magic have a credibility issue because of the possibility of editing and camera tricks, but that street magic was a good idea. Teller said it's an aesthetic issue rather than a moral issue, and that he sees editing to produce effects OK--that the rules aren't the same for TV. Penn said he didn't think David Blaine would entertain, and observed that "reality TV is fake. Lots of people know it, but some think everything on TV is real."

Another questioner said she appreciated Penn's comment on global warming as pseudoscience (which I didn't note in my notes and don't recall what he said), to which Penn responded, "Don't listen to me, I'm the least qualified to talk about" the subject, and said "we won't do a Bullshit! show on global warming." He said "If there is global warming, and there probably is, we don't know if we caused it. But if we caused it, and we probably did, we don't know if we can stop it. But if we can stop it, and we probably can, we don't know if socialism is required."

(Mark Edward, a skeptic who works as a mentalist who was also at TAM7, was disappointed with this panel and expresses his opinion in a comment at skepticblog.org.)

At this point I stepped out for a moment, while Robert Lancaster was given the Skeptical Citizen Award, and returned as a documentary film on Jerry Andrus was being shown. It told a bit about Jerry's life and his house, the "Castle of Chaos," filled with his inventions, including puzzles, optical illusions, magical effects, and mechanical and electronic devices of his creation.

Stephen Bauer on Jerry Andrus
Stephen Bauer, an attorney and member of Oregonians for Rationality, has attended every TAM, but this was his first time as a presenter. He gave the story of how he found skepticism--his mother was a big fan of woo including a believer in the psychic powers of Uri Geller, and to combat his skepticism she gave him a copy of The Magic of Uri Geller without reading it. As this was the original title of James Randi's debunking of Geller (now known as The Truth About Uri Geller), he found it very persuasive, though said his mother didn't care much for it when she then looked at it a bit deeper when he told her he thought the book was completely correct.

Bauer wrote to James Randi asking for an explanation of how ouija boards work, and he suggested that Bauer talk to Ray Hyman at the University of Oregon about the ideomotor effect. He then joined Oregonians for Rationality and began attending the summer Skeptic's Toolbox workshops at the University of Oregon, where Jerry Andrus came up and introduced himself.

He then told some stories about Jerry Andrus. At Halloween, Andrus would never give candy, only a trick. Sometimes he would answer the door as a floating disembodied head. One year he would open the door, then lean over beyond the point at which he should have fallen, and then straighten back up, then shut the door.

Andrus was a magician, a skeptic, and an inventor. He had been visited by film crews from three continents. He never married, had no kids. He lived in the same house for 80 years. He performed every six months at the Magic Castle.

His house, an 1891 Victorian home, was known as the "Castle of Chaos" and was filled with things that he had collected, designed, and built, though not a single piece of traditional furniture. He was an artist, photographer, poet, musician, composer, and agnostic.

He called Bauer for an estate plan, which ended up being a simple will that left everything to his brother George, who is 93 years old.

The Castle of Chaos contained a full printing shop in the attic, which required metal bands to be put around the room to keep it from shaking apart from its operation. Andrus printed his own books. He also had his own photo studio, from which three pickup loads of photo chemicals had to be disposed.

After his death, a group of volunteers from Oregonians for Science and Reason worked regularly on his house to catalog its contents, dispose of unsalvageable items, and put items into storage. Bauer spent his sabbatical working 12 hours a day on Andrus's house.

Just the recycled items included 32,000 pounds of scrap metal, 2 cords of scrap wood, 1,000 cubic feet of plastic, and fans, hair dryers, and "air moving devices."

The house had a ground-level crawlspace with four entrances, three of which featured a set of amusement park railroad tracks leading under the house, on which Jerry could lie down on a device of his own construction and push himself under the house, where he stored various items. Among those items included gigantic magnets, which he could use to make the planchette on a ouija board in his house spell out things.

He had a Hammond organ, heavily customized with his own additions, connected by a spaghetti tangle of wires.

And the house contained much that they couldn't figure out, like the wiring. A black sock hanging in the bathroom was pulled down, setting off a security system--which they didn't know existed. An electronic rat trap in one room turned out to be a device for launching tennis balls and spoons during simulated seances. He had a slide projector that he made from a motorcycle engine.

They found that he had all of the letters he received when he was a soldier in WWII, which will now be donated to a military museum. They collected 120 boxes of materials now being kept in a storage unit, which include 3 dozen boxes of letters, notes, and writings, 20 boxes of mixed media, and 4 volumes (2000 pages) of his daily journal of "Scribulations."

Stephen Bauer finished up with some thanks to the late John Lar, who died in 2008, for getting the Castle Chaos project started, and noted that Lar's wife had cared for Jerry in his final days. He told a little bit about Jerry's 93-year-old brother George, a musician with a "house of wonders" of his own, who has been making videos of soap bubbles featuring his own music (the linked video also features Jerry). He ended with a quote from Tycho Brahe, who left all of his work to Kepler with the comment, "Let me not seem to have lived in vain, let me not seem to have lived in vain."

Hal Bidlack then said, "A man should live his life so that when it comes time for him to die, he has nothing left to do but die. It seems like Mr. Andrus did that."

(I remember Jerry Andrus as a quiet and soft-spoken guy who was a regular fixture at all of the Skeptics Society conferences at Caltech. He would usually be found next to his table of his optical illusions, some of which will now always be present at every TAM, which he would be happy to help demonstrate to anyone who stopped by.)

Skepticism and the Media Panel
This was an unmoderated Q&A panel featuring Penn and Teller, Adam Savage, Bill Prady, and Jennifer Ouellette. A few of the questions and answers I noted (I missed most of them as I was trying to ask a question myself, which I previously tried to ask of the ethics of deception panel).

Q. Why can't the Daily Show or Colbert take down Jenny McCarthy?

A. Penn: That's not the sort of thing they do.

Q. What was the biggest media failure of skepticism recently?

A. Adam Savage: The NPR ombudsman taking the position that calling waterboarding "torture" is taking sides, and defending it on the basis of having to be balanced.

A. Penn: The truth isn't in the middle.

Q. Dave from Phoenix: Any opinion on TBN or Benny Hinn?

A. Jennifer Ouellette: I grew up in a fundamentalist household, went to faith healing meetings, etc. It's fantasy. My parents still beleive they can speak in tongues.

Q. The subtext here is on getting facts right and of leaders being of exemplary character. How can we promote character, service to the public, telling the truth, and owning the consequences of your actions?

A. Adam Savage: It's unattainable. There's a percentage of assholes everywhere.

A. Penn: Most people are good; there are 6 billion good people. Disagreement doesn't make them assholes, but I still call them assholes on my show.

Q. What about historical accuracy? The History Channel creating bogus doubt?

A. (Savage? Prady?) So what have you done about it? .. Hal took your mike away...

A. Savage: We're one of the few shows that goes back and corrects our mistakes. Wouldn't it be great if the History Channel came out and said all of their Nostradamus documentaries of the last 20 years were wrong? (Laughter from the audience.) Only skeptics and history teachers laugh at that. Many film crews don't care about truth. Mythbusters visited hurricane researchers who said they're always misrepresented.

A. Prady: We said on an episode [of "The Big Bang Theory"] that a Van Dyke is a goatee without a mustache. It's wrong, we will correct it.

Q. The ridicule of pseudoscience--what is appropriate, heavy ridicule, no ridicule?

A. Penn: I'm not in favor of heavy ridicule. We do it towards ourselves and allies as well as believers.

A. Jennifer Ouellette: Humor can be a powerful convincing mechanism. If it's mean spirited, though, that's different.

A. Penn: The joke of our show is that we're calling bullshit. The message is pro-science and respect each other, and Pollyanna-ish hippie shit. I love crazy people. I'm in the category of the wack job. When I went on "Politically Incorrect," a show that always has one nut, I looked around and I didn't see the nut. I straddle both sides--if a gun were held to my head and asked what are you, a skeptic or a nut, I'm the nut. .

A. Prady: "Big Bang Theory" was originally about computer programmers, but it was too hard to photograph [due to reflections from screens]. The message of the show is that everybody thinks other people have life figured out--and nobody does.

A. Teller: On the Orgasm episode of Bullshit!, we talk about a guy who has a crazy orgasm machine for a hot tub, and it turns out it's Penn. (Voiceover for Teller: "And then there's this asshole...") (The "Jill-Jet," U.S. patent #5,920,923.)

Q. Richard Saunders: Does anyone on "The Big Bang Theory" do origami?

A. Prady: Sheldon knows origami but just doesn't do it on the show. You only see days something interesting happens. ("Oooh!" from audience.) Sorry, that was cheap.

...

A. Penn: Bullshit! in Sweden is called skitsnack--"shitcock."

...

A. Savage: There are partnerships involved here. There is huge strength in push-pull. We drive each other nuts, but the product is better.

A. Penn: We hope to get famous enough that only one of us has to show up.

Q. (To P&T:) Did you know George Carlin, and why don't we address comedy more often?

A. Penn: Carlin was a hero of mine. I spoke to him on the phone quite a bit. I don't think comedians, magicians, or skeptics matter--it's individuals. There are wackjobs in comedy. We shouldn't celebrate a form, just individuals.

A. Savage: I find it interesting that all practitioners say that their field is the only pure one. I knew a package design professor who said that package design is the only pure art form. Hal Bidlack: That was not thinking outside the box. (Big cheer from audience.)

Q. Can you offer words to young skeptics held down by the beliefs of their parents?

A. Ouellette: Voracious reading. I couldn't watch "Welcome Back, Kotter." My parents would burn non-Christian books. I left home at 17 for college.

A. Penn: You shouldn't manipulate, just say what is true. Don't talk to adolescents differently, just talk to a general audience. Don't try to "reach" adolescents.

Q. What do you think of fake skeptics on shows like "Ghost Hunters"?

A. Penn: House, Bones, Num3ers (pronounced "numb-three-ers"), etc. All have atheists. Atheists and skeptics have it good on major shows right now. We're not martyrs. Hitchens said we have no saints or martyrs. There are minorities being fucked over in this country, and we're not it. (Though atheists are more mistrusted than other groups.)

Q. What's the role of skepticism in broadcasting?

A. Prady: Make them central as characters, and stay on the air, and don't have a social message, just have fun.

A. Savage: We didn't set out to inspire scientists--if we set out to do that, we'd be pompous, pretentious, and fail. We've done our show for 7 years and want to do 5 more.

Q. (For Teller, about why he has a bottle of water in front of him despite the Bullshit! show on bottled water.)

A. Teller: I filled the bottle using the tap in the men's room.

...

A. Ouellette: To reach minds, reach for hearts, from your heart.

My question was something like, "The movie 'Expelled' received a lot of criticism for the deceptive way in which it obtained interviews from its subjects. Theology professor Paul Maier has made similar charges about his appearance in the Bullshit! episode on The Bible. I was glad to hear on the ethics in deception panel that you agree that lying by omission is wrong. Can you comment?" It turns out I misremembered Maier's criticism, which was about his views being completely mangled by the editing, not being deceived about what show he was on, though his comments make it seem like he was surprised about the nature of the show. I would have thought the title would be a hint.

Penn responded that he didn't know who Maier was, and didn't quite get the point of my question. I met up with him in the hallway between sessions, and pointed out that Maier was an actual guest on the show, not just some blogger writing about it, and he laughed at the misunderstanding. He said that the contracts for everyone who appears on the show state that the show is Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, but that just because he was given that information in the contract and signed it doesn't mean that he read it and knew it. (Bullshit! writer Michael Goudeau, standing next to Penn, concurred that the contracts name the show.) I offered to point him to Maier's critique, but he said that he had no interest in reading it and Maier can say whatever he likes. I don't find that entirely satisfactory given the strong stance against lying that Penn took during the ethics of deception panel.

I also discussed this on Friday evening with Michael Shermer, who was previously criticized by a commenter at this blog for his role in that same episode of Bullshit! on the Bible. Shermer pointed out that he had no idea of what Maier said and wasn't responding specifically to his remarks, but just answering questions asked by the interviewer. He also observed that Penn & Teller don't write the show, or do much more for any given show than show up to record their scenes and voice overs, though of course they bear some responsibility given that it has their names on it.

Phil Plait on Doomsday 2012
The final talk of the day was Phil Plait on "Doomsday 2012," the idea that the world will be coming to an end on December 12, 2012 based on the end of the Mayan calendar and an alleged Mayan prophecy of the end of the world, a popular topic for questions to NASA.

He began by saying that the Mayans were good astronomers and had a good calendar system, and had the largest centralized civilization of their time, but they didn't predict their own civilization being absorbed into others. The claim of an alleged prophecy of destruction is false--it doesn't exist--it's just that their calendar system ends and rolls over.

Back in 2003 at TAM1, Plait spoke about Planet X and Nibiru, and warned that this idea would come back, and he was correct.

He spent the rest of the talk looking at what could possibly cause the destruction of the earth in 2012, and what's the evidence. First, perhaps a "Sun of Doom"? Looking at solar flares and sunspots--would that activity peak in 2012? Sunspots will probably peak in 2013, solar flare activity in 2013 or 2014.

An asteroid or comet impact? None known to be on a collision path.

Next, perhaps a "Galaxy of Doom" or "Milky Way of Doom"? The Milky Way galaxy is 100 billion to 200 billion stars in a flattened disc, which appears to us as a strip, since we're in it. He talked about the Galactic equator, and that the sun is close to it. As an aside, he remarked that 75% of the American public doesn't know both that the earth rotates once per day and revolves around the sun once per year, let alone that the earth is at a tilt with the northern axis pointed at Polaris, which is the reason for the seasons. (Note: This stat seems somewhat dubious, since a 1999 Gallup poll found that 79% of Americans correctly answered that the earth revolves around the sun. Would that really drop all the way to 25% just by asking for frequency of revolution and rotation? And if so, how much of that is merely confusion between the terms "revolution" and "rotation"?)

He talked about the precession of the equinoxes, caused by the gravity of the sun and moon, which goes through one circle every 24,000 years, and the map position of the sun at the winter solstice crosses the Galactic equator. But that happened in 1998. So some have said that we are "in that era" of the crossing, which takes about 18 years; we're near the end of that era.

What about the idea that there's a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy that will do something? Plait said that, oddly, he hasn't seen this claim made--oddly because it's wrong. The sun is closest to the galactic center on December 19, 2010, too late by a week. And a black hole 260 quadrillion km away would have a gravitational force 1.5 trillionth of the sun. The gravity from Mars and the moon is significantly greater.

In short, Plait concluded, these claims are all "cosmic colons, full of astronomical crap."

JREF Update/Wrapup
The day ended with a JREF update, first from Jeff Wagg, noting that this was the first TAM being broadcast via streaming video, with a total of over 18,500 visitors, 850 at a time the last he looked.

JREF has done cruises to Alaska, Mexico, the Galapagos, and the Bermuda Triangle, and he took a poll of interest for another cruise next March, for which there was "mild interest."

He talked of SkeptiCamp, and the possibility of one occurring at the same time as TAM London, somewhere in the northeastern United States, possibly Boston, and asked those interested to contact him via email.

The JREF's Swift newsletter subscription readership is growing--there are twice as many today as there were in January of this year. There's a possibility of doing some kind of live video broadcast on a weekly basis.

He gave thanks to the JREF forum volunteers, and made another advertisement for the JREF scholarships, "if you're going to school, we will give you money."

Phil Plait said he was blown away by Dr. Joe Albietz's presentation on vaccination at SkeptiCamp Colorado, and gave an update on the vaccination drive--up to $8,500.

A. Kovacs, JREF director of operations, gave thanks to various people including one of the poker game participants who donated all of his winnings to the vaccination drive, and another donor who gave $1,000 but wanted to remain anonymous.

Matt Fiore was recognized as the most generous skeptic to the drive, and was given tickets to Lance Burton courtesy of Michael Goudeau.

And that wrapped up the regular conference programming for Saturday, July 11. Next up, a summary of the skeptical paper sessions for Sunday, and the Million Dollar Challenge that finished up TAM7.

The Amazing Meeting 7: Swiss/Randi, Ouellette, anti-anti-vax panel, Nickell

This is part three of my summary of TAM7, still on Friday, July 10. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, and my coverage of the Science-based Medicine conference begins here.

Jamy Ian Swiss and James Randi
After lunch on Friday was a conversation between Jamy Ian Swiss and James Randi about Randi's early career, beginning with an old BBC live broadcast of Randi making a radio disappear, and an escape he did in Quebec as the "Amazing Randall." They discussed Randi's early appearances on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show," and how Carson, himself a magician, would visit Randi in his dressing room when he appeared on the show, leading show staff to wonder who this guy was, since Carson never visited other guests. Other old footage included an underwater survival stunt on "You Asked for It," in which Randi stayed underwater for an hour and 50 minutes, breaking Houdini's record. Randi was embedded horizontally in a block of ice on Boston Common for the Dick Cavett show, somewhat reminiscent of the more recent stunt by David Blaine. Footage was also shown of Randi's water can escape when he was a closing act after David Copperfield and Shibata, which Randi commented was made more difficult for him by the fact that Copperfield and Shibata were standing on the catwalk above him cracking jokes while he was supposedly drowning in the milk can (but was actually already on top of it trying to look out-of-breath and using a sponge to make his head wet again before the big reveal).

Then was shown a lot of amusing footage from Alice Cooper's "Billion Dollar Babies" tour, for whch Randi played a mad dentist and created various illusions for the stage, culminating with Alice Cooper's head being chopped off by a realistic-looking guillotine. Randi told various stories of the tour and how he came to be involved with it, saying that it paid very well and he knew he was going to get alone well when he visited the offices of Cooper's Alive Enterprise and found it was full of potted plants, all of which were dead. A DVD of the film made during that tour was recently released on DVD, which includes the original version of the film rejected by the studies, which included a bunch of comedy sketches, a few of which feature Randi.

When the tour came to Phoenix, Cooper asked Randi to sit in the audience with his mother, who wasn't aware of the nature of his show. Randi kept reassuring her--the wife of a Mormon minister--that Alice Cooper is just a character being played by her son (Vincent Furnier). Randi said that he saw Mrs. Furnier again a couple of years ago at Alice Cooper's 60th birthday party, and she remembered him and thanked him for the reassurance he provided during that show.

Footage was then shown of two version of Randi's upside-down strait jacket escape, one in Niagara Falls in January. He said it was so cold that he beard became completely frozen and he was unable to speak when he had freed himself and was brought down, until hot water was poured over his beard. He said it took two years to get permission to do that stunt, and they had the whole area blocked off so that only the film crew was present. But while he was hanging upside-down, he saw a Chinese family standing there watching him--they had gone sneaking through the woods to get there and watch the performance up close.

The second version of the escape was for the Japanese show "Supermen" and was performed while hanging upside-down from a helicopter flying around Tokyo. Randi, who does not like heights, said he kept telling himself, "I'm doing it for the money."

Jennifer Ouellette on the Science and Entertainment Exchange
Jennifer Ouellette, executive director of the National Academy of Science's new Science and Entertainment Exchange project and author of the book The Physics of the Buffyverse, spoke about the project. She began with a short film clip from the TV show "Numb3rs" that illustrated a scientific point about geographic profiling by reference to the physics of water drops from a sprinkler head, which she used as an example of the productivity of having scientists and entertainment producers working cooperatively.

She observed that science and Hollywood have had a love/hate relationship. Hollywood sees scientists as nitpickers who don't understand entertainment, which she depicted with a reference to an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" which pointed out that the ending of the film "Superman" was unbelievable not because of the time travel but because if Superman caught Lois Lane while she was falling at 32 feet/second/second she would be cut into three pieces by the arms of the Man of Steel. (This reminded me of Larry Niven's classic analysis of why Superman can't have sex with a human woman, let alone produce a hybrid offspring, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.") Scientists, on the other hand, see Hollywood as promulgators of misinformation, a point she illustrated with reference to an anti-vaccination episode of "Eli Stone" and the fact that DNA results on "CSI" and "Bones" are always returned within hours (also illustrating the nitpicking point).

The Science and Entertainment Exchange provides producers of film, television, comic books, video games, novels, etc. with a free way to obtain accurate scientific information early on in a project, and has already worked with major productions including "Bones," "Tron II" (now "Tron Legacy"), and several that she was contractually forbidden to mention.

She told the story of how she met the showrunner for "Bones," and when she told him she was a scientist, "he instantly cringed, flinched, and apologized." She subsequently worked with him on the "Death by Physics" episode of the show.

She pointed out that this is a great time for science and skepticism, with the popularity of current programs like Numb3rs, Bones, Lie to Me, The Mentalist, House, The Big Bang Theory, and, "a fringe case," Fringe (one of the writers of the show is Glen Whitman of the Agoraphilia blog; and for those interested in the glyph code on that show, here's the solution).

Ouellette argued for the importance of this project by pointing out that a factoid about breast cancer which appeared in a soap opera was found to triple the knowledge of that factoid in its viewing audience (based on testing viewers before and after watching the episode), and that these new shows do a good job of humanizing scientists. When debunking messages come from sympathetic characters, that softens them and makes them more persuasive. She suggested that The Mentalist saying that there are no real psychics, or Lie to Me debunking the polygraph, has huge potential impact.

She closed by saying that the success of these popular programs suggests that critical thinking and science placed in an entertaining context do sell, and asking those with a science background who want to be consultants for her project to contact her--and CSI needs new ideas on how to kill people.

In the Q&A, the first questioner said that they don't like when scientists are depicted not acting like scientists--misusing words like "proof" and "theory," and misrepresenting the process of science. Another asked whether she could say anything about science on "Lost"; she said that scientists consulted and commented on the DVD extras about the temporal anomalies and "chronology projection conjecture," and that it's the best-selling TV show on DVD. One questioner asked whether there is any way to do something like this for the news media, as well as for entertainment; she answered that people in the news media need to be paid better (I presume she was referring to print reporters rather than talking heads on television), and those outlets are in their death throes. Another questioner asked why skeptics have to be depicted as dumb in shows with supernatural or paranormal phenomena, rather than showing them change their minds when presented with overwhelming evidence of these things.

Anti-anti-vaccination Panel
Steven Novella, David Gorski, Joe Albietz, Harriet Hall, Michael Goudeau, and Derek Bartholomaus made up the panel to criticize the anti-vaccination movement. Novella began by recounting the Andrew Wakefield case, a study published in Lancet allegedly connecting measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccination with harmful effects in children, which subsequently turned out to be a thoroughly bogus study ("if I can use that word," he said, referring to the Simon Singh lawsuit). But that study caused a decline in MMR vaccination in the UK, and a corresponding leap in news cases of measles, mumps, and rubella. When Novella blogged about this, journalist David Kirby contacted him and argued that thimerosol (sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate), was the issue. Novella read Kirby's book arguing that thimerosol causes autism, Evidence of Harm, and did 3-4 months of research. (Novella's Skeptical Inquirer article on the subject is here; a reply to Kirby on Novella's blog is here.) He said Kirby's book was a terrible piece of journalism but a good collection of data sources to start with. By 2005 there was strong evidence of no link between thimerosol and autism. Novella's panel intro is now on YouTube here; Dr. Joe Albietz's talk is on YouTube here.

Back in 2002, thimerosol had already been removed from routine vaccine schedules, and Kirby said that autism rates would subsequently plummet to pre-1990 levels. Novella said no, If I'm right it will continue to increase until it hits some ceiling--and the autism rates have continued to rise for the last four years. Kirby moved the goalposts for his prediction out to 2007 and then to 2008, but there is no more room to move them now, said Novella--thimerosol is demonstrably not the cause of autism.

Novella said that the antivax movement has grown as evidence has accumulated against them, spearheaded by promotion by Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue.

David Gorski talked about how "I'm not antivaccine" is the biggest lie of the antivaxers. They will say things like (quoting Jenny McCarthy), "I'm not anti-vaccine, I'm pro-safe vaccine. I'm anti-toxin." Examples of people making such statements include Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Jay Gordon, a frequent visitor to Gorski's blog, and J.B. Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue.

He quoted a statement from Jenny McCarthy saying that mercury, the "second worst neurotoxin in history" is injected into children, but noted that she's not so anti-toxin as to avoid injecting the worst neurotoxin, botox, into her face. He also noted that despite claiming not to be anti-vaccine, she has also said, "If I had another child, I wouldn't vaccinate at all. Never, not ever."

Claimed toxins in vaccines include aluminum, ether, and mercury. Generation Rescue claimed in 2005 that autism is a misdiagnosis of mercury poisoning, then they've shifted to being caused by heavy metals, to being caused by toxins, to being caused by too many vaccines, too soon--but it's always about the vaccines.

Gorski suggested the following questions for those who say they are not anti-vaccine, yet are still challenging vaccines in this way:

1. You say you want safer vaccines. By what measure?
2. What toxins would you remove? What's the evidence for toxicity?
3. What evidence would it take to persuade you that vaccinations are safe with respect to the risk of the disease (i.e., using the vaccines saves significantly more lives than not using the vaccines)?

Dr. Joe Albietz then spoke on how every major medical breakthrough and development to save lives pales in comparison to vaccination. This was a powerful talk that I'd like to see turned into a viral vaccination video for YouTube.

Smallpox vaccine has saved over 300 million lives. In 1967, a global eradication campaign was begun, at an estimated cost of $10M-$15M/year over 31 countries. After ten years--in 1979--the disease was officially eradicated at an expense of about $23M/year.

Dr. Albietz presented a list of vaccine-preventable diseases, and noted the number of incidents per year before and after the vaccines. For just the top ten diseases, over 1.1 million lives per year have been saved from disease by vaccination.

He noted that polio and measles are scheduled for eradication. In 2008, the number of cases was 1,652, which amounts to over 5 million cases of paralysis prevented. Measles used to be the second leading cause of infectious disease death, killing 1 million children per year. The goal is to reduce measles cases by 90% by 2010, which will probably be missed.

The anti-vax movement not only affects the lives of children who are not vaccinated, the reduction of the rate of vaccination reduces the herd immunity of the population, making it more likely that even those who are vaccinated will get the disease.

Dr. Harriett Hall spoke on "Two False Alarms," which gave much more detail about Andrew Wakefield and Neil Halsey. She began by talking about Andrew Wakefield's 1998 Lancet paper on MMR vaccines, which used no controls and had an honest conclusion ("we did not prove a link"), but Wakefield called a press conference saying that the MMR vaccine should be stopped and made into separate vaccines--without disclosing that he had just filed a patent for such single vaccines. This resulted in measles again becoming endemic in the UK, Wakefield's study was retracted after problems were found in it, and Wakefield was exposed as unethical. He had been hired by a lawyer to find a link between vaccination and some harm in order to sue drug companies, and was paid 500,000 pounds for the purpose. His study was performed on the children of plaintiffs in the legal case, there was no ethics committee approval, and he didn't disclose his conflicts of interest.

Neal Halsey raised warnings about thimerosol, which contains ethyl mercury. We knew that methyl mercury can cause problems, but not ethyl mrcury. Experiments on adults with amounts 20,000 times higher than in thimerosol in vaccines have caused no symptoms of mercury poisoning. Halsey didn't raise autism as a concern, just mercury poisoning, but two mothers of autistic children who learned of his claims decided, incorrectly, that the symptoms of mercury poisoning were the same as the symptoms of autism. Today 2/3 of the U.S. population incorrectly think that mercury causes autism.

Michael Goudeau, juggler in Lance Burton's Las Vegas show and writer for Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, briefly spoke about his experience as a parent of an autistic child, and pointed out in his closing statement that nobody can hold up a healthy kid and say "Look, my kid got vaccinated and didn't get autism." But maybe, he suggested, the parents of those whose children get measles, mumps, or rubella as a result of the spread of the disease from unvaccinated children can effectively raise that issue. He said that Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy are assholes, and you shouldn't base your opinions on the science of celebrities (or jugglers).

Derek Bartholomaus spoke about how he decided to try to find the "Jenny McCarthy body count"--the number of preventable deaths and illnesses caused by non-vaccination--as a result of hearing Steven Novella make references to such a body count on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast. He announced his website, jennymccarthybodycount.com, on Twitter and Facebook three months ago, and it has received tremendous traffic as a result of links from the Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy, and Respectful Insolence blogs.

In the Q&A, Hal Bidlack said "my wife died of cancer, and I'm still angry at her surgical oncologist. I understand these people--does calling them stupid help?" Dr. Novella said that Jenny McCarthy needs to be called out on her misinformation, but the rank and file are victims and we have nothing but sympathy for them--our interpretation of the evidence is diametrically opposed. Dr. Gorski said that it's human nature to want to blame someone. A child born with a disability is painful, but they shouldn't be allowed to use that as a shield against criticism--but they do it because it's effective.

Another questioner asked whether Oprah can be made aware that there is a Jenny McCarthy body count to try to put a stop to McCarthy's TV show. Dr. Gorski suggested that giving McCarthy her own show might have been "a woo too far" provoking blowback in the form of criticism of Oprah such as appeared in Newsweek.

One questioner whose sister is a pediatrician in L.A. said she sees the most resistance to vaccination from high-income people in Beverly Hills. Dr. Albietz said you're 23 times more likely to get whooping cough if not vaccinated, and that he sees nonreligious vaccine refusal as the top reason for children not being vaccinated, but others are still not being vaccinated due to poverty and lack of access, which was the reason for TAM7's vaccination drive.

Another questioner asked if anyone had heard of an increase of cases of polio in India due to anti-vaccination superstition. Dr. Novella said that there were rumors of polio vaccine being tainted with AIDS in Nigeria, which resulted in an outbreak of polio due to lack of vaccination. Harriet Hall said that there were antivaxers back at the beginning of the smallpox eradication effort, but it was nothing like the current scale of opposition.

Someone asked whether we're just speaking in an echo chamber, or is someone working to craft a media message. Dr. Albietz pointed out the Rethinking Autism videos, and observed that we should bring the fight to every front that the anti-vaccination movement uses.

Anti-vaccination is being pushed by chiropractors and practitioners of alternative medicine, observed another questioner, and it won't stop until we stop them. How can we do that? Dr. Hall said that she reported a homeopath to the Department of Homeland Security, since he claimed to be making homeopathic smallpox vaccine, which requires access to smallpox. Dr. Gorski said that we're also combatting the view that natural is better, that getting a disease naturally is a better outcome than vaccinating and not getting the disease. Dr. Albietz pointed out that you cannot strengthen your immune system any better than by vaccinating, and that the keyelements of vaccines are natural ingredients. Dr. Hall observed that delaying the vaccine schedule is based on the misguided idea that it will lessen negative impact to immune systems, when in fact vaccinations promote immune response.

In closing, Dr. Gorski said that most antivax parents are probably persuadable, but he fears that the return of vaccine-preventable diseases will be what it takes to persuade them. Dr. Novella said that if anything is going to help mitigate the problem, it is probably going to come from the people in the room.

Joe Nickell on Bigfoot and Aliens
Joe Nickell gave a visual travelogue of photos of Bigfoot-related signs and places in the Pacific northwest, which included all sorts of Bigfoot-related oddities. The Bigfoot Highway, the Bigfoot Museum at Willow Creek, Bigfoot Rafting, Bigfoot Ave., Little Foot Ct., Bigfoot Breakfast, Bigfoot Motel, Bigfoot Crossing signs, Bigfoot Burger, Bigfoot Books (with big selection of books on bigfoot, as expected). He showed murals of Bigfoot, Bigfoot chainsaw sculptures, and Bigfoot statues. A lot of it was tongue-in-cheek, but some was serious and some included religious elements--he observed that some think that Bigfoot is supernatural.

He covered aliens and UFOs in a similar manner, starting with photos of Roswell, the Mac Brazel ranch house, and the famous photo of Jesse Marcel and the pieces of foil, sticks, tape, and rubber. He did an experiment with boxkite-like devices (corner reflectors) on a train attached to a weather balloon, that was shot down to see what the wreckage looked like. He also discussed Alien Autopsy "fakelore" and showed a timeline of alien evolution. Hypnagogic experiences that used to be reported as ghosts or demons are now commonly reported as aliens.

In both the cases of aliens and Bigfoot, he sees them as mythical creatures, and remarked that Bigfoot seems to be used as something like an "eco-messiah." Aliens have also been used in the employ of environmental causes.

In the Q&A, the first question was why there seems to be a rise in alien abduction claims, rather than UFO sightings, and whether this might be related to the rise of camera phones. (If I can reconstruct the reasoning, I think the issue is that there are more people out there with cameras at all times, yet fewer UFO sightings, while if there were really alien spacecraft, you'd expect more successful photographs. But if it's more of a psychological or mythical phenomenon, then perhaps it transforms to fit the evidence.) Nickell responded by observing that alien stories have evolved and continue to change. In my notes I commented that there seems to be a shift in the UFO community from "alien spacecraft" to "another reality" as an explanation of UFOs, and even some creationists have gotten in on the latter sort of view with the claim that UFOs are demonic influences. That view was expressed by Norman Geisler's testimony in the McLean v. Arkansas creationism case back in 1981, and has more recently been propounded by Gary Bates of the Australia-based Creation Ministries International.

That concluded the regular conference programming for Friday, July 10.

Saturday continued with a very special Skeptics Guide to the Universe recording session, Michael Shermer, and Adam Savage, summarized in part four.

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.

Ian McShane narrates McCain: Reformed Maverick

The Daily Show has outdone itself with this one.



UPDATE (September 8, 2008): The part about McCain crashing five planes isn't true.

Pundits are more honest when they think they're off the air

Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy say what they really think about Sarah Palin. Why couldn't they be honest about it on the air?

CNN finally does its job

Campbell Brown at CNN shows what a reporter is supposed to do when questioning the representative of a political candidate--insist that they actually answer the questions asked in a meaningful way. After this interview with McCain representative Tucker Bounds, McCain cancelled an interview with CNN in response to what he viewed as unreasonable behavior.



(Via Juan Cole.)

Are the Republicans fans of Battlestar Galactica?

(Image from here. Hat tip to Dave Palmer on the SKEPTIC mailing list.)

Lori Lipman Brown on the Colbert Report tonight

Lori Lipman Brown, the nonbelievers' lobbyist in Washington D.C., will appear on The Colbert Report tonight. She works for the Secular Coalition of America, an organization whose members include the American Humanist Association, the American Ethical Union, Atheist Alliance International, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Institute for Humanist Studies, the Internet Infidels, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, the Secular Students Alliance, and the Society for Humanistic Judaism.

UPDATE: She won't be on tonight--maybe next week?

UPDATE (August 30, 2008): She was on last night's show, which is online.

The sleaziness of Fox and Michelle Malkin

Watch in the video below as Michelle Malkin claims that conservatives have not engaged in any ad hominem or unwarranted attacks on Barack Obama's wife Michelle, even as Fox News places a caption below her, referring to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama," a slang term which the Urban Dictionary defines as:

• The mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved.”
  
• “Basically a woman you had a child or children with who you didn’t marry and are no longer involved with. Usually associated with hoodrats and trailer park b***hes.”
  
• “Like herpes, it won’t go away!!!!!”

The always despicable, dishonest, sleazy, and inflammatory Michelle Malkin responded to this by trying to defend it as entirely unobjectionable, which John Scalzi vividly rebuts in his "Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment to Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan's Festering, Baby-Eating Soul." Fox has merely admitted that the caption showed "poor judgment."

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Fox story on RESCUE

Fox 10 News in Phoenix did a story last night on how the mortgage crisis is resulting in more animals being turned in to the pound, and more animals being euthanized. The story featured Lisa Thomas from RESCUE, the organization we volunteer with, as well as the Corgi mix named Rascal (pictured) who we've taken out on weekends a few times. Check it out, and please consider donating to RESCUE's Bowl-a-Rama event. (Put Kat's or my name in for the bowler to encourage, and The Lippard Blog as the referrer.)

Peter Gabriel's new filtering website

The Filter, officially debuting tomorrow but already available today, is a website that asks for some basic information about your tastes in film and music, and then makes recommendations about other things you'd like--music, movies, web videos, and TV. It's not clear from the CNN coverage how it compares to Amazon.com's recommendation engine or to sites like Pandora, but it looks interesting.

Millennium reruns

We've been watching reruns of "Millennium" on the Chiller channel, and just saw "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense," about the fictional religion of "Selfosophy." This episode was written by Darin Morgan, who also wrote "The X-Files" episode, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," one of the best shows of that series.

Fantastic.

The opening sequence can be seen here.

One big difference between Selfosophy and Scientology--the Selfosophists give the visiting cops copies of the Selfosophy book. Scientologists would have made them pay for it.

Charles Nelson Reilly, who played Jose Chung, just died last May. I was pleased to see that they worked a clip from the crazy Sid and Marty Krofft TV series "Lidsville" into the opening story of Selfosophy. Too bad they didn't also include a reference to "Uncle Croc's Block," which inspired me to some childhood musical creativity.

Fox News Anchor calls for U.S. to support terrorism in Iran

If you advocate torture and car bombs, how can you have any moral justification for saying that those who use such tactics against us are wrong or evil?

Parents Television Council demonstrates their own pointlessness

The Parents Television Council, the organization that is responsible for generating over 99.8% of all indecency complaints to the FCC, has further demonstrated its own complete pointlessness by putting out a website that assembles a collection of the most indecent clips from broadcast television, with no parental controls of any kind on the page. Each clip is categorized with labels like "sex," "violence," and "foul language."

What's a kid more likely to come across? A five-second bit in one of thousands of television shows, or a huge collection of the worst of the worst all in one place on the Internet?

It's high time for broadcast television indecency rules to be dropped.

(Via The Agitator.)

Ernie and Bert do Casino

(Thanks, Jami!)

Battlestar Galactica, CSI: Miami, and the semiotics of shades

Check out this hilarious compilation of David Caruso one-liner clips from CSI: Miami. (Caruso aspires to fill Shatner's shoes, as Kat likes to point out.)

Next, this Warren Ellis commentary on the role of sunglasses in CSI: Miami.

Then, this review of tonight's Battlestar Galactica (which contains spoilers, and if you've already seen it, pay close attention to the remarks about the opening credit survivor count).

And Warren Ellis's response.

(Via Wolven's LiveJournal.)

ONDCP places anti-drug PSAs on YouTube

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has placed anti-drug PSAs on YouTube. You know, those same ads that have been shown to increase drug use? Perhaps they hope that the video replies which YouTube users generate in response will similarly have an effect opposite to their intent?

(Via CNN.)

Arrested Development

I'm rather skeptical about whether this concept will actually accomplish anything, because, aside from the fact that Fox almost certainly makes orders of magnitude more revenue from commercial advertising than they do from DVD sales, advertisers don't care about DVD sales, they care about ratings.

But what the hell? I can't resist stumping for such a hilariously funny show.

What other broadcast television show on the Republican-shill Fox network can you think of that makes fun of Bush's absurd "Mission Accomplished" photo-op, the military's recruiting difficulties, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, "free speech zones", and the lack of WMDs in Iraq?

I suppose an argument could be made that more DVD sales now could translate to higher ratings in the future. But how is it that the DVD can be ranked #4 on Amazon but the TV show is still getting dismal (less than 4 mil/week) viewership? It's a mystery!

Anyway, I hope the show at least finishes out a fourth season.