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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.100



[Since this was first posted, Nick Silver <[e-mail]> has
written to tell me that a friend of his was accosted by two guys who
told her that the Beast computer is in Holland and that you can be
saved by converting to their religion.  They also added that every
product bar code includes three 6 digits as frame markers, hence 666,
the number of the beast.  In fact this is not true, and even if it
were it would not fulfill the prophecy in Revelation]

The Scientific Method
=====================

1.1: What is the "scientific method"?
-------------------------------------

The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing
the truth from lies and delusion.  The simple version looks something
like this:

    1: Observe some aspect of the universe.
    2: Invent a theory which is consistent with what you have
       observed.
    3: Use the theory to make predictions.
    4: Test those predictions by experiments or further
       observations.
    5: Modify the theory in the light of your results.
    6: Go to step 3.

This leaves out the co-operation between scientists in building
theories, and the fact that it is impossible for every scientist to
independently do every experiment to confirm every theory.  Because
life is short, scientists have to trust other scientists.  So a
scientist who claims to have done an experiment and obtained certain
results will usually be believed, and most people will not bother to
repeat the experiment.

Experiments do get repeated as part of other experiments.  Most
scientific papers contain suggestions for other scientists to follow
up.  Usually the first step in doing this is to repeat the earlier
work.  So if a theory is the starting point for a significant amount
of work then the initial experiments will get replicated a number of
times.

Some people talk about "Kuhnian paradigm shifts".  This refers to the
observed pattern of the slow extension of scientific knowledge with
occasional sudden revolutions.  This does happen, but it still follows
the steps above.

Many philosophers of science would argue that there is no such thing
as *the* scientific method.

1.2: What is the difference between a fact, a theory and a hypothesis?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

In popular usage, a theory is just a vague and fuzzy sort of fact.
But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that *explains*
existing facts and predicts new ones.  For instance, today I saw the
Sun rise.  This is a fact.  This fact is explained by the theory that
the Earth is round and spins on its axis while orbiting the sun.  This
theory also explains other facts, such as the seasons and the phases
of the moon, and allows me to make predictions about what will happen
tomorrow.

This means that in some ways the words "fact" and "theory" are
interchangeable.  The organisation of the solar system which I used as
a simple example of a theory is normally considered to be a fact which
is explained by Newton's theory of gravity.  And so on.

A hypothesis is a tentative theory which has not yet been tested.

[Can anyone explain this better? PAJ]

1.3: Can science ever really prove anything?
--------------------------------------------

Yes and no.  It depends on what you mean by "prove".

For instance, there is little doubt that an object thrown into the air
will come back down (ignoring spacecraft for the moment).  One could
make a scientific observation that "Things fall down".  I am about to
throw a stone into the air.  I use my observation of past events to
predict that the stone will come back down.  Wow - it did!

But next time I throw a stone, it might not come down.  It might
hover, or go shooting off upwards.  So not even this simple fact has
been really proved.  But you would have to be very perverse to claim
that the next thrown stone will not come back down.  So for ordinary
everyday use, we can say that the theory is true.

You can think of facts and theories (not just scientific ones, but
ordinary everyday ones) as being on a scale of certainty.  Up at the
top end we have facts like "things fall down".  Down at the bottom we
have "the Earth is flat".  In the middle we have "I will die of heart
disease".  Some scientific theories are nearer the top than others,
but none of them ever actually reach it.  Skepticism is usually
directed at claims that contradict facts and theories that are very
near the top of the scale.  If you want to discuss ideas nearer the
middle of the scale (that is, things about which there is real debate
in the scientific community) then you would be better off asking on
the appropriate specialist group.

1.4: If scientific theories keep changing, where is the Truth?
--------------------------------------------------------------

In 1666 Isaac Newton proposed his theory of gravitation.  This was one
of the greatest intellectual feats of all time.  The theory explained
all the observed facts, and made predictions which were later tested
and found to be correct within the accuracy of the instruments being
used.  As far as anyone could see, Newton's theory was the Truth.

During the nineteenth century, more accurate instruments were used to
test Newton's theory, and found some slight discrepancies (for
instance, the orbit of Mercury wasn't quite right).  Albert Einstein
proposed his theories of Relativity, which explained the newly
observed facts and made more predictions.  Those predictions have now
been tested and found to be correct within the accuracy of the
instruments being used.  As far as anyone can see, Einstein's theory
is the Truth.

So how can the Truth change?  Well the answer is that it hasn't.  The
Universe is still the same as it ever was, and Newton's theory is as
true as it ever was.  If you take a course in physics today, you will
be taught Newton's Laws.  They can be used to make predictions, and
those predictions are still correct.  Only if you are dealing with
things that move close to the speed of light do you need to use
Einstein's theories.  If you are working at ordinary speeds outside of
very strong gravitational fields and use Einstein, you will get
(almost) exactly the same answer as you would with Newton.  It just
takes longer because using Einstein involves rather more maths.

One other note about truth: science does not make moral judgements.
Anyone who tries to draw moral lessons from the laws of nature is on
very dangerous ground.  Evolution in particular seems to suffer from
this.  At one time or another it seems to have been used to justify
Nazism, Communism, and every other -ism in between.  These
justifications are all completely bogus.  Similarly, anyone who says
"evolution theory is evil because it is used to support Communism" (or
any other -ism) has also strayed from the path of Logic.

1.5: What evidence is needed for an extraordinary claim?
--------------------------------------------------------

Extraordinary evidence.

An extraordinary claim is one that contradicts a fact which is close
to the top of the certainty scale discussed above.  So if you are
trying to contradict such a fact, you had better have facts available
which are even higher up the certainty scale.

1.6: What is Occam's Razor?
---------------------------

Ockham's Razor ("Occam" is a Latinised variant) is the principle
proposed by William of Ockham in the fifteenth century that
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate", which translates as
"entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily".  Various other
rephrasings have been incorrectly attributed to him.  In more modern
terms, if you have two theories which both explain the observed facts
then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along.  See
W.M. Thorburn, "The Myth of Occam's Razor," _Mind_ 27:345-353 (1918)
for a detailed study of what Ockham actually wrote and what others
wrote after him.

The reason behind the razor is that for any given set of facts there
are an infinite number of theories which could explain them.  For
instance, if you have a graph with four points in a line then the
simplest theory which explains them is a linear relationship, but you
can draw an infinite number of different curves which all pass through
the four points.  There is no evidence that the straight line is the
right one, but it is the simplest possible solution.  So you might as
well use it until someone comes along with a point off the straight
line.

Also, if you have a few thousand points on the line and someone
suggests that there is a point which is off the line, it's a pretty
fair bet that they are wrong.

A related rule which can be used to slice open conspiracy theories is
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be
adequately explained by stupidity".  See the Jargon File (edited by
Eric Raymond) for more details.

1.7: Galileo was persecuted, just like researchers into <X> today.
------------------------------------------------------------------

People putting forward extraordinary claims often refer to Galileo as
an example of a great genius being persecuted by the establishment for
heretical theories.  They claim that the scientific establishment is
afraid of being proved wrong, and hence is trying to suppress the
truth.

This is a classic conspiracy theory.  The Conspirators are all those
scientists who have bothered to point out flaws in the claims put
forward by the researchers.

The usual rejoinder to someone who says "They laughed at Columbus,
they laughed at Galileo" is to say "And they also laughed at Koko the
Clown".  This may be a quotation from Carl Sagan.

1.8: What is the "Experimenter effect"?
---------------------------------------

It is unconscious bias introduced into an experiment by the
experimenter.  It can occur in one of two ways:

 o Scientists doing experiments often have to look for small effects
   or differences between the things being experimented on.

 o Experiments require many samples to be treated in exactly the same
   way in order to get consistent results.

Note that neither of these sources of bias require deliberate fraud.

A classic example of the first kind of bias was the "N-ray",
discovered early this century.  Detecting them required the
investigator to look for very faint flashes of light on a
scintillator.  Many scientists reported detecting these rays.  They
were fooling themselves.

A classic example of the second kind of bias were the detailed
investigations into the relationship between race and brain capacity
in the last century.  Skull capacity was measured by filling the empty
skull with beans and then measuring the volume of beans.  A
significant difference in the results could be obtained by ensuring
that the beans in some skulls were better settled than others.  For
more details on this story, read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure
of Man".

For more detail see:

T.X. Barber, "Pitfalls of Human Research", 1976.
Robert Rosenthal, "Pygmalion on the Classroom".

[These were recommended by a correspondant.  Sorry I have no more
information.]

1.9: How much fraud is there in science?
----------------------------------------

In its simplest form this question is unanswerable, since undetected
fraud is by definition unmeasurable.  Of course there are many known
cases of fraud in science.  Some use this to argue that all scientific
findings (especially those they dislike) are worthless.

This ignores the replication of results which is routinely undertaken
by scientists.  Any important result will be replicated many times by
many different people.  So an assertion that (for instance) scientists
are lying about carbon-14 dating requires that a great many scientists
are engaging in a conspiracy.  See the previous question.

In fact the existence of known and documented fraud is a good
illustration of the self-correcting nature of science.  It does not
matter if a proportion of scientists are fraudsters because any
important work they do will not be taken seriously without independant
verification.  Hence they must confine themselves to pedestrian work
which no-one is much interested in, and obtain only the expected
results.  For anyone with the talent and ambition necessary to get a
Ph.D this is not going to be an enjoyable career.

Also, most scientists are idealists.  They perceive beauty in
scientific truth and see its discovery as their vocation.  Without
this most would have gone into something more lucrative.

These arguments suggest that undetected fraud in science is both rare
and unimportant.

For more detail on more scientific frauds than you ever knew existed,
see "False Prophets" by Alexander Koln.

1.9.1: Did Mendel fudge his results?
------------------------------------

Gregor Mendel was a 19th Century monk who discovered the laws of
inheritance (dominant and recessive genes etc.).  More recent analysis
of his results suggest that they are "too good to be true".  Mendelian
inheritance involves the random selection of possible traits from
parents, with particular probabilities of particular traits.  It seems
from Mendel's raw data that chance played a smaller part in his
experiments than it should.  This does not imply fraud on the part of
Mendel.

First, the experiments were not "blind" (see the questions about
double blind experiments and the experimenter effect).  Deciding
whether a particular pea is wrinkled or not needs judgement, and this
could bias Mendel's results towards the expected.  This is an example
of the "experimenter effect".

Second, Mendel's Laws are only approximations.  In fact it does turn
out that in some cases inheritance is less random than his Laws state.

Third, Mendel might have neglected to publish the results of `failed'
experiments.  It is interesting to note that all of his published work
is concerned with characteristics which are controlled by single
genes.  He did not report any experiments with more complicated
characteristics.

Psychic Powers
==============

2.1: Is Uri Geller for real?
----------------------------

Randi has, through various demonstrations, cast doubt on Geller's
claims of psychic powers.  Geller has sued Randi.  Skeptics are
advised to exercise extreme caution in addressing this topic, given
the pending litigation.  Bay Area Skeptics, Tampa Bay Skeptics, and
the Skeptics Society of Los Angeles have all been threatened with
litigation over this matter, which could be expected to be extremely
expensive and time-consuming, whatever the eventual outcome.

2.2: I have had a psychic experience.
-------------------------------------

That is pretty remarkable.  But before you post to the Net, consider:-

 * Could it just be coincidence?  The human mind is good at
   remembering odd things but tends to forget ordinary things, such as
   premonitions that didn't happen.  If psychic experiences happen to
   you on a regular basis then try writing down the premonitions when
   you have them and then comparing your record to later events.

 * If you think you have a mental link with someone you know, try a
   few tests with playing cards [Has anyone got a good protocol for
   this kind of thing? PAJ].

 * If you are receiving messages from elsewhere (e.g. UFOs), ask for
   specific information which you can then check.  A proof or
   counterexample of Fermat's Last Theorem (see the sci.math FAQ)
   for example [Has anyone got any better ones? PAJ]

If you want to make a formal registration of your predictions, send
mail to <[e-mail]>.

2.3: What is "Sensory Leakage"?
-------------------------------

Sensory leakage is something that designers of tests for psi must be
careful to guard against.  Tests for psi use powerful statistical
tests to search for faint traces of communication.  Unfortunately the
fact that communication has taken place does not prove that it was
done by telepathy.  It could have been through some more mundane form
of signal.

For instance one experiment involved a "sender" in one room with a
stack of numbered cards (1-10) and a "receiver" in another room trying
to guess what the next card was.  The sender looked at a card and
pressed a button to signal to the receiver.  The receiver then tried
to guess the number on the card.  There was a definite correlation
between the card numbers and the guesses.  However the sender could
signal the receiver by varying the delays between buzzes.  When this
channel of communication was removed, the effect disappeared.

2.4: Who are the main psi researchers?
--------------------------------------

Targ and Puthoff spring to mind, but actually, Puthoff is no longer
doing psi research (I don't have any idea what Targ is up to these
days.) Granted, their SRI work is quite famous, but if we want to
review the historical (rather than currently active) figures, you
probably want to go back at least as far as the Rhines.

Helmut Schmidt, a physicist who has been looking at PK, is still
active at the Mind Science Foundation in Texas. (Sorry, I don't know a
more specific address than that.)

The Foundation for Research into the Nature of Man (FRNM), which is
what Rhine's work at Duke eventually developed into, is still active
near Duke. It is currently headed by K. Ramakrishna Rao.

The Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinborough
is, as far as I know, still active. The current incumbent is, I think,
named Robert Morris; his main assistant is Deborah Delanoy.

Roger Nelson is active in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
center (PEAR) and occasionally posts to the net.

Active workers in the field that I can think of currently include Dean
Radin, who also posts to sci.skeptic as <[e-mail]>,
Jessica Utts, and Ed May. The Parapsychological Association has a much
larger roster than that, of course, but I'm not a member myself and
don't have access to their membership roll.

2.5: Does dowsing work?
-----------------------

Dowsing is the art of finding underground water by extra-sensory
perception.  Sometimes tools are used.  The traditional one is a
forked hazel stick.  When held in the correct way this will twitch
in response to small muscle movements in the back and shoulders.
Another tool which has become popular in recent years is a pair of
rods mounted in tubes which are held in each hand just in front of the
user.

        Rod bent into tube.
        |
        V
           r-------------------------------
       ||                    ^
       ||                    |
       || <- Tube           Rod
       ||
       ||
       ||

When water (or something else) is dowsed, the rods turn towards each
other.  Like the forked hazel stick it amplifies small movements of
the arm and shoulder muscles.

Unfortunately careful tests of dowsers have revealed absolutely no
ability to find water or anything else by extra-sensory perception.
Dowsing success stories can be explained by noting that wherever you
dig you will find water.  You just have to dig deep enough.

James Randi has tested more than 100 dowsers (don't know the actual
count). He tells that only 2 tried to cheat.  This suggests that
dowsers are basically honest people.

The Skeptical Inquirer has published a number of articles on dowsing.
James Randi's "A Controlled Test of Dowsing" was in vol. 4, no. 1, pp.
16-20.  Michael Martin's "A New Controlled Dowsing Experiment" was in
vol. 8, pp. 138-140.  Dick Smith's "Two Tests of Divining in
Australia" was in vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 34-37.  Randi's book Flim-Flam!
has a section on dowsing.  The main skeptical book about dowsing is
Vogt, E.Z. and Hyman R. (1959, 2nd edition 1979) "Water witching USA".
The University of Chicago Press. 260 pages. Available as a paperback.


2.6: Could psi be inhibited by the presence of skeptics?
--------------------------------------------------------

Psychic researchers have noted something they call the "shyness
effect" (or more grandly "psi-mediated experimenter effects").  This
is invoked to explain the way in which many subjects' psychic powers
seem to fade when exposed to careful scrutiny and proper controls.
Often it is alleged that having a skeptic in the audience can prevent
the delicate operation of psi.

In its most extreme form this hypothesis becomes a "catch-22" which
makes any results consistent with a psi hypothesis.  This renders the
hypothesis unfalsifieable and therefore unscientific.  Less extreme
forms might be testable.

UFOs and Flying Saucers
=======================

3.1  What are UFOs?
-------------------

UFOs are, simply, Unidentified Flying Objects, no more, no less.  This
means that if you are out one night and see a light moving in the sky
and cannot immediately identify it as a certain star, planet or other
object, then it is by definition a UFO.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE
SEEN AN ALIEN SPACESHIP.

A better question would be:

3.1.1  Are UFOs alien spacecraft?
---------------------------------

Probably not.  The vast majority of UFO reports, when investigated by
competent researchers (and that is a problem all by itself), can be
easily explained as natural or manmade objects misidentified for one
reason or another.  The actual percentage is around 95%.  A very few
reports are provable hoaxes.  The remaining few percent (some skeptics
argue that there are no remaining reports) are not explained at this
time.  Again, this does not mean that they are observations of alien
spaceships.  All we can say is that, given the information presently
available, some cases don't appear to be stars, balloons, airplanes,
aurorae. etc.  Given a great deal more time and effort, many more
could likely be identified.  It's possible that the witness(es) were
in error, or are very good liars.  And the remaining few cases?  Well,
the best we can say, as true skeptics, is that we don't know what they
were, but there is NO proof that they were alien spacecraft.

3.1.2  Are UFOs natural phenomena?
----------------------------------

Possibly.  A number of theories have been proposed, suggesting that
some UFOs are "plasmas" or variations of ball lightning or earthquake
lights.  Unfortunately, the theories seem to change to fit observed
data, rather than predict the observations.  Also, studies designed to
support the theories have used newspaper articles and raw, unsifted UFO
case lists for data, and therefore the studies do not appear to be
completely unbiased.  Perhaps time will tell.  Until then it is safe to
say that SOME UFOs are probably ball lightning or other rare natural
phenomena.

3.1.3  But isn't it possible that aliens are visiting Earth?
------------------------------------------------------------

Yes.  But it is also possible that there is an invisible snorg reading
this over your shoulder right now.

Basically, some astronomers (e.g. Carl Sagan) are convinced that there
are other habitable planets in our galaxy, and that there may be some
form of life on them.  Assuming that parallel evolution occurred on
these other planets, there MIGHT be intelligent life forms there.  It
is possible that some of these life forms could have an advanced
civilization, and perhaps have achieved space travel.  BUT - there is
no proof that this is so.  SETI programs such as those Carl Sagan is
involved with are "listening" to other stars in the hope of detecting
radio signals which might indicate intelligent life - kind of
listening for the equivalent of "Watson, come here, I need you!", or
"I love Lucy" in the infancy of our early communications.  Such
searches have been fruitless, so far.

If there are aliens on distant planets, then it is possible that they
might have found a way to travel between stars in their lifetimes.
According to our present understanding of physics, this is not likely,
given the vast distances between stars.  Even travelling at the speed
of light (which cannot be done), a round trip to the nearest star would
take about ten years.  This does not rule out interstellar ships, but
it does make it seem unlikely that we are being visited.

3.2: Is it true that the US government has a crashed flying saucer (MJ-12)?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The MJ-12 documents purportedly established that the U.S. government
had established a secret organization of 12 people called MJ-12 or
Majestic-12 to deal with UFOs.  These 12 people were all conveniently
dead at the time the documents were discovered.  Klass proved that the
documents are fakes.

The Roswell Incident refers to an alleged UFO crash in Roswell, NM.
This is also known as the "Roswell Incident".  Philip Klass has also
investigated this one and shown the reports to be bogus.  One of the
more notable items of "evidence" was a document "signed by the
president".  Klass showed that this signature was a photocopy of an
existing presidential signature.  [Can someone supply me with a proper
section on this please?  PAJ]

All such allegations involve a conspiracy theory.  Sometimes these
conspiracy theories get very big indeed.  One common one involves a
treaty between the government and the saucer people whereby the
government stays in power and the saucer people get to abduct humans
for various gruesome purposes.

3.3: What is "channeling"?
--------------------------

"Channeling" is remarkably similar to Spiritualism.  The main
difference is that the relatives "on the other side" are replaced by a
wide variety of other beings.  This means that the channeler does not
have to worry about providing accurate information about people in the
audience.  The beings that channelers claim to speak for range from
enlightened aliens to humans who lived thousands of years ago to
discarnate intelligences who have never had bodies.

3.4: How can we test a channeler?
---------------------------------

Some channelled entities are alleged to come from the distant past.
They can be asked about events, climate and language in ways that can
be checked.

[I have read lists of questions which advanced beings should be able to
answer (e.g. Proof or counterexample of Fermat's Last Theorem).  Can
someone suggest more? PAJ]

3.5: I am in telepathic contact with the aliens.
------------------------------------------------

See the earlier section on psychic experiences and then try testing
your aliens to see if you get a specific answer.  If you can come up
with new facts which can be tested by scientists then you will be
listened to.  Otherwise you would do better on alt.alien.visitors.

3.6: Some bozo has just posted a load of "teachings" from a UFO.  What
----------------------------------------------------------------------
     should I do?
     ------------

You have several choices:

 * Ignore it.

 * Ask for evidence (see question 3.4 above).

 * Insult or flame the poster.  This is a bad idea.

3.7:  Are crop circles made by flying saucers?
---------------------------------------------

There is no convincing evidence that crop circles or any other kind of
UGM (Unusual Ground Markings) were made by aliens.  There are some
reports of lights being seen in and around crop circle sites, and a few
videos showing objects flitting over fields.  The lights are hardly
proof, and the objects in the videos seem to be pieces of foil or paper
being tossed about by the wind.

In a deliberate attempt to test crop circle "experts", a crop circle
was faked under the watchful eyes of the media.  When cerealogists were
called in, they proclaimed it genuine.

3.7.1:   Are crop circles made by "vortices"?
---------------------------------------------

Probably not.  There are a number of meteorologists who believe that
crop circle formations are created by rare natural forces such as
"ionised plasma vortices".  Basically, winds blowing across rolling
hills sometimes form eddies which in some circumstances (that have
never been quantified) become strong, downward spiralling drafts which
lay down the crop.  Cerealogists claim to have over two dozen witnesses
to such events.  Unfortunately, many more have said they have seen
flying saucers do the same thing.

Scientific articles arguing for the reality of these vortices have
appeared regularly in the Journal of Meteorology.  But its editor is
the leading proponent of the theory, Dr. Terence Meaden.

Winds can lay down crop in patches known as lodging.  But geometric
patterns in fields can hardly be attributable to natural phenomena.
Meaden has changed his theory to first accomodate complex circles,
ovals and even triangles (!), but now admits that most circles are
hoaxes and the theory can only explain simpler patterns.