Of Apparent Truths...

[Johnathan Clayborn]

More and more I am beginning to realize that not everything that can be considered "truth" can be measured empirically. Often we write our own truths via our perceptions. Other times, we allow ourselves to be fooled by things that sound logical on the surface. A clever story can appear truthful on the surface, even if it is entirely inaccurate. I came across an example of this earlier this week that I will share here, during which time I will break it down and explain how this story, which appears to make logical sense, is largely inaccurate.


The story starts with a preface:
This is soooo interesting!! Totally feeling pretty blessed right now and not "piss poor"!

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low. The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

In this first part the author of this tall tale begins with an element of truth; yes, tanners in the ancient world did use urine during the tanning process, particularly in Ancient Rome. This practice was well documented. However, this is not where the term "piss-poor" comes from. According to the Etymology Dictionary the term "piss" as an amplifier dates from WWII. And, in this particular case "poor" wasn't a reference to their financial status, but rather the quality of their work; ie: a Piss-poor mechanic. The first example of such is from 1940: Piss-rotten. The first recorded instance of Piss-poor comes from 1946. And while "didn’t have a pot to piss in" is an idiomatic expression which portrays destitution, it is also not from the 1500's. It first appeared in print in "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes, which was published in 1936. The story goes on...


Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Brides carrying flowers had nothing to do with their use as an air freshener. Flowers were symbols of fertility and feminism and it was believed that carrying flowers on their wedding day would bring a couple luck in conception. Also, bathing once per year was wrong. The lower class people did not bathe at all, for fear that the bath water would widen their pores and expose them to terrible diseases. The upper class people did tend to bathe, but they did so a handful of times each year, and certainly not on any set schedule.


Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

This is also incorrect. In many medieval cities there were public bath houses, which were common features since the Greco-Roman times. Aristocratic nobles who had a private bath often had a tub that was made from copper, bronze, or stone, so picking it up to dump it out would have been, for all intents and purposes, impossible. There was no modern plumbing during the 1500s, so filling up an entire tub with enough water to bathe an adult would have been a feat in and of itself, let alone the feat of engineering that would have been required to heat that amount of water. Poor people who did bathe and did not have access to a bath house typically just bathed in the local steam or pond. Now, to be fair, the phrase "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" first appeared in 1512 in Germany. It was written by Thomas Murner in the book Narrenbeschwörung (Appeal to Fools). Scholars question the intent of this expression since the work in which it appears is satirical in nature. In the accompanying woodcut illustration the bucket that the woman is holding is clearly not large enough for an adult, which would lend support to the idea that the author was using this expression in an allegorical manner.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

Mice and bugs did, in fact, live in the straw thatched roof, that is certain. However, cats, and especially dogs, did not venture up there. The terms "raining cats and dogs" first appeared in the 17th century, not the 16th. There are number of theories about the meaning of this term, but the most widely accepted theory is that it is intended to evoke the image of a tumultuous engagement of a cat and dog fighting which the speaker is trying to equate the ferocity of the downpour to.


There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

Canopy beds actually existed prior to the 1500s. The first iterations of these beds were used by nobles and aristocrats for two pragmatic purposes. The original canopy beds also featured curtains around all four sides that could be drawn closed. The first purpose that this served was to afford the sleeper some privacy from any other people who may also be sleeping in the room. But, more importantly, there was a mini-ice age going on during the middle ages and this curtain system provided extra warmth. Keeping the sheets clean would have been an added benefit and a by-product of the first two issues, but this is ignoring the fact that most nobles who could have afforded canopy beds would also likely have had solid roofs with wooden shingles.


The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

"Dirt Poor" is not even a British expression, it's an American one, so there's no way that it dates from the 16th Century. Dirt Poor comes from the American Great Depression and is in reference to the Dust Bowl.

Also, people didn't add "thresh" to their floors. They kept Rush on the floor. Rush is a type of long, flowering grass. In modern times some places, particularly parish churches, will perform acts known as "rushbearing", where rushes are gathered up and strewn on the floor. While the lower classes would have probably used loose rushes, most higher status houses would have been furnished with woven mats made of rush. The term "thresh" means, "to trample". The threshold is the first place that you step inside of the home. Presumably you would trample the rush on the floor, but thresh is a verb, not a noun, so a threshold isn't used for keeping "thresh" inside.


In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. 

Almost. Yes, most meals cooked in the pot were stew, and yes pease porridge could sit there for a couple of days, but often not more than 2 or 3 and only to improve the flavor. Peasants diets consisted of lots of breads and grains, including beer (beer was actually more sanitary than regular water). However, according to most accepted understanding of human development, such as that outlined by Professor Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, getting meat would not have been particularly difficult. Cows, Pigs, Chickens, and Sheep were among the first four animals domesticated for food. Even peasants would have had access to one of these on a pretty regular basis. Also, the leftover stew was often eaten for breakfast the next morning.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

As Dr. Diamond noted, pigs would have been quite commonplace among peasant villages. When pigs were slaughtered for food the meat was often smoked in order to keep it from spoiling, so smoked ham and bacon was a staple of their diet. The term "bring home the bacon" was coined in the United States circa 1906 with regards to boxing, specifically. The first recorded instance is in telegrams relating the 1906 fight between Joe Gans and Oliver Nelson, in which Gans "brought home the bacon".

"Chew the fat" wasn't recorded in print until the 19th century. There are many debates about the meaning and origin of the phrase, but the one thing is clear is that it did not originate in the 1500s.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Not quite. Pewter could contribute to lead poisoning, but pewter was used for goblets, usually. Rich people had wooden plates, or sometimes stone plates. Poor people had plates made from bread called "trenchers". Regardless of the type of plate that they were eating on, they were not eating tomatoes as tomatoes are native to the Americas, not Europe. They could not have been in Europe until after Columbus returned from America with them. Europe was slow to adopt them mostly because they were unaccustomed to their taste and because they resembled other fruits that were known to be poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

One example from 1490 instructs people to "cut the upper crust of bread for your sovereign". However, most scholars agree that this was not a literal instruction, but rather an analogy to simply provide some of your food to your lord. The context in which it is presented here didn't come about until the 19th Century.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

Wakes had little do with checking to see it people actually woke up, although that was one minor function. In most cases wakes served two purposes; pragmatically someone watched over the body to keep the vermin and small animals from feasting on it. Symbolically some religions, such as the Celts, believed that a spirit could only pass on to the afterlife in certain conditions; if there was a candle to light the way, if the window was open, etc. The Wake was intended to ensure that these conditions were met so that the soul could pass over. Although, more likely, these religious descriptions were adopted as an excuse for sitting there all night.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

While there have been historical accounts of people being buried alive, it was certainly not as frequent as 1 in 25. And historically many graves were not dug up and reused. In ancient, pre-Christian England it was typical to burn the bodies of the dead rather than to bury them. This was common throughout most of the Celtic empire. There are many places in England with graves that still date back to before the 1500s. Although there were coffins with bells affixed to them out of fear of being buried alive, this happened during the 1800's at the peak of the cholera outbreak. These "safety coffins" featured bells described in the manner above, but they were not used in the 1500s.

"Saved by the bell" is actually an expression from boxing and refers to a fighter who is clearly about to lose, but the bell rings to end the round before his opponent can finish him off.

"Dead Ringer" comes from an 1888 newspaper article in the US in the Oshkosh Weekly. In the 1800's a "ringer" was a stand-in horse that was run in the place of another horse, or a horse that had its pedigree or name falsified. The "dead" part refers to a precise, absolute, or exact reckoning; Dead-ahead, dead right, dead on, etc. Thus, a "dead ringer" is a duplicate horse that looks like the original. Even the original article cites it in this context: “Dat ar is a markable semlance be shoo”, said Hart looking critically at the picture. “Dat’s a dead ringer fo me. I nebber done see such a semblence."

The graveyard shift is also not from the 1500s. It dates from the 19th Century as well. In 1895, the May 15th, New Albany Evening Tribune has a story about coal mining that features the expression; “It was dismal enough to be on the graveyard shift…” The most popular accounting of this expression is from the sea. According to Gershom Bradford in A Glossary of Sea Terms (1927), the watch from Midnight to 4am was called that “because of the number of disasters that occur at this time,” but another source attributes the term to the silence throughout the ship.

And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring?
History is indeed interesting, but there's no reason to make up stories about it. 

Of Arguments and Fools...

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Over the last few days I have been embroiled in several debates on Facebook ranging in topics from religion and politics, to science and climate change. Some of the things that I've debated about quite literally make no sense. I could just elect to not engage these people, but I have a compulsion to stamp out incorrect information and it usually leads me to engage in these debates.

As I've gotten older I have gotten somewhat wiser. Eventually there comes a point when you realize that the person with whom you are debating with is either unwilling or unable to change their views. This was the case in all of the debates that I was involved in; one was with a racist bigot who's personal views were too far ingrained to look at the situation objectively, another was with a conspiracy theorist (a whole special kind of case there), and the third was with a narcissist who could not be wrong.

Sadly, in all of these cases the debates turned into arguments, at which point I bowed out. Only a fool continues to argue with the foolish. There is a huge difference between a debate and an argument. A debate is two or more differing positions on a subject that are presented with facts, logical constructs, or reason-based arguments as their support. One person comments, the other person listens to that comment, rebuts the point (usually), and then makes a counter argument. An argument is simply saying "not uh" and "you're wrong" over and over again. When that starts to happen, save your breath.

Most of the time intelligent people can have a debate and realize that just because a person has opposing views on a particular subject as you does not make them a bad person. It just means that they have a different viewpoint than you on that subject. That's totally okay. There are several people on my friends list on FB that have very different opinions about me on certain topics, but those people are also some of the people that I respect the most; JD and Josh H. in particular. Why is that? Because during the debates that we've been in they've been able to present their arguments logically and/or factually, and most importantly, respectfully.

I enjoy seeking out debates with people who have different opinions than I do. Every time I do, I'm secretly hoping that they have debate skills like the fine gentlemen that I've mentioned above. I want them to present a solid argument. Show me facts. Give me a logical construct to frame your position, or explain with reason why your position is superior. I crave this in a debate. I enjoy this because when I'm presented with information and logical arguments it forces me to re-evaluate my own beliefs. Do I believe what I believe because it makes sense and it's the right thing to believe? Or do I believe what I believe because someone told me once that I should think this and I've never bothered to question that? Both of the men I've mentioned above have been successful in changing my opinion about different topics at one point or another because they were able to present information or logical constructs that I had not considered before.

There are several maddeningly frustrating elements at work when you debate with someone who does not understand these principles for whatever reason. One frustrating element is that some people will fabricate information to prove a point. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, as much as I respect him, has been guilty of fabricating or incorrectly attributing quotes when he makes anecdotal references. This is ethically questionable. But, in the scope of what information he's presenting, a quote being incorrectly attributed is more forgivable than botching the factual data at the crux of his argument. A more specific example of this comes from one of the debates I was involved in regarding Climate Change. One of the debaters said: "the co-founder of the Weather Channel is a doctor of meteorology and he says that it [man-caused global climate change] is a fraud. I believe him." This was his response to my presentation of scientific data that demonstrates that the CO2 levels in the air sharply increase coincidentally at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. He was presented with facts, so he responded by quoting an "expert". But, there's a problem. The man that he is speaking of is John Coleman. He has been quite a vocal critic of climate change since 1987, that part is true. But he is not a doctor. Not only that, he has not any academic degrees from any institution in any academic discipline. His opposition to global climate change is not based on factual evidence, but instead based on his own opinion.

But this is just one of many tools of the trade. Another very common example is the Ad Hominem attack. The ad hominem attack is an attempt to discredit a person's argument by attacking their personal character. At various points in different arguments I have been called: a Republican, a Democrat, a Conservative, a Liberal, A "Tea-Party psycho", They bring politics into the debate to build upon the ad hominem attack; because you are a [fill in party here], then clearly the logic of your argument must be unsound. This is an asinine argument.

Confirmation bias is another common problem that crops up in online debates. Confirmation bias is the refusal to accept or consider new information that might force you to admit that your position is wrong. For example, someone might argue; there's no such thing as man-created global climate change, see this snow storm proves it! and then you might point out that the snow storm was caused by a tropical storm interrupting the jet stream (a condition of global warming), the pacific ocean is warming rapidly (sharks in the tropics have been found as far south as Australia and fish native to Hawaii have been found as far north as Alaska), and that the CO2 levels in the air sharply and drastically increase beginning with the start of the industrial revolution. Confirmation bias sets in when this information is wholly dismissed with wild assertions like that data is a conspiracy to keep scientists employed/keep government or big business funded or Climate scientists don't know what they're talking about, I did my own research. Or, my favorite it's only a theory. Clearly, people who use that one in particular have no experience in scientific research whatsoever.

Circular Arguments are also equally frustrating. Circular arguments make a chain of events that ultimately leads back to the original point. Global warming isn't real, the weatherman said so! But, science. Those scientists are wrong, the data is inaccurate. It's a conspiracy! But, logic. But logic is wrong because I don't want to believe it. But, reason. No, reason isn't right, the weatherman said so! ...repeat ad inifinitum.

I encourage everyone to head over here: http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com and read the different types of logical fallacies and why they are bad. You may still fall victim to some of them from time to time, we all do, it's human nature, but once you are more aware of them you can work to avoid using them in your own debates. 

Critical Thinking in our Education System.

[Johnathan Clayborn]

I had originally wanted to write about this some weeks ago, but I got side tracked with other posts and homework. Now I'm circling back to it because I still think it's an important discussion. I follow some people that I find rather interesting on my Facebook page; Neil Degrasse Tyson, Dr. Michio Kaku, and others. Dr. Kaku posted a link with a comment advocating that we should stop trying to teach critical thinking in our education system. At first I was taken aback. I respect Dr. Kaku a great deal, and I've long held the belief that we need to teach more critical thinking in the classroom. How could he say such a thing?
Then I read the article and I understood and I agree with him.
The main point that the article was making is that in too many classrooms across the country the concept of "critical thinking" is often mislabled and passed along under as a guise for political or policy reform. Teachers bemoan certain policies or political views that they dislike and present their side of the argument to the children under the guise of "Critical Thinking". Some Science teachers will publicly lament that they are not allowed to teach their religious beliefs about creation to the students but are instead forced to teach concepts such as the Big Bang and Evolution. This is not critical thinking.

Far too often many of us are victims of our own minds, trapped inside of our firmly held beliefs and ideologies that we succumb to psychological traps like confirmation bias. We're all guilty of it from time to time, but some of us are worse than others. I pride myself on being a truly critical thinker. I enjoy debating with people who have a different opinion than I do, not because I want be right and win the debate, but because that I'm hoping beyond hope that they can articulate why they believe what they believe with logic and reason and possibly support their position with facts. This forces me to re-evaluate what I believe; do I believe what I believe because it's the right thing to believe, or do I believe if because someone once told me that I should and I've never questioned it? Many of my friends have acknowledged this trait about me and some of them have managed to convince me to change my mind on certain topics. I have many friends whom I respect a great deal and yet we have vastly different opinions on certain topics. That's perfectly okay.

But sadly that's not commonplace. And it's not what happens in many classrooms either. If I am not capable of actually critically analyzing a situation, how can I teach others to be that way as well? If I physically don't understand the concept of critical thinking or I refuse to participate in it, how can I realistically expect others to do it?

The one thing that is clear from this article is that the concept of critical thinking in a classroom setting needs to come from a complete revamp and overhaul of the curriculum and instructional methodology that is being used in schools today. I promote critical thinking in my son all of the time. He will often ask me: "Dad, how does X work?" Instead of just telling him what I want him to know or to think, I ask him what does he know about X, and based on what he knows about X, what does he think? How does he think X works? And, where can he learn more about X? This is a process that I will always continue. I will never presume to push my religious or political beliefs onto my children. If they have a different view than I do, great. If not, that's great too. Either way they should arrive at their own conclusions in their own way.

When it comes to conversations of "critical thinking" that take place in most places today I'm reminded of Inigo Montaya again..."you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". And since any explanation I might give would invariably miss some of the finer points of this conversation, I encourage you to read the article in the link below.


Links:
http://io9.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-1618729143?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Perception, Reality, and Words

[Johnathan Clayborn]

I have been thinking a lot about relationships, perception, truth, reality, and fate the last couple of weeks. So much so that I'm compelled to write a rambling article about it because I have no one else who will really understand my meaning anyway. It turns out the sometimes the people who you think understand you the best don't really understand at all. There's so much that's running through my head that I don't even know where to begin.

First, I wanted to start with the concept that God/fate brings people into our lives for a reason. I don't think that this is true anymore. I used to wholeheartedly believe it. I used to think that we were meant to cross paths with people for some kind of grand-reason that was beyond our knowledge or understanding. Now? I can't possibly fathom how that could be so. Sometimes things just don't make sense. 

Perception is another thing that I've been thinking about recently also. It's been brought to my attention that some people have the idea that just because people appear calm, reserved, or self-contained on the outside, surely it must mean that they are simply devoid of emotions on the inside as well. Some people I know are emotional time-bombs. They're highly emotional people and they show everyone exactly how they feel by laughing, or crying, or screaming, or yelling, or whatever the case is. There is aboslutely nothing wrong with that. But, a lot of those people also think that because other people don't express their emotions the same way that it somehow means that their emotions aren't as intense. They don't realize that the collected exterior shell is simply a mask that they wear for the world and that under that shell is a turbulent storm of emotions that boils with the intensity of 1,000 burning suns. Just because people don't actively express outward bursts of emotion doesnt mean that they don't feel more strongly about something than you can imagine. I would argue, in fact, that in most cases the reserved people probably feel more strongly than the outbursters. My basis for that statement is because the act of having an outburst of emotion triggers an emotional release that allows the floodgates to open as some of that pressure to bleed off. Collected people don't have that same release, or if they do, it's too much to handle or too late. That's part of the reason that people say "it's the quiet ones that you have to watch". The highest rates of suicide are among those who are calm and collected on the outside. (And no, that's not a cry for help or an implication that I'm contemplating suicide, that's merely an example to demonstrate that people who don't express emotions outwardly very much feel with great intensity).

With regards to truth and reality, they weave an intertangled web. It's very easy to sit down and talk about general facts and information. People can deal in facts, they provide data and arguments in their case to make their point. The evidence can be considered and weighed and judged. When dealing with personal matters and feelings, this is almost impossible. You say that feel this way? Really? Well, where's your proof? It's easy for people to make up their mind about a situation and then fall into cognitive biases like confirmation bias and discount or discredit anything that's presented. "Oh, well, yes, you said that, and I can see that, but you didn't do it sooner so whatever you're saying must be a lie to cover up some nefarious plot". Or, "you've said that already, you keep saying the same thing. While it's possible that you keep saying the same thing because it's true, it's much easier to believe that it's just a line that you're feeding me so that I can keep clinging to my biased opinion of how things are". Certainly, those developments of bias aren't without cause or provocation. Something happened to cause people to develop that way of thinking in the first place. But once they've latched on to that ideal, it's nearly impossible to convince them of the actual truth no matter how hard you may try. This is doubly true when you are talking to the kind of person who deals with emotions through outburts and you are a reserved type. Because you don't make the same outbursts, your words must not be true either. The whole thing must just be some sort of scheme. Often as a result of that people begin to convince themselves that relationships between people meant different things to the other person. Two people can both go into a relationship feeling and thinking the same thing. But, within a short time it could easily be a situation where one person still feels the same way about the relationship and the other person feels like they were being used, or played, or whatever the case is. It makes it easier to replace the other person if we just convince ourselves that they were being disingenuous the whole time and never meant anything they said.

Words alone are a wholly inadequate expression of feeling. Words convey thought, but not feeling. I love you is a wholly meaningless expression. I'm sorry is a meaningless expression. You can say these things to people all day long, but it is not possible for them to feel what is in your heart. Since they can't feel what you feel, the words that you are trying to use to convey those feelings creates an impossible scenario. It's like trying to count out ten trillion dollars in pennies. You imagine that as "a lot", but you cannot possibly, realistically visualize exactly how much. As a result you wholly understimate the magnitude of the expression. You might be trying to convey ten trillion dollars in pennies with your words, but the person hearing it might only hear ten thousand dollars in pennies, because that's all they can imagine. If this is coupled with someone who has fallen prey to confirmation bias and has begun convincing themselves that everything that you say is a well-rehearsed line as opposed to a fact, or that it was all a game or lie to begin with, it represents an extremely morose exercise in futility. Some people might say "I'm scared", or "I'm terrified", but again, it's totally meaningless. Without being able to feel what you feel there's no possible way that anyone will ever understand the true gravity of that emotion or the paralysis it might induce. This is a departure from my way of thinking as well. A few weeks ago I was a self-proclaimed logophile (lover of words). I used to think that words had a grand purpose and meaning, that they were the glue that held society and civilization together, that with the proper selection of words, you can make anyone understand anything. This is no longer true for me. Words have lost a lot of their meaning and value to me. They will never again hold that same special place in my mind as they did before.



The Problem with Science

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Before reading further, take a moment and watch this video. It's not very long, a little over 3 minutes: Bill Nye on CNN

This video struck a sour note with me. It seems as though this video exemplifies a lot of what is wrong with our society today. A debate about a politically charged controversial subject? No, not that part. The part at the very end. The part where the reporter says that the "science group" bullies people who don't agree with them.

Here's what I think is the biggest problem; people have opinions and ideas. Don't misunderstand me, ideas in and of themselves aren't what's wrong, no. But when we stubbornly and resolutely cling to an idea because we thought it up at some point, that's where it becomes a problem. As human beings we are subject to logical fallacies such as confirmation bias; I believe that what I think is right so much that I will refute whatever evidence is presented that might suggest otherwise, no matter how numerous or credible. In extreme cases of this, you start to develop wild conspiracy theories to defend my thought. In fact, human beings are so good at using logical fallacies that we have 2 dozen of them in our arsenal (for a breakdown of them check out this fun site: Your Logical Fallacy).

The main crux of the problem is that people believe that science is merely someone's opinion and can be argued against. Science isn't just my opinion, though. It's much more than that. Science is developed through the use of the Scientific Method, which all true scientists use. Sure, there are some crackpot "scientists" out there, but those people are to science what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity; crazy extremists who do not represent the vast majority.

The scientific method can be a little complicated for people who are unfamiliar with it, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson sums it up nicely:
     "generations of searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules: 
      test ideas by experiment and observation; 
      build on those ideas that pass the test; 
      reject the ones that fail;
      follow the evidence wherever it leads; 
      and question everything."

By using the scientific method we can ensure that the data is accurate. I can conduct an experiment. I can write down exactly how I did the experiment; what tools I used, when I did the experiment, what was being experimented on, and under what conditions. I can take very thorough notes and record my results. Then, another scientist can do a repeatability test and replicate my experiment. If they also achieve the same results, then the test is accurate and the results are true; we can put value in those results. For example, if I look into a powerful enough microscope I can see that water is comprised of 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen. This is true all of water, everywhere. It is scientific fact.

Where we, as a society, run into trouble is when we encounter someone who believes differently. Maybe this person thinks that water is HO2. Or maybe they think something crazy like H2S. No matter how much you try to explain that water is, in fact, H2O, they don't believe you. They employ their arsenal of logical fallacies and they stoutly and resolutely reject the truth with a determination that is sadly admirable. You can't help but admire their conviction, however misguided it may be.

But here's the other part of the problem; scientists themselves. As a PhD student I consider myself one of them, so this next part applies to me very much. Every scientist that I've ever met or read about or conversed with in any way has two major character flaws. 1) We are intensely curious people. We want to know everything. We learn as much as we can about as many things as we can. We read, a lot. We read non-fiction. While the rest of the world is watching American Idol or reading Game of Thrones, we are reading books on thermonuclear dynamics and astrophysics and contemplating the nature of the universe. This is kind of what compels us to do research and become scientists; an insatiable drive to know and to learn, to understand. But, this leads us directly to our other flaw: 2) We have a need to share, to teach, and to enlighten. We completely fall prey to the social bias, projection bias, where we assume that everyone must also share our love of learning and knowledge. To scientists, the idea that anyone would not want know the truth seems incredulous. Therefore, whenever we encounter someone who has a belief that doesn't fit with what we know to be accurate, scientifically speaking, then we are compelled to enlighten that person. This isn't done out of malice or hate. It's certainly not an attack on the person or their intelligence. After all, if we as scientists didn't think that you were intellectually capable of comprehending the information, it would be a futile endeavor to try to explain it to you in the first place. But, most scientists have the same problem as I do; the deep-seated compulsion to stamp out incorrect information. The problem is that not everyone wants that incorrect information stamped out, and that concept is so completely foreign to scientists that they can only react by trying harder to make you understand. It's a vicious cycle. It's not that scientists are trying to bully anyone. If you asked any scientist, I would wager large sums of money that they would say that they are simply trying to impart the gift of knowledge.

Some scientists are getting a little better about this and realizing that sometimes it's just better to leave well enough alone. But, sometimes these people who have such strongly held convictions that their belief is right and science is wrong are also very outspoken. The result of this is that other people begin to believe them and what started out as one person having a crazy notion snowballs into a movement, one that stands in the way of progress and scientific advancement. Scientists try to react to these movements by pointing out that it doesn't make sense or by demonstrating that they actually don't know that much about science. That's how we end up with satirical sites like this one that explains the dangers of water: http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html.

For me, my hope for the world is that everyone would be a little more open to the evidence and would actually critique their opinions and their beliefs and be okay with the idea that their belief might be wrong. Scientists do this frequently. They often publish retractions or corrections, such as when Dr. Stephen Hawking, published that he might have been wrong about black holes recently.

The Misinformation Bandwagon

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Admittedly, I don't want the news too much anymore. After being deliberately misrespented by a reporter too lazy to check her facts, or too interested in writing for the ratings, I've become disenfranchised with the "news", especially since they often report only half the story or make a deliberately skewed point. I often read foreign newspapers to see what they report and compare that to what the US news is reporting and realize that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I've been following the news about Flight 370 pretty closely because I find the story fascinating. But, there was another news story that recently wrapped up; Cliven Bundy, the cattle-rancher who had a standoff with the Beareau of Land Management in Nevada.

This story has blown up and made national headlines. It's certainly got a lot of people riled up. I don't purport to know the truth of the situation, but I do know that the news is not the only group of people who deliberately skew or mis-represent data; everyone else does it too. Most of us are quick to jump on the bandwagon and get fired up about something because our friends said that it was bad. Most of us never stop to look at the information objectively or consider the source or the truth before developing an opinion.

Now, I'm not going to get into a debate about who was right or wrong in this case, but let's examine some of the things that happened.

1. The BLM reported that Cliven Bundy's cattle were a hazard to the Desert Tortoise in the area. This is bogus. Back in August of 2013 the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center was killing the tortoises by the hunderds. It was so bad that there was even a Change.org petition to get the killing of the tortoises to stop. That was clearly an excuse.

2. I don't about the allegetions of who paid what to whom or not and I had trouble verifying that with actual documents, so I reserve the right to comment on that one.

3. There are allegations of BLM Officer misconduct, particularly where one of the officers threw a woman to the ground. Let's be real about that for a minute. Yes, the officer threw the woman to the ground. But, the woman was also stepping in front of a moving truck, putting herself at risk, which is a pretty damned stupid thing to do. On the one hand, you could argue that he was abusing her because he didn't let her get run over. Or, on the other hand you could argue that throwing her to the ground was an effort to keep her safe. Or you could just say "Meh, I don't care either way".  The fact that this woman is a cancer-survivor really has no bearing on the situation and is used as a pity-card to get sympathy.

4. There are allegations that the BLM was stealing Bundy's cattle. To be clear, the BLM removed the cattle that were grazing on the county's land, not off of Bundy's personal property as many assert. Bundy's grandfather bought the rights to graze and develop the land, allegedly, but that did not transfer ownership of the land to him. They don't own that land, they simply have rights to graze there. The BLM alleges that they own the land and the previous agreement is null and void. I don't know which is right, that's a matter for the judge, but from the opposite point of view, the BLM wasn't stealing the cattle, they were confiscating the cattle for trespassing on county land.

5. The most ridiculous thing that I've seen going around is that the real reason for the standoff was so Sen. Harry Reid can seize the land and sell it to the Chinese to build a solar-panel farm to sell us energy. Now, the source of this allegation is decidedly less-than-reputable, but given the obvious misdirection about the tortoises, I thought it worth investigating. I did find a page, listed below, about plans to develop a solar-power farm, however, I did not find any information linking that to Chinese developers or interests. Also, if you look at the attached maps of the planned area where the solar farm is to be developed, and compare that area to Bunkerville, where the Bundy Ranch is located, you will see that these areas are roughly 50 miles apart, so it doesn't make sense for them to seize his land for development of a solar panel farm that is 50 miles away.

The important thing to remember before getting all riled about events is to take a deep breath and examine the facts critically before forming an opinion. Just jumping on whatever people tell you at face value and propagating that information forward makes you no better than crappy reporters.  

References:

BLM - Solar Power: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2014/March/BLM_Seeks_Public_Interest_for_Solar_Energy_Development_in_the_Dry_Lake_Solar_Energy_Zone.html

BLM - Cattle Trespass:  http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/lvfo/blm_programs/more/trespass_cattle.html

Change.org - https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-planned-killing-of-desert-tortoises 

Chinese Solar Power - http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/harry-reids-last-roundup/

CNN - http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1119214?ref=feeds%2Flatest



The Necessary Art of Self-Deception

[Johnathan Clayborn]
I know that as a blogger I'm not doing a very good job of posting regular articles. But, to be perfectly honest this pursuit is at least of quatinary importance to me falling in line after school, family, and work obligations are met (not necessarily in that order). So, it should come as no surprise that I haven't posted in a while. These last few months have kept me very busy, but on the up side I have officially completed my 1st year of my PhD progam.

I had many interesting conversations and topics come up during the last couple of months, but didn't have the time to write about them. I'm going to use this opportunity to write about one of the more recent conversations that came up in school during my Culture and Ethics class.

As human beings we are amazingly good at the art of self-deception. We also have this amusingly frustrating ability to define things in the absolute. This is particularly true when it comes to questions and topics of a moral or ethical nature.

One thing that I've noticed of late is that humans are generally very quick to point the blame and criticize or ridicule those whom they feel have violated their preconceived notions of morality. We have our own set of moral codes and beliefs that we staunchly and stoutly cling to, safely believing that our moral code is infallible and that we would adhere to these rules unquestionably.

In truth, life is simply not that simple. Now, mind you, I'm not advocating the creative implementation of excuses to defy your moral code. I'm not even suggesting that you should actively seek opportunities to do so. But, I am saying that when it comes to how we evaluate our actions and behavior perhaps there is a little too much confirmation bias at play.

Often I have been in conversations with people who say things like "I would never steal anything". Really? Never? Never ever? That's an interesting lie that you're telling yourself. Now, for 1 person out of 1,000 this might be true, with emphasis on might. But for the vast majority of us we're engaging in self-deception. Does this mean that most people are thieves and crooks? No. But, what I am suggesting is that there might exist an extenuating circumstance so grievious that the most logical choice of action would be to break your moral code.

Take, for example, a natural disaster or a public crisis. Suppose that your city is in panic. Power is out. Your refridgerator is no longer working. Instead of having 2 weeks of food on hand (which is the national average according to FEMA, by the way), your cold goods are now bad and you have 5 days worth of dry goods to eat. In a survival situation people should keep in mind the rule of 3's: people can generally not survive more than 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Now, bearing this in mind, if you were in this siutation where you had no electricity and little food, if you were to fast-forward 2 weeks to the point where you have haven't eaten in days and you're starving. Maybe you have small children to think of as well. If you came across a store that had food inside, would break in and steal it? Most people would when faced with that situation, even those people who devoutly profess that they would never steal anything. What if there was someone who was hoarding food? Would you physically attack them to try to take food for your own family? If they think they could take them in a fight or they were desperate enough, most people would. Of course, it's easy to deny it now when everything is kosher and say that you're above all of that, but if you ever find yourself in such a situation see what you think then.

So why is it that we do this? Why do we have this inherent need to lie to ourselves? The answer, simply, is because we have to. We have to beleive that we are good people and are incapable of egregious acts like what I described above. To admit to ourselves that we would, in fact, break many or of our own moral codes if the situation mandated that we must presents us with a logical fallacy that our cognitive brains are not capable of

reconciling. Granted, the tipping point for most people to cross their ethical and moral boundaries is quite varied. For some people it doesn't take much, but for others the situation has to be extraordinary. A lot of this self-deception is the fault of our own egos and super-egos, which are the psychological process that our brains use to develop our self image. We tend to be happier and healthier when we can picture ourselves as good people, incapable of any wrongdoing at any time.

The Paradox of Computer Simulated Time Travel

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Earlier today I was reading a thoroughly fascinating article on Discovery.com. The article (link below for the curious) posited that universe very well might be an artificially manufactured construct created by an Intelligent Design, although not in the sense that most people might think of. While not proposing that God in the biblical sense is responsible for the universe, there are some scientists and philosophers who are arguing that intelligent design might indeed be why we are here reading this blog right now.

The main part of this theory, in summary, is the fact that the universe, our solar system, even our planet all essentially won the intergalactic lottery and had conditions that were just right for life to develop. They argue that if the universe were designed this way, it would certainly explain why everything is just right. Also, even more mind-boggling; if the universe were custom designed for us it would explain the Formi Paradox and answer the question of why there are no other aliens. But, if God is not responsible for this, then who? According these scientists; we are.

Our current day technology allows us to use supercomputers to model, predict, and analyze minute parts of the universe and try to understand it. As our computer technology increases, then the amount of things that we would be able to model would increase also. Theoretically, with a large enough computer, we should be able to model the entire universe.

The researchers hypothesize that our far-distant future descendants might have hypothetically reached that point and are running a simulation right now; a simulation that we are all part of. The researchers even hypothesize that humans might have created artificial intelligence, which created artificial intelligence, and so on and it is this non-living descendant that is actually running the simulation out of curiosity about how their ancient biological ancestors might have lived. While that would conveniently answers questions like the Formi Paradox and the Big Bang, it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

For one thing, as with many poorly written time-travel examples from Hollywood, this hypothesis still doesn’t account for the standard temporal paradox that always associates time travel. If, hypothetically, this theory were true, then it would certainly mean our descendants had to have lived in the real universe long enough to make progeny that would have advanced to the point where they would be technologically capable of even running the experiment. But, if this carefully modeled, carefully constructed universe is indeed a simulation and was intended to make everything just right for us to exist and the odds of that happening are a billion to one, then how, pray tell, did our real descendants come to be in the real, uncontrolled universe in the first place? Surely some place that wasn’t carefully constructed would have had even more risk factors and less favorable conditions. So, the researchers would have us believe that we originally existed in an even more tumultuous reality and having somehow, miraculously survived that one, created this just right universe to model how ancient people lived?

Also, another blaring question that is raised by this; computer simulations, even mega simulations, are governed by a specific set of rules and laws. According to the scientists, there is a test that can be performed that would determine if our version of reality really is real. Suppose they find out that it really is just a simulation, then what? What would be the purpose of having a computer simulation be self-aware that it is living in a simulation? Surely, from a scientific process this would ruin their experiment. This type of experiment is known as naturalistic observation and conclusion about the behavior of the people or animals involved are entirely dependent on the fact that they are not aware that they are being watched. As soon as an organism becomes aware that it is being watched its behavior changes and then the results become biased. So why make this super-elaborate experiment only to have it ruined by self-awareness?

While this hypothesis is certainly interesting, it doesn’t seem all that logical to me. Either way it will be interesting to see what results the scientists turn up from their experiments to prove or disprove this theory.

Reference:

http://news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html#mkcpgn=fbdsc17  

Chemtrail Craziness

[Johnathan Clayborn]

No doubt I will be stirring the pot with this one, and more than certainly drawing the ire of some, but I feel compelled to continue forth anyway.

A few weeks ago one of my friends on Facebook posted a photo and asked what types of clouds these were.  For reference, I’ve included a different photo showing the same types of clouds here.

I naturally informed her that these were not clouds, per se, but were actually contrails; residue and water vapor left over from aircraft flying overhead. Within minutes another person responded and informed me that I was wrong and these were actually chemtrails. Not having heard of “chemtrails” before, I asked him to explain what he meant. What followed was the one of the most entertaining stories that I have heard in a long time. He regaled me with a story where the government is purposely and secretly spraying chemicals all over the unsuspecting citizens as part of a grand experiment. I asked him for some kind of proof of this and he directed me to a link for a “News” video on the topic (a video that I’ll destroy later). After he called me “silly” because I didn’t believe in his chemtrails theory I politely told him that we should just agree to disagree and ended the conversation. But, this has plagued my thoughts for some days. How can people really believe this is happening?

Being the overly analytical, thorough person that I am I decided to dig a little deeper into this. The one thing that struck me as immediately odd is that the chemtrail believers don’t even all believe the same thing; one group says that the “chemicals” are designed to allow the government to control our minds, another group says that they’re testing biochemical weapons, and the third and largest group believes that the government is doing secret tests to try to control the weather, primarily to reverse or slow global warming. 

For starters I want to analyze the “news video” (in the links below if you care to watch it). The first part of this story that strikes me as strange is that their “chemtrail expert” is just some random guy from Arkansas who collected a “sample” by putting a jar of water in his back yard. Right off the bat, this seems like shoddy investigative work. No records were kept about anything else that was going on when the sample was taken. Not to mention the guy who took the sample isn’t exactly a scientist, just a regular Joe that shows up with some stuff in a jar. But, be that as it may the news agency went ahead and had it tested anyway.

The test results themselves are rather hilarious. The reporter says clearly that the barium levels in the water are “5.8 parts per million, more than three times the toxic levels set by the EPA.” But, let’s examine that claim. At 1:03 in the video he shows the lab results to the camera. It clearly reads 58.8 ug/L.   According to the EPA, the maximum level of Barium is 2 mg/l. (Here’s the EPA Fact Sheet: http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/pdfs/factsheets/ioc/tech/barium.pdf) Canadians are somewhat more stringent with their pollutants. They only allow a maximum level of 1 mg/L.  (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/water-eau/barium-baryum/index-eng.php) Why is that important? Well, for one thing, 1 mg/L translates into 1000 ug/L.  The reporter’s lab results show 58.8 ug/L. Basic math tells us that the results are not “more than three time the toxic levels set by the EPA as the reporter claims. In fact this level is perfectly normal; only 5.88% of the Canadian safe limits, and 2.94% of the US allowances. The rest of this video goes on to explain the multitude of chemtrail theories that abound and how barium is bad for you, etc.

Let’s assume for a minute that this reporter’s results were accurate and that the numbers really were 5880 ug/L. That still doesn’t prove chemical testing. As anyone who has taken statistics knows; the lower the sample size, the higher the rate of margin of error. So, the news would have us believe that one single sample from a large metropolitan city means chemical testing is going on? Interesting conclusion, but that doesn’t produce statistically significant results. Not to mention they don’t even consider any other possibilities for how that sample could have become contaminated in the first place. It was just collected in Average Joe’s backyard. Maybe he lives near a manufacturing plant that emits barium in the air as a waste product. Maybe his groundsoil or tapwater is already contaminated due to other, unknown reasons. This is why you need samples from multiple random sources. 

Let’s move on. At 2:25 in the video he says “they even mention Chemtrails by name in the initial draft of Senate Bill 2977”. Okay. What’s the point? Senate Bill 2977 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.2977.IH:) does mention Chemtrails, yes. However, the context of the bill in this particular case is a motion to have Chemtrails banned entirely. In this case it’s mentioned in Section 7B of the bill under the “definitions” section where they are defining what they mean in earlier portion of the bill. The bill itself is called the “Space Preservation Act of 2001”. Section 3 states that the President shall permanently ban all weapons in space and shall enter into a worldwide agreement abiding by the ban. Then, Section 7 enumerates what “weapons” are, and section 7B says that “this includes exotic weapons such as chemtrails”.  So, the reporter, in essence, says “they even mention chemtrails by name in a house bill where they’re planning to ban them permanently, so that must be proof that they’re using them”.  The rest of their “evidence” is over 50 years old. It doesn’t make for a very convincing case no matter how you slice it. The rest of the video is so ridiculous that it’s not even worth mentioning.

Since I’ve utterly rebuked that news video, let’s examine some of the other claims made by the conspiracy theorists who believe that these are really chemtrails. One of the more amusing claims is that these chemicals are part of a “grand experiment” to allow the government to control people’s minds. There’s so many things wrong with this one. First, as anyone who conducts research knows; you have to have a control group or a baseline measurement to compare your results against. It has been well-established, even by the conspiracy theorists that these trails appear over every major city in the world. So, if it is an experiment and they’re gassing every major city in the world as part of this presumably cost-prohibitive experiment, then where’s the control data? What city are they gathering the data from to compare the results against? Surely they must have one or their results would be invalid. Not to mention, if they were successful, then wouldn’t they be able to control your thoughts? And if they could control your thoughts, then surely they would stop you from thinking that they’re gassing you in the first place? I know that’s what I would do if I were them. So, it seems rather logical that the fact that this belief even exists is proof enough that they aren’t controlling people’s minds. For some reason the conspiracy believers seem to think 2002 was the start of the “experiment”, but even our government would shut down a 10 year old project that produced no statistically significant results.

The next one is that these trails are the secret tests by the government of biological chemical weapons on the unsuspecting populace. But, as before, this theory is riddled with problems. First, it has the same problems as the previous theory; these trails appear over every major city which means that there’s no control data, which makes any experiment invalid. Secondly, if these “subjects” are being treated at local hospitals then how would the government monitor the results? They’d have to be secretly in charge or have access to every hospital in the world and that just seems slightly more than a little implausible. Not to mention, they’ve been doing this testing for at least 10 years. Surely we’d all have to be hospitalized or treated in some way if that were true. But, I rarely get sick and the few times I’ve needed medical attention it was due to a physical accident, not an unexplained illness. In fact, no one I know has come down with any strange illnesses despite “a decade of secret government testing”, so clearly if this was a test, it’s an utter failure as it failed to produce any statistically significant results.

The last theory seems the most realistic of the three, but that’s not saying much. Essentially it’s based on the theory that aluminum oxide can be injected into the atmosphere and that the resulting metal particulates in the air will essentially act as a global sunscreen and reflect enough of the sun’s rays to cool the Earth. That was an actual theory proposed by scientists, but it was never acted upon for many reasons. First, it’s very cost prohibitive. Last time I checked metal was heavier than air. Any metal particulates that could be introduced into the atmosphere would immediately begin to fall due to the effects of gravity. So, how would you keep them up there long enough to even test it? And, of course, there’s that pesky problem of lack of a control. You could argue that they could use historical data as a baseline, but scientists are divided about what’s causing the Earth’s temperature shift in the first place, so how can you be certain that the temperature changes are the result of your actions and not some other unaccounted for factor? There’s also another problem with this theory; it’s not working. The theory states that they are trying to cool the Earth and slow or prevent global warming. However, all of the current data from NASA, NOAA, and everyone else who’s tracking this data shows that the Earth has been continuing to get warmer. If that’s true, then their experiment has failed to produce statistically significant results and after 10 years of wasted funds it would surely have been cancelled by now.  Not to mention there are a number of scientists and critical thinkers, myself included, who aren’t entirely convinced about global warming. There is evidence in the geological record that shows that the Earth cools a great deal every few thousand years. We know them commonly as “ice ages”. There’s also an old expression; every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Is it that hard to theorize that if the Earth cools a great deal every few thousand years that it also heats up every few thousand years as well? It seems pretty plausible to me, and it’s supported by the geological record, but I digress.

What is it that these conspiracy theorists are so afraid of? Here are some photos:

As you can clearly see, these clouds emanate from the plane’s engines, not from some super-secret gas tank. These “clouds” are formed because the plane’s exhaust fumes, which include some water vapor, exits the engine superheated. This superheated gas comes into contact with the colder air at the higher elevation where planes fly and immediately condenses into clouds.  

Some of the conspiracy theorists will say that these plumes first starting showing up around 2002. However, there is an abundant amount of photographic evidence that shows that these contrails were common prior to that, including during WWII and as early as 1918, just after WWI. Many of these photos are linked to from the Contrail Science page in the links below.

It also seems pretty plausible to me that changes in technology in either aviation fuel or jet engines themselves could be responsible for the gasses lingering around longer, as people claim. Or, it could be attributed to a warmer environmental climate. There are several possible explanations that make sense, but secret government testing isn’t one of them.

Before I go, I did also include the links to the Discovery Channel show, Best Evidence, where they discuss Chemtrails as fact. I used to buy into the Discovery Channel and give them a lot of credit, however, they have lost a lot of stock as being a reputable scientific source of information. Shows that they have aired previously such as Mermaids: The Body Found do quite a bit of damage to their credibility.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory  Wikipedia Pagehttp://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/chemtrails/  A page debunking Chemtrailshttp://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/2012/08/06/mick-west-owner-of-contrailscience-lies-once-again-please-be-aware/   A site promoting the chemtrail conspiracyhttp://euro-med.dk/?p=23189 Another site promoting the chemtrail conspiracyhttp://contrailscience.com/how-to-debunk-chemtrails/  This page has a TON of information from both sides of the debate (but obviously debunks the chemtrails).

News Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpF-c8Jgx0

Discovery Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVFuOZu7Xhg Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCFoHlwibcU Part 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwvUhalx-lU Part 3

Racism Generalized

[Greg Bullock]
Nearly everyone knows that racism and stereotyping are wrong. Unfortunately, people don't stop to analyse why, or to generalize and apply the moral principles that forbid racism to other areas in which people judge individuals by the groups into which they are classified.

The problems with racist thinking are two-fold. Racism is first a mathematical error. A blanket statement about people of the form "all X's are Y's" is erroneous if a single counter example exists. Even when a premise is put into statistical form, such as "X is on average worse (in some area) than Y," assuming that a specific member of X is worse than a specific member of Y would be a mistake. Of course, these errors are greater in a situation where not a kernel of truth exists in our stereotypes. Human cognitive biases ensure that we will be enthralled to innumerable stereotypes, often without being aware of it.

These abstract points might be academic if it were not for the second problem with racist thinking. The mathematical errors implicit in such attitudes have moral consequences. We treat people differently from how we should because of our errors in reasoning. The consequences can range from accidentally giving offense to persecution, oppression, and genocide.

Decades of education have endowed most people with a finely-honed instinct for recognizing overt racism. Unfortunately, this instinct seems to be useless in noticing stereotypes not associated with historically persecuted classes, i. e., those stereotypes we decry as racist or sexist. As a simplistic example, it is common for people with progressive ideas about race to make statements which depict southerners as racist and backwards. When challenged on such points, perpetuators of stereotypes typically respond exactly as a racist does: "but it's true." They dismiss counter-examples in the same way, by adducing reasons the counter-example is nonrepresentative.

As an instructive exercise, you could substitute the name of a minority group for the group which such a person is defending his right to slander; If you were then to create a transcript of the altered conversation, you would see nothing that wouldn't be at home on the web page of a hate group.

Because the speaker hasn't generalized the principles that make racism wrong to govern his broader thinking, he continues to be no better than the hated racist. We might benefit from subsuming terms for specific categories of unenlightened thinking under the term "generalism," rather than racism, etc. We would certainly benefit by being more considerate of the ways in which we think of people as members of a group rather than individuals.

The Art of Arguing

[Johnathan Clayborn]
This post took me a lot longer to write than I was hoping. I had been extra-busy these last two weeks with a lot of "life stuff".  But I digress, this article was intended to complete the trifecta of “Art of” articles complimenting the ones I already wrote on communication and listening.

Arguments, unfortunately, are one of those things that you will inevitably experience at some point in your life. Some arguments are small and mild with people politely agreeing to disagree, whereas other arguments are much more intense and violent with people screaming and yelling at each other and things getting thrown across the room.

While, admittedly, some arguments are sudden and seem to occur for no good reason, those of us with practice usually will be able to tell when an argument is just around the corner. Before the argument is going full swing there’s one question that you need to ask yourself: am I going to argue to be right, or am I going to argue to make a change?

This might seem like a strange question to ask; after all, what’s the point of arguing if not to win? But, these are very different approaches with very different results. Let’s talk about the first point, arguing to win for a moment. If you want to argue to win there are certain tactics and techniques that work better in this type of argument. First, be evasive and refuse to answer direct questions. Argue in circles and repeat your earlier statements a lot. This tends to really frustrate your opponents. Second; draw correlations where none exist and cite that as fact. For example; “you like red blue is clearly better so therefore you’re wrong about your understanding of that law”.  This is one sure-fire way to throw your opponents off-track. Another good tactic is personal insults. Many times when you deploy these little strategic gems in the middle of your heated argument the other person just gets so pissed off that the stop arguing altogether. There’s a very good chance that you’ll win the argument instantly. Lastly, use vague, non-specific, non-descript evidence to support your argument. For example, if someone asks you why you believe something, say “because” or if they ask you how you arrived at a particular conclusion you can say “well, it’s true”. And, if they ask you to walk them through your thought process you can deflect them by saying things like “what? You can’t use Google?” or “How are you supposed to figure it out for yourself if I teach you?” To top off this argument style, you can always claim that they’re using these tactics against you.

As you have probably guessed, that preceding paragraph was tongue-in-cheek deliberately. If you have ever been in an argument against someone who is using those strategies against you then you know full well how frustrating they can be. And if you haven’t been in that type of argument, give it time, it’ll happen sooner or later. The only upside to the approach listed above is that it’s guaranteed to make you win. It’s pretty much impossible to beat that style of argument. The down side; it’s cheap and dirty, you will probably lose friends over it, and people will want to avoid any conversations that have the potential for argument with you. There’s also the chance that you’ll be labeled as “pigheaded”, “stubborn”, “unrealistic” or any number of other similar names. So, if that’s not the best way to argue, what is?

Even though it’s difficult at times, you have to remember that the person that you’re arguing with has feelings too. The ultimate goal of any argument is to try to get the other person to see your point of view. In order for this to happen you need to keep them thinking objectively (or as objectively as possible). In order to keep them objective there are certain cardinal rules that you should never break in this type of argument.

Rule 1: NEVER question a person’s intelligence in an argument. Granted, you will sometimes be perplexed at how your opponent arrived at a conclusion that was so far off-base from yours. However, the second that you begin to question their intelligence they get angry and defensive. They also immediately discredit everything you say because you’re not smart enough to realize how smart they are. And, let’s not forget that the main point of the argument is that you want them to see your point of view. The only way that they can accomplish this is if they have enough reasoning power in their brain to follow your steps of logic. If you honestly believe them unintelligent then this process is not likely to happen and any argument would be a complete and utter exercise in futility.

Rule 2: NEVER resort to personal attacks or name-calling. Calling people nasty names like “right-winger” or “leftist” or “Republican” or “Democrat” will not serve your purpose. Yes, it’s entirely true that your opponent may be one of those things, but they don’t need you reminding them of that fact. Your goal in the argument is to change their thought process, not to belittle or demean their associations. Any attempts that you make to undermine their position by resorting to name calling will put them on the defensive and they will automatically discredit anything you say because you’re not smart enough to see how wrong you are. See how that works?

Rule 3: NEVER use the words “always” or “never” in an argument. No matter how well intentioned you may mean them to be, they typically come across as attacks, which puts the other person on the defensive. Not, not only are they discrediting everything you say because you’re not smart enough to perceive reality, but they’re not even listening to you because they trying to prove that you’re wrong. For example; “you never help me clean around the house!” …”that’s not true, I did the dishes on Saturday and I did the laundry on Thursday, and I cleaned a bathroom on Tuesday”. Now, instead of arguing about what’s important; that you feel that you need more help around the house, you’re going to spend the next 45-60 minutes arguing over the finer nuances of how often who does what, which is really kind of trivial in the long run.

Rule 4: NEVER approach the situation with the viewpoint that your opinion is superior to theirs, especially just because it’s your opinion. To do so would anger them and they would automatically discredit you because you’re too stupid to see how right they are.

Rule 5: Stay focused on your point and stick to the facts. Okay, you hate Obama, I get it. But why? “because he’s an evil President who wants to destroy the American People” is not a valid argument. That’s an example of the first type of argument. I don’t bear Obama any great love, but, like most things in like I realize that he’s not completely evil. But, unlike some of the other people who argue the point, I can cite the reasons why I don’t particularly care for Obama. I can cite dates, legislative bills, policies, and so on. My arguments are vague or ambiguous, they’re specific and to the point. Some of my friends love Obama and we agree to disagree, but I have great respect for their ability to back up their argument with facts. It’s entirely possible that when presented with exactly the same data people will draw different interpretations from that same data. Part of this is because as people we have vastly different moral and ethical values and different principals and ideologies that we hold dear. We tend to latch onto those things that matter to us and ignore the rest. A perfect example of this is a phenomenon that I call “Holy Text Syndrome”. (I’m sure that there’s an actual scientific name for it, and I guess you could classify it as confirmation bias, but this tends to prove the point rather markedly).  To demonstrate HTS in action gather a group of people in a room together. Read them a passage from the Bible without any further explanation, connotation or voice inflection. Then, ask the people individually what the passage was about. I can pretty much guarantee that you will get more than one answer. In fact, depending on the size of the group you may get as many as 10 different answers. It’s part of human nature to inject our own thoughts and feelings and opinions into what we read (which is part of the problem with people misunderstanding text messages and emails so often). The key to these arguments isn’t so much the fact that you’re right and they’re wrong so much as it is that you want to reframe how they think about the topic. Their perception of the issue is what’s driving their opinion, their belief and everything else behind their logic. This is true even for the most pragmatic, factual people too.

Rule 6: If you are trying arguing to make a change for the better you have to walk into the argument embracing the possibility that you may be wrong and you have to be open-minded enough to realize that. I will readily admit that although I have utterly destroyed the arguments of several people on certain topics, there are other topics where I have presented my opinions based on the facts as I interpret them and then someone else has presented me with information or an idea that I have not considered before and I ended up conceding my argument. If you’re not prepared to concede your point if you know that the other person may be right, then you probably shouldn’t even bother as it will simply devolve into a shouting match.

Tip: In general there is kind of a scale for how risky arguments can be. When discussing topics like what color to paint the walls, or what to eat for dinner the risks are generally fairly low. Most people don’t have a whole lot invested in that type of decision. However, as you move up the ladder and talk about topics like religion, politics, childrearing or treatment of animals, things tend to get very heated, very quickly. It’s difficult to separate out your emotions from your opinions, but it’s a necessary point of making a good argument. If you can’t do it then the argument will devolve into a shouting match and it isn’t worth arguing in the first place.

Well, dear readers, I hope that I have sufficiently entertained you with my thoughts on arguments.  My strongest piece of advice on arguing, especially when arguing with close friends or family members; if you feel yourself about to go over the brink and lose your cool, it’s better to just walk away. Even though you may say things out of anger and you may not mean them, and you may forget what you have said in a few days, I promise you, the other person will remember. I can recall every nasty, no-good name or statement that has ever been said to me in an argument, especially when they were said by people who cared about me. Good luck and happy arguing! …well, as much fun as you can have arguing anyway.

The Art of Listening

[Johnathan Clayborn]
As a follow-up article to my post about communication, I elected to continue that line of thought and focus today’s article on listening. As with talking, listening is at the crux of every communication issue, and I’ll explain why.

First, let me start out by making two statements; 1) there is a difference between listening and hearing, and 2) selective hearing is no joke. The latter of those statements is the most absurd to most people so I’ll start there.

Many people often joke about people having “selective hearing” when dealing with communication issues, especially when dealing with; family members, parents and children, spouses, etc. This is absolutely true and is something that afflicts everyone. Yes, some people can learn techniques to minimize this effect and listen better; however, everyone has selective hearing.

Now, before you write me off as a complete crackpot, allow me to explain. Buried deep in our brain is a biological process that psychologists call a “schema”.  A schema is a process that your brain utilizes automatically to sort out the various input signals and decide what information is useful and what’s not. Without this process our brains would become overloaded trying to process every single stimulus and we would drive ourselves insane. Schemas (combined with binocular rivalry) are what are responsible for those fad 3-D image posters. Unfortunately, that example is also the hardest to comprehend. Instead let’s just focus on auditory schemas. We’ve all been in someplace crowded, like a restaurant, or a shopping mall at Christmas time. Almost everyone else in the restaurant or the mall is speaking the same language that we are. They’re all carrying on conversations that we should be able to understand. But yet, to our ears all we hear is incomprehensible chatter while the conversation of your dinner partners is perfectly understandable.

How can this be? Why does your mind separate out what your dinner partners are saying into comprehensible speech whereas everyone else comes across as something more like white noise? This is an example of a schema at work. Your brain is subconsciously sorting out the important signals (your dinner-mates) from the unimportant signals (everyone else). And yet, even while this is going on your brain isn’t completely shutting off the other signals. It’s actively scanning them, looking for “buzzwords”. Buzzwords could be words that represent danger; kill, die, bomb, gun, shoot, etc. A baby’s cry is also not dumped into the useless category due to evolution. However, sometimes, especially if you have something on your mind, your brain will pick up other “buzzwords” that have some meaning to you; Linkin Park, motorcycles, Star Wars, etc. The more value or association that you have with the word, the more likely your brain is to sort it into the useful pile. That’s part of the reason that we hear bits and pieces of other conversations sporadically.

As if that wasn’t bad enough we have other factors working against us too. As humans we have this innate ability in our brains to fill in the missing pieces automatically. It’s a semi-conscious cognitive process. One example of this is the famous Rorschach Tests, known in common vernacular as the “inkblot” tests. In those tests we see a visual pattern and we identify it with something else that is often not what it truly is. There are other types of similar tests where psychologists remove random bits from photographs and ask subjects to identify what is in the picture. Our brains are capable of filling in those missing gaps and coming to the correct answer. And still, yet one more example is the computer-geek language of “leet”. Most of us can read leet without too much issue: 4s d3m0nstr4t3d by th1s 3x4mpl3 0f l33t t3xt h3r3.

The fascinating thing to me is that while many of these ocular anomalies are understood (at least in passing) by the average person, their auditory counterparts are completely lost or ignored. As humans we have this innate ability to “fill in the gaps” in our hearing as well, especially when our full cognitive resources are not devoted to listening or we are otherwise unable to interpret what is being said. The proof of this comes from the plethora of websites devoted to the most common “misheard lyrics” such as; www.kissthisguy.com, www.amiright.com/misheard, and www.misheardlyrics.net.

To share some of my own rather humorous examples; the first time I was watching Star Wars there was a scene in Episode IV: A New Hope where Darth Vader says “There will be no understoppers this time”….or at least that’s what I heard. I promptly searched the dictionary for “understoppers” and came up blank. It wasn’t until many views later I realized that he actually said “there will be no one to stop us this time!” Well, that’s a big difference, especially because that actually makes sense.  And yet, sometimes even today I still hear understoppers despite knowing that he really says.

There’s a song by the late Isreal Kamakawiwo (aka: Brother Iz) called “somewhere over the rainbow”. The first time that I heard that song I heard “K is for spaghetti”. In truth he says “Okay, this one is for Gabby”.

There’s also a song by the singer Kelly Clarkson called “Breakaway”. In that song I heard “I want to go to Walgreens”. In truth she said “I want to feel the warm breeze”…although, in my defense I was thinking about Walgreens as I was having some very serious tooth path and my prescriptions were ready. My first thought was; “wow, she must needs meds too”.

Other people that I know have heard things like “a bowl in a china closet”, or in the scene in City Slickers they heard “I crap in your new” instead of “I crap bigger than you”. I’ve also heard people talk about “we have a flight to Japan” instead of “We have a change of plans”. Other people have taken misheard quotes and applied them out of context. For example, one person I know kept referring to the enemy ships in Star Wars as Century Ships instead of TIE Fighters. The TIE component is really an acronym meaning “Twin Ion Engine” describing how the ship is propelled. However, this person was watching A New Hope and Han Solo makes reference to the TIE Fighters as being sentry ships…although that’s not what they heard. It took us a while to convince him of the truth.

As humorous as these anecdotes are, they are not localized to just one person or even one group of people. There are numerous examples of this type of selective hearing that occurs every day. All of us have done this before, and all of us will do this again. It’s the result of a physiological function of our brains. Sometimes we realize that we’ve misheard something (although we usually blame the other person) and we say to ourselves “what did they say?” But a lot of the time these misinterpretations are so subtle that we don’t even realize that they’ve occurred (even if the singer must have been high when they wrote those lyrics…).

The worst part of all of this is that when you add our brain’s cognitive abilities back into the mix on top of all of these other psychological factors that are already happening it makes listening even much more difficult. And what’s even more interesting is that there’s an indirect relationship between how close we are to a person emotionally versus how well we listen to that person. It sounds crazy, I know, but bear with me.

Our brains are constantly scanning input from our environments, scanning for danger, looking for things that may harm us or may be dangerous in some way. All of us tend to have a skeptical approach to dealing with strangers and people that we don’t know. As a result we also tend to analyze their actions and their speech a little more closely, looking for some subtle clue that can tip us off to their nature. However, with people that we know we tend to be much more relaxed in our cognitive analysis of their behavior. Because of this our brains don’t pay attention as much to what they say and we’re left free to interpret and “fill in the gaps” more in conversations with them.

Admittedly, sometimes this behavior can be as hilarious as the iPhone’s auto-correct feature; generally this behavior can have potentially disastrous results. This is especially true in cases where you may believe that friends or loved ones may have slighted you in some way. When we feel that we’ve been slighted our bodies begin to initiate that “fight or flight” response. This can often lead to couples breaking up, friends or family not speaking for months or years at a time, or spouses engaging in ugly, nasty arguments (which we’ll discuss in more depth in tomorrow’s article, The Art of Arguing).

Now that we are aware that this process and the fact that this behavior is occurring we can take steps to correct it. The first step in correcting behaviors is awareness, which we’ve achieved just by reading this article. We now have an understanding of what is happening within our heads and why it’s so hard for us to listen. The next step is to take active steps to calm ourselves and clarify. Admittedly this is a little harder and it takes practice, but the payoff is immense as you realize that half of the arguments that you’ve had are really about nothing more than selective hearing.

The crucial part of that step, really, is the calm part. If you are not calm before you try to clarify then you run the risk of engaging in confirmation bias as your emotions cloud your judgment. The clarity part is much easier. Clarity can best be achieved by one simple phrase “can you explain what you mean by that, I don’t understand?” With this phrase the wording of the phrase is the key to its use. If you simply say “What do you mean?” or “explain yourself” then your request could be taken the wrong way and the other person may feel as though you are attacking them. By phrasing it this way you’re delivering the message for clarity in a more neutral tone that is much more likely to get an explanation.

Another technique for clarity that you can use is simply rephrasing their statement into a different perspective. Say something like “I just want to understand what you mean. Are you saying….?” Again, the key to this is to deliver this message with a non-aggressive tone or language.

Ponder this information and this advice next time you find yourself in these types of situations. Ask yourself if you are really hearing what the other person means to say, or are you allowing your selective hearing to take over? Always ask for clarity and try to understand what the other person means and focus less on what they say. Sometimes people exercise poor judgment when choosing their words. And I’ll be expanding on this series tomorrow with another article covering the art of arguments, and how to win and lose them.