Skepticism in Art

A recent trip to the St. Louis Art Museum, combined with a recent read-though of Neil Gaiman's American Gods (available on the web for free for the rest of March), have gotten me thinking about art, mostly of the visual sort. I won't say much about what I've been pondering, because if I start talking about art I'll show exactly how little I know about it. But I do want to broadcast a few thoughts.

I want to see more art about skepticism or skeptical ideas. I'm not sure how much currently exists, and in what form, but wherever it is I want to see it. If it doesn't exist, I hope people will start making it. If no one does, I can try it myself, but I don't think anyone will like the result. That includes me.

Take, for instance, my photoshopped picture at the top of the page. It's something I did in about twenty minutes after seeing a perfect picture for the joke. It's not art, it's a gag. But that's what we can expect from me. Don't leave this in my hands.

Send me some links to skeptically-themed art and I'll be grateful. You will be too, if James Randi, Ace Attorney has anything to say about it.

-Thanks to the Skepchick for her picture of Randi on flickr, which I shamelessly stole.

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We met Randi!

As posted earlier, James Randi spoke at UIUC. Four of us Gateway Skeptics were able to make the 3 hour (each way) road trip and were rewarded with the chance to meet Randi and ask him a few question. He was even kind enough to pose for a photo (contrary to his expression). Afterwards, we went out for some great deep dish pizza with a few fellow bloggers. Click below for a synopsis of the evening.

The lecture was sponsored by the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers organization from UIUC. Apparently, the president of the club was inspired by The Amaz!ng Meeting to start the organization on his campus and was dedicated to getting Randi on campus. It seems like he succeeded. Unbeknownst to us, they also invited Nobel laureate Dr. Richard J. Roberts to speak about atheism.

The introduction to Dr. Roberts lecture was strange to say the least. The student in charge knew (and admitted to knowing) very little about Dr. Roberts research and it did not seem like he was going to take the time to lern about it. Also, the student's cell phone went off no fewer than three times while he was at the podium. It was funny yet sad.

Dr. Roberts talk on atheism focused mostly on the lack of scientific questioning in religion. He also touched on contradictions in religious teachings, the uselessness of prayer, why there is evil and several other topics that would be typical in a Richard Dawkins lecture. This included claiming that indoctrinating children into a particular religion is a form of child abuse. Unlike Dawkins, however, Dr. Roberts did not seem to be an authority on the topic. When asked in the Q & A session after lectures, Dr. Roberts admitting to only studying comparative religions for a handful of semesters while in school. I think it showed.

On of the most curious aspects of his talk was his discussion on schizophrenia. Dr. Roberts claims that many personal religious experiences can be attributed to schizophrenia. Since I have heard similar claims elsewhere, that did not strike me as a strange claim. What did was when he claimed that those who are intelligent and schizophrenic are most often diagnosed as having bipolar disorder while those of lesser intelligence are deemed schizophrenic and crazy. He claimed that the intelligent individuals are able to separate their hallucination from reality while others cannot. It was a strange tangent that I'm not sure is factually correct.

Before I leave Dr. Roberts for The Amazing Randi, I would like to share one of his quotes from the Q&A session. Dr. Roberts was discussing why he became a scientist. He attributed his curiosity to being able make fireworks as a child. He then made the following comment:

I know why terrorists like explosions. Everyone likes a good explosion.

Call me strange, but I don't think that's the reason terrorists blow things up.

Overall I think Dr. Roberts did a mediocre job selling atheism. However, he was talking to a audience who was mostly non-religious so little harm was done.

After Dr. Roberts talk, the president of Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers got up to introduce Randi. While he was better than the student who introduced Dr. Roberts, he wasn't much better. I won't go into details but I will say that it is a good thing Randi needs no introduction.


Randi's talk opened with a video montage chronicling some of his achievements as a skeptic and debunker. After the video, Randi came on stage to a healthy applause from the few hundred in the audience.

Randi focused the beginning of his talk on how people are fooled by others and how they fool themselves. This was accomplished by a few anecdotes and a few magic tricks. Randi then went on to explain the Million Dollar Challenge. This of course led to the story of Sylvia Browne accepting the challenge and never following through with the testing. This discussion included some impersonations of Sylvia by Randi and his looking for the proper name to call her regarding her insatiable money lust [Flavin reminds me this was regarding Montel William's money lust indicated by his having Slyvia on so often]:

What do they call that in the media business? Oh yeah, a whore.

Randi then moved on to discussing how smart people are fooled while making a few despairing comments regard those with PhDs. There were in jest of course. The talk then turned to homeopathy and how ridiculous the dilutions are. This led to a discussion of faith healers, and we were treated to two video clips of Randi on the Tonight Show with Carson where Randi exposed Peter Popov (this clip is similar but not the same) and psychic surgery. This pretty much concluded Randi's lecture. It was quite wonderful as the crowd's standing ovation implied.

The Q & A session, however, was not as great. Sans one or two questions, those asked were neither insightful nor new. They ranged from simple questions about religion to asking Randi if he believes in ghosts. One question, however, stood out among the others as ridiculous. I'll try to tell it slow so you can enjoy it.

An Asian student stepped up to the microphone and told a story about a car accident he was in. Apparently, he was involved in a hit and run where he did the running. He claimed he was scared and did not know what to do so he left the scene of the crime. When the cops later came to his door, he denied having anything to do with the collision so he was promptly cuffed and hauled off and rightfully so. The kid was eventually let off the hook by the judge and what the kid described as "the grace of Jesus". Why Jesus would bother with this kid and his traffic violations, I do not know. Anyway, this story went on for a good two minutes before some in the audience started shouting "Get to the question!" The kid stuttered and then asked is science can explain love. There was an awkward silence as the audience dealt with the non sequitur. Randi and Dr. Roberts responded with a curt "No." This was not good enough for the kid at the mic as he continued by rambling about the saying of Jesus which Randi promptly questioned the validity of. Eventually the kids mic was turned off after being booed by the audience. The kid proceeded to stand behind the dead microphone for approximately 10 minutes, waiting to speak again. Eventually, he must have realized where he was and sat back down. Again, funny yet sad.


After the lecture, we were able to get a picture with Randi and ask him a few questions one-on-one. We then met up with the Action Skeptics, Tom, and two of his friends. (1, 2, 3). We grabbed some pizza and talked religion, blogs, comics and video games, as young skeptics often do. As the picture illustrates, it was an enjoyable end to the night.

Here's suggesting we invite Randi to speak in St. Louis.

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More info on the Randi Lecture

Since I'm sure that many of you don't go searching through the comments, I'll repost Akusai's comment here.

Just up on Randi's site:

Monday, March 10 2008, 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Randi will be speaking at the Lincoln Hall Theater located in Lincoln Hall in the main quad at the University of Illinois at 7pm in a lecture entitled, "Science, Magic, and Belief."

And convenient directions from all points on the compass.

I kindly requested in an e-mail to Randi that he might consider a meet-up after the lecture if time permits, but no word either way on that. Michael Shermer said yes a couple of years ago to the same question (and that was a lot of fun) so maybe Randi will, too...

Let's hope Randi comes through on the meet-up. Also, let me know if you want to go so we can car pool. It looks like we can leave at about 3:30 and make it in time (it's about a 3 hr 10 min drive).

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Road Trip!

The Amazing James Randi will be lecturing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Sunday Monday, March 10. It is about 2 1/2 hours from St. Louis. I think we should go if it is open to the public. Who's with me? Perhaps we'll see one of the Action Skeptics there.

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End of an Era

In this week's Swift comes news that is at once sad and refreshing.

As of two years from now, the James Randi Educational Foundation will no longer be offering their million dollar prize.

It’s always been a simple, direct, matter: do what you claim you can do of a paranormal nature, and walk away with the prize. Our expectations at first were that we’d attract major personalities by this means, but they’ve avoided having to take the test by simply not applying; those who have actually applied are generally honestly self-deluded persons who have difficulty stating what they can do, which can be understood if they really don’t know what they’re experiencing; we at JREF have gone through involved procedures to help them recognize their problems. Usually, they have indicated that they don’t know what real scientific rules are, when it comes down to their actually being properly tested.

There are those who are disappointed at the loss of the prize. For instance, Mark Hoofnagle of denialism blog had this to say:

I'm disappointed, because that means in two years we will lose one of the best anti-woo tools in the arsenal. That is, the offer of 1 million dollars to any woomeister who can prove their paranormal abilities are real in a controlled scientific test in order to shut them up.

I feel a bit differently. There have always been excuses from the paranormal proponents as to why they don't take the test—the money doesn't exist, Randi rigs the tests, someone's already won and Randi refuses to pay, etc.—so it hasn't been a good tool for a long time. It will free up a lot of money for the JREF to do more work, and it will free up time. Randi speaks thusly:

The hundreds of poorly-constructed applications, and the endless hours of phone, e-mail, and in-person discussions we’ve had to suffer through, will be things of the past, for us at the JREF.

He seems relieved. While I can't say I'm that, I am not sad for the loss of the prize. It's a new future for the JREF, and they deserve it.

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YouTubing Randi

If you've ever got some spare time, you can find all kinds of great educational videos on YouTube of some of your favorite people. Dawkins, for instance, or Feynman, but especially Randi. Randi has had some great TV moments and a lot of them are preserved on YouTube. I found a few videos today that I hadn't seen before and I wanted to put some of them up. There are three parts to an interview of Randi with Penn and Teller. In one part they reference Peter Popoff, and I've also put up the video of that affair. Forgive me if you've seen any of these.

The reason that I want to put them up is primarily to combat the notion that skepticism and cynicism are the same ism. There's a good bit in one of the interviews where Penn and Randi discuss that notion, and I enjoyed watching it. Sadly, it is very short, but I think it's powerful nonetheless.

These aren't in the order of their titles, but I don't think it matters. The first discusses skepticism and cynicism (with a little pet psychic thrown in), the second is about the million dollar challenge. The third is a bit longer—about 8 minutes—and mentions Popoff. Then the fourth is about the definitive debunking of Popoff's ministry. I encourage you to watch many more. There's great investigation there on YouTube.

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Encouraging Skeptical Minds

I know some of you have read this already, but it's such a great story I couldn't help but put it up. In this week's Swift, Randi posts an article about a great teacher. I hope neither he nor Life minds me reproducing it in full.

From reader Ted Smith comes this excellent article written by David Owen and published in Life Magazine, in October, 1990:

The Best Teacher I Ever Had

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all that stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been such an animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the very moment he was passing around the Cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat’s), hadn’t he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn’t have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn’t been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.

Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience: teachers and textbooks are not infallible. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. One day he told us that his Volkswagen was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn’t let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren’t used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say, "Cattywampus."

If I’m ever asked to propose a solution to the crisis in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven’t made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson’s class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can have fun doing it.

Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. "He shouldn’t have tricked you like that," he said. I looked the teacher right in the eye and told him he was wrong.

Ted – and David Owen, if he’s still around – I’ve been fortunate enough to have had several Mr. Whitsons in my life. Mr. Henderson – I don’t think any of us knew his first name, and we students were always similarly addressed by him, as by all of our teachers, as "Mr. Zwinge," or whatever was called for – was one of those teachers. He delighted in giving us mathematical puzzles just before he dismissed a class, and thoroughly expected us to have an answer when we sat down to class the following day. Mr. Tovell, who taught us physics, would mischievously sketch out a somewhat plausible perpetual-motion machine on the blackboard, then ask us to return the next day to explain why we thought the machine would – or would not – work. These were problems that stimulated our imaginations, made us eager to get to the next class, and I feel sure are not the sort of thing that modern teachers become involved with. Our history teacher was a Mr. Grow, who would occasionally drop in an obviously false comment or two while giving us an account of some event with which he hoped we’d become familiar. And, occasionally he fooled us all and then was able to show us how he had done this to our young minds.

Those were teachers…!

I wish I had been taught by teachers like that. If any of us go on to teach (anything more than labs), we should use this lesson.

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