Splendid Elles

Today I got done with my final exams for my college classes, was hanging around, when I heard that MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) was doing some sort of lecture on campus. I figured, why not? Maybe they had some evidence that would shake my view of the world… Eh… maybe not. At the very least, I should be open minded, right?

So I went. It was a lecture by a Native American named Rainbow Eagle.

Before I continue, I feel I need to make the following disclaimer, because I’ll essentially be calling the man an ignunt fool.

Rainbow Eagle, you have a great personality. You are a very nice person. Very friendly. Humble. And you have a really awesome name. I wish I’d been named something like… Rainbow Jelly Fish… or… Sparkling Eagle.

So, we saw a video of some guy speaking in Spanish (with English voice-overs) about how apparently their belief (which has allegedly been verified by science) is that humans were planted here some 12,000 years ago by aliens. That’s 6,000 more years than the young earth creationists think we’ve been here. Not too bad.

And then, the guy in the video started talking about… wait for it… wait for it…

Quantum Mechanics!

What a surprise. And you know those words that New Age gurus use so much when talking about quantum mechanics? Vibration, frequency, energy? Yup. All those words were there.

See, we can only experience certain frequencies, but some people can experience other frequencies, and therefore see into parallel universes.

…!

When the video ended, I asked “is our species the only species to have been ‘planted’ here?” Seems like a good question to ask. Why would only humans be planted?

He was very confused by the question. He asked me “do you mean, are we the only specie to have been planted here?”

…!

This takes both scientific and grammatical ignorance. He didn’t really have an answer for that, anyway.

And it moved on…

He said that there were four races originally planted here. Not only that, but these original races were different colours. Native Americans used to be red. Blacks used to be blue. Asians used to be green. And whites used to be… transparent. That’s right. Transparent.

No. I have no idea how he knows this.

Rainbow Eagle presented us with three theories of the origin of humans.

1. Aliens put us here to mine gold for them, until we rebelled. So, they genetically programmed us with loyalty to them so that we’d think of them as gods.
2. Aliens came and helped humans develop technology, so we worshiped them because we thought that that was a very nice thing to do.
3. Evolution.

I have no idea how he came up with 1 and 2, but he said that number 3 was right out. Well what do you expect? His understanding of evolution was that it is “Man-to-ape. Somehow an ape stood up, lost its hair, got more brainpower, or whatever all that technical stuff is.” No, we shared a common ancestor with the apes. That common ancestor may have been very ape-like. He’s completely leaving out mutation and natural selection in this over-simplified “explanation”.

“Now we know what the problem with evolution is.”

Some woman in the room piped up, “missing link!”

Here I was thinking I was just in a room full of UFO enthusiasts. When did I end up in a room full of cdesign proponentsists?

Missing links. A perfectly valid argument… if used before the 1920s.

I raised my hand again. I’m pretty sure I was starting to annoy the people in the room because I was talking about (gasp!) actual science!

“What about Homo erectus, Australopithicus afarensis, Homo neanderthalensis?”

“Well, those show that there was an evolutionary trail leading up to us, but then you suddenly have fully formed humans out of nowhere!”

…!

“Why do we share 99% of our genome with the chimps?”

No answer.

After this lecture, he told me that he would try to fit it all together to fit his theories. This is part of the scientific method. When new evidence arises, you see if you can modify your theories to fit it. If not, you have to accept that your theory, no matter how fond you are of it, is useless and it’s back to the drawing board.

But something tells me that he’s just going to cling to it. I mean, what’s more attractive than having your ancestors come from the stars?

How about this…

Way, way, way back when, a self-replicating molecule formed. And just because certain configurations of self-replicating molecules were better at making more copies of themselves than others, selection pressure was applied to it to create a remarkable diversity of wonderful life. Among these lifeforms are humans like you, and me, who were able to write poetry, music, make art. But even better, we are able to think and create science to accurately understand how we came to be.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Robert Darwin

Oh, it really isn’t that hard at all. The only person you really need to fool is yourself, and that’s more than easy to do. According to “Psychic Journey”, you just need to follow four easy steps!

1. Be open to psychic energy
2. Expect psychic energy
3. Trust psychic energy
4. Act on psychic energy

I won’t really go into the details of all four steps, but to do number one…

Being open to psychic guidance means acknowledging psychic events when they occur rather than minimising or dismissing their significance, as you may have done in the past. It’s the first step on the pathway of psychic development. It’s a shift that will make your experience different from that of a closed-minded person and that will allow your life to be assisted by your psychic abilities.

Mmm… yes… simple translation: kill your skepticism or you won’t be psychic.

Well, no duh. The whole point of skepticism is seeking other explanations for phenomena than psychic energy, and setting up tests so that you can rule out anything else.

If you’re expecting psychic energy, you’re just all the more open to confirmation bias (noticing all the hits you get and ignoring the misses).

If you trust and act on psychic energy… well… let me put it this way. My English teacher had a dream about all of us doing stacks of goal-setting (aka, busy work) in class and decided that you should always do what your dreams tell you to do. I just love busy work. I just hope she doesn’t get a dream with me getting an F in her class.

And, if you decide to give Psychic Journey the benefit of the doubt anyway, against all reason, you can purchase a book that will make you believe falsely that you’re psychic for a cool 40 pounds (that’s about $80).

Or, I can implore you to trust your skepticism and you can save $80 for free. Woot!

Whenever I see a new flyer about on campus that advocates classes for things debunked long ago, I worry that I will lose so much touch with reality that I’ll begin walking into walls.

Most recently, there’s been a little yellow flyer for a “Dowsing 101″ class. It’s not actually something you can register for through the college. It’s being done by the “Crypto-Science Society” and presumably you show up, pay them, and learn how to use unbent coathangers dowsing rods.

Dowsing is the skill of using one’s intuition through the use of specialized tools to locate things such as underground water, oil wells, Archaelogical sites, and gold.

Dowsing has led to the discovery of some of our most productive wells with 96% accuracy.

Inconveniently, no source was provided for that last statistic.

Dowsing has already been debunked by James “The Amazing” Randi.

Actually, that’s not the only video of water dowsing being debunked.

James Randi in Australia

Enemies of Reason

Oh, but that’s not the only shit that my splendid campus has to offer… oh no indeed…

The Metropolitan State College of Denver offers an “Integrative Therapeutic Practices” degree which involves alternative medicine. You learn about acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, and guess what? That stuff has been debunked too!

I could be more detailed about exactly why a lot of the junk that they’re teaching is just dumb, but that’s for another time and for now I have provided links to The Skeptic’s Dictionary for information on it. The point I want to make is the very definition of alternative medicine is medicine that has not undergone rigorous scientific testing.

Personally, I think that it ought to be a college’s responsibility to make sure that what they’re teaching is not going to be stuff that’s already been proven false… especially if they’re teaching that bull shit as having practical applications. And when those practical applications involve getting neccessities…

I would not trust a generation of college graduates who wanted to use dowsing to get our water, oil, gold, and artifacts for the benefit of science. I would not trust a generation of college graduates who think that their untested treatments of disease are suitable for my health. What happens if their techniques fail (and I have reason to believe that they will)? Imagine the panic, chaos, and disaster that would result from failure to find what we are searching for when we are in dire need of resources. Imagine how many people’s health may be damaged by these untested or disproven medicines. Not to mention the damage done to this generation’s understanding of science.

No, society might not come crashing down… Dowsing isn’t really a profession that they’ll train for and there are other ways of getting water besides knowing where to drill for wells. There are still students going through real medical school who will become real doctors…

But damage can and will be done by ignorant students.

But that’s why colleges, especially public universitites, need to be held accountable for what they put in the minds of tomorrow’s leaders, scientists, and thinkers.

By the way, both the Crypto-Science Society and whoever is running the “Therapeutic Integrative Practices” program are eligible for the new MSCD Paranormal Challenge.

“Dr. Dyer… Dr. Dyer… To the sanctuary stat.”

-Josh

There’s a difference between PBS and DayStar. There used to be a difference between PBS and DayStar.

PBS: Public television which usually broadcasts thought-provoking, intelligent programming, contrary to the shit you see on other television shows.

DayStar: A Christian television network which broadcasts preaching preachers who ask for your money.

Whenever their splendid friend Dr. Dyer comes on PBS, I have to wonder if poltergeists are screwing with my remote.

“This program is not based on any particular religion… we all have to agree that we come from the same ’source’, even quantum physics says that we come from the same ’source’.”

Of course. Quantum physics. New Age philosophers love it to death. They certainly don’t love science to death, though. They just love twisting it to their half-baked philosophies. If you really want to look to physics for meaning, you will find an unconscious, indifferent universe, operating only on its own laws. But honestly, just because he doesn’t jump the gun and say that this “source” is Yahweh, Quetzlcoatl, or the Great JuJu doesn’t mean that his program isn’t a period of preaching and asking for money.

Later, he makes an analogy of a pie and a slice of pie. “What are you” says the larger pie. “I must be like what I came from” says the slice. I don’t have to be in elementary school to get that he’s saying we came from God… and of course he says that we came from something kind and sensitive and yadda and yadda and yadda. Again, no. We came from unconscious, indifferent forces. Just getting that clear because he tried to say quantum physics proves we have a source.

He says that our ego is what keeps us from believing that we are a “divine, infinite being” and causes us to ignore our source. Personally, I would not want to be like my source. My source, though fun to study, would cease to be fun to study if I weren’t conscious as I wouldn’t be able to study it. Besides, my source is uncaring, and natural selection is a rather violent, death-filled process. I hope you don’t mind if I prefer to be an individual and define myself. The philosophy that this is all a punishment for believing we were individuals in the first place has got to be one of the evilest of them all.

He rambles about how if you wake up between the hours of 3:00 am and 4:00 am, that’s when God can give you inspiration best. Boring…

He returns to distorting science, talking about how Relativity is an analogy (I wish that Albert Einstein could rise from the dead and slap him upside his bald head for screwing with his elegant theory). Somehow, from some confused further ramblings about energy, he comes to the conclusion that we attract things we don’t want because we have negative thoughts. He says that what we attract is because of what kind of “energies” we have in us. He tells us that our universe opperates on a “Law of Attraction”. In other words, he has shifted to his “Power of Intention” shit.

What’s that phrase our parents should have taught us? Wanting does not make it so.

Granted, certain thoughts will lead to action which can lead to change but…

“I don’t need to be fussing about it because what I’m intending to create is on its way.”

“By believing passionately in that which does not exist, we create it.”

I’m too pissed right now to guffaw.

And… of course… they cut to fund raising…

“Public television to me, represents energy…”

I’m reminded of what he said the last time they had his shit on for fundraising.

“Whenever you have public television on in your home, you’re raising the energy level in your home.”

If I hear this man ramble about energy one more time…

If you want a meaningless example of PBS raising the energy in your home, PBS is carried in by radio waves which are translated into sound and light energy. Again, that’s meaningless. The energy itself is unconscious.

Later, he begins talking about a woman who discovered God during the Rwandan massacre. He says that she was astounded that she had survived through her mere belief in God. Typical of the religious… Millions died, but I survived. It’s a miracle! How many other Christians who had as strong, or stronger, faith did not have the fortune to survive?

At this point, I was tired of watching him eat people’s brains. I think I’ll send an angry letter to PBS and ask them to put Cosmos back on.

I love everything on PBS except for this… and if it weren’t for this, I would be donating quite a bit of money to them. I need to make that clear to them. The first thing I do if/when I get rich is build a giant atrium filled with dinosaur fossils, and become a major donor to PBS so that I can pull funding whenever they put this guy back on.

For those of you who don’t know, Astrology is the theory that “cosmic energy” from the planets, stars, moon, and sun makes a person who they are and affects your luck. Too bad psychology never borrowed ancient wisdom from these people! In case it’s not obvious enough, the way it really works is some random person sits on their fat ass and makes up some bull shit that’s vague enough that it could apply to anyone.

I’d like to point to what was on the front page of MSN today when I logged in to check my e-mail (still haven’t gotten round to doing that) where they normally put their articles and news.

http://www.astrocenter.com/msn/2008SnapshotLanding.aspx?Af=-1000&GT1=10646

At the top it says “All about YOU in 2008! Click on your sign.”

I’d like to point out the major problem with horoscopes here… There are 12 signs, and 6 billion people in the world. MILLIONS of people have the same sign. Is it possible for MILLIONS of people to go through the exact same things everyday because of their horoscope? Answer: It’s cleverly worded and vague enough that you don’t always get blatant contradictions, but no. It’s not possible. I think that’s enough to debunk the entire page right there.

I think I’ll continue though. I have the same birthday as Douglas Adams (March 11) so we must have been exposed to similar cosmic energy. Therefore, according to astrology, Douglas Adams and I are the exact same person! Anybody who idolizes Douglas Adams and believes in astrology should send all the fan mail they didn’t get to send before his early demise (mourns briefly) to me!

But again, do I have the exact same personality as Douglas Adams? I never knew the man personally, I’ve read his books, but I think not.

I especially love it when horoscopes say something like “Mercury has begun moving backwards.” See, in 3rd grade, we took Astronomy (OK, yeah… I learned this long before the 3rd grade), but even though that was 6 years ago, I still vividly remember learning that the planets move forward in constant motion… and that the sun was the center of the Solar System.

That’s right, folks. Astrology was developed in a time when geocentricism was the norm. How right could they be about anything else?

And while Astronomy still makes new discoveries and advances forward, Astrology remains as scientific as anybody living about 3,000 years ago could be…

‘Nuff said.