The Amazing Meeting 7: Sunday paper sessions, Million Dollar Challenge

This is the sixth and final part of my summary of TAM7, covering the last day's events on Sunday, July 11. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, part 5 is here, and my coverage of the Science-based Medicine conference begins here.

Sunday's continental breakfast was served while an old James Randi television appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show from 1986 was shown. This brought back some old memories--I think I have the show on videotape in my archives, as I think we showed it at a meeting of the Phoenix Skeptics. Randi appeared with a faith healer ("Amazing Grace"), a psychic (Joyce Keller), and an astrologer (Irene Hughes), which led to some entertaining and ridiculous exchanges of words. Randi showed his footage that exposed Peter Popoff using a wireless transmitter and receiver to fake the "word of knowledge," and did some spoon bending. Joyce Keller claimed she was entitled to his $10,000 prize, and Oprah mistakenly claimed that Randi had brought his own spoons, which she corrected herself about after a commercial break.

This was followed by the Sunday refereed papers, which were again organized and moderated by Ray Hall, professor of physics at California State University, Fresno and at Fermi National Labs.

Don Riefler, "Teaching Critical Thinking in a Therapeutic Setting"
Don Riefler, Direct Care Supervisor at the Jessie Levering Cary Home for Children in Lafayette, Indiana, gave a talk about strategies he's used to teach critical thinking to underprivileged/institutionalized children at the Cary Home, complete with positive reinforcement in the form of candy distributed to members of the audience who gave good answers. He discussed several categories of common "thinking errors" which included both logical fallacies and heuristics that lead to problems when overgeneralized. As part of his teaching, he has kids conduct ESP experiments with Zener cards, which he uses to teach them about erroneous inferences they draw about their skills. This provoked the first critical question (from regular ScienceBlogs commenter Sastra), asking whether his referral to "success" and "failure" in the Zener test suggests to kids that it's a matter of effort. (I neglected to record his response.) In answer to a question of how he deals with religion he said that he avoids it and shuts down talk of religion or ideology.

David Green, "Patently Ridiculous: The Perfect Sommelier"
David Green, a Senior Patent Examiner at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, gave a talk that was essentially a sequel to a talk he gave at TAM5. He spoke about "The Perfect Sommelier," a product that claims to "align tannin molecules with magnets to age wine faster." He compared how the patent application for this product was handled in the U.S. vs. Canada.

In the U.S., patent examiners made two objections to the application, first, that it was obvious or already known, and second that the "subject matter is inoperable--the theory of operation cannot be correct." The first objection failed, since the invention was sufficiently different from prior art in various ways (such as having magnets at both ends of the bottle, not just at one end). And, based on the Longer ("lawn-jay") test, under which the description of the invention must be accepted as true unless there's a reason to doubt it, it passed on the second as well, and was granted two U.S. patents. Green said that it essentially comes down to a he-said/she-said debate, and the patent office has to be biased towards issuance of the patent.

In Canada, the same objections were made as in the U.S., along with a third. David Green had read a Swift article about a test of the product, so the third objection was a rejection on the basis of double-blind research evidence showing that the product doesn't work, published in the Journal of Wine Research. That study concluded that "no evidence was found to suggest that The Perfect Sommelier improves the palatability of cheap red wine." The manufacturers responded to the first two objections in the same way they did in the U.S., but for the third, they asserted that their evidence in the form of testimony overrides the double-blind research.

And then they abandoned their patent claim in Canada.

The reason they did this, Green explained, is because of "U.S. file wrapper estoppels"--that what you do in a foreign patent application can affect your patent in U.S. court. If they had continued with their claim in Canada and been denied--or if they had failed to file a response to the objections--that could have impacted their U.S. patent.

What this demonstrates, Green argued, is the importance of doing solid investigations and research on such products, and getting them published and spreading the information around (e.g., online), so that patent examiners can find it. It can make the difference between a nonsensical product getting a patent or being denied a patent.

At this point I took some time to chat with Ray Hyman, and came in a little bit late for the next presentation.

Adam Slagell, "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt: The Pillars of Justification for Cyber Security"
Adam Slagell, Senior Security Engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, spoke about claims made for security and security products that we should be skeptical of. He pointed out that there's no such thing as perfect security, and there are always tradeoffs to be made between security and usability/convenience/etc. He spoke a little bit about TSA "security theater," pointing out the gaping flaw in the "no fly lists" that comes from the separation of checking ID and boarding pass at the security checkpoint from checking your boarding pass at the gate. He also questioned the point of shoe removal, which led to the first comment on his talk from Ian, an airport security officer at Gatwick, who argued that forcing shoes to go through the X-ray machine does close a genuine vulnerability. (Ian also argued that the liquid restriction makes sense, though he didn't respond to Slagell's point that you can carry multiple 3-ounce containers and combine their contents with those of your associates after you go through screening. Most interestingly, Ian said that airport metal detectors go off randomly in addition to when they detect metal.)

Slagell argued that signature-based antivirus products are obsolete, since polymorphic malware and use of packers are extremely effective at eliminating signatures, and observed that companies are starting to create products based on white-listing, only allowing pre-defined sets of software to run on a machine. (At last year's New Mexico InfraGard conference, Anthony Clark and Danny Quist spoke in some detail about different kinds of packers, and offered a set of criteria for measuring AV effectiveness that included use of methods other than signature-detection, such as anomalous behavior detection.) He unfortunately didn't have time to talk about passwords.

Another questioner asked what users behaviors are useful to stay secure, to which Slagell replied that you should keep systems patched and backed up. (There is actually some argument, at least for corporations, to be somewhat selective in patching, since many patches aren't applicable, have other mitigations, and have potential for reducing availability themselves--but there is no substitute for having a vulnerability management program in place.)

Steve Cuno, "The Constructive Skeptic: Rebranding Skepticism at the Grassroots Level"
Steve Cuno, chairman of RESPONSE Agency, Inc., gave an excellent talk last year at TAM6, and he gave another great presentation this time as well. He started by saying that skeptics have a branding problem.

What is a brand? Is it a name and logo? A great slogan? What you say about yourself?

He gave some counterexamples for each of these, including some nice vintage ads (e.g., "They're happy because they eat lard" from the Lard Information Council). AIG had the slogan "The strength to be here." (He didn't mention any of my favorite unintentionally ironic bank slogans.)

He gave an example slogan for skepticism: "Skepticism: Doubt worth believing in." He called all of these proposed brand definitions "brand flatulence: you may like the sound and smell of your farts, but nobody else does."

He gave as his prototypical example of what branding really is the example of Nordstrom's. There's no particular logo or slogan involved, but people think of Nordstrom on the basis of the values that are expressed by the company through its employees and the experience you have as a customer. The essence of creating a brand is creating a positive customer experience.

And the way for skeptics to give skepticism a good name is by self-policing "to deliver positive brand experience."

He suggested that the way to do this is to delay giving yourself a label, and when you do identify yourself with a label, anchor it in something positive. Instead of saying "I don't believe in ...", think through and express what you do support. For example:

• I believe in what the evidence supports.
• I believe in honesty, integrity, equal rights, and treating one another with dignity and respect.
• I believe in and defend the right of all people to believe as they choose.

Do things that are positive. He gave the example of the GLBT protests at the annual April Mormon Church Conference, which, rather than picketing and protesting, engaged in protest by cleaning up parks, visiting shut-ins, and doing positive and helpful things in the name of their cause. The result was to get tons of positive press.

He heartily endorsed TAM7's vaccination support and food drive, and further added that we should play nice. Being controversial and using insults may work for media figures, but not for the grassroots. Be sure that messages are well-timed. And remember that some people just don't care--to quote Will Rogers, "Never miss a good opportunity to shut up."

A summary of Cuno's talk may be found on his blog.

Brian Dunning, "What Were the 'Lost Cosmonaut' Radio Transmissions?"
Brian Dunning's talk was a sequel to one of his Skeptoid podcasts on Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, a pair of Italian brothers who built equipment to monitor radio transmissions from spacecraft at an installation they called Torre Bert. They successfully recorded the October 1957 launch of Sputnik I, Sputnik II with Laika the dog in November 1957, and then a few oddities. In February 1961, they recorded what they reported as a "failing human heartbeat," when there was no known flight. In the same month, they recorded a "voice of a dying man," again with no known flight. In May 1961, they recorded the voice of a woman, Ludmila, speaking about how she was "going to re-enter," which they attributed to a secret female cosmonaut mission that resulted in her death.

There are no corroborating reports of these transmissions, despite the fact that the U.S. Defense Early Warning system began in 1959. And there were no female cosmonauts in 1961. The female cosmonaut program wasn't approved until five months after the recording, and the first five women selected for the program a year later. Yuri Gagarin had just launched in Vostok 1 in May 1961, and for the Vostok 2 launch in August 1961, they had to scavenge Gagarin's space suit to make a suit for the second cosmonaut. So there was no way there was a female cosmonaut launch in May 1961.

At the time, the U.S. was flying X-15s. Did the Soviets have some kind of space plane? The Soviet Kosmoplan never got off the drawing board, and its Raketoplan was developed, but wasn't ready for testing until 1962.

A jet fighter? The YC-150 didn't fly high enough. Dunning also ruled out the Mig-21 and high-altitude balloons.

The conclusion--get your own Russian translators. Dunning got four Russians to listen to the recording, and found that it didn't say what was claimed, but instead was almost 99% unintelligible, with the rest being numbers. He also found that the source of the transmission was not moving, but was at a fixed position.

Although he didn't come to a definitive conclusion, he was able to at least eliminate a number of possibilities--sometimes that's the best you can do.

Christian Walters and Tim Farley, "How Are We Doing? Attracting and Keeping Visitors to Skeptical Websites"
Tim Farley was another return speaker, this time with Christian Walters. They talked about how the over 650 skeptical websites should measure acquisition of visitors and take actions to keep them and to obtain high search engine rankings.

First, how you're acquiring visitors can be measured by looking at rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs), Google PageRank, and Yahoo link strength measurements. These measures are all increased by receiving links from other web sources, of which important sites are social media sites like digg, reddit, delicio.us, Facebook, and Twitter.

Another important factor is having good page titles, which include popular search terms. The META keyword tags are no longer so important. By using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, you can find what popular search terms are. Sometimes they are surprising--for instance misspellings of some terms (like accupuncture) get more search hits than the correct spelling.

It's also a good idea to put the keywords from your title into the URL, rather than use URLs as some blogs do that only have a page ID in them.

The anchor text of hyperlinks to your pages should also contain the appropriate keywords, and so your internal links within a site should make a point of using them.

It's important to describe your site with an XML SiteMap or via RSS feed, which you get for free with blogs. When you link to other sites, you are dividing up your own link strength among the sites you link to, unless you use the NOFOLLOW tag, which you should do when linking to sites you don't want to promote in search engine results. NOFOLLOW is also a good idea when linking to sites that may engage in spam or other abuse, to prevent that abuse from reflecting on your site, as it might in Google search engine results, for example.

The Million Dollar Challenge: Dowser Connie Sonne
Everyone had to leave the auditorium for preparation for the JREF Million Dollar Challenge, with Danish dowser and former police detective Connie Sonne (who has described her alleged powers in an interview with Alison Smith of JREF). Everyone had to sign an agreement to remain silent and not disturb the proceedings before filing back in--and everyone remained quite quiet for the hour or so that it took for the test.

This was a preliminary test, with a 1 in 1000 probability of success by chance, which, if successful, would allow Connie Sonne to go on to the official challenge for the JREF's $1,000,000. The protocol for the test was developed in conjunction with Connie Sonne and both sides approved. She signed paperwork describing the protocol and agreeing that she woudl go ahead with the test.

Connie Sonne claimed to be able to use a pendulum to identify playing cards without looking at them, and she successfully did this when she was able to see the cards. Sets of playing cards, A-10, for each of three suits were placed separately into envelopes. Each of those envelopes for the same suit was placed into a larger envelope, with the suit written on the outside. Banachek ran the test (I thought to myself at the time that this was a likely source of future complaint, given his skill at illusion), opening each of the three suit envelopes, one at a time, and rolling a 10-sided die to indicate which card from the suit Connie Sonne was required to locate. The ten individual card envelopes were spread out in front of her, and she used the pendulum to identify which envelope she believed contained the appropriate card. For the first set, she was supposed to find the 3 of hearts, for the second, the 7 of clubs, and for the third, the ace of spades. The cards she picked were the 2 of hearts, which was in the second envelope of the first set, the ace of clubs, which was in the seventh envelope of the second set, and the 2 of spades, which was in the first envelope of the third set. Banachek opened all of the envelopes from each of the three sets so that she could see that there was no trickery, and she agreed that all was done fairly.

At the subsequent press conference, she continued to maintain that all was fair, but that there was some reason she wasn't supposed to reveal her powers to the world yet.

But by the next day, she decided that she had been cheated somehow by Banachek. Her main point of evidence was that Banachek identified the ace of spades from the third set before pulling the card out of the envelope--but it was the last card of the set to be opened, and he identified it after the end of the envelope had been cut off and as he started to pull it out. The cards were visible inside the envelopes once the ends were opened.

On July 13, she made her accusation of cheating on the JREF Forums:

Hi out there...now I know why Banacheck was "the card handler". I have been cheated. I did find the right cards. And there is one more thing. At the stage, Banacheck said to me BEFORE he even looked in the envelope I had cut...and here is spade ace, the one you looked for!!!! I first hit me now about that ....but maybe you can see it yourself if someone get the video. I don`t care about the money, that wasn`t the reason why I came. So no matter what you think out there......I was CHEATED!!!!!

Connie

It was a typical response to the Randi challenge from an honest proponent of a claim who doesn't understand why the claim failed under test conditions, resolving the cognitive dissonance by placing blame on the experimenter.

That concludes my summary of TAM7--I look forward to attending TAM8 next year.

The Arizona Skeptic online: vol. 7, 1994

Concluding 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, and volume 6 (1992-1993) here. Volume 7 was edited by Mike Stackpole.

An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here.

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 7, no. 1, Summer 1994:

• "Oh No--Spooks in a Skeptic's Home" by Hans Sebald
• "Skeptics Predictions for 1994"
• "Meeting Schedule for 1994"
• "Where Have We Been?"
• "What Harm Superstition?" by Michael A. Stackpole
• "Skeptically Entertaining" by Michael A. Stackpole

While that was the last issue of The Arizona Skeptic published, there have been at least two published lists of skeptical predictions by the Phoenix Skeptics, for 1996, 2006, and 2007, and the group continues to meet on a monthly basis--at 12 p.m. (noon) on the first Saturday of each month at Jim's Coney Island Cafe in Tempe, 1750 N. Scottsdale Road, on the southeast corner of Scottsdale Road and McKellips.

There is also now an active Phoenix Skeptics in the Pub meetup group, which meets at 7 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month at D'Arcy McGee's Pub at the Tempe Marketplace, 2000 E. Rio Salado Parkway.

UPDATE (March 18, 2010): Phoenix Skeptics in the Pub now meets at Four Peaks Brewery--see the meetup group link.

UPDATE (September 17, 2014): The Phoenix Area Skeptics Society has been active since 2012.

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.

The Arizona Skeptic online: vol. 5, 1991-1992

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, and volume 4 (1990-1991) is here. Volume 5 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. 5, no. 1, July/August 1991 (text version):

• "Rosenthal Lecture" by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism by Paul Kurtz" reviewed by Bill Green
• "Book Review: Pitfalls in Human Research: Ten Pivotal Points by Theodore X. Barber" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: They Call It Hypnosis by Robert A. Baker" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• Editor's Column
• CORRECTION: To "Dissension in the Ranks of the Institute for Creation Research"
• Upcoming Meetings

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 2, September/October 1991 (text version):

• "Dianetics: From Out of the Blue?" by Jeff Jacobsen
• "Book Review: Bryant's Law and Other Broadsides by John Bryant" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "Hypnosis and Free Will" by Jim Lippard
• Next Issue
• Upcoming Meetings: October speaker Don Lacheman of Sun Magic, November speaker Louis Rhodes of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union
• Articles of Note

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 3, November/December 1991 (text version):

• "Postscript to 'Some Failures of Organized Skepticism'" by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie" reviewed by Hans Sebald, Ph.D.
• "Book Review: The Unfathomed Mind by William R. Corliss" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "Book Review: Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone" reviewed by Mark Adkins
• Letters (from Mark Adkins, Beth Fischi)
• "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? An Episode of Human Folly" by Mark Adkins
• Articles of Note
• "October Meeting: 'Magical Moments'" by Ron Harvey: speaker Don Lacheman
• Next Issue
• Upcoming Meetings: December: 1992 predictions, January: Rene Pfalzgraf on neuro-linguistic programming

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 4, January/February 1992 (text version):

• "Predictions for 1992!" compiled by Mike Stackpole
• "Comments on Lippard's Review of They Call It Hypnosis" by Robert A. Baker
• "Book Review: Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? by Chaz Bufe" reviewed by Terry Sandbek, Ph.D.
• Next Issue
• Upcoming Meetings

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 5, March/April 1992 (text version):

• "About 'The Vitality of Mythical Numbers' and 'Truth Almost Extinct in Tales of Imperiled Species'" by Jim Lippard
• "The Vitality of Mythical Numbers" by Max Singer
• "Truth Almost Extinct in Tales of Imperiled Species" by Julian Simon
• "Book Review: Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events by Michael A. Persinger and Gyslaine F. Lafrenière" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• Next Issue
• Upcoming Meetings
• Request for Submissions
• Articles of Note

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 6, May/June 1992 (text version):

• "An Observation of the Famous Marfa Lights" by James Long
• "The Marfa Lights" by Hal Finney
• Letters (from John Bryant)
• Editorial Note Regarding the "Mars Effect"
• "Book Review: The Mind Game by Norman Spinrad" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• Upcoming Meetings
• Articles of Note

Volume 6 continued for just short of another year under my editorship, with five issues published for 1992-1993.

P.Z. Myers on the Creation Museum

P.Z. Myers has written a review of his trip to the Creation "Museum" with nearly three hundred atheists from the Secular Student Alliance, and it's probably the best summary of what's wrong with the Creation Museum I've read to date. He points out that it's not like a real museum, promoting exploration and discussion, it's more like a theme park ride.

The Arizona Skeptic online: vol. 4, 1990-1991

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 was edited by Mike Stackpole. An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here. The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 4, no. 1, July 1990:

• "Self-Deception and the Paranormal" by Michael A. Stackpole
• "The Curious Case of the Cross of Chaos" by Michael A. Stackpole
• "Book Review: But Is It Science? edited by Michael Ruse" reviewed by Jim Lippard (duplicate)
• Editorial Prattle
• "July Meeting" by Ron Harvey: speaker James McGaha on astronomy
• "The Return of Scapegoats" by Michael A. Stackpole

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 4, no. 2, December 1990/January 1991:

• 1991 Predictions of the Phoenix Skeptics
• "Note of Importance" by Michael A. Stackpole (re the Plimer/Price controversy)
• "Ralph Epperson: Clueless Creationist" by Jim Lippard
• Meeting Announcements: January: G. Harry Stine on the neurophone
• Editorial Prattle
• "December Meeting" by Ron Harvey: speaker Jim Speiser on UFOs

That was it for volume 4--publication got back on a regular schedule again with volume 5, when I took over as editor.

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.

Investigating Atheism

The faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford have put together a website on "Investigating Atheism." Although it's ironic that a bunch of theologians have done this, in my brief perusal of the site I haven't found anything objectionable--it does a good job of putting current atheist arguments and personalities in historical context.

(Via the Secular Outpost.)

UPDATE: Well, they do have an article from well-known net kook John A. Davison. That's a bit of an odd choice.

The Amazing Meeting 7: SGU, Shermer, Savage

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

Skeptics Guide to the Universe
Both Friday and Saturday morning began with live recording sessions for the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, for which I didn't bother to take notes, since it was being recorded (it's Skeptics Guide podcast episode #208 and may be found on the website archive or via the iTunes store). The Saturday morning event began with a satirical ghost hunter video by Jay Novella, "The G Hunters" (part one, part two). But the real surprise came during the listener Q&A session, when Sid Rodrigues asked a question "maybe for Rebecca," which turned out to be "Will you marry me?" A seemingly impromptu, but carefully planned wedding followed immediately, though there wasn't enough cake for everyone, nor a champagne toast. All present did receive after-the-fact invitations as a nice memento, and there was a first dance for those who wanted to participate.

Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer prefaced his talk with an overview of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine that bore some resemblance to the introduction of his TED Talk of 2006. His talk, titled "Rise Above--Towards a Type I Civilization," argued that we should work to rise above our tribal instincts, our evolutionary heritage, and the left-right political spectrum. He began by noting that most of our decisions are judgments made on uncertainties (a reference to the classic book Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, by Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky), made emotionally with intuitive leaps which are then followed by rationalization to provide reasons to justify what we've already decided to do. He observed that when the amygdala is damaged, this leads not only to loss of emotional capacity, but an inability to make decisions. We don't fall into categories of good and evil, but good and evil run through each person, he said, referencing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. An individual's expanding circles of concern are based on genetic relationships and kin selection, he said, and reciprocal altruism operates within kin/kind/community. We're good to members of our in-group, but skeptical and cautious about other groups.

He spoke briefly about the left-right political spectrum, arguing instead for a three-dimensional Nolan chart that is used by libertarians with a misleading questionnaire as a recruiting tool. While I agree with Shermer that the left-right spectrum has serious weaknesses, I don't think the Nolan chart is much of an improvement, especially when the coordinates on the chart are determined by a limited set of questions that are worded in a way that glosses over details. Better, I think, is to recognize that the space of political positions really encompasses far more dimensions. Shermer asked the audience how many considered themselves to be left of center, right, or libertarians, and the answers were about 1-2 people right of center, 15-20% libertarian, and the rest self-described liberal. He put up a couple of slides containing exaggerated stereotypical descriptions of how conservatives view liberals and vice versa, which produced cheers to both. He put up the political map of red and blue states based on the last presidential election results, and pointed out that the map is misleading, because if you look at it on a more granular level the country is really a mass of purple. (Though he didn't mention or address the thesis of Bill Bishop's The Big Sort.) He noted that his speaking out about his libertarianism has raised more ire than his views on religion (theism), and stated that it's fine to disagree, but that political topics should be open to discussion. This was probably the most controversial talk of the conference, and it, along with Shermer's recent interview on the Point of Inquiry podcast, have led to some to argue that skepticism should be apolitical. Shermer said that he's been told that he should be apolitical, "like Carl Sagan," to which Shermer (correctly) responded that Sagan was not apolitical, as he argued for a number of liberal causes, including nuclear disarmament (a cause for which he was twice arrested during protests).

He then turned to some more interesting research, Jonathan Haidt's work on how people make moral judgments. Haidt has hypothesized that we make moral judgments based on five scales, which Shermer compared to "a five-channel moral equalizer":

1. care: Protection from harm.
2. fairness: Justice, equality.
3. loyalty: Family, group, nation.
4. authority: Respect for law, tradition, and traditional institutions.
5. purity: Rules about sexual conduct, recognition of sacredness.

Liberals tend to emphasize the first two items, which place a focus on individual rights, while conservatives use those two and the remaining three about equally, and the last three focus on group cohesiveness. These tendencies seem to hold up across cultures.

Shermer apparently argued that all five of these scales are important, saying that "since 9/11, things have changed," and noting that group loyalty is now getting some emphasis from left-atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Shermer argued that religious extremists are dangerous, and are assisted by religious moderates. I think this is actually a badly mistaken inference to draw. Sure, there are extremists who are out to harm the U.S., but terrorism is a strategy of the militarily weak against the strong, and the right way to combat it is not by doing things like launching an invasion and occupying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (Iraq), engaging in torture and abuse, and causing religious moderates to join with the extremists, but rather by a divide-and-conquer strategy that isolates the extremists from the moderates and maintains the moral high ground. (Skeptic and physicist Taner Edis, from Turkey, has criticized Sam Harris for his misunderstanding of Islam, as has Chris Hedges who, despite his sometimes annoying attitude, made some good points on the subject in his Point of Inquiry interview.)

To support his point, Shermer showed a clip from the film "A Few Good Men" in which Jack Nicholson defends his position of ordering a "Code Red" to engage in self-enforcement to punish a slacker in the military ranks as an ugly and unpleasant necessity.

Shermer then turned to the Kardashev scale referenced in his title, which classifies civilizations into Type 0 (energy produced from dead plants and animals), Type I (planetary civilizations controlling the energy of an entire planet), Type II (stellar civilizations controlling the energy of an entire sun), and Type III (a civilization controlling all of the energy in an entire galaxy). Shermer gave an ordering from Type 0 to Type II, with tribal communities at 0.3, liberal democracies at 0.8, and then described Type I civilizations as including a global wireless (why wireless?) communication system (the Internet), a global language (English, most likely), a global culture (why not diverse cultures?), and global free trade, which breaks down tribal barriers. He didn't really provide an argument for the details of the how and why, apart from that short defense of global free trade and a little more he said later, pointing to the work of Fredric Bastiat (Bastiat's axiom: where goods cross frontiers, armies will not), which he augmented with the "Starbucks theory of war" (two nations with Starbucks won't fight each other) and the "Google Theory of Peace" (where information and knowledge cross frontiers, armies will not).

He then cited the work of Rudy Rummel on democracy and war, stating that between 1860 and 2005 there have been 371 wars, of which 205 were between non-democratic nations, 166 were between democracies and non-democracies, and 0 were between democracies. He said that some have challenged the details of the classifications, but that in general, democracies seem to be less likely to engage in war as a means of resolving disputes.

He concluded by saying that rising above tribal instincts is hard, and quoted Katherine Hepburn's line from "The African Queen": "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we must rise above."

I didn't get a chance to ask my question in the Q&A, but I went up to Shermer afterward and suggested that the tribal in-group seems to be a biological/mathematical limitation of our memories and processing capabilities with respect to the number of combinations of relationships we can track. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar's work on this topic has led to what is called the "Dunbar number" or a "Dunbar circle," which is the number of people you can keep track of and that make up your in-group, and it's about 150. Studies of Facebook users show that even those with thousands of friends still engage in most of their interactions with a group of 150 or fewer. So my question was, in light of that limitation, how can we rise above tribal membership? Shermer's answer was the same one I would have given, which is that although we may still be limited to that number of relationships, today they don't have to be limited by geography, and so the way to "rise above" is to have lots of these small groups. Shermer suggested that we need to avoid any such groups having a political monopoly, but the real concern is how those small groups build coalitions which obtain and exercise political power, and what they try to do with it. I'm not sure there's any getting around the problem of having political institutions which govern vastly larger numbers of people.

My own opinion on whether "skepticism" should be apolitical and avoid religious topics is that skeptical organizations should avoid taking positions on those topics, except where there are clear empirically testable hypotheses. (For example, it should be perfectly legitimate for a skeptical organization to publish an examination of the social and psychological factors that cause people to give credence to crackpots like Orly Taitz and Philip Berg, and their respective bogus Kenyan and Canadian Obama birth certificates--as well as to examine the facts around topics like the "birther" controversy.) Individual skeptics, however, should feel free to argue for whatever positions they hold, while being cognizant of what is within the realm of the empirical and what is more philosophical. I don't think Shermer's talk should have been ruled inappropriate for TAM, though I would have liked to have seen a bit more science and argument in the talk, and I wouldn't want to see a whole bunch of talks that all touched on politics or religion, especially if they all came from a single viewpoint.

(UPDATE: I recently came across something I wrote relevant to this point about ten years ago on Usenet, which I still agree with today:

"The skeptic's position should be, on any issue where there isn't conclusive evidence one way or another, either agnosticism or tentative acceptance of the view that seems to be best supported--but with tolerance for those who accept other views which are also inconclusively supported by the evidence. In other words, there is no and should be no official skeptic's position.

Further, there shouldn't be an official skeptic's position on subjects which are matters of political ideology, religious faith, or metaphysical views on which empirical science is silent.")

Adam Savage
Adam Savage of Mythbusters gave a talk not directly related to skepticism, but to which everyone could relate--a talk about personal failure. He said that he is often asked how he attained his success, and he said that he didn't follow a straight path and that he had a lot of failures along the way. He began by referring to Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night," which he called the best 26 hours of television. In an episode of the second season, a billionaire who's going to buy the show says, "Dana. I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded. And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better. And that's what you should do."

Savage said that he wanted to present the details of how spectacular and painful some of his failures have been. He said that he's been fired from a production assistant job, he's been divorced, and he's yelled at his kids. All of our lives are two steps forward, one step back. He got a job at Industrial Light and Magic, working with his heroes, a job he'd wanted since he was 11. In the SFX industry, everybody is freelance, working on jobs for a time, and always looking for the next. But at ILM, there is no selling required. He said your resume is just three words--just four words--Industrial Light and Magic. And he would also take extra outside jobs.

His friend Ben called him with a job that he couldn't take because of the short turn-around time. A department store wanted a window display within five days, that depicted a ballpark fence. What they wanted was baseballs automatically being pitched over the fence on a continuous basis.

Savage bid his day rate, $300-$500/day, plus a market-rate rush fee. It was a really fat paycheck for five days work. He got pitching machines and a ballfeeder, built it, and watched it work 70 times in a row, and then fail. He figured this was a solvable problem. He stayed up all night Friday and Saturday morning trying to get it to work--it was originally supposed to be ready by Saturday, and needed on Monday (?)--and brought it to the store to assemble. It turned out that the size of the display area was different from what he was told, and in the new set up it was down to 30-40 balls in a row before failure, so would fail every 3 hours. He observed that there's a reason the displays in airports with balls moving around on tracks use fixed rails, rather than tubes like he was using--rails lead to balls moving in a predictable amount of time, while the air resistance in a tube makes the timing unpredictable. So he added an air blower to force the balls down the tubes.

The next problem was that when one pitching machine pitches, it takes more power, which causes the other two machines to slow down, increasing the failure rate. He had relatives coming into town at 6 p.m. on Saturday and it still wasn't working. He came to the conclusion that no amount of effort is going to make it work, and told his employer that in 30 minutes he would present three alternatives and have whichever one they chose implemented by 8 a.m. the next morning. He came up with a new solution using a monofilament chain connected to the balls, simulating the motion of a pitched ball--no pitching machines. He stayed up all night and visited Home Depot repeatedly, and finally got it working with 10 baseballs.

The National Head of Display came to look at the display, and said, "it looks great, but I don't like the balls--get rid of them."

Savage's second story of failure was from earlier in his career, when he "pretended to attend NYU for a year" and then worked with his film student friends on their films. He worked on a friend's film that was filmed at the Alexis Theater, and the film ended up winning the NYU Film Festival's best art direction prize. So he thought about becoming an art director, and put his name out. He was asked to work on a friend Gabby's film, with an $850 budget. He needed to build a set of a room with a glass door with an ATM in it, which he figured he could do with wood frames and canvas for the walls, a shell for a computer as the ATM, and a plexiglass door.

He never asked for help.

He worked Wednesday through Saturday morning, without sleep for 60 hours, and wasn't close. The screen on the ATM cracked--he figured, it's supposed to be an urban environment, it will be fine. He didn't pre-prep the canvas, so it all become horribly wrinkled. He put down linoleum on the carpet of the home where the set was being built for the floor. At some point, a member of the crew asked him, "Do you even know what you're doing?" He responded with what he thought was a clever line from Raiders of the Lost Ark, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go along." The response from the crew member: "Go home." So he did.

The following Monday, he went to the set to pick up his toolbox, and it wasn't there. There was a note that said "We have your toolbox. Call me. Gabby." He called her, and she said, "What did you do to me? You screwed me. You pissed away the money. If you could do anything to destroy our friendship, this is it. I want you to account for every penny." He cried and called his father, who told him, "All you can do is move forward." He went and met with Gabby, and accounted for every penny that he had spent. She then said, "The crew is next door, and they want to talk to you."

He went to the room next door, and found a dark room with a chair in the middle, with a spotlight focused on it. He sat in it, and the director read from a pad of paper all of the things that Adam had said he would do, but didn't. This litany of offenses was periodically interrupted by a member of the crew adding something, like the fact that the linoleum he put down ruined the carpet in the apartment. There was also one point during the work where Savage was across town having sex instead of working on the set, and somehow the crew knew about that, too, and brought it up.

Finally, they asked him what he had to say for himself. He simply agreed--"You're absolutely right. I screwed up. I'm sorry." He added four meta-levels of sorry, and said that he knows it doesn't mean or help anything. At that point, the director said, after a long pause--"look, we're not trying to bring you down or anything."

Savage then quoted, from memory, from Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, which begins with four people in a public park running towards a balloon accident. In the opening, he writes something like "running towards a catastrophe, a kind of furnace in which are characters would be buckled into new shapes."

He said that he doesn't trust working with people who don't know or understand failure--failure builds character. And whatever you think now (about anything?), you're probably wrong.

He ended first by reading from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, which went something like this: "We find out moments of sadness terrifying because we are standing in a place we cannot stand. It's important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad, because that is when you learn." And then by saying that his favorite fictional character is Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, because Chandler so clearly describes his flaws and foibles. He said that if the world were full of people like Marlowe, the world would be a safer place, but not boring.

There followed a Q&A, most of the questions were about Mythbusters, except for one question which Savage answered about Rilke's hatred of Rodin (and writing "what is fame but a collection of misunderstandings about a name?") and another which he answered by describing his "boyhood dream" to win an Ig Nobel Prize for writing a taxonomy of nonsense words for large and small numbers.

(Savage gave a similar talk at Defcon 17, available online.)

(Click on the link to continue to a summary of the rest of the Saturday sessions at TAM7--a panel on the ethics of deception, the Skeptical Citizen Award, a Jerry Andrus video, Stephen Bauer's talk on Jerry Andrus and his estate, a panel on skepticism and the media, Phil Plait on Doomsday 2012, and a JREF update.)

The Arizona Skeptic online: vol. 3, 1990

Continuing the postings of The Arizona Skeptic; you can find volume 1 (1987-1988) here and volume 2 (1988-1989) here. Volume 3 was edited by Mike Stackpole. An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here. The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 3, no. 1, January 1990:

• Predictions 1990
• "Some Failures of Organized Skepticism" by Jim Lippard
• Editorial Blathering
• Our February Meeting: speaker Hans Sebald on witchcraft

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 3, no. 2, February/March 1990:

• "The Secret of the Challenger Secret Mission" by Mike Stackpole
• Meeting Announcement: Dr. Robert Dietz on "The Sacred and Profane History of the World"
• "Dissension in the Ranks of the Institute for Creation Research" by Jim Lippard
• "HGH 3X and The New England Journal of Medicine" by Mark Adkins
• "Book Review: But Is It Science? edited by Michael Ruse" reviewed by Jim Lippard
• "What is Occam's Razor" by Michael A. Stackpole
• Editorial Blathering
• "Who Are We?" by Michael A. Stackpole

The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 3, no. 3, April 1990:

• "Ethical Skepticism" by Michael A. Stackpole (a visit to Peter Popoff)
• Editorial Blathering
• Meeting Announcement: speaker Michael A. Stackpole on Satanism

And that was it for volume 3--volume 4 picked up in July 1990 for another two issues edited by Mike Stackpole.