Blogs / Bad Astronomy

One thing that bugs me is the appropriation of scientific words by people who twist them for their own ends. One that really gets me is "natural", as in, "This product is all natural!". They imply that means it’s good for you, somehow, but I counter that arsenic is an element. You can’t get more natural than that!

Another is the word "chemical". People use it like it’s bad. Chemicals kill! We associate them with toxic and noxious substances, cleansers, nasty things added to our food that makes us sick.

But the word means nothing of the sort. Water is a chemical. So is the air we breathe (the components are, at least, including diatomic oxygen and nitrogen).

It’s time to take the word back! Neville Reed, a director of Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry, has said he would happily give one million pounds to anyone who can produce a substance that is 100% chemical-free.

This is impossible, of course, and he said it to publicize misleading advertising like I pointed out above. He got fed up when the advertising standards in the UK defended a ridiculous ad saying Miracle Gro, a chemical fertilizer, was “100 per cent chemical-free”.

That would mean it’s not made of matter. Of course, the company says there is a colloquial meaning to the word "chemical", which is true, but they’re being weasels. Obviously there are chemicals in the fertilizer, even by the traditional or colloquial sense (Apple recently said something similar: don’t believe what we say in our ads).

I think the RSC should make this offer official. Of course, they’d be flooded with nonsense and woo-woo; people claiming they have bottled Dark Energy or the ether or some other phlogiston. That’s inevitable.

But it would also raise peoples’ awareness that the advertising industry dupes them constantly. I’d love to see more folks understanding this. It’s not just products like fertilizer either: it’s political ads, public service announcements, the news, and pretty much everything else you can see on TV or read in a magazine. Even some blogs indulge in misleading statements to sway people — OMG!

A little skepticism goes a long way. And that is guaranteed 100% chemical free.

Roger Ebert is best known as a movie critic on TV, but he has been writing movie reviews for far longer. I’ve read a great number of his columns and his writing is in general excellent, with an obvious and profound depth of understanding of movies.

Ebert has a fierce intellect backing up his writing, and that is on display very well in his review of the execrable "eXpelled: No Intelligence Allowed", the creationist "documentary" that is so chock full of lies that the creators’ pants will be on fire for centuries. Ben Stein was the host of this steaming pile of celluloid, and Ebert aims his keyboard directly at him.

Ebert’s review is dead on target, and I recommend reading it. "eXpelled" was a major flop and will most likely sink beneath the waves of history, but don’t think for a moment that the people out there trying to promote creationism won’t use the same slimy tactics again and again. Being aware of them is half the battle.

It is the first day of December, and that means it’s a month of miracles. Just ask Roger Bowman, who is claiming the face of Jesus has appeared in his doggie door.

Yes, I’ll let you catch your breath after that one.

He claims that this must be real, because 1) it appeared when he was thinking of "getting rid of" his dogs (he’s now going to keep them), and 2) the ice machine in his refrigerator suddenly started working again.

I thought Jesus turned water in to wine, not ice, but hey: with global warming, maybe He’s just keeping up with the times.

New Humanist has another photo of the doggie door, including the doggies who don’t appear to think much of it either way. But you know Bowman must believe it’s true, because he put it up on eBay. That’s right, you can now own this slice of flapdoodle ("flap", because it’s a doggie door! Oh man, I kill me!), though it’s now over $1000. But wait, there’s more! If you buy the door, this devout devotee will actually make an appearance at your house for the unveiling! And he’ll bring his dog! If you pay for all expenses, of course.

Sigh. I expect to see more nonsense like this rather than less as Christmas approaches.

And speaking of which, this guy has made a huge mistake. Given that it’s the present-giving season, and what the face in the door really looks like, he should have used it to promote the Iron Man DVD.

Tip o the flea collar to Dave Pearson.

Does this NASA photo from the rover Opportunity show a wooden log on Mars?

Hard to tell? Then look at the zoomed-in image, and ask again: is this a log (petrified or otherwise) on the surface of the Red Planet?

Duh. No.

But if you read some websites, you might think it is. So what’s going on here?

The quick answer is: this is another in a long line of examples of pareidolia; people seeing familiar things in random or semi-random patterns. In other words, this looks like a log, but it ain’t. Remember the Martian Bigfoot? Yeah, this is the same kind of thing.

How do I know? Well, lots of reasons. For one thing, this photo is from 2005. Had any scientist studying Mars seen this and thought it was actually wood, I think they would have said something by now.

Second, there’s no evidence at all of any macroscopic plant life on Mars. The vista shown here is a vast range of desert. What are the odds there would be a log smack dab in the way of the the rover as it moves across Mars? Note too that the tracks go right over the object; Opportunity literally ran it over. That means lots of people in the control room on Earth saw this object, yet no one said anything about it being a log. And if you think they’re covering it up, then why did they publish the image in a press release?

Third, look to the right of the "log". There are two rocks that look a lot like it:

That image is slightly different from the one I displayed above, with better contrast. See how the rocks are the same color as the "log"? And look at the patterns on the rocks; they’re the same too. The linear patterns even line up with those of the longer object! This indicates we’re looking at a rock here.

And finally, fourth: I mean, c’mon. A log? On Mars? Sheesh.

Clearly what we’re seeing here is another rock, probably different than the flat rocks that are paler, but very similar to the darker ones. It looks like a petrified log, but then we know that many things look like other things. Wasp nests look like Buddha (or the StayPuft Marshmallow Man), and rocks look like Bigfoot (which is like a case of meta-nonsense, given we’re talking Bigfoot).

It’s certainly an interesting object, since it’s long, and all the other rocks are not. I imagine that geologically there’s some story behind it. But I really really don’t think it involves wood.

But that won’t stop the goofballs out there, breathlessly playing this silliness up. One site said this photo was leaked. Yeah, leaked, as a frackin’ press release on the NASA site!

Cripes.

Another site goes on about how maybe it’s a log and maybe it’s not, but who can trust NASA? After all, it’s so easy to fake pictures. But they don’t make the logical connection that if NASA faked the image, then (again) why did they publish it in a press release but make no mention of the object itself?

It’s frustrating that unthinking nonsense like this gets spread so quickly through the web. It’s the Ebola of science, and far too may people are far too willing to pass the virus on. It relies heavily on people not understanding science (and skepticism) all that well, and them also not understanding that seeing is not necessarily believing.

So if you see something like this, think about it before sending it on to the next victim. Does the claim really make sense? Is it supported by the data you have, and is there evidence against it? And you can always look to my blog here for more, or to other places like the BAUT forum, where lots of smart and knowledgeable people look into claims just like this one.

It’s amazing how much bad thinking is out there in cyberspace. But don’t worry. Its bark is a lot worse than its byte.

Much of what I have read about and from Obama leads me to think that he is part of the reality-based community (at least in part). That’s why I’m not too concerned that UFOs-are-visiting-us proponent (and, evidently, BABloggee) Stephen Bassett wrote an OpEd asking Obama to lift the "truth embargo" about aliens coming to Earth and posing for blurry photos while masquerading as Venus, balloons, the Moon, satellites, military aircraft, atmospheric distortions, and hoaxes.

Now, let me make this as absolutely clear as possible (which will be to no avail, because I have been very clear before, and UFO proponents still manage to completely mangle what I’m saying): if you want me to think that UFOs are not just misidentified mundane objects, then all you have to do — and it really is this simple — is provide me with evidence.

Here, let me make this even clearer:

PROVIDE ME WITH EVIDENCE.

What do I count as evidence? Hard, physical data. Not eyewitness reports (because even the most highly-credentialed person in the world can misidentify something, or not understand what they are seeing, or may suffer from an episode, or decide to lie, or just be simply wrong). Not fuzzy photos. Not fuzzy video.

I want hard, physical data. I want an alien on the White House lawn. I want a piece of metal with clearly non-terrestrial isotope ratios of components, or be composed of some currently non-discovered element. I want some piece of predictive evidence — a map of an alien world that can eventually be verified, or an alien-given advance in physics that can later be verified with the LHC or some other cutting-edge technology. And nothing vague like "a unified field theory exists"; it has to be definite and precise, so that there is no controversy.

Do you think this is too demanding? I have news for you: you’re asking me to believe in something that will revolutionize all of human existence. I think demanding some actual evidence for such a thing is not only not too much to ask, but is to be demanded.

Of course, by asking for actual evidence, I’ll be called a cynic, a liar, a government stooge, and (my favorite) a debunker (since you can’t debunk something that isn’t already bunk). I’ll also be called closed minded, which is incredibly ironic, since I can be persuaded by evidence of the existence of actual alien visitation, but people like Stephen Bassett cannot be persuaded out of their beliefs by the lack of the same evidence.

If you have this sort of evidence, then by all means let me know. I’ll report it here. But in the meantime, I suggest people read Mr. Bassett’s demands of President-elect Obama, and keep an open mind yourself on which of us is being more open minded.

Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to Fark.

I love promoting skepticism, especially among all you young whippersnappers out there (as long as you GET OFF MY LAWN!). Teen Skepchick is a good one, for example.

Podblack Cat sent another suggestion along: Young Australian Skeptics. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what that’s all about. I like seeing what younger folks think about skepticism, and how they think about it. When I was a teenager I believed in all sorts of nonsense, and it took me a long time to grow out of it. These kids are already a decade ahead of me. Where will they be in another decade?

Dave Mosher over at the Discovery Channel blog collective (not to be confused with our own beloved Discover Magazine Hive Overmind) asked me if I could write down my thoughts about UFOs, so he could post it over at their site to support a show they’re airing about flying saucers. Because I’m a swell guy, I did.

The essay is based on a question I get all the time when I give lectures, and it’s so important to me I’m reposting it here. In fact, I have a YouTube video with a slightly longer version of this as well.

Here’s the written version…

When I give public talks, I can almost guarantee that during the Q&A I’ll get asked: Do I believe in aliens and UFOs?

My answer usually gets a laugh: “Yes, and no.”

As far as aliens go, I suspect pretty strongly that there’s life in space. We know of over 300 planets orbiting other stars, and we’ve only just started looking. In our Milky Way Galaxy alone there are probably literally billions of planets. Life on Earth got started pretty rapidly, relatively speaking, after the crust cooled and liquid water formed, so we know it’s not tough for life to get its start… and it’s entirely possible there is microbial life inside icy moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.

So thinking aliens exist has a pretty decent scientific basis. But them coming here is an entirely different beast.

There are tens of thousands of UFOs reported every year. That’s one of the reasons a lot of people think aliens are visiting us: there’s no way that there could be that many reports if some of them weren’t real!

But that’s bad reasoning. In fact, the vast majority of reported UFOs are mundane things in the sky. The planet Venus is incredibly bright; most people don’t believe me when I point it out to them. They think it’s a nearby airplane, or some other bright earthbound object.

Not only that, but if you’re driving, it appears to follow you through the trees because it’s so far away. If it’s low to the horizon, turbulent air makes it flicker and change color. Does this sound familiar? How many UFO reports have you heard that say a huge object (people often mistake brightness for size) was following someone in their car, and it was rapidly changing color?

Yup. Venus.

Manmade satellites pass overhead several times an hour, and some brighten tremendously as a solar panel or mirrored surface catches the Sun. Meteors blaze across the sky, ice crystals refract sunlight and moonlight, atmospheric effects make a distant object appear distorted and weirdly-shaped. All of these have been mistaken for alien spacecraft.

So I know that most people misinterpret what they see. But there’s something else too. If alien spaceships are really out there abducting us and playing chicken with our airplanes, then you’d expect that people who spend more time looking at the sky would see more of them. And who spends lots of time looking up?

Amateur astronomers, of course. They are dedicated observers, out every night peering at the sky. If The Truth Is Out There, then amateur astronomers would be reporting far and away the vast majority of UFOs.

But they don’t. Why not? Because they understand the sky! They know when a twinkling light is Venus, or a satellite, or a military flare, or a hot air balloon, and so they don’t report it.

That, to me, is the killer argument that aliens aren’t visiting us. If they were, the amateur astronomers would spot them.

Of course, you might say “But just because they don’t see UFOs doesn’t mean they aren’t real. It just takes one to prove aliens are coming here!” That might be correct, but remember, we started off thinking they’re coming here because so many UFOs are reported! Once you realize that the overwhelming majority of UFO cases are just everyday things, then that “it just takes one” argument gets a whole lot weaker.

But I’ll surprise you, though: I agree. It really only does just take one. But that one better have good proof! Something better than a single eyewitness, a badly sketched object, a fuzzy photograph, or out-of-focus video (heck, with digital effects the way they are today, you can’t even trust video that’s crystal clear). It needs a sample of non-terrestrial metal. An actual alien. Some incontrovertible evidence that is impossible to deny.

But we never get that. Why not? I think it’s because we’re not being visited. When Klaatu comes and lands on the White House lawn, I’ll be willing to change my mind. But until then, well, keep watching the skies. Learn what’s up there, and what isn’t. You might someday spot the genuine article.

But even if you don’t, you get to discover what’s really up there… and there’s treasure aplenty in the sky to be had, even by us folks stuck here on planet Earth.