SGU Episode 60

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SGU Episode 60
September 13th 2006
Juan Diego (1474–1548) Click for detailed caption He is said to have been granted apparitions of the Virgin Mary. His visions and the imparting of the miraculous image are together known as the Guadalupe event and are the basis of the veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This veneration is ubiquitous in Mexico, prevalent throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas, and increasingly widespread beyond. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is now one of the world's major Christian pilgrimage destinations, receiving 22 million visitors in 2010.
SGU 59                      SGU 61
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quotes of the Week
--Science, the only true magic. --It's curious, isn't it, that with low-grade, chronic conditions (back pain, seasonal affective disorder, what have you) people are eager to try alternative hocus-pocus. But bring on something virulent, acute, and truly terrifying, then, brother, bring on Western medicine! Nothing like your eyeballs leaking blood to put things in perspective, hey?
first quote: Dexter, Dexter's Laboratory second: a forum user named kWe
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, September 13^th, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Ahoy-hoy

S: Evan Bernstein...

E: Hello everyone.

S: ...and back from Mexico, Jay Novella.

J: Hola, Señores and Señoritas.

E: Hola.

S: Welcome everyone.

E: Hello, doctor.

R: Welcome back, Jay.

J: Thank you very much.

R: We missed you.

J: Oh that's so sweet.

S: Jay's going to give us a quick report from Mexico in just a minute. But first, let's start off with some 9-11 news.

News Items

5th year anniversary of 9/11 (0:54)

• Purdue researchers create computer model of jet crashing into WTC towers
  news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2006/060911.Sozen.WTC.html
  
  Recent gullible article regarding the 9/11 Scholars for Truth
  www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403757&in_page_id=1770
  

S: We are at September 13^th, so we're two days past the 5th anniversary of 9/11, and just a couple of 9/11 items caught by intention this week. The first is a report from Purdue University where scientists and engineers are developing a computer simulation of the Jets crashing into the World Trade Center. And they are doing this to see how the structural damage occurred and what that damage would have done to the overall structural integrity of the World Trade Center to better understand why the towers collapsed. They've only done the initial impact. They haven't yet run the simulation to look at the later consequences.

R: Now Steve, are they part of the vast government conspiracy or not?

S: Apparently, they are just supporting the standard story, the government's status quo.

J: I would love to see them run that several hundred thousand times or whatever to see what the general outcome is of the things crashing in.

S: What percentage of times the towers would collapse? He says: "As a result of this research, we better understand what happens when a tremendous mass of fluids such as fuel hits a solid object at high velocity. We believe most of the structural damage from such aircraft collisions is caused by the mass of fluid on the craft, which includes the fuel."

B: That was a surprise to me. I never realized that it's really not the kinetic energy of the metal. The fluid, they compared it to the, the skin of the airplane, it was like a sausage skin. The fluid had many, many times the mass of the metal on the ship. That was a surprise to me. I never realized that.

J: Bob, you're saying that the weight of the liquids on the plane-

B: Did most of the damage.

J: Did most of the damage. I didn't know that.

S: Another thing to say is that "current findings from the simulation have identified the destruction of 11 columns on a 94th floor, 10 columns on a 95th floor, and 9 columns on the 96th floor. This is a major insight when you lose close to 25% of your columns at a given level the building is significantly weakened and vulnerable to collapse." I'm sure we'll learn more about the scientific details of the tower collapse. Of course, as Rebecca said, this will not influence the conspiracy theories one bit.

J: Don't let the truth get in the way.

S: The other 9/11 related news item that caught my attention was from the Daily Mail. This was written by reporter Jaya Narane, and it was a terrible job of reporting in my opinion. She is talking about the scholars for 9/11 Truth, and whose membership includes up to 75 leading scientists and experts from universities across the US. That is just a terribly sensationalistic and misleading characterization. This is a group that we've mentioned before. These are professors and students and et cetera who are conspiracy theorists. They believe that the accepted story of 9/11 is not true that there is evidence that the American government, the Bush administration, is complicit in carrying out the attacks on 9/11. To call them leading scientists and experts is a total crock. These people were anonymous before they came out in the scholars for truth. They are really nobodies. They are, and their scholarship is totally irrelevant. If anything, they make a mockery of scholarship. Their arguments have been utterly and thoroughly discredited numerous times, yet they do not change them. They keep repeating the same discredited arguments over and over again. We've talked about a lot of them on this show, and they've been thoroughly debunked in many other venues. They're just a bunch of conspiracy theorist crackpot, and trying to push themselves off as having some kind of scholarly credentials is ludicrous. This reporter is just pumping up there, calling them leading experts, is completely misleading.

J: It's a rally in conspiracy, Steve.

E: The Raëlians?

S: How did they get involved?

J: They're always involved.

S: This is the UFO cult that thinks that humans were planted on Earth by aliens?

R: People actually are lizards for the Raëlians. Is that what it is? Then the people who are ruling the world who look like humans are actually lizard aliens?

B: So were, what, sleestaks? Is that it?

E: They're also involved in the cloning, the whole cloning.

S: They had that hoax cloning claim, which they did, and practically admitted that they did it just for the free press coverage that it would guard their group.

R: Oh yeah, that's right.

E: Ironically, I think I would accept a scientific opinion from the Raëlians more than I would from this group of 75 professors in their ivory towers.

S: Some quotes from this article, Professor James Fitzer, a retired philosopher of science at the University of Minnesota, said: "The evidence is so overwhelming, but most Americans don't have time to take a look at this." Which is a total straw man. I mean, that's just complete nonsense. People have picked over their claims in fine detail and refuted them thoroughly. So that statement is absolutely meaningless.

B: Here's another one, Steve. Professor Jones said: "We don't believe that 19 hijackers and a few others in the cave in Afghanistan pull this off acting alone. I mean, does he imply that we were in cahoots with the terrorists?

S: Yeah, of course.

J: Yeah. And that's also a logical fallacy too.

S: So what's the logical fallacy, Jay?

J: From incredulity?

S: Argument from incredulity. Yeah, basically. And it's a pretty flimsy one because they committed this heinous act of terror just with box cutters and plane tickets. It didn't really require much. I mean, it wasn't the high-tech plan. It was just, yes, 19 guys sitting in a cave could cook this up and pull it off.

J: It was exploiting a major hole in the security system of our airlines.

S: Several dozen holes.

J: Yeah, you know what I mean? It was just a huge exploitation of the system.

B: And don't forget, they also got lucky. I mean, they so many times they could have been nailed and they just weren't because either someone didn't take a tip seriously or they just got lucky, I think, in a lot of ways. Didn't they come very close to being nailed a few times?

R: Yeah, on a number of occasions and they usually escaped via intense government incompetency.

S: Incompetency is always a simpler answer than a conspiracy.

B: Right. There's one more quote here that was pretty irksome of University of Wisconsin assistant professor Kevin Baird said that: "The experts are unwilling to believe theories which don't fit into their belief systems." No, experts are unwilling to believe theories which don't fit into their facts or have no evidence to support them.

J: Yeah, yeah.

S: Right. That whole supporting the status quo closed-minded, that's the true believers say that every single time. Every time you shoot down their wacky theory like, oh, you're not open-minded. We can't challenge your precious paradigm. You can't take it. Or sometimes the UFO guys like to say you're afraid of the truth. What are you so afraid of? It's just nonsense. It's all a distraction from the fact that they have no logical evidence on their side.

Jay reports from Mexico (8:30)

• Jay reports from Mexico

S: So Jay, tell us what pseudoscience you encountered on your trip through Mexico.

R: Was it Chupacabras?

J: What was that?

R: I'm wondering if it was the goat sucker. I'm really excited. Was it the goat sucker?

J: No. I had my eye out for goat suckers. I didn't see one damn goat sucker down there. Mexico is a great, great, great place to visit. I love it. Been there twice. I've definitely planned on going again. The reason why I went down to Mexico is because I recently got engaged. I know all you guys know that.

E: Where in Mexico, Jay? Where did you go?

J: I was down in Playa del Carmen, which is about an hour south of Cancun right across from the island of... Anybody know it? Cozumel.

R: Cool.

J: Steve requested that on my trip I keep my eye open for anything interesting and the realm of skepticism, things that we could talk on the show about and everything. I definitely went to the local spot in my hotel and I was looking for anything new that we haven't encountered. I didn't see anything. But I did notice while being driven around on a lot of tours, going snorkeling and doing all the good stuff that you can do in Mexico. I noticed that a lot of the local residents, as soon as you leave the area where the hotels are and where the money is, the poverty level shows. You really you can see how poor the people live. And I noticed that in a lot of the poor sections that there was all these little shrines. Heavily decorated and everything and they were cool looking, but I had no idea what they were and I started asking around. And one of the guys that I was on a tour with told me that those are shrines to Our Lady of Guadalupe. While I was down there and I had an internet connection in the hotel, I started looking it up and reading more and trying to figure out more about it. So basically, I don't know to what degree you guys know about this, but I didn't know about this. And this is the Mexican's local Virgin Mary encounter. Now right now, Mexico is estimated to be roughly 89% Roman Catholic. So the quick background is 1531, a man named Juan Diego. And I can't pronounce his last name on a hill near Mexico City was visited by the Virgin Mary.

B: Juan Diego? Isn't he the coffee guy?

J: No, it's his second cousin.

S: That's Juan Valdés.

J: Anyway, so his visitation lasted four days and she wanted two things. She wanted a temple built and she also wanted people to come there to be healed. The church was built two years after the visitation and was dedicated to her. So that's the basic story of it. The real thing that I found interesting though was that this lady of Guadalupe visitation really was one of the biggest things to influence the fusion of local religion and Catholicism. It also gave special importance to the lay people in Mexico. It gave them their own, basically their own patron saint that represented them and their class. It just had a tremendous effect on the church being able to pull in new recruits. It gave them something to talk about, gave them a local story that everyone could relate to. So when they were using this as a recruiting tool, everyone could relate to it and they morphed it into something that the people had a close attachment to.

S: Right. It had the flavor of their local traditions already.

R: Well, it's kind of similar to the advent of pretty much any major religion at all.

S: That's true.

R: Where it combines... It's definitely been happening since Roman times when you've got the Roman gods colliding with Greek and Egyptian gods. And you can really see all the myths overlapping. And it's one of the reasons why I originally became an atheist because I studied the way that all religions are basically the same kind of stories that overlap. It's one of the things that kind of put me on the path to skepticism in general.

S: Yeah, but you can see the cultural evolution of the belief systems. Even just Catholicism in general, a lot of the ritual and traditions, especially in the Catholic church, were basically borrowed from Roman pagan traditions. The reason why Christmas is on December 25th has nothing to do with when you might think that Jesus was actually born. It has to do with the fact that that was a pagan holiday. That was the Winter Solstice holiday.

R: Winter Solstice.

S: So the pre-existing religious traditions just morph into whatever the new religion is that's being adopted.

J: Steve, it's actually very common, though, for government officials and church officials to push this, to create a fusion. A couple more points I want to bring up, though, just from a skeptics perspective, which includes some Catholics, a lot of them doubt that Juan Diego's existence, at all. They say that he was created to bolster the church's ability to convert locals. I already told you that. And also an abbot that ran the local church said that he's considered a symbol not a reality. So they've actually had pretty good skeptical inquiry into this. The apron of Juan Diego, which was the item that received the iconic image of the Our Lady of Guadalupe, has been studied many, many times. And it's been said both that it's legit and it's been said that it's not legit. And if you're interested, definitely go and read about all the studies that have been done on it. But the guy who did this study on the Shroud of Turn, who we would respect did a study on it. And I think he came up with some negative findings.

S: Who is that Will McCrone?

J: Yeah. McCrone.

S: Well, thank you, Jay, for that report.

No Gulf War Syndrome (14:10)

• http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/12/gulf.illness.ap/index.html
  

S: One more news item this week before we go on to your emails. This is a VA report, the title of which there is no Gulf War syndrome. Now Gulf War syndrome has been controversial since the idea was first proposed. This goes back to the first Gulf War in 1991. When the returning veterans seemed to have a higher incidence of physical elements and complaints. There have been a number of epidemiological studies, some negative, some positive. But enough large epidemiological studies were positive to show that yeah, there definitely was a higher risk of having medical complaints for those people who were both in the service and serving in the Gulf War compared to people who were in the service but not in the Gulf War. So they were not deployed. But no one could really nail down what the Gulf War syndrome potentially was and what what cause or causes were the suspicion was that it may have been some exposure to some ill-defined toxins or gases or whatever that they were exposed to while while in Iraq.

R: Was there ever was there ever a theory that it was post-traumatic stress?

S: Yeah, absolutely. And a number of studies in fact suggested that perhaps stress was playing a significant role in the symptoms. Of course, this issue was hugely politicized. The government is trying to be politically correct. They don't want to not believe the veterans who were claiming that they were injured in some way. It's all tied to benefits. So there's very specific implications of all of this. So the science gets a little bit muddied. Like so many of the issues that we deal with. But there definitely have been some, looking just purely at the science, some Gulf War syndrome skeptics. But the worst problem with the Gulf War syndrome is that nobody knew what it was. And it's hard to know if something exists if you can't really define it very well. This is a latest report. This is from the Institute of Medicine. And they basically concluded that there is no unique pattern, I'm going to quote now "There's no unique of symptoms. Every pattern identified in Gulf War veterans also seems to exist in other veterans. Though it is important to note the symptoms rate is higher and is a serious issue." So that's Dr. Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins University. So she headed the IOM committee that prepared the report. So they're basically saying, yep, they have more symptoms, but they don't fit into any pattern. So without a pattern, you can't even call it a syndrome, let alone a specific physiological disease. A lot of the symptoms that are commonly reported are things such as fatigue and memory loss and difficulty sleeping and joint pains. So these are very-

J: Super common.

S: What we call non-specific symptoms. Non-specific symptoms are ones that can occur with many, many syndromes or diseases. And in fact, it can occur in people who are generally healthy. They're just what we call symptoms of life. People get aches and pains and fatigue and may have trouble sleeping now and then without having some underlying disease. So they don't really point you in the direction of a specific entity. So when you have a list of all the most common non-specific symptoms, to me that says there isn't really a real physiological disease here that we're seeing. The same list of symptoms you might find also under every single dubious syndrome, either Candida hypersensitivity or multiple environmental sensitivity.

B: Fibromyalgia, is that one of them?

S: Fibromyalgia, yes, but there are some specific symptoms that do go with fibromyalgia. And if you have those specific symptoms, then maybe you actually do have something.And that may be a very low grade autoimmune process. So there is actually some-

R: What's fibromyalgia again?

S: Fibromyalgia is a syndrome of basically muscle pain. The specific symptoms are trigger points. So there are specific points in the muscles that if you push on them, that point is very painful. But without the specific pattern of trigger point sensitivity, if you just have the fatigue and the muscle aches and the difficulty of sleeping, then is that really fibromyalgia or is it just again just non-specific symptoms? And I think the diagnosis is hugely overmade. Plus you can get all those symptoms just from being sleep deprived. So a lot of people, they're either just anxious or depressed or they're not sleeping well, and they get all these basic non-specific symptoms. And then depending on who you see, you get labeled with some diagnosis or another.

J: Steve, from what I understand, fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by lack of sleep.

S: So it's probably not to say fibromyalgia is caused by lack of sleep. It might be more meaningful to say that lack of sleep can cause many of the symptoms which are frequently associated but are non-specific for fibromyalgia.

E: But that's a tongue twister.

S: I wouldn't even use the label fibromyalgia in those cases.

J: So getting back to where we started with the Gulf War syndrome, my question to you, Steve, is don't they always want to figure out what is it's caused by a chemical, a local disease that they could have picked up or a number of things? Do they have any theories or people claiming that it was something like that?

S: They're only suspicions, they haven't been able to trace it any specific effect to any specific toxin or chemical that they were exposed to or even if anything in the environment. It remains in this very nebulous world of this non-specific syndrome. Now there's one specific disease that there was a report, this is going back about six or seven years, there was a higher incidence of Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, in soldiers who served in the Gulf War. And a lot of people pointed that and said, aha, here we have a very specific disease that is diagnosable. It's not just a list of symptoms. The problem with this is that the absolute numbers are still very small. We're still only talking about a few people. And just by chance having one or two extra cases would be enough to have skewed the data. So it's still not ironclad. It still could just be a quirk in the evidence because it was the absolute numbers were so small. Well, let's move on to your questions and emails.

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups

Persistent Vegetative State (20:34)

Hi All,

Firstly, let me congratulate you on an excellent podcast. I discovered The Skeptic's Guide only about a month ago and have been slowly listening back to all episodes. It's interesting to hear the audio quality improve vs. time, but I still haven't quite worked out at which point Thomas Dolby's people got in touch, forcing you to switch over to your current funky bass riffing theme tune! But I thoroughly enjoy the show, a great blend of
interesting issues, intelligent debate and humour. Thank you!

Anyway, I am writing to draw this article to your attention, printed in today's Guardian newspaper.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1867596,00.html

It's about a patient diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, who was then able to 'communicate' with her doctors via her brain waves-- when asked to think about 'tennis' the part of her brain responsible for limb movement began to fire, when asked to think of her home, another section responsible for location mapping was triggered.

How do you think this incident will change our understanding of this neurological condition? Do you think that if this technique had been applied in the Schiavo case, the outcome could have been different?

All the best
Niall Shakeshaft
Helsinki, Finland

Hello again,

Sorry for spamming you, but it seems you can't move these days without seeing an article on this condition. Would be fascinated to hear your opinions on the previous article I sent you and also now (again in the Guardian), this one--

www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1870279,00.html

I think this is again interesting in relation to last year's Schiavo case, but I am sure that both stories are more nuanced than the mass media is portraying. Would be great to hear a skeptical and expert discussion of this.

Cheers
Niall

Science or just Mathematics? (32:24)

How assured can we be about mathematics when applying it to the real, physical world? My issue is that most mathematical proposals are unfalsifiable, like the big bang theory, string theory, and all these others that fall outside the realm of science. Also the fact that we use negative numbers, when no such thing as a negative observed in the physical world. Why is it that mathematician's are more concerned with an equation being beautiful and perfect, rather than precise? I don't think you'll be able to some up the entire universe in an equation smaller than an inch (a term used often within math) although unbreakable and rightfully so, could it be that math or its practitioners are flawed in
someway?

Your fan Elias LuNa, monkey vs. bird enthusiast, and a Rebecca marriage applicant.
Bronx, New York

Thinking about the dead (38:16)

Hey guys,

I discovered your podcast a couple weeks ago and I must say that I am hooked. It is good to have a show that expresses my opinions on a great majority of issues. Thanks and keep it up!

My question is about experiences people have had with the recently deceased. Today my psychology professor was talking about the domains of science and as an example of things that were outside the realm of science she gave us an anecdote. She told us about an experience her mother and grandmother had. Her uncle was serving in a combat theater during World War II. One night her grandmother had a dream about my professors uncle(her son)walking up to her and saying good-bye and that he was going to a better place. The next morning my professor's grandmother related the dream to my professor's mother. Three hours later they found out that my professor's uncle had died in combat. My professor went on to say that there are a lot of anecdotes like this, coming from believable people. She also said that there was no way to investigate this phenomena because the results were not repeatable.

My question for you guys is 'do you agree with my professor that this type of phenomena can not be investigated by the tools of science?' Must we just sit back and let one of the most important questions in humanity let go unanswered?

Thank you,

Jeff Matzke
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Moon Hoax? (44:03)

I seen this and it really made me laugh to think that people can believe the craziest of things, at first I assumed it was a joke but as you read on it seems that this is a serious site the article is at

www.revisionism.nl/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm

Gregg Carson
Northern Ireland

Name That Logical Fallacy (47:34)

• _Fallacy_Topic_Event_

Statements taken from http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html

"We know that the sprinkler systems were activated because survivors reported water in the stairwells. If the sprinklers were working, how could there be a 'raging inferno' in the WTC towers?"

"How could the WTC towers have collapsed without a controlled demolition since no steel-frame, high-rise buildings have ever before or since been brought down due to fires? Temperatures due to fire don't get hot enough for buildings to collapse."

[top]                        

Science or Fiction (51:10)

Item #1: A new study shows that fathers secrete a hormone that delays the sexual maturity of their daughters. Item #2: A new archaeological evidence from Gibraltar demonstrates cohabitation between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon man. Item #3: A new study suggests that bicyclists who wear helmets are at greater accident risk.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Cohabitating early humans
Science	Fathers delay maturity
Science	Helmet-wearing is riskier

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Bob	Cohabitating early humans
Jay	Helmet-wearing is riskier
Rebecca	Cohabitating early humans
Evan	Cohabitating early humans

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Puzzle (59:05)

Last week's Puzzle:

He says that the power of the mind is like an iceberg, 90% of it lies beneath the surface.
He says that this 90% of the mind's power is the subconscious.
He says the subconscious listens and absorbs experiences - much like a sponge soaks up water.
He says we need only talk to our subconscious to make ourselves happy, relaxed, strong, or whatever else we desire.
He says the absorptive qualities of subconsciousness will make these things come true.
He says the subconscious speaks back to us and that we need to listen to it.
He calls this instinct and intuition.
He says instinct and intuition are psychic gifts.
And he says by listening to these psychic gifts, we use more power of our minds than Albert Einstein ever used his.

Who is this deep thinker?

Answer: Uri Geller


Also:

Listeners were challenged to remote view a playing card on display in Rebecca's Boston apartment.

Answer:9 of hearts



New Puzzle:

You meet a woman and ask her if she has any children. She replies, 'two.' You ask if she has any sons and she says, 'yes.' So now you know she has exactly two children and at least one of them is a boy. What is the probability that her other child is also a boy, and therefore that she has two sons?

Skeptical Quotes of the Week (1:02:43)

Science, the only true magic.  – Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, an enthusiastic boy-genius with a hidden science laboratory in his room full of inventions

It's curious, isn't it, that with low-grade, chronic conditions (back pain, seasonal affective disorder, what have you) people are eager to try alternative hocus-pocus. But bring on something virulent, acute, and truly terrifying, then, brother, bring on Western medicine! Nothing like your eyeballs leaking blood to put things in perspective, hey?  – kWe, a Skeptic forum user, on 6 Feb 2001

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society. For information on this and other podcasts, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

Today I Learned

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary