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“Feng no way” (Feng shui)

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Feng shui has traditionally been a Chinese philosophy centered on harmonizing people with their environment. In the modern West, its primary manifestation is as overpriced redecorating. Its literal meaning is “wind water,” while a looser translation is, “You paid HOW much?”

Feng shui purports to be a type of architecture that uses invisible binding forces. It works, provided that metaphor is coupled with lumber and nails. One advertisement boasts, “Get your life moving by using the energy of specific feng shui colors in order to achieve the desired results. Color is very powerful, as it is an expression of light, and many homes and offices are starved for light. So bring on vibrant light energy with beautiful feng shui colors.”

This ad says nothing more than light and color can brighten a room, and this is the advice some people pay thousands of dollars for. Most persons selling feng shui wave one of the most common pseudoscience red flags, the appeal to irrelevant authority, in this case the ancient Chinese. Another frequent tactic, seen here, is including an isthmus of science in a mainland of gobbledygook, since color derives from the light spectrum. And no new age claim would be complete without a poorly-defined reference to energy.

There is no way to disprove most feng shui claims since they cannot be tested. There has been one notable exception. One feng shui customer followed the be-kind-to-nature suggestion to plant lucky bamboo in his yard. In so doing, he introduced into the ecosystem a plant it couldn’t handle.

In ancient Southeast Asia, temples, castles, and cities were built with the main entrance oriented to the south, since feng shui taught this to be the most fortunate side. There are few castles to orient in California, but there are plenty of folks with expendable income who orient it toward feng shui practitioners. These persons will rearrange living room, dining room, and bedroom sets for $3,000, which would be a fair price if the sets were included.

In the spirit of Do It Yourself home repair, I settled for snagging a promotional brochure and tackling feng shui on my own. Words from the brouchure are in italics.

From the outside, a good feng shui house has no Sha Chi energy attacking it, nor any Si Chi low energy sapping it. The only thing I saw outside were two rabbits, so I’m not too worried about this one. Besides, if there’s any Sha Chi or Si Chi energy there, they can fight it out.

Any big trees in the front yard could be blocking chi. So to live in harmony with nature, chop down that mature oak.

Keep all pathways, doors, and windows clear of debris. This is promoting the free movement of Chi, previously known as identifying fire hazards.

It is important to create a welcoming, strengthening channel of good energy. What is the first thing you see as your enter your house? The feng shui brochure I tossed in the trash. Where does your attention go right away? To my wife telling me I forgot to take out the trash.

Maybe your front door is aligned to the back door, so that most good energy enters the house, then escapes easily. Until now, I thought they were telling me the constant stream of chi was a good thing. But I guess it’s supposed to be trapped, which means never opening a door or window. Sounds like they should tap into the agoraphobe market.

Everything is in constant flow and change. Even after we create a strong feng shui foundation in your house, the work continues. So every time you screw up, I pay to bring you back.

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“A sticky situation” (Dowsing)

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Dowsing has traditionally been a method of using a rod or stick to try and locate underground substances, usually water. It is based on no known science or law of nature.

Practitioners most commonly operate in an open field with a wishbone-shaped stick. At some point, the object will begin to shiver and point downward. There can be rare instances where this is caused by an electromagnetic force, but is almost always the result of the ideomotor response. This is involuntary movement caused by thoughts rather than sensory stimulation, and the dowser is unknowingly moving the stick. The experience can be profound since an outside force seems to be acting on the object.

Belief in dowsing requires post hoc reasoning, the notion that because one event happens after another, the two are necessarily related. The stick shakes, water is found, therefore it works. Dowsers can relate their experiences to fellow practitioners, stoking the confirmation bias. But tests, not testimonies, are what constitute proof.

The first recorded experiment was in 1641, with poor results for the dowsing camp. Over three centuries later, the American Society for Psychical Research tested 27 dowsers, all of whom failed miserably. By contrast, a geologist and engineer team went 16-for-16 in the same field. Other tests have been done by Nature and the Skeptical Inquirer, with participants never performing better than chance.

In a challenge posed by James Randi, three dowsers attempted to find water in underground pipes. Any tester achieving an 80 percent success rate would be given $10,000. All failed. With the prize now at $1 million, and with so many persons convinced they have the ability, dowsers are the most frequent claimants to the James Randi Challenge. None has won the money, and Randi reports reasons given for the failures have included too much noise, too much silence, the wrong temperature, high humidity, planet misalignment, and an upset stomach.

As the engineer and geologist example from 1949 shows, there would be little need for dowsing even if it worked. So the artificial art has entered the modern era and its purported abilities amplified. Digital dowsers now offer rods with ergonomic plastic handles, notional electronic circuitry, and a scientific look and name.

One was the DKL Remote Heartbeat Detector. Its manufacturer claimed it could pick up a person’s pulse from 500 yards away in the open, or through several yards of thick concrete and rubble. It was marketed as a way to find missing children or victims of collapsed buildings. The device was a fraud, but even if worked, it would have failed since it would have picked up the heartbeat of the operator instead.

Before being shut down by the FBI, the Qaudrop Corporation sold its QRS 250G Detector to police departments and schools. The company claimed the device could find drugs, weapons, or whatever else the customer wanted it to, including oil, minerals, and golf balls. When scientists at the Southwest Research Institute got their hands on one, they found its insides to be just epoxy and dead ants.

For those both gullible and greedy, we have the Treasure King System 2000. The company hails it as “An operator body response long range locating and tracking instrument.” With that description, there’s no telling what it’s supposed to do or if it’s working. But as an additional cover, the company cautions if no treasure is found, the user lacks conductive abilities. So, if it works, we did it. If it fails, you did it.

Then we have the GT200, which Mexican defense officials used to root out drug traffickers. The device was a mix of ersatz electronics, the ideomotor response, and the operator’s conscious movements. On a highway outside Monterrey in 2009, the device “pointed” to a car, and Soldiers swarmed. In this case, the device worked and drugs were found: A bottle of Tylenol. This was presented as evidence of how thorough and hypersensitive the GT200 is.

Pilfering of taxpayer money and frightening innocent motorists are minor compared to what happened in Thailand. Although the GT200 was advertised in Mexico as a means to ferret out drugs, in Thailand it was marketed as explosives detector. At least four persons died after using the device and proceeding when it failed to detect explosives that were present.

The GT200 has been put out of business, but there are several devices competing for its share of the market. And like the wishbone sticks of yore, none of them hold water.

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“Arkeology” (Noah’s Ark)

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Among those displeased with the movie Noah, their most frequent objection is to the Rock People, a group of creatures the critics find preposterous. They have no issue, however, with the Rock People working alongside a 600-year-old man.

There are many who interpret the Flood story as an allegory about mankind’s fall and redemption, and others who note that there are similar pre-Genesis accounts, such as Gilgamesh. We are unconcerned here with the morality or literary qualities of the tale and are only addressing the scientific implausibility of it being literal.

A decade ago, I was under the impression that a sizable majority shared my view. But since then, I have known many adults, at least one with an advanced degree, who have expressed sympathy for the literal interpretation. So, in the country that launched Voyager I and conquered polio, I will employ computer technology and the Internet to argue against the proposal that a 600-year-old man built a giant boat and filled it with 100 million critters and their 13-month food supply, in order to protect the inhabitants from a flood that covered Mount Everest, and that ended with kangaroos hopping and swimming from Turkey to Australia.

In this Marsupial Movement, even if we allow stops on every piece of the Indonesian archipelago after leaving Malaysia, the final leg to Australia requires a swim of 300 miles. Also making their way to new homes would be animals found only on Madagascar, Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau, and Costa Rica. One creationist offered that these animals could have floated there on unspecified objects. It remains unclear what the nature of, or source was, for this armada of seaworthy transportation that came supplemented with adequate food, water, and shelter.

Before riding this mystery debris for thousands of miles, there are other obstacles to overcome. Answers in Genesis puts the flood account at about 4,400 years ago. This conflicts with records of civilizations in China, Egypt, and Babylon before, during, and after this time.

Then we have the literal mountain of a problem relating to all of Earth being covered. This means that Mount Everest was under water. At an altitude of 29,000 feet, persons could not survive more than a few hours. To submerge Everest in 40 days, a nonstop libation of 360 inches of rain per hour would be required. By contrast, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded is four percent of this. The tremendous force this deluge would create would tear apart a vessel of gopher wood and pitch.

Some of my fellow skeptics have noted the dimensions attributed to the ark are 50 percent larger than any known wooden boat. Since ancient civilizations produced the Moai, Stonehenge, and Pyramids, I can charitably overlook this point. Getting representatives of every creature on that boat is another matter. In Genesis 6, God tells Noah to bring a male and female of every living creature into the ark, evidently delegating to Noah the task of deciding what to do with the hermaphrodites.

The Bible never makes it clear whether Noah gathered the animals or if they came to him. But either method is fraught with serious problems. In the first scenario, Noah makes his way to Antarctica to get the fur seals, to Alaska to get the caribou, to Indonesia to bring back the Komodo Dragons, and he safely corrals tigers, crocodiles, and copperheads. Moreover, the dictate in Genesis 6 allows no exceptions for microbes or sea life, so Noah would have to identify the single-cell organisms and transport jellyfish and blue whales. He has to do all this while building a 450-foot boat with Bronze Age tools. Oh, and per Genesis 7:4, he has a week to do this. Remember that the next time you complain about multitasking.

Allowing for the easier method of the animals seeking Noah, we have no explanation for what prompted the beasts, most of whom don’t migrate, to leave their homes and make their way to Mesopotomia. There is no answer for how animals that need special climates or diet would survive, and no explanation for how flightless animals made their way from America. I have heard two main creationist counters to this. The first posited that animals such as penguins, lions, and walruses were living in Mesopotamia at the time, an idea with zero scientfic or historic backing. The other proposes that God magically did it, an idea with zero scientfic or historic backing.

By whatever method Noah and the animals hooked up, we still have to wrestle with the lack of space. Even if all the animals had been babies or in eggs, the ark would have been much too small to accomodate between two and 14 of every creature. Besides the animals, there would had to have been supplies for food, water, cleaning, and sanitation. The already impossible conditions would have grown worse because, even if babies, many of the animals would grow to full size within 13 months, the approximate time spent in the ark per Genesis 7 and 8. At the other end of the spectrum are animals with life spans of less than a year. Furthermore, parasites would have either killed their only source of sustenance or died from the lack thereof.

The idea of tens of millions of creatures fitting on boat less than two football fields long is too much for even Ken Ham to manage through mental gymnastics. For the only time I’m aware of, Ham deviates from a literal interpretation of the Bible. For him, the reference to every kind of animal doesn’t mean every kind of animal. It means species. For instance, Noah took only two bears, not two each of the polar, brown, Kodiak, sun, grizzly, and black varieties. But the purported time span of 4,400 years is insufficient to account for the variety of species in the modern day. Creationist John Woodmorappe arrives at a figure of around 16,000 animals. He came to this number not through a thorough study of zoology, but by figuring out how many animals could fit on the ark and working his way backwards, mixing Orders and Families when needed, and using creative biology.

If we further tighten the pretzel we’ve bent ourselves into and allow the 16,000 animal figure, other issues remain. Genesis references just an 18-inch window at the top of a three-tiered behemeoth boat. This would be a woefully inadequate ventilation system, which would quickly be exacerbated by the mounds of excrement and consequent methane gas.

As to where all the corpses ended up, Answers in Genesis offers that fossils are animals killed in the flood. But this would require every animal, including those extinct, to be in the same level of the geologic column. In actuality, the most simple life forms are much further down, and radiometric dating shows them to be billions of years old.

By necessity, I have kept the scientific objections basic. I lack the competence to address the more complex ideas. But I want to share a couple of the advanced ones in order to give a sampling of the scores of other objections raised to this being a literal tale.

In the Marshall Islands, there are coral reefs that are hundreds of feet thick. Forty days of 360 inches of rain per hour would have obliterated the coral. Yet the rate of deposit reveals the reefs have survived for 100,000 years. Futhermore, rainfall this heavy would have created a heat that boiled the water it was striking and kept it from rising. So this story, literally, does not float. I suggest seeing the movie instead. It’s not real either, but at least you get Rock People.

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“A night of heavy thinking” (Critical thinking)

CHIMPTHINKING


Most people would agree that it’s better to be objective and corrected than to be biased and wrong. But since the journey from the latter to the former is painful, many people avoid it.

A couple of ideas might make the trip less unpleasant. First, try separating yourself from your beliefs. They are not one and the same. Second, think of disagreements as collaborations, not conflicts. If discussing an issue with someone, both of you should be trying to find the truth. That’s where critical thinking comes in. This is using your knowledge and intelligence to reach the most reasonable position, while overcoming roadblocks to rational thinking.

These roadblocks include selective memory, especially when it strengthens one’s belief. If Maria is convinced that full moons leads to crazy behavior, she will notice when these two collide. But she may pay no attention to full moons without crazy behavior or to crazy behavior without full moons. For an objective approach, Maria should first analayze patterns over the past five years to see if there is any change in criminal behavior during a full moon. Next, she should remember that correlation does not imply causation and consider various conclusions.

Another hindrance to overcome is false memories. I was baffled when I couldn’t find the ID card I put in the slot between my seats three minutes prior. When I found it, it was not in the slot, on the car floor, or under the seats. It was in my wallet. A false memory had been created, and this involved only me and a short passage of time.

This phenomenon manifests itself in a tragic manner when a parent, perhaps dealing with a lack of sleep and change of routine, creates a false memory of having left their child at daycare instead of in the back seat. After the Space Shuttle disaster in 1986, a group of students were surveyed about where they were when they heard about the explosion. They were asked the same question 10 years later and a majority gave the wrong answer. It is a handy tool in one’s critical thinking kit to know memories are often manufactured to fill in gaps in our recollection.

Without this understanding, the thinker is subject to the flaw of relying on anecdotes from others to bolster their views. A person convinced that dowsing can be used to find water is going to put more credibility than is justified in an uncle’s friend’s story that he could do it. Testimonies can be subjective, inaccurate, even invented. Thrilling tales of encountering Yeti or of a cousin’s trip to an amazingly prescient fortune teller do not prove the existence of the beast or the accuracy of the crystal ball. Anecdotal evidence is often an oxymoron. Resist making judgments on testimonies, especially the more extraordinary the claim. Let’s base our conclusions on the most likely reality, not the most appealing.

Also, beware the appeal to emotions. While not always meant to engender a reaction, words such as patriot, children, traitor, God, flag, socialism, terrorist, and white privilege can be an attempt to heighten feelings and to bias the listener for or against a topic or person. Instead of the emotive words, focus on the reasoning and facts behind the claim. A similar tactic is the false dilemma, where the speaker frames the only choices as good-or-evil, right-or-wrong, and with-us-or-against-us. This is common during war or national emergencies. When confronted with these deliberately limited choices, seek opposing viewpoints which may reveal the existence of other alternatives. These can include being for both, against both, neutral to both, or partially for or against both.

Another tactic to look for is the ad hoc hypothesis, where a rationale is invented to keep a theory from being disproven. James Randi was interviewing three men who claimed to be able to detect a type of water with supernatural properties, and they had a sample with them. Randi put the magic water in a container, then filled two similar containers with water from a tap. He then proposed the three men be put in separate rooms and the containers rearranged. The three would enter the room individually and determine which was the magic water. There would only be a one in 27 chance the trio would all pick the lucky liquid, and if they did so, it would be a good sign the claim was accurate. At this point, the experiment abruptly ended. The men claimed the magic properties had emanated from its source and infiltrated the other samples. Put no stock in claims such as these since they cannot be independently tested.

It is also crucial to get a rudimentary understanding of the Law of Truly Large Numbers. With a large sample, many seemingly stunning occurences are actually likely to happen. Telepathy, astrology, and clairvoyance all play on ignorance of this idea. The Lincoln-Kennedy assassination coincidences are another well-known example. This list puts stock in the idea that the presidents were elected 100 years apart, but ignores the years of their births and deaths being separated by uninteresting periods of 108 and 98 years. With practice, the listener can begin to realize when numbers are being used correctly and objectively, rather than incorrectly and with bias to support an argument.

Another barrier to overcome is the post hoc fallacy. This is falsely asserting that because one event happened near the same time as another, the two are related. Astrologer Valerie Livina wrote that a lunar eclipse caused deadly fires in Australia. But skeptic leader Dr. Robert Carroll replied, “How do we know that the fires didn’t cause the eclipse?” We don’t know that, but there is no reason to believe it, and there is no reason to believe the opposite. To think critically, employ Occam’s Razor and identify the possible causes and effects, beginning with the most likely.

 

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“Loonar module” (Moon landing hoax theory)

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Landing on the moon is a source of national pride for 90 percent of Americans. It is a source of personal satisfaction to the other 10 percent, for whom seeing a hoax in it is preferable to celebrating mankind’s greatest accomplishment.

While mostly a fringe moment, the idea has been endorsed by the Fox Network and that greatest of modern astrophysicists, Whoopi Goldberg. The most frequent protest focuses on an allegedly waving flag. It is pointed out the moon has no atmosphere and no wind. But the flag is not waving. The creases in the flag were due to it having been folded during the trip, and the only time it moves is when it’s touched. After this touch, the flag takes much longer to settle than it would on Earth, due to the lack of atmosphere critics had been so fond of addressing.

Another argument centers on the Van Allen Belt, where Earth’s magnetic field intensifies solar radiation. Critics say a trip through the Van Allen Belt could never be survived. But this would be like arguing that an X-ray would be fatal. A two-second exposure to an X-ray is fine. A two-hour exposure would not be. It would take at least a week of hanging out in the Van Allen Belt doing astronaut stuff for someone to be killed.

Conspiracy theorists gleefully note the lack of exhaust flames when the astronauts began their return trip. But this is because the propelling agent was a mixture of nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50, which produces transparent gas.

The lack of stars in the background is also raised. Having passed a freshman-level photography class, I know that shots taken with a fast exposure and small aperture fail to capture faint objects on a dark background.

A couple of more arguments focus on a Hollywood explanation. Critics think that shadows from objects going in different directions indicate multiple light sources. However, if there had been multiple light sources, the astronauts and equipment would cast more than one shadow. The shadows go in multiple directions because they are distorted by a low sun and uneven surface. Keeping with the movie studio theme, propononets of the hoax theory point out a supposed letter ‘C’  on a moon rock, and claim this is a stage prop. However, the letter isn’t on the original NASA negatives or prints, and is a hair or fiber that got onto a reproduction.

Still another claim is that since moon dust is dry, it wouldn’t take a boot imprint, much as how dry sand won’t take prints. But moon dust is unlike sand. Its particles have different sizes and shapes. Its more like talcum powder, which does take prints when dry.

Perhaps the laziest point is wondering how a photograph of Neil Armstrong could have been taken unless someone was standing there to snap it. The shot was taken on a still camera mounted on the Eagle lander. Moreover, remote cameras left on the moon snapped the departure. These were relatively well-known facts at the time and even the most superficial investigation would have revealed this answer.

Frustrated by these refutations, moon landing hoax proponents will resort to challenging NASA to end the supposed controversy by having the Hubble Space Telescope take photos of equipment left behind. But all that’s left is the 12-foot wide Eagle lander, much too small an object to be captured. And even if it could be photographed, the idea that it would silence hoax proponents is itself a hoax. Conspiracy theorists, by their nature, consider any contrarian evidence to be part of the conspiracy.

For instance, they cited Neil Armstrong’s reticence and few public appearances to be proof he was hiding something. Simultaneously, Buzz Aldrin’s high public profile, including his decking of a conspiracy theorist, was evidence that he was feeling the heat of the hoax coming undone.

The only way hoax proponents could possibly be convinced is if they were sent to the moon themselves. I’ve heard worse ideas.

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“Crystal myth” (Crystal healing)

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The package on the healing crystal promised to protect the heart charka. So I put it on and, sure enough, my heart chakra escaped the day unscathed.

Crystal healing refers to trying to rid the body of a wide range of ailments by putting precious stones on various body parts. Sort of like ointment, only without the nasty aroma or effectiveness.

The claims associated with crystal healing usually focus on terms like aura and Third Eye. Or they laud their usefulness in facilitating spiritual wakefulness or in connecting to a higher realm of knowledge. As such, crystal healing is relatively innocuous among the pseudo-medicines. If using amethyst to battle Hodgkin’s, or citrine to improve eyesight, the failures would be obvious. Therefore, crystals aren’t used to treat real disease, and as such, aren’t harmful like faith healing or psychic surgery. Using crystals to energize the solar plexus or to create harmony is only detrimental to one’s financial health.

Different colors of crystals are usually said to be associated with a specific chakra. As the potency of rutilated quartz in channeling tranquility from the inner realm is untestable, the color coordination varies by practitioner. Any perceived benefit comes from the placebo effect, selective memory, subjective validation, and communal reinforcement.

The genesis of the belief in crystal healing may come from the discovery of the piezoelectric effect. This showed that, when compressed, crystals produce an electric charge. This has numerous applications, including the cigarette lighter and loudspeakers. But using crystals to reduce stress only works if done while tapping into the piezoelectric effect to light incense and send Zamfir through the loudspeakers.

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“Extrasensory deception” (ESP)

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On March 12, 1951, Dennis the Menace made its first appearance in U.S. newspapers. The same day, another comic named Dennis the Menace ran for the first time in U.K. newspapers. The comics were unrelated, and the artists were strangers to each other. Few people would ascribe any psychic meaning to this Double Dennis Debut, but it’s another matter when a stunning coincidence is personal.

In high school, I had a dream that our girls’ basketball team lost its sub-state final by a point. The next month, it happened. Another time, I dreamt an out-of-town acquaintance came into my place of work wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt. This occurred later in the week. These were interesting experiences, but claiming psychic ability would require me ignoring the thousands of dreams that haven’t come true. In the case of the nocturnal vision about being chased by a spiked ball-wielding Mr. Clean, I’m most grateful.

Extrasensory Perception is an umbrella term, but it most commonly refers to telepathy (being able to read minds), and precognition (seeing the future), especially when it’s personal. For instance, the blue-and-white shirt episode would be characterized as precognition, while foreseeing an avalanche halfway around the world would be dubbed clairvoyance.

Someone may be daydreaming about a college friend they haven’t seen for a while when that friend calls. The tendency for some is to ascribe a higher meaning to this, or to think you two share a special connection. But this overlooks all the times you’ve thought about the friend when they didn’t call, or the calls you got when you weren’t thinking about them.

There are six billion people doing hundreds of things and having hundreds of thoughts every day. So there are untold chances that stunning coincidences will occur, and this requires no supernatural explanation.

Still, the urge to believe can be strong and some have attempted to put a scientific spin on it. Different ESP tests have been devised, with the Ganzfeld experiments being the most well-known. Here, the subject lies in a room with dim red light, white noise, and halved ping pong balls over their eyes. This comes in handy when needing to make a cosmic connection while playing table sports by strobe light.

In these experiments, a sender attempts to telepathically send messages to the subject, who speaks about what he or she is envisioning. There are major issues with how these tests are conducted. They are scheduled for 30 minutes, but the subjects are allowed to start or stop whenever they want. They can start over or stop if it’s going poorly and can stop after a run of “hits.” This takes the idea of experiment, drops it on its head, spins it around, and tosses it in the dumpster, halved ping pong balls and all. In legitimate studies, scientists conduct structured laboratory experiments under tightly-controlled, specified conditions.

Even more egregious is the selective recording of only desirable results. The justification given is that ESP abilities ebb and flow. This would be like a biologist on the Savannah only counting nocturnal animals during the day, then declaring them to be endangered.

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“Seer-iously doubtful” (Nostradamus)

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Nostradamus was a 16th Century Frenchman who spent lots of time staring into bowls of water. Sort of like a chef or fish hobbyist, only without the logic. He claimed to have seen the future in this water, and he wrote prophecies in four-line verses called quatrains. These sometimes mentioned countries or years, but were otherwise cryptic and lacked specifics. They are so open to interpretation that even his proponents disagree about what he predicted.

There have been several books over the past century endorsing Nostradamus, almost all of them claiming he prognosticated major events of the time. None of the proponents have ever interpreted a quatrain to correctly predict something that was going to happen. All are done retroactively. They start with the conclusion, then shoehorn in something that fits. This requires a lot of creativity and downplaying quatrain lines that are less convenient.

The line that gets Nostradamians the most excited is, “The battle will rage against Hister,” since the final word contains five of the letters in Hitler. But this is not an almost-hit of the monster four centuries later. Rather, it refers to the Danube River, which was known as the Hister in Nostradamus’ time and place. Another quatrain mentions Hister, but believing this alludes to the Nazi dictator requires accepting that the only country mentioned in a vision which foresees him is not Germany, Poland, Russia, or France, but Malta.

Proponents argue that one quatrain predicted the death of King Henry II at the hands of Gabriel Montgomery. But that quatrain references a battle, while Henry’s death came in a friendly match celebrating a peace treaty. Also, the quatrain makes mention of a gold cage and two fleets, which have no relevance to an accidental jousting demise. Another quatrain incorrectly prophesied that Egypt would capture the Persian king in 1727.

Some Nostradamus proponents claim this referenced JFK Jr.’s death:

In the year 1999 and seven months
From the sky will come a great King of Terror
To bring back to life the great King of Angolmois
Before and after Mars to reign by good fortune

JFK Jr. was not a king of terror and no one, neither than king of Angolmois, nor anyone else, rose from the dead. I’m unsure if Mars here means the planet or god, but in either case, it was of no more significance at this time than any other. The only line he could charitably be said to have got right was a reference to July 1999. And by that standard, I am a seer if my prediction that there will be a July 2014 comes true.

This is the type of extreme elasticity required when trying to justify Nostradamus as a prophet. Another example is suggesting that “The ancient dame shall fall” is about St. Paul’s Cathedral being destroyed in the Fire of London. The only time the cathedral has gone by this name is when Nostradmians are talking about it. Nostradamus proponent Erika Cheetham, tired of having it pointed out that Hister refers to the Danube, now “interprets” the line as “The battle will rage against Hitler.”

I do give Nostradamus some credit for being a creative writer. And I acknowledge his followers for being creative readers.

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“Oui little challenge” (Ouija board)

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When I decided to start this blog, I was going through possible topics and the Ouija board briefly floated through my mind before being dismissed.

Some topics, such as the anti-vaccine movement, would be a Major League challenge for me, given my microscopic amount of medical knowledge. Others are double-A, such as cryptozoology, which requires addressing issues like eyewitness reports and the fact that animals are discovered all the time. Then we have a Rookie League challenge, such as homeopathy, which necessitates little more than explaining the process.

But Ouija boards seemed downright sandlot. I didn’t think anyone actually believed in them, except perhaps a middle school girl at a slumber party. Or maybe a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who thinks the planchette is being guided by a demon’s digits.

Then a successful, educated, religiously-ambiguous middle age woman told me she believed. If the idea is still out there, it needs to be addressed. So here, somewhat sheepishly, is my rundown of the Ouija board.

To the believer, it is a divination system that can reveal the past, aid in the present, and predict the future. In reality, it is nothing more than the ideomotor effect in action. This is when suggestion or expectation causes involuntary and unconscious motor behavior.

You can conduct a test to show how the ideomotor effect works. Hang a small weight like a ring from a string about two feet long. Hold the end of the string with your arm out in front of you and let the weight hang freely. Ask yourself a yes-or-no question, with clockwise being “yes,” and counterclockwise being “no.” Before long, “answers” will begin to emerge, as the ring will start to swing in small circles.

You are making imperceptible movements without knowing it, and the string causes these movements to be build. Eventually, it will develop into a full swinging motion. When the ideomotor effect kicks during Ouija board use, and the person believes the movement is coming from a spirit, they are vulnerable to all manner of suggestion.

Besides this physiological reason, the subconscious also comes into play when using the Ouija board. This was best demonstrated on Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit!” They had a pair of believers fiddle about with a Ouija board for a few minutes. Then the two were blindfolded and the board stealthily turned 180 degrees. The duo were then asked yes-or-no questions, and they brought the planchette to where they “yes” and “no” options had been before the board was moved.

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“Conspiracy theory theory” (Conspiracy theories, obviously)

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The Sept. 11 attacks were a conspiracy. Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and at least 19 fellow Islamic terrorists conspired to attack the United States.

So conspiracies are real. But so, too, is a movement that finds conspiracies where none exist. There are three varieties of conspiracy theorist: The single event, the systematic, and the super.

The most commonly-believed of the single-event conspiracies is the Kennedy assassination, the only time polls have shown conspiracy theorists to be in the majority. There are three reasons for this. First, this is the one which has the most sub-conspiracies to choose from. Second, it is the one that has been most aired in the mainstream media. Finally, as we will see, conspiracy theories can be a way of trying to make sense of the world. It is hard for some to accept that Camelot was done in by nothing more than a commie drifter loser.

The most prominent conspiracy theory of recent years has dealt with Barack Obama’s birth place. Part of it was the result of a man with dark skin being elected president. Someone who sees his world changing in ways he dislikes would prefer to think sinister forces are at work.

For some birthers, this was just another in their inter-connected collection. But for those who adopted only this theory, it helped them deal with election results they couldn’t handle. Rather than asking, “Where did we go wrong? Why did we fail?,” it was more attractive to declare, “The other side cheated.”

Statements by Hawaiian officials, two birth certificates, two newspaper birth announcements, and verification by FactCheck.org were all dismissed. This highlights a conspiracy theory’s most defining feature: Anything that disproves it becomes part of the conspiracy.

Another single-event conspiracy theory centered on George Zimmerman, in which an everyday event like an SUV overturning morphed into a wide-ranging attempt to bring about his redemption. One piece of “evidence” was that the SUV family hadn’t posted about it on social media. Of course, if they had posted, the same theorists would have written, “There is no way they would have had the presence of mind to post within an hour of almost dying.”

In the systematic conspiracy theory, a shadowy group of Jews, Bilderbergers, Free Masons, or Bohemian Grove members are plotting world domination. Theorists seldom offer a name in association with any of these alleged power mongers. In the past, names were given, but this fell out of favor when persons began asking, “If he was all-powerful and all-evil, why did he die without his goals being met?” For a while, the deaths were presented as a hoax, but each succeeding year made it difficult to convince even the most credulous.

Then we have the super conspiracy theorists, in which it’s all thrown together. Some cases are so extreme that, when polled, there were those who answered “yes” to both these questions: “Is Obama bin Laden alive?” and “Was he already dead before the U.S. Navy SEAL strike?”

Now we’ll delve into how a person comes to such a way of thinking. Sometimes, the reason is self-satisfaction. They like feeling they are privy to special information and are smarter than the masses.

They will usually claim to be rooting out evil government officials and their media lackeys. But this falls flat when actual misdeeds surface. In one week last year, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious were topping the news. If theorists had really been concerned about government malfeasance being shielded by a compliant media, this would have been their dream week. Instead, most conspiracy theory sites didn’t mention these. And Edward Snowden, who would have been a goldmine to anyone wanting to expose government corruption, was instead labeled a plant or false flag.

If there really were a group of impossibly cruel and powerful people controlling world events, that would mortify most people. But for a conspiracy theorist, the idea offers comfort. It is reassuring to think that, rather than there being random evil in the world, it is all being controlled. It is also appealing to think they have some power over it, as they can recognize and expose it. It also offers them the chance to establish a simple world view of right-or-wrong, us-vs.-them, good-against-evil.

While there have always been conspiracy theories, the ideas have exploded exponentially on the Internet. Here, believers can flock to have their confirmation bias stroked in a virtual world free of cognitive dissonance. Of course, this can appeal to any group or agenda, but is especially reassuring to someone seeking refuge from dark overlords and brainwashed masses.

Conspiracy theorists argued that police officers were near the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing so their heroic response could be filmed. Officers knew a bomb was about to explode, so they stood by it. Welcome to inside the mind of a conspiracy theorist.

In the most disturbing conspiracy theorist action I’m aware of, Gene Rosen, who harbored Sandy Hook survivors, was bombarded with threats and hateful insults. Incredibly, his CONSISTENCY was presented as a sign his eyewitness reports were false. Conspiracy theorists argued it proved he had rehearsed it. 

Sometimes, conspiracy theorists form their conclusion even before the event. I covered an exercise in which military and civilian emergency response teams practiced for the detonation of a nuclear dirty bomb. My article found its way to a conspiracy website, where posters excitedly pointed out that a false flag was coming.

There may be no mindset I am further removed from than that of conspiracy theorist, given my belief in Occam’s Razor and my Libertarianism. I am aware there are a few Libertarian conspiracy theorists, and they confound me greatly. They believe a government that is incompetent to build roads or schools is able to seamlessly pull off mass shooting hoaxes, 9/11, AIDS, and tornadoes.