September 25, 2003

The curious pinguins

This one's a fortune cookie, a nice story dating back to the beginning of the eighties. Fortune cookies refresh themselve when you hit the 'new cookie' button, somewhere in the middle on the right side of this site. I hadn't seen this one for a while, but it's always good for a smile.

A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs.

-- Audobon Society Magazine

 Posted: September 25, 2003, 10:09 PM | Comments (0) |

September 02, 2003

Astrology and sex

E-skeptic subscriber Greg Myers sent this interesting article about an astrology test that he performed on members of his family to the E-Skeptic. I suggest you should try this one in simular situations.
"I wanted to share with you an experience of mine yesterday that may make you smile. It involves my girlfriend's family, who I feel are very smart people who believe weird things. She has a large immediate family, and they are all firm believers of multiple fringe concepts, including astrology, ghosts, and psychic powers (and at least half of them regularly visit an iridologist). If I express any skepticism on these matters I am quickly stifled.

Anyway, my girlfriend's mother's birthday was yesterday, and they had a huge party at her house. I had recently finished reading your book and was motivated to try a small experiment. I found an astrology website on the Internet, and printed out 30 copies of the full 12 sign horoscope. However, I changed 15 of the copies on Microsoft Word so that the readings no longer matched up with the Zodiac sign. At the party, I passed all these out and had everyone rate how accurate their own readings were on a scale of 1 to 5. Of course I did not tell them that 15 of them were reading false horoscopes. Several members figured I was up to something, but they went along anyway. In the end, the average score for the correct horoscopes was 3.7, and for the non-correct 3.9.

When it was all over, I told them the truth, and showed them that the doctored horoscopes actually got a slightly higher rating. The response was alarming.

I was called a know-it-all by at least two people, overheard someone call me an asshole, and my girlfriend later informed me that her father was upset, and that I had to apologize. I found it very ironic that they were upset with me for "tricking" them, but failed to see that the evidence from the experiment showed that it was astrology doing the tricking.

My conclusion: skepticism is very intrinsically rewarding, but it has not been good for my sex life."

Greg Myers, greg14228@yahoo.com

--------------------------------

This is the E-skeptic for september 1, 2003 © 2003 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, e-Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com and skepticmag@aol.com).
Permission to print, distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. We encourage you to broadcast e-Skeptic to new potential subscribers. Newcomers can subscribe to e-Skeptic for free by sending an e-mail to: join-skeptics@lyris.net

 Posted: September 02, 2003, 04:34 PM | Comments (5) |

Bright Feedback

It hasn't surprised me a bit: the commentary from Michael Schermer on the new meme 'Brights' has irritated a lot of people. Including me, though i'd like to point out it's only the word itself which causes irritation, and not the thoughts behind it. Declare yourself, or a movement, any movemenet, as 'Bright' and, for good reason, 'bloody arrogant' will be the first label that will be stapled on your back. Read on for feedback from Michael Shermer on his commentary from last week.

------------------------

BRIGHT FEEDBACK

------------------------

When I posted my brief commentary on the new meme "Brights" to represent atheists, nontheists, nonbelievers, agnostics, infidels, heretics, skeptics, free thinkers, humanists and secular humanists, etc., I had not intended to solicit feedback from e-Skeptic readers; nevertheless, feedback I received! In droves. I have not done a formal count, but I estimate roughly 50 people wrote me. Two were positive about the word "Bright," the rest were unequivocally negative, and all for the same reason (as stated in one letter reproduced below). I had originally suggested to Paul and Mynga that we solicit feedback from various sources, but they convinced me that sometimes social movements are best driven not by committee and excessive discussion (free thinkers, humanists, skeptics, et al. have been talking about the labeling problem for decades) but by simply moving forward with an idea to see if it sticks. In general I dislike labels altogether, but our language and culture depends on them to an extent that I can't see a way around it.

Our world view is naturalism. Thus, I like the word "naturalist," but I fear that this conjures up the image of someone like Alfred Russel Wallace traipsing around the rain forest with a butterfly net. Our magazine is simply called "Skeptic," and so I also like the label "skeptics," but this is also frought with pejorative connotations, the most common synonym being "cynic." Since no one has come up with a better name than "brights" I figured we might as well go for it and see what happens. Maybe the meme name will catch on in the lexicon, or maybe it will simply fall into disuse. We'll see.

In the mean time, if any of you would like to suggest some alternatives I would be happy to collect them all and print them in another e-Skeptic. Just e-mail me at skepticmag@aol.com

Here is a typical letter I received, which was also posted to the Bright web page.

Michael Shermer ----- Bright is a good word ?????????

I am a longtime reader of Michael Shermer's materials (from which I got your email address) and subscriber to SKEPTICAL INQUIRER nearly from its inception, etc. (that is to say, I'm a 55-year-old scientist/humanist/atheist since my early twenties and I've thought about these things for many years) and I am pained to tell you that your choice of the term "Bright" as the one to promote is a horrible one.

I agree entirely and enthusiastically with your enterprise and the reasoning that goes into it, but I am dumbfounded that you would choose a term that will do nothing more than expose us to ridicule and engender hostility in those who do not agree with our worldview.

"Those people think they're so damn smart . . . smarter than the rest of us. . . they're the bright ones . . . what does that make us?? FUCK THEM!!"

Never mind all that stuff about "bright" meaning "cheerful and lively" . . . "the light of science and reason" . . . "tolerance for all" . . . and so forth. Consider two facts: (1) In the popular lexicon, "bright" as applies to people means "smart." (2) Believers in God (and etc.) REALLY REALLY RESENT US ALREADY because we have the gall to reject their most cherished beliefs and to imply that people like them must be morons if they believe as they do. Put 1 and 2 together, please!!

I can't believe you folks are this out of touch. You are, despite your worthy intentions, doing all of us a great disservice and can only wind up setting our cause back, which we do not need.

I find the fact that a number of you have decided to label People Like Me "The Brights" to be EMBARRASSING. I haven't thought of a better term to use, but there have got to be many. Can't you instigate some kind of retraction and make an effort to get some kind of input from a large number of us? Perhaps go through the subscriber lists to Shermer's and CSICOP's magazines, and other relevant lists that must be available? Get a larger sampling of opinion on this???! It's too good an idea to screw up with that horrendous choice of a label.

Okay, Bright Boys??? (Ugh)

Sincerely, and Regretfully, Joseph Giandalone, Conway, MA

--------------------------------

This is the E-skeptic for september 1, 2003 © 2003 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, e-Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com and skepticmag@aol.com).
Permission to print, distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. We encourage you to broadcast e-Skeptic to new potential subscribers. Newcomers can subscribe to e-Skeptic for free by sending an e-mail to: join-skeptics@lyris.net

 Posted: September 02, 2003, 04:28 PM | Comments (0) |