SGU Episode 54

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SGU Episode 54
August 2nd 2006
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 53                      SGU 55
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
Links
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Show Notes
SGU Forum

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, August 2^nd, 2006, and this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are th skeptical rogues Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hello everyone.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hey everybody.

S: Perry DeAngelis...

P: Baby it's hot outside.

S: ..and Evan Bernstein.

E: Hello everybody.

S: How are you guys all doing?

R: Screw outside. It's hot inside.

E: Surviving this heat somehow.

P: Victim of global warming.

R: You admitted it. I'm so glad we got that on tape.

E: 100 years will be victims of global cooling.

R: Yeah that's not helping me now.

P: It's sure isn't.

News Items

Creationism Museum open in Kentucky (0:58)

• Creationism Museum open in Kentucky

S: So a lot of creationism in the news this past week.

B: Good news. Some good news.

S: Some good some bad.

E: Some good. Yeah.

S: Firstly the Creationism Museum has opened in Kentucky.

R: Is it just one room with a big sign that says god did it?

S: That what I think of covered it. But they actually it's a pseudo-scientific museum. They have exhibits with bones and stuff but of course it doesn't mean anything. The exhibit apparently cost about $25 million.

R: Good.

B: 21 million of that was donated. Donated.

E: Wow.

B: Can you imagine? Here's $21 million.

S: By one guy?

B: No. No one guy did. I think the most is one guy did a million. But otherwise most of that was donated.

P: Still pretty handsome.

B: They're going to open up and they're not going to be in debt at all.

E: Ann Coulter donated the rest.

S: It is consistent with young earth creationism. So it is the museum's theme is at the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

B: So the most extreme, the most extreme form of creationism.

S: Yeah, basically. Basically. Quote from the founder Ken Ham said: "If the Bible is the word of God and its history really is true, that's our presupposition or axiom. And we are starting there."

E: There you go.

S: Starting with the conclusion.

R: There's some big ifs.

S: That is a big if. That's a big if. So Kentuckyians can or visitors tourists to Kentucky can visit the museum.

R: Congratulations Kentucky.

P: So we go pull Cindy Sheehan on them and pick it the joint.

S: What would be the point though?

P: You know, the news coverage on channel 54 in Kentucky.

B: That would be funny to do it. We'd have to come up with some very creative signs, very funny signs. It would be funny I think.

P: It could.

B: I would do it. If it was nearby, I'd do it for an afternoon with everybody.

S: If the purpose was ridicule, that would be worth while.

R: I think we can all get behind a good ridicule session. Sure.

E: No, not us.

S: I like to hit the closing quote of Ham in the article. "Americans just aren't gullible enough to believe that they came from a fish." I guess he's right.

E: Wait a minute. You guys saying I came from a fish? Is that what you're saying?

B: That one statement wipes out all of evolutionary theory.

R: I think that darn it.

B: What else needs to be said?

R: Well congratulations, Kentucky. For finally beating out Kansas is most ignorant state. Round of applause for Kentucky.

E: That's enough. That's enough.

S: Speaking of Kansas, Kansas actually is rebounding a bit. They're coming off the ropes.

R: Yep. Number 49.

P: Skyrocketing.

S: Kansas voters ousted a lot of the creationists from their school board. In the recent elections.

P: Good for them, good for them.

S: They basically we're tired of being made fun of as a bunch of yokels and ignorant losers. So they decided to get rid of some of the people on the school board who were basically following their religious ideology by trying to oust evolution from Kansas public schools. Last November, the Kansas Board of Education tried to rewrite the testing standards for public school to incorporate language that suggests that evolution is a controversial theory and to promote intelligent design. Whenever these things come into court, at least in the last few years, they have fortunately been found to be unconstitutional. The most recent and significant being the Kurt Smiller versus Dover decision from last year. This happened again about four or five years ago when Kansas Board of Education voted to remove references to evolution and the Big Bang from their science standards. Then a couple years later or the following year, the conservative Christian majority was voted off. Was more moderates were put in place. But then the public lost interest and then the following year, they gained the majority again and then immediately started working towards putting in language critical of evolution or promoting intelligent design and the science standards.

R: It's like a fungal growth.

S: It is.

R: Spray it away and then the little bits left and start creeping back in.

S: That's right.

P: It's a roller coaster of stupidity.

S: So once again, the moderates are in the majority on the Kansas school board. We'll see how long that lasts. But you're right, the creationists never go away. They may be pushed back by public opinion temporarily.

P: It's all part of a general weakening of the extreme religious rights, certainly in our education system. I certainly hope so.

E: Here's a quote from the article. "I feel like if you give two sides of something, most people are intelligent enough to make up their own minds."

S: Well, that's the Teach the Controversy tactic. But of course, that's intellectually dishonest because there is no controversy. It also assumes that the two sides are equal.

P: There's science and there's theology. They're not comparable.

S: And only science should be taught in science classrooms.

P: Here, here. Teach creationism at Sunday school.

S: Perhaps we should start a movement to teach science in the Sunday school in religious classes?

P: That's not a bad idea.

S: Hey, Teach the Controversy.

R: Teach the Controversy, that's right.

S: We've got to teach both sides of people who believe that you're faith is wrong.

R: I think we should also talk about Thor and Apollo.

S: The final news item was also in the evolution theme this week for the news items. Ann Coulter. You remember we spoke a few weeks ago about in her new book, Godless, she spends the last two chapters basically attacking evolution. And she didn't really bring anything new to this entire discussion. She simply reiterated all of the standard classical creationist lies and nonsense. That's been around for decades. There are no transitional species. Biological evolution cannot explain how the eye was formed. The Cambrian explosion disproves evolution. I love that one. The Cambrian explosion basically occurred about 580 million years ago. That's when multicellular life first got big and complex enough and started to have hard parts that fossilized. So when that happened, life first appears in the fossil record. There had to be some first period of time when life started fossilizing and therefore started creating a fossil record. So of course there's an explosion of fossils where older strata don't have any fossils. So they take this "sudden appearance" of life in the fossil record as evidence of creation but of course we're not talking about horses and chimpanzees occurring in the fossil record. We're talking about one to two inch tiny bizarre looking, very primitive multicellular life forms. I don't know how they could possibly say that that is evidence of everything being created 10,000 years ago.

B: And Steve, isn't it the case though that it's not just a matter that they evolved hard shells and things that were more easily fossilized but also because evolution kind of found out this new idea, it just exploded because it was such a good idea, such a beneficial evolution that there was just an explosion of life and that also is a reason why it seems to explode at that point.

S: Although the explosion on geological timescales, which means a few million years.

B: Right.

P: These arguments are all so old and stale.

B: But not the eye one. Not the eye one, but the evolution of the eye. I've never heard of that one before.

R: Yeah, no that's fresh and new.

S: That one goes back to Darwin. I mean, all the way back to the beginning. But I mean, so this is Coulter-

P: Pathetic.

S: Ann Coulter was on the 700 Club recently and it's always very funny in my opinion when they're in within a friendly audience, they really let their hair down and say what they really think they're not trying to sugarcoat it at all. Not that Ann Coulter does in any case. But she really was so obnoxious on the show, just the the transcript is interesting. She says, for example, "There is no evidence for it" referring to Darwinism. "Not the evidence Darwin expected to find it is what scientists refer to as a pseudo science. There is nothing they will accept to disprove Darwin's theory. It's like tarot card reading."

E: It's 180 degrees. Really, it's just a totally upside down.

S: The idea that evolution cannot be falsified is again been around for decades and it's total nonsense. There were dozens of ways that evolution could have been falsified after Darwin introduced the theory and they all went evolution's way. Every single opportunity. The discovery of genetics, for example. If hereditary didn't work the way it did, that could have falsified evolution. For example.

E: Hey, look here. Coulter puts down a challenge. She says, by the way, they meaning the liberals and believers in evolution, "They haven't argued with me directly on this subject. I mean, the left really hates me, but no one seems to want to argue about the Darwinism." Well, come on on the show Ann and we'll be happy to have a frank discussion with you.

R: Maybe because she's a moron?

S: I formally challenge Ann Coulter to a public debate on evolution.

E: Come on Ann.

S: She's trying to make it sound like the evolutionists are running and hiding from her because they don't know how to deal with all of her new sophisticated arguments. It's total nonsense. If anything, she's being ignored because she's not a scientist because her arguments are decades old and have already all been falsified. But you know, if she wants to, if she's really going to try to go that route and claim that no one's willing to debate her, I'll debate her.

E: Yeah. She's also like saying, no one willing to debate me on the existence of Santa Claus. So that must mean that the.

S: Santa Claus really exists.

B: Steve, man, that would make my entire year. I would get popcorn and sit down and just enjoy that so much.

E: It would be our most popular podcast. I would wager.

S: Right. Or whatever. Any form. Doesn't have to be on our podcast.

P: It'd be wonderful to get her.

S: Sure.

P: A little tough, I don't think she'd expect many, many book sales of Godless out of her podcast.

R: I get the feeling to be like debating a brick wall though. And that's giving a little too much credit to brick walls.

S: Right.

P: She would just gallop. She wouldn't...

R: I imagine her last resort, or it would be something like, well Darwin's gay or Darwin caused 9-11.

E: Oh, my.

R: She's an idiot.

S: They do resort to basically ad hominem attacks against Darwin, you know? Well, anyway, if if a debate with her ever happens, it'll be fun. She'll be easy picking. I'm sure she has no idea what she's talking about.

P: Not scientifically.

S: She can't get away with that challenge trying to make it sound like we're afraid to debate her. It's nonsense.

Questions and E-mails (12:26)

S: Well, we have a lot of emails this week. We don't have any guests this week. Everyone is surprisingly on vacation for the summer. So everyone's like, yeah, call me in the fall. So we'll have a great fall line up. But we do have a lot of great emails, a lot of good topics. So we definitely will use the time to get caught up on some of the emails that we're getting.

Exorcism (12:45)

First off, I love the show, easily one of my favorite podcasts. Its nice to get my weekly dose of skepticism, especially during the summer when I am away from college. I am just wondering what a skeptic's opinion on demonic possession and exorcisms is. I have heard some very convincing stories from Christian friends and the media that seem to defy explanation. Assuming they aren't outright lying, how do you explain this phenomenon? It would seem that mental illness can't account for every case. I don't think this has been mentioned before, but I could be wrong as I have not been able to listen to all of the older shows. Anyways, keep up the excellent work and look forward to hearing from.
PS- Steve, you sound kind of like Ray Romano
–Chris Boven Michigan, United States

S: The first comes from Chris Boven in Michigan and Chris writes: "First off, I love the show, easily one of my favorite podcasts. It's nice to get my weekly dose of skepticism, especially during the summer when I am away from college. I am just wondering what a skeptics opinion on demonic possession and exorcisms is. I have heard some very convincing stories from Christian friends in the media that seem to defy explanation. Assuming they aren't outright lying, how do you explain this phenomenon? It would seem that mental illness can't account for every case. I don't think this has been mentioned before, but I could be wrong as I have not been able to listen to all of the older shows. Anyway, keep up the excellent work and look forward to hearing from you. Chris, P.S. Steve, you sound like a kind of like Ray Romano."

E: Hmm.

B: Heard that before.

R: Did you hear that before Steve?

S: Only since I've been doing this podcast, he's a third e-mailer to make that comment. I don't know that I buy it.

P I don't hear it. Now then, it's unfortunate that Chris did not include one of the cases that defied explanation. I haven't encountered a single one that defied even cursory. Even a cursory glance at it defied.

S: Yeah, but I think, but you're referring to cases with documentation, which is absolutely correct.

P: Of course.

S: And I think that he must be referring to cases where people are just reporting an eyewitness testimony.

P: So, if it's just anecdotal then?

S: Yeah, there's anecdotal. The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I've looked into this as we all have. I've reviewed dozens of hours of taped exorcisms from local groups that perform them. There have been a few that have been broadcast on TV about 15 years or so ago. There was one broadcast on 2020. This one, I think, is typical of the exorcisms. In that, on the one hand, you have the hype surrounding the case, the running commentary, which is trying to play it up as supernatural things happening. This was a young girl, a teenage girl named Gina. The Catholic Church gave you OK to do it in an exorcism and broadcast it on 2020. If you just look at the video, if you just look at what's happening, not what the voice over is saying is happening, it's totally pathetic. My favorite bit on that show is when they comment that Gina was displaying superhuman strength. Meanwhile, there's literally two old ladies holding her down.

P: Catholic exorcisms are excruciatingly boring.

S: There are boring.

R: Yeah, where's all the vomiting and the heads twisted around?

P: Oh, they are horrible.

S: The subjects, the people who are having the exorcism done to them, seriously, I've seen total amateurs just pretending to be whatever possessed by a demon do much better job than these people. It's pathetic. It really is. Here's a quote from, again, from the 2020 show. They describe Gina as threshing about making ugly faces, yelling words that sound like in quote, booga booga. She literally said booga booga. I mean, oh, that's convincing.

P: What's that guy on Bugs Bunny? Bugs booga booga. Wasn't that, was this the same thing?

E: Obviously, he was possessed, too.

P: Well, look, like many of the things we discuss on this show, this can also be very dangerous. And I have taken the time and effort to go out there and put together a top ten list of the top ten exorcisms resulting in injury or death. So from the Home Office of the Cheshire, Connecticut of the New England Skeptical Society we have the top ten exorcisms resulting in injury or death.

R: Somehow I think this is going to be slightly more depressing than your average Letterman top ten. But go on.

S: We'll have the top ten on our notes page. Why don't you just read the top five.

P: Number five, five-year-old Abel Bernie of Staten Island was killed by her grandmother, by her grandmother and mother during an attempt to exercise a demon that they believe caused Amy to have tantrums. Not being satisfied was vast quantities of mere water. These good women tie Abel down, forced to drink a mixture of ammonia, vinegar, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and olive oil. They taped her mouth shut-

S: Eeew, olive oil?

P: -to prevent her from spitting out the mixture. And she expired. Police charged the women with second degree murder and both were sentenced between 12 to 25 years.

Number four, in July 1996, five-year-old Brennan Specker of Baldwin Park, Los Angeles, was beaten to death during an exorcism performed by her mother and two of her friends, all three women who were taking methamphetamine, held a girl down and whipped her with a cheesebore for two hours, stripping away several layers of skin and eventually killing her. All three women were convicted of murder.

Number three, in August 1994, Hoda Annebear of England punched their mother to death. The daughters claimed their mother was possessed by a genie and said "incomprehensible things". The daughters were sent to a state mental hospital.

Number two, in May 1994, Lindsay and Janice Gibson were charged with killing their son. Janice had become convinced she was God. Not a mere angel mind you God. And had convinced her husband of this as well. Janice first tried to expel demons from her two-year-old daughter by beating her in the face for ten minutes. When Janice tried to exercise her husband's boss, he called the authorities. However, the doctor refused to sign commitment papers requested by social services as he felt the woman was just a religious fanatic. The next day Janice convinced her family and especially her 12-year-old son was surrounded by demons. She fed them a hearty meal and then forced them to vomit up the just consumed food. She then kicked her son out of the house naked and into the cold. Later, while her husband restrained the boy, Janice beat him repeatedly in the head with, you guessed it, a concrete block. When police arrived, she shouted, quote "He's already dead! We killed him, you stupid man! Just like the first Jesus!" Mr. and Mrs. Gibson were both found not guilty by reason of Follé Audu, a rare psychiatric syndrome of psychosis, particularly a paranoid or delusional belief that is transmitted from one individual to another.

And the number one exorcism resulting in death or injury. In April 1996, Simone Chapaña of Oondin, Thailand agreed to a ritualistic beating of her head in genitalia with a stingray tale. By a shaman to exercise evil spirits. After the exorcism began, she changed her mind and fled, only to be abducted later by the shaman who continued the ritual until Mrs. Chapaña's death. The shaman was charged with murder.

R: Well, thank you, Perry. That was the most depressing thing I think I've ever heard of my life.

S: There's common themes running through that, there's one, of course, is mental illness.

P: The other is it's a family affair.

S: Often they keep it in the family. Chris writes it would seem that mental illness can't account for every case. But it definitely counts for a lot of that. Most of these people have a psychotic disorder. They have schizophrenia or whatever. They incorporate their religious beliefs where their culture or family's religious beliefs into their delusions. And they act out being possessed or they believe the psychotic person may believe that one of their family members is possessed.

P: That's usually what it is. And then it results in them killing them.

S: Now Gina, for example, getting back to the 2020 case just for a second, she was diagnosed with a psychiatric psychotic disorder by a psychiatrist who was, "skeptical" of demonic possession. And although the 2020 show tried to spin the exorcism as "working" because she calmed down after she basically got tired out after a day or so of pretending to be possessed. But she still had to get admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a few weeks and had to get anti-psychotic medication before the exorcism took. So that's a typical kind of story that this is just one phase of an ongoing mental illness that requires often hospitalization and anti-psychotic medication. At other times, the other end of the spectrum is sometimes it's just kids being naughty. And it's just the mother or the parents who are convinced that they're possessed because they just, they throw temperate tantrums they're going through their temporal tooths and that's enough to make, to make their mother think that they're possessed by a demon. So I've seen that too. And that's, talk about boring video. I saw one exorcism where the kids were three kids. The mother was just, it was a true believer. She had her three kids exercise and her description of their behavior was like no worse than my kids. And they were sitting there just being a little fidgety sitting, they thought the whole thing I think was humorous. And nothing happened. Zero happened.

B: I've heard people refer to your kids as little demons.

P: Yeah. A couple of these kids on the list were killed for having tantrums.

S: Tantrums, yeah.

E: Steve, I know someone whose family member claims that their child was possessed by a demon who made the child obese.

S: Yeah. Well, that's the, that's the fad now is using demonic possession to explain all kinds of everyday common ills like gambling or being overweight or abusing medication drugs. You're you're possessed by a demon of gambling or a demon of lust or a demon of gluttony or whatever. So it's like, it's a, that, their version of self-help the quickie self-help method. Want to lose weight? Just exercise your demon of obesity. You don't have to like do that dieting and exercising stuff. Just get a good, good, a good exorcism.

E: Sounds good.

S: And before we leave this topic, I'll just mention that the History Channel is doing a documentary on the history of exorcism and demonic possession, airing some time in October, in time for the Halloween season. And I mentioned this and I know about it because they interviewed me for that show. So you're a humble host, making an appearance on the history channel. So keep an eye out for it. And when I get an air data, I'll mention it.

P: We get to see all twelve of your skeptical seconds?

E: I was going to bet five. We're taking bets as the only second is the use of you.

S: They taped me for about three hours. They'll probably be less than a minute.

R: That's about 3 seconds.

E: Here's what a skeptic said. Well, I think, well, what doctor Novella would have wanted to tell you was blah, blah, blah.

R: Just ask the scientician.

E: Exactly.

PC Follow up (23:38)

PC is alive and well in Canada, much to the detriment of critical thinking, and honesty.
–Chris Obonsawin, Canada

Hi, enjoyed the podcast, finally you got around to debating in a mature fashion the issues of monkeys vs birds. I would appreciate if your distinguished panel could answer the following important questions too:
Ultra-humanite Vs Hawkgirl
Batman Vs Superman
Ninjas Vs Pirates
Also, Political Correctness is not a uniquely US phenomenon, we have it in Ireland and the UK, although more often you see people railing against 'political correctness gone mad!!' than being particularly PC anyway.
–Gordon McCormick,Ireland

S: Now, last week we asked our listeners what they who do not live in the United States. If political correctness has infected the English speaking world outside of the US, and we got a number of responses. We had a few from Canada, like this one from Chris Obonsowin from Canada, who writes "PC is alive and well in Canada, much to the detriment of critical thinking and honesty." And there were a couple others that also supported that. We also got this one from Gordon McCormick in Ireland, who writes: "Political correctness is not a uniquely US phenomenon. We have it in Ireland and the UK, although more often you see people railing against political correctness gone mad than being particularly PC anyway." So basically, I have both ends of the spectrum, rampant political correctness and the backlash against political correctness, which of course, both of which we have in this country as well. So not surprising that it's not a uniquely US phenomenon, but it is interesting to hear from our listeners abroad.

R: Steve didn't Gordon have another issue he wanted to bring up?

S: He did. His full email is on the notes page, but he did comment also on our Monkeys vs Birds discussion of last week. He wrote: "Hi, enjoyed the podcast. Finally, you got around to debating in a mature fashion the issues of Monkeys vs Birds. I would appreciate if your distinguished panel could answer the following important questions too. Ultra-humanite Vs Hawkgirl, Batman Vs Superman, Ninjas Vs Pirates."

P: I never hear of Ultra-huminite.

E: I haven't either.

R: I have and Hawkgirl would kick his butt.

S: I think it's, I think it's just a quickly addressed that issue. Hawkgirl, Superman, Ninjas. No contest.

R: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

S: No contest.

R: Hawkgirl, Batman, Pirates.

P: Batman is gonna beat Superman? What are you? Drunk?

E: Hey, there was a comic book. Yeah, I have the I have the comic book he beat yep Batman beat Superman.

P: Batman is a human stinking being.

R: That's the beauty of it.

E: He whipped out the kryptonite at the end and got Superman. All takes as a stupid rock.

P: Please.

S: You see what you started? See what you started Gordon?

P: Now ninjas vs pirate, that's ninjas come on.

R: No.

P: Pirates are just standing around arrr, arrgh. Ninjas gonna crawl up the side of the ship and throw a knife in his neck.

E: Ninjas will win but pirates are much cooler.

P: Yeah, okay.

R: How many ninja jokes do you know, huh?

S: Now question number three.

P: Stand still your black clad fiend. And the guy's gonna jump around his back and stab him. All right, go ahead.

Chiropractic ()

Hey guys, I have recently discovered your podcast and just absolutely adore it.
I always hear (from you guys and other skeptical minded sources) that chiropractic is a pseudoscience and such, and I've briefly studied it, but I didn't discover much. I wonder because my girlfriend's father is a chiropractor. I've been very skeptical of his line of work, mainly because I trust honest scientists who have rejected chiropractic as a legitimate form of treatment.
The thing is recently he's offered me free adjustments for the next few months. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, even if it doesn't have any validity to it. I first had to go in and get x-rayed. We went over them together and he showed me these two bones in my neck that were not even (clearly there was quite a difference). He gave me this chart and the
symptoms it listed do seem to match up with various problems I have been having. Also after he adjusted me, besides being totally awesome, I definitely had much more mobility in my neck.
I hear that chiropractic can be effective for lower back pain and such (though to the same degree a masseuse can be) and maybe this is just in that limited range where it can be beneficial? I just am not really sure of what exactly...well, of much at all about chiropractic. It obviously isn't just kind of made up out of nothing like magenet therapy or something of that nature, and that it has some sort of methodology and scientific basis.
Maybe a past show or a good link could help me with the information that I just don't have, otherwise though, I would love for you to discuss it on the show. Thanks for your time. Again, love the podcast.
Steven Grissom
Oklahoma USA


References:

Article by Steven Novella on chiropractic: http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=4

Chiropractic neck manipulation and strokes: www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/165/7/907
www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chirostroke.html

Singularity ()

Hey Guys (and Rebecca),

I love the show. I have turned at least three of my friends into regular listeners. I figure the best way, at this point, for me to make the world a more friendly place towards science and reason is to turn as many people on to your show as possible.

One guest I would like to hear on your show is Carl Zimmer. He is a science writer and has a fantastic blog called 'The Loom.' His blog is what piqued my interest in evolution and ultimately, skepticism.

The one question I have, which is tangentially related to your discussion of Audrey De Gray is: what is your take on the concept of the Singularity (popularized by Ray Kurzweil).

Like Audrey's SENS, the concept of Ray's general law of accellerating returns [1] is compelling to me. We tend to predict the future without taking into consideration the exponential nature of the advancement of knowledge and engineering. (Moore's semiconductor law seems to apply to many different fields).

Ray Kurzweil uses this logic to predict a future (within the next 30 years) of super human artificial intelligence, massively expanded lifespans, etc.

Thanks again,

Robert Isaacs
Tampa, FL USA

P.S. Ray Kurzweil would also be a great guest.

Gay Life Expectancy ()

Recently I was in Cambridge, England, home to one of the World's most prestigious universities boasting such distinguished alumini as Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking and Ali G. Probably their most famous former student was Charles Darwin which probably explains why there were so many religious preachers dotted around the city's streets armed with a microphone, leaflets and a portable notice-board. Out of curiousity I decided to stop and listen to what one of them had to say and to my amusement he was rattling off a list of scientific reasons as to why evolution was impossible and therefore God must be the cause of everything.

After a couple of minutes I got bored and left but was ambushed by a colleague of the speaker who asked me how I felt about what was being said. I told him that it was ludicrous that anyone could hold such out-dated beliefs and that I didn't want to get into an argument because they are impossible to win. As I was walking off he handed me a leaflet which I was about to throw in a trash can when I noticed something.

There was a section about the evils of homosexuality and one of the 'facts' which it claimed proved that homosexuality was indeed evil was that the average life expectancy of a gay man is 43 years. I found this very hard to believe so I asked him if it was a typo and he said no, that because of AIDS and other diseases associated with gay men the average age for queers (his words, not mine) was just 43. I told him that that was total crap but I had no evidence to disprove it.

So when I got home I attempted to investigate further but all my research on the web kept bringing me to creationist websites repeating the number 43 years over and over. I still don't believe it but I can't find any evidence to the contrary. My best guess is that perhaps the average lifespan of gay men with AIDS may have a life expectancy of 43 and that they have extrapolated that to all gay men.

So I guess my question is where does this statistic come from? But assuming the number is wrong, do gay men have a lower life expactancy than straight men, or indeed gay women? Because next time I am engaged in a conversation with a creationist I would really like a firm, water tight statistic to prove how wrong they are.

Regards
Rich Wallace
Ireland

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9222793&query_hl=21&itool=pubmed_docsum

Science or Fiction ()

Question #1: Study finds that predators prefer prey that have smaller brains. Question #2: New study suggests that drinking apple juice may improve memory in Alzheimers patients. Question #3: New study shows that daily flossing is associated with lower scores on standard IQ tests.

Skeptical Puzzle ()

Last Week's puzzle:

All the electricity was out in Aberdeen. None of the street lights or traffic signals had power. A dark limousine was cruising down the newly paved blacktop, with its headlights off. A young boy dressed totally in black (with no reflectors) stepped out to cross the street. The moon wasn't out and the boy had no flashlight, yet the driver stopped to let the boy cross the street. How did the driver see the boy?

Answer: It was daytime

New Puzzle:

You have just made a cup of coffee but haven't put the milk in yet. The doorbell rings so it may take a couple of minutes before you can drink it. If you like your coffee hot, is it better to add the milk before answering the door or after you return.

From:
Roel Winters
Belgium

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.

References