Life After Google and Wikipedia

A life before Google and Wikipedia. Seems unimaginable doesn't it? I cannot count the amount of debates I have settled, the amount of questions I have answered and the amount of frustration I have avoided simply by having access to what I see as the accumulation of all human knowledge. And all of it at available my fingertips. The difference is, I know what is an acceptable source, while many don't (see Yahoo! Answers).

Information used to be a difficult thing to access, almost prohibitively so—ask your parents. Not one generation ago, one would have to go comparatively great lengths to find out, well, anything. Small, limited, avenues of information were the source of knowledge. An educated person was thereby valued.

Nowadays, the task isn't so much about locating the information, as it is about sifting through it. There is so much of it out there, so much of it junk, that one can easily get lost in it. Be mislead. To understand what is an acceptable source falls on the shoulders of the reader, much as it has in the past with books, but to a much greater extent. Critical thinking skills become infinitely more important. The value shouldn't lie just with the education person, but also with one who is able to understand what information is valid. One who is capable of sifting through the bullshit. This is becoming increasingly difficult to come by.

Our problem is that not enough people are employing these skills when they access the vast amount of information now available to them. They accept as truth the first thing they come across. David Dineen-Porter, a fellow skeptic amongst other things, put it eloquently in a message to me, describing what he coins as "naive expertise."

It's the syndrome where people with access to cursory and superficial information, and without the expertise to analyze it properly, and then to place it in context of a much broader data set (which they have never accessed), believe themselves to be experts in that field. Reading a pamphlet doesn't make you an expert on vaccines.

Such is the problem that we now have to deal with: everyone fancies themselves an expert.

Avatar Was Stunning

I am no film critic, but I had to put my opinion of this movie down in writing. I have written about Avatar before on the nook, but I had not yet seen it. This past Thursday, I finally took the time to go see this highly rated film.

I must say that I can't remember the last time a movie so completely enthralled me in its atmosphere. For 2 hours and 42 minutes I was on another world, oohing at the exobiology and aahing at the lifelike, well, everything.

Yes, in essence it is a story of white man's guilt, seen executed perfectly in movies such as Pocahontas and The Last Samurai. But it was nuanced enough that it was hard to tell.

In any case, go see it while it's still available in 3D, which isn't used in any way but to add wonderful depth to an alien world. This movie is definitely deserving of its Oscar nod, along with any other accolade it receives.

Go!

Homeopathy Pitch

Ever seen a homeopathy pitch? I really haven't.

This guy, who sadly is from Canada, gets called out on his bullshit cure-all on the Dragon's Den TV show. His ardent defence of his quackery in the face of a panel of, what appears to be, skeptics is really quite something to behold.

This is exactly why I write about this topic and why I despise the masquerading pseudosciences so much. When individuals who are not well versed in science, quackery and critical thinking come across a scumbag such as the one above, they leap toward the opportunity to cure themselves of whatever ails them. They just don't know any better.

It very well might be all fun and games when you claim to have the ability to cure the common cold, but cancer? This man should be put in prison for the fraud that he is committing.

France Denies Citizenship to Islamic Man — Part II

This is regards to the comment left by Anonymous about yesterday's post. I wish to address some of the questions he raises, as well as the comments he makes, from my own perspective:

Ripe with controversy. I question two things right away with this article. Firstly, what exactly is the woman's position in this case? Is she steadfast on her own fundamental values and if the choice was her's free of her husbands claims of her inferiority; would she still sport the burqa?

Cultural indoctrination has little to do with the fact that the burqa itself is a direct symbol of the misogyny that is at play. The burqa is in and of itself the stamp of female subservience. Short of imprisoning a woman in her house, I see no better way to render a woman a ghost in her surroundings. In essence, it is an invisibility cloak that is used to oppress women. A woman's choice to prove her devotion to her man by hiding herself from society is less telling of the woman and more telling of the men that surround her. A woman may indeed choose to wear one of her own volition, but the setting in which she does so must be accepting of the message that this portrays. In a country like France, it is not.

Secondly, is the immigration representative fully aware of the reasons Islam "enforces" such a tradition? I understand that such a practice is symbolic of the woman as belonging to the man--essentialy. Yet despite this morbid outlook it is also pragmatic in that it strengthens the family and repel's with full force destructive acts such as adultery (at least as far as the woman commiting such a thing, ofcourse the man is free to dress as he pleases and even gander at other woman as he desires).

Are men of Islam so incapable of controlling themselves when presented with the sight of a woman's eyes, face, hair, bare skin, that they immediately salivate of desire? Is the act of sex not consensual? Does the woman, having had exposed her face to another man, immediately incur responsibility for having been involved in rape? To me, it is laughable.

Regardless, as far as the second question I don't personally think that this Islamic tradition should be labled extremest. However, if the man's attitude was such that he insisted the woman was inferior, and even more troubling for his fight; he strongly opposed France's values of secularism and equality of sexes?! Come on, he didn't stand a chance.

It is a sad case that there are places in the world where women are still treated as objects. I imagine that this is not the case in all of the Islamic states, but perhaps in a small percentage of them and to varying degrees. With this in mind, one can use the words radical, extremist etc. without any reservation. If, however, this type of misogynistic behaviour is everyday routine, forgive my ignorance, I retract my labels. Unfortunately, the replacements I can think of are too vulgar to be written on this generally PG blog. I will have to work them.

You're absolutely right, he didn't stand a chance. And that is what is special about this article. A country chose its own established values instead of conceding to religion. In my opinion, this is progress. I welcome it.

France Denies Citizenship to Islamic Man

A man who follows a radical sect of Islam has been denied citizenship in France. The ruling was given on the grounds that his lifestyle, which to me can only be described as misogynistic, is at odds with the values imparted by France. As per the original article:

France is to refuse to grant citizenship to a Moroccan man who forces his wife to wear the full veil, arguing that his adherence to a strict strand of Islam is incompatible with the country's values, the immigration minister said today.

"It emerged during the inquiry and the interview process that this person forced his wife to wear the full veil, deprived her of freedom of movement with her face exposed and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women," Besson said in a statement.

"Monsieur X displays in an everyday manner a discriminatory attitude towards women, going as far as refusing to shake their hands and advocating the separation of boys and girls including, at home, of brothers and sisters," the ruling read.

"The lifestyle he has chosen may be justified by religious precepts but is incompatible with the values of the Republic, notably the principle of equality of the sexes."

I can only imagine the opposition this type of judgement would have in Canada or the United States. Political correctness still outweighs the rights these countries stand for (although we are moving forward). The idea of equality of sexes and secularism that France subscribes to is refreshing. If one is to adopt a new country as their own, they must accept the values and rights that are ascribed to the citizens of this country. There is nothing politically incorrect about that, I think.

'I Have A Sign'

I still can't stop laughing over this one:

Westboro Baptist Church showed up to protest in front of Twitter’s San Francisco office on Thursday, but found themselves severely outnumbered by a crowd of absurdist pranksters.

WBC’s hate-promoting signs were answered by multiple signs of randomness, nonsensical yelling, and even a unicorn. A portable stereo blared Lady GaGa, while press and people passing by ignored the WBC signs and took pictures and videos of the more entertaining signs.

I hope to one day be near one of these types of protests here in Canada—I am itching to emulate.

To Overdose On Homeopathy — Part II

Some may remember the article I wrote about a few posts ago, referring to the group of skeptics who were scheduled to 'overdose' on homeopathic 'medicine' in order to prove its inefficacy. Well it's happened, ergo nothing happened. Not only were there no side effects from the apparent overdose, but the stunt forced one homeopathic council to admit that their remedies contain nothing but water. Albeit expensive water. Read the lengthy, but oh-so-satisfying, excerpt:

A public mass overdose of homeopathic remedies has forced the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths to admit openly that their products do not contain any "material substances". Council spokeswoman Mary Glaisyer admitted publicly that "there´s not one molecule of the original substance remaining" in the diluted remedies that form the basis of this multi-million-dollar industry.

The NZ Skeptics, in conjunction with 10:23, Skeptics in the Pub and other groups nationally and around the world, held the mass overdose in Christchurch on Saturday to highlight the fact that homeopathic products are simply very expensive water drops or sugar/lactose pills. A further aim was to question the ethical issues of pharmacies, in particular, stocking and promoting sham products and services.

The Christchurch "overdose" included an "underdose" - homeopaths believe that the more dilute things are, the more potent they become, so the skeptics were careful to try that approach. There are also claims by product manufacturers that, in fact, dosage doesn´t matter at all - whether you take 1 pill or 100 - but the important thing is the frequency of dosage, and the skeptics covered that base too. No ill effects were reported, apart from a distinct drop in the level of cash in various wallets. For the demonstration, Hyde reluctantly purchased two small boxes of tablets and a 25ml spray from a Unichem pharmacy, costing $51.95.

Homeopaths claim all sorts of amazing results, from treating the 1918 influenza to AIDS. More dangerously, at least one New Zealand pharmacy has been known to push homeopathic water labelled as "vaccines" for meningitis and Hepatitis B. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most supportive test results are those which come out of the homeopathic industry, product manufacturers and other vested interests. Any completely independent evaluation, such as the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration, tends to find the results much more underwhelming, citing no convincing evidence in many claimed areas of effectiveness.

Fantastic. There you have it. A homeopathic organization calls its own 'medicine' bullshit. Finally. You can pay exorbitant amounts of money for nothing but water and take advantage of the placebo effect while lining the pockets of these quacks. Not that this is going to put a dent in anything, but at least we have the admission directly from the horse's mouth or, more appropriately in this case, the snake's mouth: homeopathy is bullshit.

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