Some Lite Reading

Over at the Guardian, there is an article up about a recent "psychic" preliminary test for the JREF's Million Dollar Challenge. If you've never read about this before, or even if you have; do yourself a favor and go read it. The Update at the bottom of the article should be enlightening. Also, check out the review at Bad Astronomy (linked below) by JREF President Dr. Phil Plait.

Scientists put psychic's paranormal claims to the test by Chris French

The JREF challenge can be traced back to 1964 when arch-sceptic, magician and debunker Randi offered $1,000 of his own money to anyone who could prove a paranormal claim under controlled conditions. Other donors quickly came forward to support Randi's efforts and the total prize available has stood at $1m for many years now. Despite the fact that the world is full of people claiming to possess abilities that defy conventional scientific understanding, only a minuscule proportion of them ever put themselves forward for the challenge. A minuscule proportion of a very large number still amounts to several hundred applicants, of course, but this does raise the question of why the vast majority of psychic claimants shun the challenge altogether. One commonly cited reason is that the challenge is fixed by Randi in such a way that no one would ever be able to claim the prize. True believers in the paranormal often have a deep mistrust of Randi and, indeed, he has been likened to Satan himself on more than one occasion.

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The first volunteer did not choose the reading that had been produced for her. Neither did the second. Or the third. By chance alone, the most likely outcome was for one hit out of ten.

(first seen at BA)
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YouTube and the JREF

If you haven't seen it elsewhere:



I don't agree, fully, with Randi; but I think the problems are with the DCMA, and YouTube's policies because of it.

UPDATE:
This, from /., seems to illustrate my point very well. It also suggests, to me, that everyone who wrote to YouTube saying they demanded an explanation and an apology was right to do so- it keeps them on their toes and, hopefully, squeamish about the policy so that they might change it if the legal situation ever changes.

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Satellite Collisions COULD KILL US ALL!

We've all heard about the satellite wreck, the other day. Well, Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer and President of the JREF, did some math. And failed. So he did some MOAR math and was full of win- deadly, megaton, kilo-rifle-shot, win:

Remember, I’m trying to be very rough here; I don’t care if I’m off in my numbers by a factor or two or not; I just want an approximation.

The kinetic energy of an object is equal to 1/2 x its mass x its velocity^2. Again, because I’m being really rough here, it doesn’t matter which satellite hits the other. We can assume they have about the same mass, so the kinetic energy (in ergs, which I’ll explain in a second) is

KE = 0.5 x 700,000 grams x (800,000 cm/sec)^2 =
2 x 10^17 ergs

An erg is a small unit of energy, but 200,000,000,000,000,000 is a lot of them. Blowing up a ton of TNT releases about 4 x 10^16 ergs, so this collision was roughly the equivalent of lobbing 5 tons of TNT at the satellites.

but that's not all...

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That’s why there’s a large cloud of expanding debris; each piece of shattered satellite carried away a piece of that violent energy release. The energy of collision changed the orbits of all those shards, so they are now orbiting the Earth on new paths that take them higher or lower over the surface, right into the traffic lanes of other satellites.

So eventually, some may once again find an object in their way. And because of the high velocity, the kinetic energy of impact even from a low-mass piece can be pretty fierce. A rifle bullet does a huge amount of damage when it hits something, and it has a mass of about 10 grams and moves at a paltry 1 km/sec. Now think of the damage inflicted by a small satellite chunk that masses about 1 kg (100 times as much as the bullet) and moving 8 times faster… the energy of impact is 6400 times that of the bullet. Imagine getting hit by six thousand rifle bullets, and you start to get an idea of why satellite collisions are not just catastrophic for the two birds involved, but also a danger to other objects in orbit as well.

So, maybe we all won't die- but the Earth just got a little bit more like RIFTS, in which we're all dead.

*Something stupid happened with the code I'm using to mash blogger into acting like a legitimate blog, and hiding the lengthy bits of my rambling posts. (Much like that sentence). So, I had to rig the rigged code into working, and the "Read More..." link is a permanent part of this post. Hopefully, this issue won't carry over into other posts.
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Anti-Vax Fakery Discovered

Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy is discussing the news from the UK based Sunday Times, that the original study finding a link between vaccinations and negative health effects in children was faked.

If these allegations are true, then it means that Wakefield out-and-out lied in his original work. He has denied this, according to the Sunday Times, but won’t make further comments.

This may cause a firestorm in the antivax community, but there are two things I will guarantee: the first is that in the end antivaxxers will stick to their beliefs that vaccines cause health problems like autism, because this is not and never has been, for them, about the facts and evidence. It’s a belief system, and like most other belief systems, it is impenetrable to evidence. If you have any doubts, I suggest you read the comments to the post I made the other day about measles being on the rise in the UK. One commenter on that post is saying all manners of outrageous things, and ignores the evidence that I (and a pediatrician) have left in the comments to him.

find the whole thing: here.
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You Say You Want a Revolucion?

Here's some places you need to check out:

http://www.skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary, outlining bullshit, woo, and psuedoscience, why they are wrong, and common terms, tools, and generally good things to know, think snopes.com in a way.

http://www.site.stopjenny.com/ - STOP JENNY MCCARTHY. The ex-booger picking idiot from MTV is on a crusade against vaccinations, wheat, and dairy products, claiming they all caused or contributed to her son's autism. SHe is wrong, there is evidence, and the whole anti-vaccination movement is responsible for Polio still being around.

http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/ - STOP SYLVIA BROWNE. This is another- like John Edwards, James Van Praag, and Uri Geller- fake ass psychic bilking people out of money. She's the one that told a couple on Montell that their child was dead and some years later the child was found- not extremely far away- being held by a nut-bag.

http://www.randi.org/ - JAMES RANDI EDUCATION FOUNDATION. The JREF is awesome, and a great resource, especially their very active Forums. Search the forums and it's likely all your questions will be answered.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ - THE SKEPTICS' GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE. Best Podcast EVER! Also an active Forum, 20 common Logical Fallacies, and other great resources.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/ - Doctor Steven Novella's blog
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ - Group Blog, including Doctor Steven Novella, great resource fighting woo and psuedoscience in medicine (like anti-vaxxers)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ - PZ Myers blog (if you don't know him, you should).
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/ - Bad Astronomer, and President of the JREF, Phil Plait's blog.
http://skepchick.org/blog/ - Group Blog, featuring Rebecca Watson.

http://whatstheharm.net/ - WHAT'S THE HARM. So, you think belief in ghosts, psychics, homeopathy, or other such bullshit doesn't have a negative side? Go see how many people have died, been swindled, injured, or otherwise quantifiably hurt by woo, psuedoscience, and bullshit.


There are many others, but these are the ones I tend to hit, cite, and read regularly. These are important resources, especially when referring friends and family, or trying to develop better arguments against the crap people believe. I've included them here, because though these sites aren't necessarily atheists sites, a certain fat whore is all-over the intardwub today spouting her bullshit and hate; and I think it's a good time to remind people of the good guys in the face of such disgusting shit.

(By the by, I'm attacking her sexual proclivity and weight, not to cast doubt on her intelligence, or the validity of her arguments; but because I'm a hateful prick who enjoys preying on the weak and stupid. Well, actually I enjoy preying on the stupid, it just so happens most of them are rather weak-willed, too. Her arguments are wrong because of various reasons, I leave to readers to discover for themselves. She's a "cunted cunt" because her bloated disgusting hate is washing through my personal spaces today via multiple places I regularly enjoy reading, and I'm a bit pissed at having to deal with her crap. So, she's a fat whore- no offense to all the whores out there- because she's fucking with my groove, man. Warren and PZ forced me to write this tangential shit, the bastards....) [Last thing: It's really not a great way of handling that sorta shit; but I sorta agree with the ideals of Rational Response Squad that fighting anger and arrogance with anger and arrogance and truth and logic is a justifiable offensive strategy].

{Also: Che Guevera and the Beatles blow ass, just sayin'...} Read More...