Still More Expansion

Still looking for more people to sign up for my Game Development Limbo. I always feel paranoid when I don't get comments for a while. That, and sometimes I just really feel like having a casual conversation about gaming in general.

So, if you haven't joined already, you can give me your email address. Just send it here:

Ranting, Ranting, Ranting

Well, PZ posted a picture made by a rather pathetic individual. I think I'll agree with some people that "Self-Portrait" would make for a more appropriate caption, since the creator apparently doesn't get out of his bleak gray room very often. Artists should do what they know, and I guess this "artist" doesn't know much at all.

One of the most foam-inducing lines in the person's bigoted screed (partially corrected with Doggerel links):

I don't think Atheists can even believe in love, which is the saddest part.

That's just pathetic. I'd love to beat some people like this over the head with my love for my family and friends. Unfortunately, intricate configurations of neurochemicals probably don't have the inertia necessary to do any damage, either physically, or to their cloistered worldview. What especially galls me about this is that even if we express our love and wonder, they'll just discount it as false because it doesn't come out of the nice, unnecessary packaging of their power structure.

Whether they like it or not, we're real people with real feelings. It's nihilists like this "artist" who sometimes make me wonder if there's anything going on behind the eyes of fundamentalists. Another alternative I wonder about is whether or not fundies are absolutely burning with jealousy. We can speak our mind without fear from a "loving" deity who always seems to take a relativistic stance about the morality of torture. We can have a will to do the right thing without fear of threats or being sidetracked by bribery. Sure, we don't have some magical, mythical comforts they like to fantasize about. But neither do we have anything to inspire complacency, like I so often see in fundies. When they're not doing something obviously immoral, they're usually advocating inaction and apathy. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. These are people who routinely deny the existence of wonders we take for granted, and typically deny that there are any that haven't already been crammed into their tiny, myopic books.

We've got the whole universe, and a planet full of people. They've only got an imaginary, abusive father figure.

Sorry if this rant isn't up to my full foamy standards. I dug up my Beatles: Yellow Submarine CD to play a few repeats of "All You Need is Love".

State of the Doggerel: March 2008

Well, I've finally gotten the buzz words on equal footing with the cliche phrases. So, any new suggestions, or old suggestions that may bear repeating?

Pointless Question #17

One of your ally's key strategic planets has fallen to the evil invading warrior race guys. They sent a fleet of ships and dropped off a million troops to do the job. How the hell did they conquer a whole planet with so little manpower?

Doggerel #140: "Emotion"

-Professor Farnsworth: "She's become a slave to her emotions! Just like every woman. Especially you, Leela."
-Leela: *SLAP*

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Since woos think logic is incompatible with emotion, many think emotion is a sign of logical shortcomings. While it's true that emotional investment can cloud someone's judgment, it doesn't mean that being emotional automatically negates the logic behind your position.

You can be jealous. You can be irritated. You can be angry and noisy. And if you've got a solid line of evidence and rational arguments, you can also be right. That's what's important in the argument, since we're out to establish the truth. A person's tone of voice does not play a role in that decision.

We are human beings, not computers. We have needs and desires, and when we've got what looks like a good grasp of a problem and its solution (or know the problems in someone else's "solution"), and if it matters to us, we're very capable of being emotional, even if we're being rational every step of the way. Skeptics like me don't like the idea of people being cheated out of money, time, and possibly even life by psychics, alties, and religious fundamentalists. We're rational because we care.

You've All Seen This by Now

We've all seen and identified with this XKCD comic making the rounds. I'll add a discussion question: What's the most trivial thing you've done this over?

An Image I Need to Use Sometime

That 123 Book Meme

I won't tag anyone, but here's what mine resulted with. Interpret it as you will.

The rules: Pick up the nearest book with over 123 pages. Go to page 123, go to the 5th sentence. Post the following three sentences:

"...And everyone looking so..." Chickenwire floundered "...happy. In a sad way, o' course."
"Yeah."

Doggerel #139: "Malpractice"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

This entry into the list isn't so much a word that's misunderstood, but one that's thrown up as a distraction. It will come up in just about any thread where a skeptic talks about quackery, in an effort to cast evidence-based medicine in the worst possible light. There's one severe problem with that, though:

Malpractice and efficacy are not related. A car is an efficacious method of transportation. You can put something in a car and observe it move. If drivers get into accidents, that doesn't change the fact that cars have efficacy. Woos are asking us to invest in flying carpets, which are no better than inaction. That's usually the issue at hand: Can the woos prove that their treatments are better than inaction? Questions about malpractice are usually just evasions of that issue.

Malpractice is the medical equivalent to a car accident. Sometimes it's bad luck, sometimes it's negligence, sometimes it's flaws in the system, sometimes it's even incompetence. Those sorts of things are important to iron out. If you want to talk about malpractice, you'll want to know where and why those problems occur. It has nothing to do with the efficacy of the treatments. The problem is not in the theory, but in the practice.

An additional problem with talking bout malpractice is that it's hard to get numbers with alties: One of the most common problems I see brought up when I read about an altie practitioner being hit with licensing issues is bad or even nonexistent record keeping. That makes it much harder to compare malpractice rates, even if woo worked. But woo doesn't work. Taking useless, and therefore unnecessary action is just as bad as malpractice. And woos are doing it every time they practice if they can't prove efficacy.

Malpractice exists in evidence-based medicine. Doctors, insurance companies, and so forth are doing their best to combat the causes. Woos, however, are seldom interested in really discussing whether or not their treatment actually works. The ones who distract with malpractice numbers effectively admit it.

Well, That's Embarrassing

I generally don't know anything about celebrities, nor do I comprehend the level of buzz about them. Well, it seems Sylvia Browne couldn't do much better than I could in regards to predicting what Jennifer Lopez was going to do with her life.

Doggerel #138: "Logic"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Woos often like to pretend that skeptics all have pointy ears, that we're beyond emotion, etcetera. Especially when we see through appeals to emotion and heartfelt, if misguided warnings. Of course, we're people, too. We're just more consistent than most people.

First, one of the woo abuses of the term implies that logic is something incredibly restrictive, and that their favorite woo is beyond it all. This usually gets into silly special pleading pretty quickly, when they claim that results exist, but they can't be measured. How they measured them is left an open question.

Second, woos will often use fallacies of "logical" people to try to convince us that we shouldn't discount stuff. One of these is the famous Sherlock Holmes quote, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." That one in particular, as well as many other lines of 'woo logic' tend to be based on a lack of imagination. Holmes's quote relies on the presumption (and hubris) that you know all the possibilities. Usually, the woos in question don't even know what a skeptic's stance is on the issue, and thus can't attack the real lines of logic and assumptions being used.

Third, woos treat logic as if it were somehow antithetical to emotion. Quite frankly, I don't see how. Emotion seems like a natural extension of logic to me. Heck, it forms a large part of my sense of humor: A lot of jokes rely on the listener being able to spot holes in someone's logic, or reversal of expectations arrived at through logic. That must be why I see so few woos with a sense of humor.

Further Expansion

Haven't been getting a lot of comments over at my Game Development Limbo blog, though I've been given some good reasons from individuals who have some log-in related hurdles. If you're interested in my random game-related thoughts and ideas, send me your email address so that I can invite you.

If you don't want to post it in a comment, you can drop your address in an email to me:

As the Pointless Fun Turns

Well, it time for a little more pointless fun. We've been extended for another infinity seasons, including plastic surgery for my character, who will now be played by a lolcat who appeals to a better demographic. He's also apparently secretly the long lost twin brother of several other people.

Anyway, onto the fun:

Retro Sabotage: Classic games with punchlines. Usual thanks to Nodwick.

---
Someone's having the time of his life:


This would be a lot better if they kept the sound at a consistent level. Silence ruins a lot of it:


Searching for random Nintendo stuff. This was weird:

81st Skeptics' Circle

It's up at the Conspiracy Factory.

Open thread as usual, except quoting the Evil Overlord List and thus revealing our secrets to the world is FORBIDDEN.

The Quackometer's Back!

You can't keep a good thing down. He's changed to an ISP with more spine, so I think he'll be safe from censorship for a while.

Doggerel #137: "Dimension"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

I've read Flatland and Sphereland. I recommend you read them, too, if you've been overly contaminated by the typical sci-fi use of the term. A lot of woos are. I think "dimension" is a poor term for alternate universes, elseworlds, different planes of existence, etcetera. "Dimension" better refers to height, width, depth, time, and the various dimensions those cosmologists are working on. I heard we're up to ten or so. If you want to add some more, show us the math.

In the old days, religion liked to hide heaven in the sky and hell deep underground. Now that we can examine those areas, some woos have resorted to hiding magic in alleged dimensions. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that their woo doesn't do what they claim it does. It only serves to make it look harder to verify, as if science only worked like sci-fi scanning devices and was so easily limited.

Another use of the term is less "scientific" and more illustrative, often dealing with convenient abstractions for complex processes. One example, from my days of playing Magic: The Gathering was "card advantage," which essentially dealt with the benefits of increasing the number of cards working for you at any time: Draw more, prevent your opponent from drawing, kill two enemy cards with one of yours, etcetera. That's one aspect of a complex process. Though I've encountered it less often, sometimes woos like to talk about these sorts of dimensions to make an issue appear more complex when such dimensions can be studied independently of others.

Doggerel #136: "Deep"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Back when I was a kid, my mind was continuously buzzing with religious questions. You know the usual conflicts: Omnipotence versus evil, precognition versus free will, etcetera. Nearly all of them were outright contradictions. People regarded as "deep" just slapped the "paradox" label on them, told stories that failed as metaphor, and just generally didn't answer it. Meanwhile, people like me who kept asking questions, pointing out the cracks in bad metaphors, and preferred uncertainty or even dissatisfaction over false certainty were labeled "shallow." This kind of experience made me wonder if the brainless blond cheerleaders on TV sitcoms grew up to be philosophy professors. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the standard case.

Needless to say, woos love to think of themselves as "deep" and will advertise. The problem that they commonly face when dealing with skeptics is that they haven't thought about their favorite transcendent woo and the implications it would have if it were true. Sometimes they'll slap on a layer of ad hoc, and then ignore the implications of that layer. For example, psychics will complain that they can't work in the presence of a skeptic, often to the point that they'll claim physical discomfort from our evil, negative thought waves. Well, then, it should be an easy matter to test their ability to sense skeptics. Lock 'em in a room and see if they get a headache when James Randi walks by. At that point, they typically drop the attempt to add "depth" to the woo and start ad hominems.

My preferred method of determining who's really "deep": who's got the most detail down with the fewest fallacies. So far, I'm seeing a very strong correlation between woo and shallowness.

The Days of Our Pointless Fun

Well, I've been leading a double life on another blog (give me your email if you want to see Bronze Dog's Game Development Limbo), been in the witness protection program, since I have to testify it was I who shot Caleb Rentpayer.

So, to keep you occupied:

Eyemaze: Website full of games, including the very cool Grow series. The creator's feeling under the weather right now, so help him get better.

Submachine 5: Interesting point-and-click exploration game. I should probably try out the earlier ones.

Here's some near-lethal nostalgia fuel:



Items on my "Definite buy" list: Fez and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

The usual thanks go to Nodwick and TIGS.

Teach This Old Dog a New Trick

I suddenly remembered a quote from a math humor book I read back in junior high. It went something like this:

"The laws of probability are so cleverly formatted that no experiment can refute or prove their validity."

It won't surprise me if there's been a lot of debate about this that may have settled the issue centuries ago, but I haven't been able to come up with a way to falsify the laws of probability from my armchair bit of math. Any particular experimental result is possible under the laws of probability: Some are just more probable than others, and there's no magical cutoff for improbability.

If I can't get anywhere with them, I think I might just have to stick them into the same category of assumptions as "the external universe exists" and "the laws of physics are consistent."

BOYCOTT NETCETERA

Le Canard Noir's blog has been taken down because the cowards at Netcetera. They caved into the threats of some nobody quack, despite being clearly legally protected. The Thought Police and book burners live.

Normally, I'd instinctively focus a lot of rage at the anti-speech actions of the quack involved and how he stands for the destruction of civilized society, but given that the same ISP has caved in for the third time to such threats, they don't deserve any revenue. If they can't offer any protection for your material, they aren't worth the money.

So, if you're expressing unpopular opinions on Netcetera, I highly recommend you find a new service and make a backup of all your stuff before they open up the doors for the internet book burners.

Comic Find

I've recently come across Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and currently going through the archives. Here's where I found out about it, and here's a comic that reminded me of twoofer logic in a way.

Doggerel #135: "Holistic"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Alties love to claim that their favorite woo "treats the whole person" or similar crap in their advertisements. The most effective criticism I can think of for the typical altie "holistic" treatment: They can't prove that it treats any part of the person.

Of course, moving beyond that obvious angle, alties often don't seem used to explaining how they treat the whole person in a way that real medicine doesn't. Real medicine has to keep track of you. That's why medical records are so important. They have to factor in things like allergies, genetic quirks, and general health to see if you can handle the side effects and such. (Naturally, anything that has an effect pretty much has to have side effects.) I don't see alties doing much on that front. As Eddie Izzard pointed out of chiropractic:

So I had to go see a chiropractor in New York, and they're different to osteopaths, chiropractors, because of the spelling. Of course, they're both very powerful figures on the Scrabble board, though... "Chiropractor... chiropractor... chiropractor... 93 letters, chiropractor." And they crack your bones, that's what they do, they crack your bones! And they take x-rays, but it’s pointless, because whatever is wrong with you… "You've got a bad back, I'm gonna crack your bones.” “You've got diphtheria, I'm gonna crack your bones.” “Your head's come off! I'm gonna crack your bones.” “It looks like your mother! I'm going to crack your bones. "

Put simply, I don't see alties doing much to take the whole person into account. They have a habit of just prescribing standard treatments.

One annoying thing that often comes up is that alties often have good bedside manner, which they'll advertise as treating the 'spirit'. Of course, they often have a lower patient load, and often don't have to do much of anything, so it's often easier for them to maintain. Would be nice if some of these people could have the cobwebs in their heads cleared out so that they could go into nursing and put that bedside manner to better use. Having a friendly relationship to the medical staff can often do good in the form of better treatment compliance and stress reduction, but people with illnesses need real medicine to go with the kind gestures.

Finally Getting to my Deityhood

Well, Tom Foss started a meme. Somewhere, I got tagged invisibly, though I was going to get around to it regardless of whether or not I got tagged. Some of this is going to involve repetition of ideas.

I'm going to have to try having some fun with the whole Bronze Dog God thing.

1. Resources will not be scarce. At least not in the "real" world. The only places I'd make scarce resources are game worlds/boards/servers. The first games to operate on those principles will be praised by the gamer community as an innovative abstract concept that livens up gameplay.

2. Time will be tangled up for maximum convenience. Go ahead and take a nap, go to work, class, get in the proper mood, or whatever. Your friends on the game server won't even notice you went afk. This, however, might lead to some interesting conversations, requiring an extensive system of grammar for all the different verb tenses. I will haven grantek everyone automatic fluency in this grammar before any problems arise.

3. Who needs death? Indefinite lifespans are fine by me. If someone manages to get bored despite everyone putting out lots of entertainment, they can pick out a memory wipe, bliss-out, or whatever. Some people will appreciate having a reformatted newb to train.

4. Not science, SCIENCE! Like Tom, I'd make Hollywood/comic book/videogame super science a possibility. Who needs square cube laws and laws of motion getting in the way of building a giant honking robot to fly over your infinite back yard?

Suggestions for expansion are appreciated.

Email Policy

I haven't been getting much direct email lately, but after reading a post here and there about others giving an expectation of privacy, I should probably outline what you can expect from mine.

1. If it's not related to the usual science/skepticism/atheism thing, I won't post your email unless you want me to.

2. If it's hate mail, it will be posted, dissected, and mocked. I don't get much at this point. This policy may change if I get a sudden influx. This is subject to some upcoming restrictions.

3. I won't post people's real names and locations unless they already use them online at a blog or something. If, for example, I get some invective from a Disco Institute top member with his name, photograph, and address on the Disco Institute website, I won't shy away from calling him by name. If I get an email labeled "Bob Smith" and he signs the email itself with "ScientologyLuvums317" or something that's obviously supposed to be an alias, I won't expose the name.

4. If you provide a link to your blog, don't be the least bit surprised if I end up dissecting and mocking pseudoscience I might find there. Your best defense is to not be silly in your email.

5. I won't out atheists without permission. I live in a chunk of the Bible Belt, and I know how hard things can be for someone not ready to expose that part of their identity. There are a lot of amoral, nihilistic bigots who seemingly live for the purpose of making life hard for atheists. For the people who can safely and comfortably live as an outed atheist in meatspace, kudos. Not all of us have the necessary bravery and/or safe locations.

Blogroll Expansion

I haven't expanded my blogroll in quite a long time. My brother's generally more exploratory than I am, so I may borrow some links from his. If you're a regular reader, drop a link to your place so that I can add it. I probably have a lot of links I need to reciprocate.

Bronze Dog's Game Development Limbo

Yesterday, I started a new blog where I spill out the videogame ideas that end up in my head. I don't expect them to go anywhere, but I might as well get them all down, just in case I end up with an actual product that'll catch the eyes of the indie game community. The blog's invite-only right now, since I'd prefer to keep my ideas among some of my gamer friends without getting stolen. If you're interested in seeing my creative efforts, ask me to invite you. Feedback and ideas from others would be greatly appreciated.

The Threat Model of Epistemology

Imagine you're watching television and a car commercial comes on. The screaming used car salesman sputters and twitches as he shows off some of the cars on his lot and their prices. Throw in some costume mascot, and a distant shot of the location, featuring some air-powered flailing critters. And then he mentions that if you don't believe his deals are the best in town, you'll be found eventually and taken to a torture chamber and left there for the rest of your life.

That's an image that comes to my mind with religion. There always seems to be a double standard. If your average person were to make such a horrible threat, everyone (or at least I hope everyone) would be shocked and inspired to retaliate with anything from vitriol to criminal charges. But for some reason, people give (thankfully fictional) deities, (unfortunately real) preachers, and generally pious people free reign to say whatever threats they like. It's even acceptable to make bigoted jokes with the threats as a premise.

What I want to know is why such exceptions exist. I want a fundie to explain it to me. For now, I've got a number of suspected reasons which they probably don't want to admit. First, they think morality is relative: The preachers can do whatever the hell they want to because they serve a deity who can do whatever the hell he wants to. Moral standards don't apply to them because they've drawn a line in the sand, declaring their side 'holy' or 'spiritual' or whatever.

Second, in something of a more specific variant of the first, they think might makes right. Because their deity is super-powered, he can do whatever the hell he wants. It's not like you could realistically rebel. I suppose I should call that 'appeal to futility' or something. Kind of reminds me of a number of strained paladin-breaking either/or decisions: "You can't win, so give up on finding a way to do the right thing."

Third, in another form of moral relativism: The ends justify the means when it's their ends being pursued. Anyone else who uses their means for a different goal is vilified while they praise their own for doing the same. When called out on this attitude, they pretend morality is beyond mortal ken, which is why double-standards are allowed, and fairness is a sin.

That, in a nutshell, is one of the core reasons why appeals to the eternal torments of Hell mean nothing to me. They're nothing but intimidation, and conversely, Heaven is only a bribe, not a reward. Naturally, the other big reason they mean nothing is because I've seen no evidence for them, but that's a topic for another post.

80th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at Bug Girl's place, and it was Valentine's.

Open thread as usual, but because Valentine's is over, now, making kissy faces at me is FORBIDDEN! ...unless you're a hot chick.

All My Pointless Fun

Well, it's been a while. I was knocked out by my evil twin brother and left for dead, only to wake up on a desert island with amnesia. But I'm back now, and I want to know who the father is.

Time for games.

An Untitled Story: Nice platforming adventure. Definitely worth donating to get the full version.

Mine Link: Simple little chain reaction game. Blow up one mine to get as many as you can per level.

The Unfair Platformer: Was I Wanna Be the Guy not enough for you? Try this.

Thanks go to Nodwick, The Independent Gaming Source, and viewers like you.

Now, to videos:

A little more stop motion gaming:


How Neo and friends play ping pong:


And soccer:

Quote of the Time Being #16

From the comments of one of PZ's posts:

"They make Ward Churchill look like Shirley Temple." -- John A. Davidson

[INTERIOR: February 9, 2009, PZ MYERS's secret lair built beneath the sprawling sewer system of Morris, Minnesota. While Western Civilization is reduced to smoldering ruins outside, MYERS sits atop the Cephalod Throne, surveying his squid aquarium. RICHARD DAWKINS stands to one side, near an old-fashioned Victrola and a dress dummy. He is using a curling iron to put ringlets into a blonde wig.]

[ENTER Tori and Dori, the contortionist twins. They are escorting at gunpoint WARD CHURCHILL.]

MYERS: Ah, Dr. Churchill. I suppose you are wondering why I've brought you here.

CHURCHILL: Wondering? Hardly, Dr. Myers. This is precisely the sort of discursive act I would expect from one so thoroughly reified in the rational-materialist hegemony. As I was saying in my recent monograph--

MYERS: Silence! I did not bring you here to hear you speak. Tori and Dori have their weapons trained on you, and should you manage to evade their gunfire, you would still need to traverse the moat of deadly Humboldt squid. I assure you, escape is impossible, and your cooperation is most necessary. Richard, help Dr. Churchill prepare for his performance.

[DAWKINS approaches CHURCHILL with the wig, a large pinafore, and tap shoes, size 11.]

DAWKINS: Dr. Churchill, it would be in your best interest to don this curly wig and pinafore. You really have no choice.

[CHURCHILL looks nervously at the twins, who raise their weapons and prepare to fire at a moment's notice. Reluctantly, he pulls the pinafore over his freshly pressed workshirt and jeans, and places the wig awkwardly on his head. As his humiliation grows, DAWKINS smears rouge on his cheeks.]

MYERS: Music, Richard, please.

[DAWKINS returns to the Victrola, gives the crank a few turns, and places the needle on the record. The unmistakable sound of On the Good Ship Lollipop is heard. MYERS settles imperiously on his throne and begins to relax. A smile plays across his face.]

MYERS: Now, Dr. Churchill. Dance!

Posted by: HP | February 14, 2008 5:37 PM

Darwin Day '08

Well, it's that time of year: Darwin Day. Though his theory's been updated again and again over the course of a century and a half, making the Origin of Species very outdated, we pay a minor bit of tribute to the guy who gave biology a productive direction to investigate. He wasn't a prophet. Just a guy who put a particular set of 2 and 2 together in a memorable way, opening new lines of inquiry.

After Darwin, life (at least in the strictly biological way) started making sense. Critters could be traced back through their ancestry to a common point. Doing that trackback, we could discover where they took different forks in the road, and so on and so forth. Yet still today, there are people who would tear down that whole thing and replace it with statements like "because I said so" and "the magic man in the sky was in a weird mood that day, we can't possibly ever know what he was thinking" to explain the hows and whys of life.

Darwin and the countless biologists who followed didn't give into such a defeatist attitude. They dared to ask questions and seek answers, regardless of what it did to lesser people's blind pride and hubris. Armed with scientific fact, scientists could work at improving our lives in ways we take for granted today and potentially in ways we can imagine tomorrow. So, celebrate the stone that caused the ever-growing ripple we're riding today.

And remember, happiness is a squishy cephalopod.

So, was I cheesy and inspiring enough, there?

Doggerel #134: "Consciousness"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Woos love to muse about consciousness. Given that we've all got it without a blue print (yet), it's kind of hard for any of us not to on occasion. I suppose one of the easiest ways to define consciousness is the ability to think and to think about your thinking. It takes quite a bit of sophistication for a critter to be able to do that.

Woos, however, seem to want to keep the complexity down. Rather than face the awesome task of cataloging countless neural connections and proportions of chemicals being juggled among those connections, they'd rather just make consciousness its own ineffable thing, rather than a complicated process. Of course, the problem that arises from this is that it involves special pleading: They have to introduce a new entity without any real sort of justification. Unless they can demonstrate something with consciousness without some sophisticated information handling 'hardware', I don't see any reason to think consciousness is separate from the brain.

One of the other reasons woos like to posit a separate consciousness is because it gives them comfort to think of something that can continue to exist. Of course, the universe isn't in the business of pleasing humans. Good luck finding the soul, but you'll have to do all the scientific footwork. Epistemological hedonism isn't a shortcut I'll accept.

Another reason they like to posit a separate consciousness: If you invent something that circumvents the natural world, it can give you the excuse to believe in other stuff that's considered "weird" like psychic powers and such. Of course, most of the latter ends up being much more mundane when examined. Consciousness has the advantage as not being as well understood as slight of hand, cold reading, and the placebo effect. Yet.

79th Skeptics' Circle

Iz up at Podblack Lolcat's place.

You can't has gud grammar. Is FORBIDDEN!

A Bit of Fun

My brother has a couple new posts up. One dealing with a sign I mentioned to him (which he almost immediately went out to photo) and the other with a bit of a caption contest.

I may try getting a photo of the other side of that sign later today.

Doggerel #133: "Belief"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Today's entry has been bumped up on the schedule from an arbitrarily special round number because my brother got the seed of a mini-rant. As he put it, there are people out there with a "one-word epistemology". That one word is today's entry. There are a lot of definitions people use out there, and no shortage of woos who will equivocate between them to put their favorite woo on rhetorical par with science.

All too often, woos beliefs are maintained because they make the believer comfortable. That, in fact, is often the first attempt to justify the belief, especially in religious cases. Unfortunately, the universe doesn't seem particularly interested in being comfortable for squishy organics. Otherwise, there'd be no unpleasant truths.

Other woos do give some attempts at justification, often involving anecdotes. That may work reliably enough for low-stakes everyday things, but nothing to bet your life on, which is what a lot of quacks are asking you to do. Psychics often ask people to do it with the memories of their loved ones, or just large amounts of money. Science works with much higher standards for such matters: Anecdotes don't have many controls for removing bias and minimizing chance. That's what experimental controls and blinding are for. Throw in independent replications, where unrelated people try the same experiment to double-check, and that's why scientific "belief" is much more justified than anything woos commonly claim. You justify belief with the high standards of science. That's when it becomes reasonable to call it knowledge. If you're not interested in doing that, you might as well just call your belief for what it is: Wishful thinking, or if it's bad, paranoia.

Call for Doggerel

I've been stuck in a little bit of writer's block in regards to skepticism, lately. Would be nice to have some ideas for Doggerel in the pipe.

Also, for you medical types, I was thinking about offering a chance to do some guest Doggerel entries. I've been thinking of doing "mercury" and "toxins" for quite a while. Lot of anti-vax woos out there who broaden the former beyond all meaning, and general alties who almost never get specific about the latter. It'd be helpful if I had someone with more expertise and knowledge at their fingertips to do those entries. It'll save me a little time on research.

Pointless Fun: The Animated Series

It's been a while since I've run one of these. Been dinkering around with some console games, rather than online flash, indie games and such, but I've found some decent stuff. No pointless 3D CGI in this edition.

Hey, Stinkoman! Everyone says you're The Guy. I Wanna Be The Guy, too!: Like the TIGSource says, it's really hard. I haven't gotten the full version, yet, but I've watched some videos. Warning: This guy gets IWBTG-genic coprolalia down the line, so you may want to turn down the audio if there are sensitive ears about.

Synapsis: Kind of a Myst-like game where you're apparently stuck inside your own head. I'm stuck at the moment, but that was just my first ride through. I'll be giving it another shot, soon. Beat it.

ZunderFury: Nice little Flash shooter.

Hat tip to Nodwick for most of the links.

Thuggery Strikes Again

You've probably seen this elsewhere, but it seems Le Canard Noir's ISP has shown its abject cowardice again in the face of an altie. Expect me to provide copies below the fold after a little ranting.

Though you probably know from my rant about the last incident, I'm not the least bit afraid to use the term 'thug' to describe woos who place themselves in the role of Thought Police and book burners. There is no defense for their behavior. They're acting as bullies, throwing around their legal weight to get what they want, instead of reasoned argument or even token fake diplomacy. They only understand threats and intimidation.

Here are the articles the thug tried to burn down:

Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery - Dublin, Thursday, September 28, 2006

I had to share this with you. Following on from my recent Quack Word 'Doctor' blog, I came across the Royal College of Alternative Medicine (RCAM) , a Dublin based - well, I'm not sure quite what it is...

What caught my eye was just the shameless aggrandisement of the site. It is quite hilarious, if not a little repetitive at times. Calling yourself 'Doctor' is somewhat pompous when all you have done is paid for some international postage. However, the man behind RCAM has absolutely no shame and titles himself as the:

Distinguished Provost of RCAM (Royal College of Alternative Medicine) Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK)

Wow! Probably, just Joe to his mates. Naturally, when you Google the qualification FRCAM(Dublin), there is only person who appears to revel in this achievement. I'll leave the rest as an excercise for the reader.

The distinguished provost looks like he is just another pseudoscientific nutritionist, his spin being "Nutritional Immunomodulation". This is obviously a lot more clever than Patrick Holfords mere 'Optimum Nutrition', but having only one 'omnipill' is probably a poorer commercial decision that Patrick's vast range of supplements.

Obviously, Professor Obi has had a few problems with what probably amount to bewildering comments about his site as the legal threats and press releases concerning his 'ethical' responses to criticisms cover more space than anything else. 'Ethical' is a favourite word on the site.

The most recent press release states,

7th September 2006 : The Distinguished RCAM Provost, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK) has formally accepted appointment as Chief Professorial Examiner for the Doctor of Science (DSc) programme in Evidence Based, Alternative Medicine (EBAM) of a highly respected International University in one of the British Commonwealth Protectorates.

This new qualification is primarily aimed at Medical Graduates, Physicians, Surgeons, Pharmacists, Dentists, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Opticians, Wellness Consultants, Herbalists, Acupuncturists, Naturopaths , Healers, Podiatrists , Chiropodists , Scientists , Healers ,Therapists, Homeopaths, Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Nurses wishing to ethically upgrade their current Qualifications in Alternative Medicine over an exceedingly intensive 12 - 36 month period of study.

British Commonwealth Protectorates? Could that be Dublin?

I really have no idea what this organisation is all about. But it looks like it could be getting quite big soon...

RCAM currently has International Vacancies for One Million (1,000,000) 'Foundation Fellows' ('Movers and Shakers') ; who will independently play a highly pivotal role in diligently mentoring (and regulating) it's future Global Membership.

So if you really think that you seriously have what it takes to become a 'Leader' in Alternative Medicine , then (perhaps) RCAM may definitely be exactly what the Doctor ordered for you.

One million. That's a lot of quacks! And they are just to mentor (and regulate) the wider quack membership! This man has ambition.

The Big J really hates real doctors. This is his most recent press release...

RCAM would like to warmly commend the various Chieftans of the National Health Service of the United Kingdom for ethically and appropriately ignoring utterly misguided calls (from a rather amusing Group of thirteen Clinical Yestermen) to compel Hard-Working (and Tax-Paying) British Citizens to additionally pay for Life Enhancing Alternative Medicine Interventions out of their very own pockets - rather than get such treatments free via the NHS. RCAM would like to also categorically state that such exceedingly flawed 'G-13′ demands that the National Health Service of the United Kingdom expediently abandon Alternative Medicine altogether (in total favour of Conventional Medicine) be diplomatically treated with the very utmost contempt which such unguarded verbal flippance duly deserves ; as none of these 13 'Eminent UK Scientists' behind such calls has professionally attained Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications in Alternative Medicine and as such cannot be deemed competent enough to make such sweeping 'Shilly-Shally' statements about the noble independent specialty of Alternative Medicine.

RCAM therefore publicly advises the General Public to lawfully go about their normal Wellness-Seeking Behaviour as usual - without any unwarranted prejudice or fear resulting from such highly self-serving, morally unethical , abjectly crude , totally unprofessional, utterly unstatesmanly, morbidly barbaric, wantonly uncivilized, profanely undemocratic and unspeakably sacrilegious perpetual affronts on the therapeutically formidable institution of Alternative Medicine.

Now, I do not have 'Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications' in Santa Clause Studies to know he does not exist. But hey. I must be a morbidly barbaric and profanely undemocratic, unethical duck.

So, struggling around the acres of pomposity I find one place where Prof Joe might be making some money. You can call him to seek his wisdom, after pre-booking an hour's slot (and handing over your credit card) for a mere 300 Euros. Alternatively, you can pay by the minute on the contact line for a trifling $10 per minute.

Its going to cost you $20 just for Joe to say Hello and to read out his numerous titles, qualifications and names. Not bad 'ethical' work.

Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss - Thursday, October 12, 2006

No, this is not about our Defender of Quackery, our Quack-in-Chief His Royal Quackiness, Prince Charles, but about the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. And yes, it is just a rather lame story written solely to get a picture of Kate on my blog.

I've written a rather lazy blog on the distinguished professor before that was just a bit of a gawp at his quacktastic website and what looks like a health phone-line scam.

Well, I've done a little more digging with Google and it has revealed a few quack gems. It has been pretty hard work, since Google returns some 6,000 pages, the vast majority just appears to be Prof Obi's self-promotion. However, if you persist in digging a few interesting facts turn up.

So, what has the little black duck found out about the "most Controversial Retired Physician and 'A-List' Medical Celebrity, Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi"?

Here we go...

1. The Irish Independent reports that his college does not exist at the Dublin address given on the web site. There's a surprise! It's just a front.

2. The Independent goes on. "In January 2003, he was suspended by for serious professional misconduct at South Tyneside District Hospital. Among the allegations made were that he failed to attend to patients, wrote strange notes about colleagues and at one point gave a dating agency phone number to a psychiatric patient."

3. He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

4. The GMC strike Dr Obi off their register for "serious professional misconduct". So much for him being retired.

5. On another tack, Dr Obi has been involved in a little cyber-squatting. This looks as if it took place while he was a doctor - always after a few quid!

6. Since then, now self-titled Prof Obi, a few new avenues have been opened, including trying to entice Kate Moss away to one of his 'safe-houses' in Ireland. Hat's off!

He is quoted as saying:

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Miss Moss still has fundamental rights, just like anyone else out there, and as far as I am concerned, she is not guilty of anything until an Ethical Jury says so.

(I mentioned before that 'ethical' was one of his favourite words.)

7. Prof Obi has been developing a Penis Enlarger (watch out Kate) that his own Royal College has now endorsed.

8. At least one person (out of the targeted million) has paid Prof Obi the fees for his college to accredit them. Dr Michael Keet (8 Canards) of the Central London College of Reflexology handed over 'hundreds'. Do we feel sorry for out-quacked quacks? I guess we ought to.

9. For those of you wanting to see behind the grand titles and see the real human being, Joseph lists his interests as Comedy in London, Whole Food Nutrition and Christian Music. On this 'Meetup' site, he describes himself as "Just a very ordinary guy . . .". That's nice.

10. His name appears very often on the blog Abolish The General Medical Council (GMC), often reporting something he has got up to. The blog describes itself as:

An ethical blog for those who publicly feel that the General Medical Council (GMC) should be Statutorily Abolished in favour of a Medical Licensing Commission (MLC) to solely register and revalidate Doctors who practise Conventional Medicine in the UK. The Blog also recommends that the GMC/MLC hands all disciplinary functions over to an Independent Clinical Tribunal (ICT) in keeping with the EU Convention on Human Rights ; to avoid (both) Institutional Bias and Multiple Jeopardy.

Oooh. There is that word 'ethical' again. And 'European Human Rights'. No name is given for the blog author but the avatar is a portrait of the queen. Another apparent obsession of Prof Obi - royalty. Could the author be none other than the Professor himself, a little agrieved for his ticking off? I hope you all click through to the blog. Maybe we will show up in his stats and whoever the writer is can get in contact and confirm one way or another.

I rather hope it is, as the final thing I turned up would just be fantastic...

11. Is the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Obi now selling ethical ring-tones? I do hope so.

Watch out Crazy Frog! Here comes the Crazy Provost...

78th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at the Skeptical Surfer's place.

Open thread as usual, but talking like a surfer stereotype is FORBIDDEN, dude.

Pointless Question #16

Technology has advanced to the point that high quality robotics are commonplace, everyone's got a cyberbrain, and a trip to the Crab Nebula is a good five minutes in your jalopy spaceship. Why then, do so many mooks come equipped with laser weaponry that fires projectiles so much slower than, you know, bullets?

We've Reached the Target Area. Deploying Rant

I've run into a couple hit-and-run trolls on other blogs over the week that just push a few buttons with their prejudices. They've probably spent their lives being lied to about skeptics because their role models were lied to, and so on and so forth to the point that Hollywood believes the same crap they do and aren't afraid to broadcast propaganda.

What makes it so irritating is that all the propaganda seems to consist of projection: Everything they make up about skeptics more accurately describes woos. One particular example that's stuck in my mind right now is the woos' heavier use of "impossible." They're much more likely to use it in an absolute sense, whereas most skeptics I know will give the word appropriate caveats. Those who don't will likely feel the annoying sting of nitpickery. I chose to put "impossible" into the Doggerel series precisely because woos are so much more fond of it.

To me, that's just one thing indicative of woos being the real naysayers in life. Another is often between the lines: They always seem to believe that it's arrogant to see sense and order in the universe. Whenever a skeptic describes how much we know about the world around us, the woos always seem to pipe up, claiming that some fundamental knowledge we have must be wrong, even though it's accurate enough to give us great advances, technology, and even art. The pessimistic attitude of woos would have humanity stagnate while nearly every skeptic I know has an optimistic attitude towards technological and scientific progress. We just wish woos would get over their basement sulking and let humanity get on with making the world a little bit better.

I once glanced over a start of a woo essay a few years ago, going on about the evils of technology. He used "technology" in his rant, but who knows how extensive he really meant the term to be. He'd rant about the ideal Egyptian society when they used telekinesis to build the pyramids, rather than technology (which leads me to wonder if he included things like the wheel, lever, pulley, wedge, and inclined plane as 'technology'). He'd claim that giving technology to humans is like giving a gun to a child and rant about how pathetic and immature humanity is. Funny that he wouldn't claim the same for the various forms of magic he claimed were available. I find misanthropes like him to be particularly likely to spend their time sulking in their basement. Arguably worse are those who claim many ancient wonders were built with magic or by aliens because the natives were too stupid. That falls right into racism.

The most fundamental aspect of woo pessimism I routinely encounter is the attitude that we can NEVER understand something they claim to be weird. That's just about as pure as defeatism can get, especially since it usually turns out the scientists or magicians investigated the topic decades ago and came up with answers. The most boring puzzle I can imagine is one that you've already solved. That's where a lot of my rage against woos come from: They want us to dwell on boring, solved puzzles for eternity, rather than get on with the real mysteries in life. I, for one, resist stagnation like that.

Stuff I'd Like to See Sometime

Mostly orienting towards characters who go against clichés at the moment. Been reading a bit of TV Tropes, lately, so I've got a few things in mind:

1. A hacker/cracker who compulsively overdresses and over-grooms, insisting on keeping his appearance absolutely perfect. He's so straight-laced, looking at him is almost suffocating. Think Roger Smith with Radical Edward's skills. Somehow manages to fix himself up almost immediately after any action sequence. Takes advantage of the 'coding in their underwear' stereotype to avoid suspicion.

2. A Chessmaster who prefers Go. Why? Well, did you see that story about how some programmers "solved" checkers? He took it to the next logical step.

3. A benign Virus / Hive Mind that only assimilates the willing and has a good pension plan.

I'll add more if I remember some.

Doggerel #132: "Transcendent"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Today's entry has been so overused by woos, it's lost all meaning for me. Well, just about. Transcendence is supposed to relate to going above or beyond something, like previous limitations. Woos love to use it like "transcending to a higher plane" or stuff like that. I wouldn't be against having smart people move up in the world, but I don't think that's quite what they mean, if they mean anything at all.

Often, that 'higher plane' will be described as above the material or scientific world, which kind of ends up in a contradiction: If it can do stuff, it'd pretty much going to be included in materialism and be explored by the scientific method. In short, it seems they're claiming to transcend truth. Escapism's fun, but it's not supposed to be a way of life.

On another front that's more often vitriolic, I bump into my share of fundies who claim that atheism/evolution/gravity/whatever doesn't provide "transcendent" morals to follow, which is why us evilutionists go around eating babies and kicking puppies when no one's looking. Aside from crazy non-sequiturs worthy of a couple more doggerel entries, just what is this supposed to mean? How are "transcendent" morals any different than the usual humanist/secular/whatever values nearly all the skeptics I know go by? The differences I'm usually told about go down several very twisted avenues, including textbook examples of "might makes right" or outright moment-by-moment moral relativism. Bizarrely, the people who practice these depraved ethical theories have the gall to assign their values to us and claim that they're "lowly," "empty," or whatever qualifies as "non-transcendent."

So, fair warning to woos: If you say "transcendent," I'm going to look at you as if you said "flarschnikit."

Bloggin' From Bed 3

O Companion Cube
My burden is so weighted
You don't deserve death.

Bloggin' From Bed 2

I'm glad I'm a sounder sleeper than Bert.

Bloggin' From Bed

Those not familiar with Texas should know there's a saying over here, at least in the eastern portion: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." Well, cold front came in, left with mild summer in its wake, and all the resulting peaks and dips played havoc with me. Now, some bug apparently decided to be opportunistic.

So I'm bloggin' from bed for today.

I'm Thinking About Making a Hive Mind

My brother's getting some experience wielding a soldering iron, and has a growing pile of transistors, resistors, eyes of newt, and other arcane components. Mentioned getting some toy robots to build, and it kind of fits in with something I saw this morning:

It was a show talking about ants and other social insects working without a distinct leader, based on simple programmed rules and the patterns that emerge from having several members following them, often without communication. They went on to an example of robots sorting out black and white pucks based on a handful of rules. I recalled an example from much earlier involving smaller robots sorting wooden pegs.

So, anyone know some robot kit to build critters like that? I'd like to have something where I can rearrange the rules to see what emerges from different rules. Haven't talked about it with my brother, but seeing some recommendations for robot kits might be interesting anyway.

Do Over! Trekkie Edition

Well, it's a new year, which means you'll be filling out checks incorrectly. Also an excuse for people to start stuff over. But in this case, you'll be starting over something from decades ago: You're Gene Roddenberry, the pilot's been approved, and you've got a bigger budget than you originally expected: How'd you do Star Trek differently?

I've got a few ideas:

The Original Series:

1. Nerf the transporters. In this contrived setup, I've eliminated the original reason they existed: Budget. If Star Trek had more money, they would have done shuttle landings. Here's how I'd have the nerfed transporters work, if at all: It's primarily an emergency system. Repeated use on living things eventually leads to transporter psychosis like Barclay was worried about during bouts of hypochondria.

2. Rubber foreheads for the Klingons. The retcon just didn't sit well with me. Oh, and sort things out with the Trills ahead of time while we're at it.

3. Make a map in advance: Keep distances consistent, so you don't have the Enterprise jumping from one side of the galaxy to another in a manner that later embarrasses a certain Skipper, I mean female captain.

4. Episodes to kill: Spock's Brain and And the Children Shall Lead. Never happened. Really.

5. Episode to keep absolutely unaltered: The City at the Edge of Forever.

6. Fewer super-powered godlike aliens. Yeah, Kirk can talk his way past them. I don't watch Star Trek to see the crew flail helplessly for most of the episode.

7. Make Phase Two.

The Next Generation:

1. Keep the Borg insectine: The body snatching critters from that one episode that went gory were originally intended to be related to the Borg. Cyborg bugs would be cool.

2. Make the Ferengi proceed directly to comedic adversaries. They just didn't work out as real villains.

3. Take down the idealistic preachery down a few notches.

Deep Space Nine:

1. On the last episode, stick in the following scenes: Morn talks, Captain Boday makes an appearance, and Chief O'Brien discovers what a self-sealing stem bolt does.

I'll think of more, later.

77th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at WhiteCoat Underground.

Open thread as usual, except pointing out all the super-secret underground editions of the Circle I didn't link to is FORBIDDEN by the evil microfascist materialist conspiracy under pain of getting bapped by a rolled up newspaper!

... Ow!