Funny Searches: August 2008

I started this on the 20th. That's when the first vaguely funny search showed up for this month. Let's hope weird stuff starts coming in more regularly.

The vibrations of autism: Insert joke here.

bigfoot is in fact in the game says rockstar games: Schala liiiiives!

videos of people pooping there selves: Should I be worried that my inner Grammar Nazi is more disgusted than my general squick about copraphilia?

how to make people like you using supernatural abilities: Charm Person, Innate Spell feat (with a lot of prerequisites) to turn it into a spell-like ability, and I think there was one "Supernatural Transformation" feat or similar that could turn a spell-like ability into a supernatural one, thus no longer provoking attacks of opportunity.

The God That Saves Whenever Prayed To: Off the top of my head, the Dragon God from Breath of Fire 2 does that. Be sure to do it regularly. Don't want to get creamed by some boss only to end up repeating four or five dungeons or whatever.

Of Berserkers and Vacations

No, I'm not going on a vacation, so don't worry too much about a shortage of new Doggerel entries. I've just been wondering about some of the larger cycles of skeptical bloggers out there.

I've heard of bloggers who just get so angry, they can't deal with the daily stupidity of trolls and quit. Some of you may have taken a break from blogging. I get really foamy for a few comments and post a !fooW entry to cool down, thinking of humorous answers to various questions. I suspect I could sustain a rage for a while, inspiring many, many strongly worded posts about how vile, depressing, etcetera, all the woos I encounter are, but I'd rather not risk getting too angry for too long. Hence, I do the cool down phase with humor.

So, what do you do, and why?

Blatant IDiocy

You may have seen this at Denialism and Skeptico already, but I'll chime in anyway. An IDiot says:

In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have long wished to see posed to ID opponents: "If we DID discover some biological feature that was irreducibly complex, to your satisfication and to the satisfaction of all reasonable observers, would that justify the design inference?" (Of course, I believe we have found thousands of such features, but never mind that.)

If the answer is yes, we just haven't found any such thing yet, then all the constantly-repeated philosophical arguments that "ID is not science" immediately fall. If the answer is no, then at least the lay observer will be able to understand what is going on here, that Darwinism is not grounded on empirical evidence but a philosophy.

So, tell me, why exactly would we infer design from an IC feature? That's a question the IDiots avoid with evasions like this. There's nothing linking "This feature is IC" to "This feature was designed." We've been pointing that out for a long time, now.

In response, they typically begin a new evasion: "Well, if it's IC, evolution couldn't do it!" This is an outright lie mixed in with another non-sequitur. First, there's nothing stopping evolution from creating IC features. Evolution has a lot of tricks up its sleeves. The lie comes in when the IDiots claim that evolution can't subtract parts that become unnecessary, only add. This, of course, is the opposite of another IDiot lie: That evolution can only subtract, not add. Second, even if evolution can't explain another feature, why would ID be a better answer? It's kind of like the people who concluded early on that wind couldn't cause crop circles, therefore super-advanced aliens from outer space must have done them using Arthur C. Clark technology. Of course, it turns out that humans made them with simple geometry and simpler technology. Just because one hypothesis gets ruled out doesn't mean we say "a magic man done it." There are always more possibilities than squishy human brains initially come up with. It's hubris to think that humans know all the possibilities and can just pick one from the process of elimination. Of course, since evolution still hasn't been eliminated by the amateurish efforts of Behe and the like, it's kind of moot.

So, to get to a key point that IDiots always run away from: Why would we make a design inference from X?

68th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at Aardvarchaeology.

Open thread as usual, but sticking your long, long tongue at me is FORBIDDEN!

Doggerel #120: "Troll"

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

Whenever there's any argument, anywhere on the internet, "troll" will almost inevitably come up. It's a bit of slang, so there's no precise definition, but there is a fair bit of agreement on some points:

1. Merely having a certain opinion does not make someone a troll. About the only arguable exceptions are things like Holocaust deniers, flat Earthers and the like.

2. Resorting to flooding, spam, ALL CAPS ON EVERYTHING, excessive exclamation marks, blanket cursing and so on mark a person as a troll very quickly. Wetspot resorted to copy/pasting "DUMBASS" so many times in his comments that my Firefox browser was concerned that it was a looping script. Unambiguously trollish.

3. Repeating a lie over and over and over again, or "correcting" himself in one thread and repeating the lie in another, hoping no one notices. This is especially prevalent in Creationists parroting straw men that no one subscribes to, assigning those straw men to scientists, and when ruthlessly corrected, they do just the above.

4. People who keep changing the subject in a desperate attempt to put the people in the thread on trial, and not their arguments. This is one of the leading causes of doggerel. This goes double for people who try to "frame" comments on the stupidity of a fallacy they commit as a personal attack.

Simply being passionate about having a dissenting opinion isn't trollish. What separates a troll from a legitimate dissenter is the methods they employ. It's just like woos and skeptics, cranks and scientists: Methods are what matters.

If I Ruled the Networks...

Just having a bit of a "if I ruled the world" moment right now. I'll list a few examples of bad or mediocre shows, and some small details I think would have helped them out. Maybe not turn it around, but it would have been nice. Whatever. Follow up with your own examples in the comments. Please, no "I'd never make the show" things unless you're talking about The Matrix sequels.

Star Trek: Voyager: Slowly kill the pristine nature of the ship. Without Starfleet repair docks, the crew should have made finicky replacements from Delta Quadrant spare parts. Have them restock some of the crew with curious/adventurous locals. Not just Neelix and Kes. Having a holographic doctor may be spiffy, but you'd think they'd at least supplement him with an alien doctor or two who'd study up on Alpha Quadrant physiology to eventually replace him. Not Tom Paris.

The Big O, Season 2: Kill all the bright colors. Kill the Gainax Ending. Dump Big O's transforming arm cannons. It won my heart with clumsy, oversized fisticuffs. Not exactly a small change on the ending, but pleh.

A number of Gundam series: Dump the super-prototype angle. Give the heroes standard mechs with some customization, or at least new models that only have marginally better combat capability compared to the local Zaku. I know the toymakers like to have a half dozen or so flashy, spikey new models to make with each new incarnation, but come on. If you must insist on several new models, have them each fill different combat roles (but be wary of making an Aquaman), rather than just being bigger and badder than everything else. What should matter is skill, teamwork, and planning.

That's all for the time being. Feel free to list your own suggestions for series that could use touch-ups like that.

Doggerel #119: "You're Not Helping!"

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

A lot of the time, when we're busy shooting down some altie's favorite cancer quackery, or platitudes of some psychic who claims to hunt down missing people, they'll complain that we're "not helping."

First, this is a subject change: The issue is usually whether the woo is helping. It never seems to be. Much of the time, woo is even harmful. Even if the only thing the skeptic does is criticism and physical inaction, he's helping by staying out of the expert's way, and not wasting resources. Chances are, he can prevent the loss of a very important resource by taking useless woo out of consideration: Time. By encouraging people to sit still for a moment and carefully consider the course of action, rather than rushing back and forth between mountains of improbable "cures," the skeptic may very well aid in finding the best course of action.

And all that's before you consider that the skeptic might actually be on the front lines of relevant scientific research. I may be a relative armchair skeptic compared to a number of dedicated scientists out there, but what I do isn't fundamentally different than what they do. It's just a difference of degree. I can at least donate some of my income to the real scientists who are working on real solutions using the scientific method. If someone isn't doing science, and just randomly experimenting on paying customers without detailed records, that money is wasted.

Additionally, skeptics are typically thinking ahead: We need educational reform. We need to get more people to think skeptically and scientifically. Civilization has had a long, nasty history of superstition, fallacies, and propaganda. Skepticism is the best defense we have against those things. If we can get the typical person to think in terms of the scientific method, rather than parroting whatever slogans come from his favorite mass media, we'll produce more scientists who will have the necessary mentality to solve problems.

Is My Brother Going to Be a Movie Star Like PZ?

Just though I'd mention that someone's apparently interested in getting permission to use his Blasphemy Challenge video.

6# !fooW

Regulars know what this means: I got irritated with some woo, and I need to cool down.

For the non-regulars: Ask me a question, and chances are you'll get a silly answer. If you don't know what to ask, try coming up a question that involves ninjas, pirates, robots, or monkeys.

Does God Play With Dice in the Universe?

Well, thought it was time to bring back an old thing I had a while back. It's been about a year. But I should probably update it, since the Randi challenge has gotten more specific in who they'll accept, so that they don't have to feel compelled to test every obscure loon. Just the ones with media coverage.

So anyway, I've got a brick of 36 dice, and I'll use them to test the existence of the deity for up to six people who apply. Requirements for entry: Your deity or deities must be willing and able to manipulate a massive dice roll in an effort to convince me of their existence.

Each entrant picks out a number 1 through 6 for their deity. If, for example, Zeus gets picked for the number 2, and all the dice come up 2s in two sequential rolls, I'll believe in Zeus. The six entrants will be pitting their deities against each other, and against my atheism.

Here's the catch, and probably the real test of your faith: Everyone has to abide by the results: If the dice don't come up with the same number, you have to accept that A) none of the six deities exist, B) they don't care about converting me, or C) they don't have the power to control dice.

So, any takers? Legitimate criticism of the challenge?

Pointless Question #8

You've got to keep the villain from finding the MacGuffin of Infinite Nastiness in the Pit of Really Bad Things. So, what were you thinking disabling the traps as you go and fetch it? You know he's waiting for you at the entrance, right?

Twoofer Rules

Whenever I debate twoofers, I notice that they seem to work under a fair number of implicit rules. A lot of them are like standard woo, but it seems to stick out a lot more when I read them.

1. Ad hominem is the basis of all reality: Broadest form of pretty much all these other rules: Who you are makes your argument valid, not the internal logic or physical evidence.

2. Evil = Power: Because Bush is evil enough to do something, there's no need to prove that the laws of physics would allow him to do that something. No need to worry about the administrative nightmare of managing thousands of rogue ninja demolition crews, either.

3. Anonnies and people with pseudonyms are automatically wrong because they might possibly have something vaguely resembling a government connection. Therefore, if a conspiracy skeptic posting under a blog name, rather than his real name, says the sky is blue, then obviously it must not be. Exception: Twoofers who use fake names, after all, they're the only people who have something honest to protect, and they're the only people on the entire surface of the Earth who don't want death threats sent to their snail mail address or government suppression squads at their front door or office.

4. Using your real name = Infinity Plus One times your normal credibility. Being ridiculed by snail mail or physical presence when someone figures out where you live boosts your credibility level far more than email or forum ridicule because Galileo didn't have an email address.

5. People who are standing up against The Man are automatically right. Outspoken liberal skeptics who berate government officials for trampling on science, trying to get Intelligent Design in schools, employing various ineffective or even counterproductive "War on [Concept]" measures, destroy civil rights, engage in historical revisionism, or whatever aren't doing enough: They have to sit on their rears talking/posting about being certain of the government using Orbital R-9 Wave Cannons in order to count as being opposed to the administration. Anything less, and they're exactly as loyal as any Bush crony, and thus automatically wrong.

6. If it doesn't sound like a TV/movie plot, it's not realistic. There's ALWAYS a frame-up, an "unexpected" plot twist, or whatever. If the evidence is rock solid, that just means the guy doing the framing/set up/whatever is more elaborate about the level of evidence he plants.

Feel free to extend the list in the comments.

Want to See Me in Meatspace?

Here's your chance: I'm thinking of going to this rally in Austin. There any official dress code for people holding picket signs or anything? I'm new at meatspace protests and such.

So, Where Are the Bonkers and the Flying Glove?

Just felt like spreading the word about a rather nasty individual.

Censorship like this really sticks in my craw. If you're reading this from Turkey, supposedly this will help you get around the Wordpress block..

One of the surest signs of dishonesty is a desire to censor your critics for the simple reason that they criticize you. You won't catch me doing that.

I don't know a whole lot about Turkey, and this morning I was hearing something about the secular part losing ground, so a link to a summary of the situation would be appreciated.

No Anonnies For a While

I've temporarily disallowed anonymous comments, so you'll need a blogger account to comment for the time being. Some spammers are putting their questionable pharma sites in their "other" name, possibly hoping I won't notice and the insincere "Great article!" comment won't catch my attention. I've also turned on word verification.

Note for the handful of people who occasionally buy this stuff and make them enough money to justify the small amount of time they use putting up free advertising and wasting a disproportionate amount of my time: The stuff often isn't quality, and sometimes even unrelated to what they label it as. In the case of herbal stuff, it's a crapshoot: It's not uncommon for herbs to lack the active ingredient they were supposed to be grown for. They're environmentally unfriendly most of the time, as many are overharvested from the wild, rather than farmed. They're also commonly immune to most regulations, and can contain heavy metals.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Pointless Question #7

You've traveled thousands of light years to a distant, watery planet third in orbit around an unremarkable yellow star. You've got a faster-than-light spaceship powered by a few dozen suns in its belly. You've got weapons that can stun, kill, or vaporize the vermin occupying the planet. You've got a teleportation system that can take you apart and put you back together thousands of miles away.

Why are you nekkid?

Skeptics' Circle #67: Giant Robot Edition

Welcome to the 67^th meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. Each of you should have a PADD in front of you on the table. Be sure to pay attention, because you'll need to know who you'll be teamed up with, as well as their capabilities. Chances are you'll be going into combat together so good teamwork is a must.

Why combat, you ask? Because, believe it or not, woos have managed to weaponize fallacies. Bad arguments are now very physical and woos can pump anyone full of them. It won't cause direct physical damage, but the resulting foolishness can be very harmful. Thankfully, I've been secretly working on a way to weaponize good logic, and I've had a breakthrough. It involves one of the few things cooler than ninjas, pirates, and pirate ninjas: Giant robots.

Team #1: Altie Resistance Squad

Alties ruled over medicine before the rigorous scientific method was brought to the field. They've tried reclaiming their former glory by appealing to tradition, religion, and so forth. In the past, they've resorted to attacking the FDA, the large pharmaceutical companies, the Illuminati, and any organization, real or imaginary, that apparently stood in their way. Now they're resorting to physical attacks with giant robots. They may not take the time and care to fire well-aimed shots, but they've often got a screaming passion and lots of repeating fallacy firearms.

This is the team I've formed to combat this menace.


First up is Orac of Respectful Insolence, whose machine I've designed to take into account his particular talents. This unit has had its cockpit modified to accept an artificial intelligence as its pilot, and thus be able to deal with issues impersonally. Anyway, given Orac's advanced AI and the fine motor precision of this unit, its laser blades can strike an opponent with surgical precision. He's not afraid to get his feet wet.


Serving as the rear artillery in this unit is Dean Moyer whose mech I've equipped with powerful aft cannons. He'll be serving as the backbone of this unit, willing and able to take down incoming specious arguments, aided by a system that carefully monitors his endorphin levels to measure their benefit in combat. This allows his comrades to pile red hot data onto their opponents.


Freshly assigned to the team is my brother, who's shown some potential in a mission in which he was paid by the fashion industry, food barons, Big Pharma, and pop-up blockers to shoot down Woolong^TM Tea. He's new to the field, but armed with this mech's baloney-detecting radar and his natural instincts, he can be of benefit to nearly any team.


Serving as the team's scout will be kiembe, whose long-range mech is powered by good old fashioned nuclear physics, not chi. He knows that gravity won't help him move easily, so his machine has been equipped with powerful boosters and a durable generator. Nothing too fanciful.


This machine is equipped with a pair of fast-firing rifles that allow Christian Bachmann to drill into his opponent's logical fallacies in regards to vaccines. He's a little embarrassed to rely on the thick armor of a heavyweight, but he's learning to deal with it.


New to the Skeptics' Circle is PalMD, who will be spending this mission as the team's rear guard. Emphasizing turning speed, this unit can instantly respond to incoming threats head-on.

Team #2: Counter-Intelligence (Design) Platoon

Once upon a time, there were "Scientific" Creationists who tried to use quantum mechanics to explain how so many animals could fit on a boat and such. But that was too overtly religious to get into schools, so they watered everything down until we got "Intelligent Design," which tried to prove everything was designed because designed things look designed. Or something. They're usually hazy on the details. Anyway, our intelligence tells us that they're working on a massive cannon designed to unconstitutionally fire "revised" textbooks into public schools. We need to take it out before it's operational. Naturally, this weapon is protected by giant robots.

Using the latest evolutionary algorithms, these machines have been optimized to strike at the heart of this organization.


Wherever Intelligent Design shows up, you just know Michael Behe and his allegedly intelligently designed robot are going to be there. Blake Stacey knows all his evasive maneuvers and so has been given a mech able to keep up with him and always appropriate weapon for each circumstance.


One of the real heavyweights of this counter-ID team is PZ Myers, whose multi-appendaged machine is more than able to shoot down multiple incoming Creationist claims at once. Or multiple Creationists making the same stupid claim.


Always with his head in the clouds and his eyes toward the stars, Phil Plait, AKA the Bad Astronomer, has this special aerial sniper model that will allow him to rain DOOM from low orbit onto McLeroy's textbook cannon.


Ron Britton, known for his service in the Battle of the Bay of the Fundie, has an insectine machine with compound eyes able to readily distinguish real science from Creation "science" and take the latter out quickly.


Evil Bender has had his AI uploaded into a significantly larger frame, including a variety of scanners to instantly detect the underground quote mines used by Creationists to fill their "revised" textbooks.

Team #3: Team Heresy

There was once a time when any crazy idea for explaining the universe seemed plausible. Without the scientific method, they were all on equal terms, and equally deserving of ridicule. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people whose brains are stuck in that era and gasp in horror when we engage in that ridicule. Thankfully they haven't brought back burning at the stake... yet. But in case they do, we'll have a team ready for them.


Assigned at point for once using his PA rectifier to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow of an incoming Pascal's Wager and returning it to the enemy combatants. He wrote his report on the clever action with a nice bit of literary flourish.


Attacking prayer with cutting sarcasm (in the form of an arm-mounted laser sword) is Barry Leiba of Staring at Empty Pages.


Equipped with dual machine guns and clips full of pointed-out Bible contradictions, Mike O'Risal is rumored to have reduced Jesus into a greasy spot on some garage floor. Supposedly, Jesus got back up, which, considered with contradictions in the story, leads the whole incident into question. But thankfully, the rest of his record speaks for itself.

The Reserves:

The most important thing with being a skeptic is eternal vigilance. You never know where a new problem can occur or what direction it'll take. That's why we maintain a number of operatives who can be on call at a moment's notice to deal with unexpected skeptical issues.


Mark Hoofnagle of Denialism has taken on woos who have been busy attacking our food supply. For those worried about that microwave rifle he's carrying, no, it didn't nuke the nutrients in our supplies.


Previously deployed in Africa, Dr. Vitelli knows a thing or two about mass hysteria and has an equally massive mech to calm things down. Before you ask, no, his mech isn't compensating for anything.


Recently, Shalini's mech has been slightly retooled with a magnetic repulsion gun to combat Secretards trying to pull people into their moneymaking scheme with the Law of Attraction.


Thursday came across a rather strange combination: Someone apparently hobbled together some bits of Astrology with a chain email and assaulted his inbox. The assailant was quickly and mercilessly dealt with.


Xenophile's gotten himself quite the record with his current mech, winning a number of duels. Due to clerical errors, however, we're not terribly sure how many of them were fought against AIs in a simulator.

Internal Operations & Home Base Defense:


Skeptico's generalized mech is equipped with a variety of situations in mind. He's known for his critical eye, and knows that just because you agree with a report's conclusions doesn't mean you can give it a good review.


With a light, mobile, and almost unarmored mech, An Anonymous Coward doesn't quite live up to his name. His machine has been equipped with a large variety of weapons to allow for a multitude of defensive tactics so he can decide upon the one with the most evidence for effectiveness under existing circumstances. He knows what it truly means to have an open mind.

Alright, that should cover everything for the initial briefing. You'll be receiving further mission orders via black helicopter. Once you've completed your assignments, rendevous at Aardvarkology for the 68^th meeting on August 30^th. Some of you should ready your base for hosting further meetings. Dismissed.

Disclaimers and notes:
1. You can get your Next AC schematic, emblem, decals, and so forth from me if you've got a PS3 and Armored Core 4. I make no guarantees about combat quality.
2. You think I'm advocating violence? With giant, impractical, energy inefficient, undeniably cool fighting machines armed with pure logic? You're silly.
3. My options for taking screen shots lowered considerably at the last minute. I can try to give you better quality images if you like.
4. Some of the emblems look weird because AC4 has only a certain number of shapes available. I think they're trying to prevent people from slapping excessively dirty pictures on their ACs.

Pointless Question #6

There's a meteor headed for Earth. A really big one. A really, REALLY big one. Scientists have been working on several practical plans for this sort of thing for years, devising things like attachable solar sails, nuclear nudge, rock-spitting drills, and so on. None of these involve humans leaving the ground.

So, why does the president get on the air and announce that he's sending up a team of humans with drilling equipment, lasers, and nuclear weaponry to blow the thing up?

Some of You Just Got Lucky

My gmail spam just got up 100 entries, so it was my usual time to clean out. Luckily for two entrants, I noticed one of their entries before clicking the "kill 'em all!" button. This adds a bit more work for me to get a special something for everyone, but I'll buckle down tomorrow night. You've still got an hour and a half since I posted this, so don't be shy!

Doggerel #118: "Helping"

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

A lot of woos out there, when they're not trying to disguise the harm they do, will typically claim that they're helping, in vague, unverifiable ways.

Let's get the first one out of the way: Emotional help. Often, psychics will claim that they're helping the families of missing people by giving them hope. Alties will claim that they're handing out hope for an incurable condition. Religious types will claim they're handing out hope of the afterlife. The problem with this is that false hope can be very damaging. It can incur feelings of betrayal when things make a turn for the worst. It can lead people to deny an existing problem or promote inaction when steps should be taken towards a better outcome. Denial and false hope are not good for a person. People are entitled to know the truth. Emotional help is about helping people to face the truth, and a free shoulder to cry on will do far more than an expensive session with a psychic or quack.

Making decisions: This is the area where things are most demonstrable and measurable. So that means quacks have to work harder to obfuscate. Psychics will pick out any tiny detail that happens to match, whether or not the rest of their prediction was right. Alties will claim that worsening symptoms are a sign that the patient's body is 'rejecting toxins' or whatever, in order to convince them to keep believing and/or paying. Those who spout about the efficacy of prayer will claim that the answer is "no" or "not yet", buying time and encouraging further inaction.

What seems the most baffling thing about this defense is that their 'help' is what's typically under dispute: Instead of just whining that they're helping and we should just shut up, try actually showing us evidence that they're helping.