A Ghostly Wager

Against my better judgment, I watched a bit of Ghost Adventures last night. It's no different from all the other ghost hunting shows that have cropped up over the years, and the fifteen minutes or so that I watched consisted almost entirely of night vision footage of a guy wandering around a darkened room waving an EMF detector around at a vase of flowers¹. When the EMF detector reached "an incredible" 0.9 milligauss ¹, the fellow with the EMF detector proudly declared something to the effect of "I've proven that ghosts are associated with EMFs because as the detector is reading higher, I'm actually feeling a presence here and my hand is going numb." Skip to about 1:33 of this clip to see what I'm talking about. ³

Right.

I should also note that for reasons that are inobvious to me, they had set up "vortex pumps" (EMF generators to the layman) throughout the building they were investigating for unexpected electromagnetic readings.

Without getting into the whole "we have no real evidence that ghosts, if they exist, generate electromagnetic fields" thing or the bit about how miniscule electromagnetic field changes like the ones described are not really anything worth noting, I'd like to propose a bit of an experiment. I'd like to see one of these ghost hunter fellows wander around with an EMF detector strapped to his forehead, like in Indian poker. That way the viewers at home could see the levels of electromagnetic energy being generated, while the ghost hunter could give a running account of his own impressions of any ghostly happenings.

Just imagine each of these guys with a $200 EMF detector tied to his head.

I'd bet you a nickel that, when the EMF detector is invisible to the paranormalist, his "feelings" about supernatural presences around him will no longer synch up quite so nicely with "spikes" in the detector readings like they do on most of these shows. What would such an experiment prove? Not a lot, but I think it would drive homes the point that TV ghost hunters (The ones that aren't just acting, anyway.) tend to derive most of their "evidence" from equipment that they've no clue how to use.

_____
1.) The Ghost Adevntures guys use Mel Meter products, which are designed and marketed specifically for paranormalists. Just sayin'.

2.) That's right, 0.9 mG. Zero-point nine milligauss. As in 0.0009 gauss. The magnets on your fridge would register about 50 gauss each.

3.) Let me take this time to remind you that this fellow is claiming to feel something like an electrical current numbing his arm...in response to an electromagnetic field about 1/55,555th as powerful as a refrigerator magnet

Sylvia Browne - Unimpressive as ever...

Sylvia Browne has another book out, this one about the end of the world. I know this because I had the chance to peruse it at the store this evening while waiting for my girlfriend to finish shopping for socks. (Not kidding.) It's typical Sylvia Browne crap - "a president will die of a heart attack, there will be conflicts with North Korea", and she puts the end of humanity at "sometime before the 22nd century". (She makes a note that, as a psychic, she has a clear view of the entirety of the rest of 21st century, then immediately begins being as vague as possible.) I didn't get to look at much of it, and honestly there's only so much of Browne's crap that I can stomach at once, but I did stumble upon an interesting prediction about the future of medicine.

Browne claims that at some point around 2010 "much to the chagrin" of drug companies, the cure for the common cold will be discovered. Furthermore, it will "somehow involved heat". ("Duh", she further notes. Again, not kidding.) Well, once again, not only does her "clear view" of the next century not actually have any details, but her basic understanding of how colds work betrays, once again, that she has her head up her ass. Presumably she stills thinks that colds are caused by being cold. They are not. She also notes in one of her many online ravings that people get fevers when they have colds (a shocking revelation), and thus maybe her "cure involving heat" has something to do with how the "immune system fights a cold with heat, [and thus] the cure for the common cold certainly may lie in this first signal to heal".

Hmm, now that almost sounds like a concrete prediction...too bad for Sylvia that this isn't a new idea! Ultimately she's managed to do nothing but plagiarize medical speculation from some dude's WordPress page. Predictions like that require about the same amount of psychic power as it does for me to go to Upcoming Horror Movies, read their release lists, and then predict that many older films are getting remakes.

More than anything else, I'm mystified that people buy so completely into obvious hokum like Browne's silliness. There's a small part of me, cynical and sinister, that sometimes ponders banging out a handful of feel-good woo-woo nonsense books to try and cash in on people's desires to indulge in magical thinking, but the thought of sinking to Browne's level is enough to keep me from ever giving the matter any serious consideration.

Tons More Bullshit...

Penn and Teller - Bullshit is a hell of a funny show that I regrettably don't get to see first-run because I'm too cheap to pay for Showtime. Luckily it very, very slowly comes out on DVD, and Season 5 finally made to stores last week. Now, the first couple of seasons dealt with pretty run of the mill asininity like aliens, ghosts, and ouija boards. More recent seasons have addressed somewhat more complex and controversial issues like gun control and the death penalty, which are interesting topics but don't quite as well in the rant format that the show uses. The progression of topics calls to mind my ancient post (Located here, but embarrassingly larval.) about how crazy woo-woo topics are like training for applying critical thinking skills to other areas of our lives.

The fifth season splits the difference, talking about exorcisms* and enemas in the same breath as patriotism, illegal immigration, and sweatshops. (There's also an episode solely dedicated to boobies). It's not the best season, but it's still worth having a look at, especially for the episodes on illegal immigration (thought-provoking) and exorcism (hilarious). Penn and Teller are also libertarians, which means they come down on my side of the fence as often as not, but also that they occasionally make kind of uncomfortable zero-sum arguments about corporate responsibility and the like. That being said, the show is still worth watching and, more importantly, discussing. Check it out.

Just to show you that Penn and Teller actually have something worthwhile to say, have a look at this clip:



*Look for the interview with Elizabeth Loftus in the exorcism episode. She and Katherine Ketcham wrote this awesome book that helped to turn the tide against the forces of stupidity during the height of the Satanic Panic.

Here's the Harm...

By the way, I justed wanted to point out a new site I've added to the links in the sidebar. What's the Harm? is a site dedicated to exposure all the injurious consequences of various pseudoscience and woo. It's easily worth a couple hours of your time, so check it out.

For a taste of the contents, here's a link to an article on there discussed something called facilitated communication. Those of us who work with the mentally disabled run into this bit of gobbledygook quite frequently - it's the process by which a "helper" tries to get an autistic person* to spell out words by putting a stylus in the disabled person's hand and then "supporting" it as he or she suddenly, miraculously, is able to use the stylus to type words out on a keyboard. It's essentially the same effect as using a ouija board, only substituting a human victim for the planchette. Amazingly, it appears that the disabled victims are always exactly as smart and knowledgeable as the person "supporting" their hand. FC chicanery has also resulted in more than a couple family-destroying sexual abuse claims.

*Sometimes people with other disabilities are exploited in this way, but the severely autistic are at particular risk by they generally possess extraordinarily poor communicative abilities.

Lookin' for a miracle man...

Well, Georgia's never exactly been a bastion of the Enlightenment, but it's recently crossed the threshold into, dare I borrow the phrase, "Endarkenment". Sonny Perdue, Georgia's governor, led a prayer session on the state's capitol steps Tuesday to beg Yahweh for rain. (Take that, Jeffersonian ideals!) And, amazingly, they got rain yesterday, just as had been predicted by meteorologists. Must be a miracle! Plus, since rain had been expected before the prayer vigil, God must have KNOWN IN ADVANCE that they'd pray for rain and set things in motion accordingly. A double miracle! That's like 10,000 points!. Georgians, that's your tax dollars at work.

Of course, they only got a measly .14" of rain, which did precisely jack to remedy the region's severe drought, so maybe we shouldn't get so excited just yet. Or maybe God just missed and sent the storm to Bangladesh, which is about to be smote down with a category 5 tropical cyclone. In any event, I'm sure we'll be hearing about this one from the woo-woos for a long time to come.

Oh, and speaking of woos, Bill O'Reilly will be hosting that imminent paragon of scientific understanding and rational thought Shirley MacLaine tonight to have a discussion about the existence of aliens. Huzzah.