VooDoo Science, Laura Caruso

           

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, written by Robert Park, is a collection of alternative sciences in which complex theories are used to confuse the general public and to explain the laws of nature that even they cannot understand. In simpler terms, “voodoo science” is a term for pseudoscience or fraudulent science, according to a review by Richard A. Pizzi.

            This pathway avoids the outskirts and rushes right in to the heart of fringe science, in which Park is essentially explaining to his readers that it is much easier to spot voodoo science than most would think. However, author Robert Park manages to keep his head when writing about the billions of dollars wasted on countless research and therapies backed up by fraudulent claims, like the Jarvik 7, an artificial heart that was placed in the body of a Seattle dentist named Barney Clark.

            Although research for an artificial heart may be highly effective in the long run, this dying man was forced to live in “a man-made Hell somewhere between life and death” for 112 days, according to Park in Chapter Five of Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Although Clark survived his own heart, his agreement to undergo the procedure was not to live longer than he was destined to; rather, it was to help advance scientific research, a fact that most ill-informed media sources neglected to mention. When Chase Peterson, a retired M.D. by training put on his white smock and hung a stethoscope around his neck each day before appearing in front of the camera to update America on Barney Clark’s condition, the nation was convinced that this man had just returned from Clark’s bedside, and that Clark was living out a happy and grateful life post heart failure.

            This example is the definition of voodoo science; people who go to school and earn a degree deem themselves scientists, and begin fraudulent research on things that will encourage the rest of the country to hop on the bandwagon. This is where scientific fads come from, like super diets, UFO sightings, and paranormal activity, among many others. Maybe some of these claims are true, and maybe they are false. Most of us will never know, and we can thank the supporters of voodoo science for that one.

            My favorite part of Voodoo Science had to do with one particular suspicion related to the cause of cancer. Chapter Seven, titled “Currents of Fear in which Power Lines Are Suspected of Causing Cancer,” is based on a three year study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in which the NAS reviewed the possible health effects of exposure to residential electromagnetic fields. This study focused not only on power lines, but on the recent “microwave” epidemic. Yes, the microwave oven epidemic. These appliances “exert a profound effect on the central nervous system of rhesus monkeys and other primates,” according to an article written by Paul Brodeur. The actual radiation had been studied for thirty years, and the list of health problems connected to microwaves included miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer.

            This created mass hysteria, in which people who were exposed to microwaves (essentially every family that owned a microwave oven) would blame their sudden health issues on the radiation. I have a cold at the moment, but I am not blaming that cold on the microwavable dinner I had last night.

            The best part about this cancer causing fad (and I mean fad in the heaviest, non-humorous sense) is that there are tons of studies about people who were already diagnosed with cancer, but none about cancer before birth. It would be a wonderful thing to find a cure to cancer, but wouldn’t it be even better to find a way to prevent the disease? It would be much more effective to “discover the true biologic causes of the leukemic clones that threaten the lives of children,” as stated in an accompanying editorial to the New England Journal of Medicine.

            I related this novel to class in a way that most other people would; I associated the theories and phenomena explained by Robert Park to the ones in the textbook, and I began to question much of what I have read. I have always been skeptical of most studies that have been broadcasted throughout the media, but never to this extent. I think that is what makes this book so powerful—and interesting—because Park not only elaborates on these theories, but opens your eyes to other fraudulent headlines you have seen throughout your life.

Posted for Laura Caruso

Out of body experiences

An out of body experience is when someone feels they are essentially leaving their body and are able to look at themselves from the outside. After looking through the lecture about out of body experiences, I was discussing it with my family. My uncle shared with me an odd experience he had when he was younger. He remembers standing over his own body watching himself sleep. He thought of it as more of a dream, but after reviewing out of body experiences, this sounds like a very similar episode. Out of body experiences can be controversial; however, there is a large quantity of people who fully believe these experiences are real. There is even a website for the 'Out of Body Experience Research Foundation'. The link to that site is http://www.oberf.org/

It's a very informative site if you're interested in learning more about out of body experiences. There's even a link through the site that people can post their own experiences. It's intriguing to see how many people experience this.

Amityville Murders

One ghost story that I find to be most interesting is the one of the Amityville murders that took place in 1974. The police had discovered 6 members of the DeFeo family murdered in their own house. A year later the Lutzes family moved into the house and stated that the murders that happened in the house "wouldn't bother them". The family had a priest come and bless their home on the first day they moved in, and when the priest went into the second floor northeast bedroom he allegedly heard a male voice scream "Get out". He didn't tell the family about it, but advised them to not use that room. It did not take long for the family to become uncomfortable in their house. After the first night they admitted that they felt strange sensations. Things began to worsen after a few weeks, green slime ran down walls, hundreds of flied were in the sewing room in the winter time, and suffered from constant chills.

George (the husband) awoken one night to see that his wife had "transformed into a 90 year old hag". The next night she had began levitating off the bed and George had to grab her to pull her back down to the bed. They realized they needed help, and tried to get the priest back to help but he refused due to feeling the after effects of the blessing. The daughter had befriended an invisible red eyed pig named Jodie who could not be seen by anyone unless she wanted them too. It was reported that the malevolent forces in the house has caused major property damage such as the front door getting ripped of its hinges, windows being broken, damage to the garage door, and water damage from hurricane force winds that meteorologists had to record of. After 28 days of living in the house, the family decided that they could not take it anymore and moved out.

http://www.amityvillemurders.com/capitalizing.html

Hello Classmates!!

I have not posted anything yet to our class blogsite, but I'd like to introduce myself and tell you what I am going to mainly post about!!

My name is Lindsey Tallman, I am a senior at RSC studying geology.. Over the years as a geo major we've gone on tons and tons of camping trips, which have brought on so many different experiences. Including, paranormal and extraterrestrial activity! I'd like to share different experiences and different ideas that my geo classmates and I have about these topics.

Specifically, most of our experiences took place in open field in state park areas.
Why are most of the extraterrestrial sightings in areas where there is little to no development?
Why do paranormal experiences often happen in areas of creepy darkness, or just a plain old bedroom?
These are just some of the questions I want to answer.
I will start with extraterrestrial experiences.

Thank you for reading ~~ Lindsey Tallman.

MPD

Multiple Personality Disorder also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder is a very dangerous Disorder which is why i took an interest into this because many people believe that this is a real disorder while many more believe that this disorder is caused by witchcraft. Multiple Personality Disorder; a severe condition in which two or more personalities/ identities take control of one individual. After the difference identity has taken control of the body/mind there seems to be memory loss that is substantial. Modern day research has found that MPD can be caused by traumatic time in a persons childhood. It is believed that these personalities are created as an escape from a traumatic time during childhood, the individual is better off thinking that the incidents happened to someone else or in this case their different identity. In the movie Sybil based on a true story we see a normal middle-aged woman who lives by herself, not to long into the movie we see that she has been abused  during her childhood. Sybil takes on 16 different personalities, all of them have different living situations, different ages and different genders. It is believed that Sybil created these identities due to her therapist naming her different emotional conditions. Although in the movie it is stated that Sybil was bused as a child, In the movie Me Myself and Irene Charlie the main character was not abused or had traumatic times during his childhood. Charlie had a good personality until someone would push his limits then his other identity Hank Evans would take over. Doctors now don't know anymore wether MPD reflects to childhood trauma or is just a pseudoscience social phenomenon. As you can see in both movies there are different cases which have many times showed up in real life, you can see how different the circumstances can be wether the patient has from 2 up to 16 identities and how their childhoods were different in the sense that one went through traumatic times and one did not. People with Multiple Personality Disorder have to be taken care of in special hospitals with special treatments and special nursing. In many other cases people believe that MPD or DID is associated with witchcraft or a bad has taken over a person/ a persons mind.
Before the movie Sybil there were no more than 200 cases reported after the movie came out there were tens of thousands cases reported making this disease harder to track. Were the people that repotted having MPD after the movie Sybil faking? Close relatives of people who  from MPD sometimes have never seen these alter egos although the person with MPD says that they do have alter egos. Many people after entering MPD treatment would get much worse. There are no answers as to why someone would fake having this disease and if anyone actually has. People have questioned how someone could keep track or 2,16,30 sometimes up to 4,00 or more alter egos. People have diagnosed for MPD for changing clothes various times a day and wearing sunglasses. For many years a plain answer as to how to recognize, so how can we actually say that so many people have MPD when we don't have a concrete way to recognize an alter ego. If you look in the book on ch.1, pg.5 it states "Pseudoscientists often make extraordinary claims that are unconstrained by reality, physical laws, or human limitations. However, they back these claims up with little or no complain publicly verifiable evidence." Although these claims have been backed up with many cases and with many resources how can we be sure that these sources are reliable when there were less than 200 cases discovered before the movie Sybil, which may have caused someone to think they have MPD. In the end we need to wait for more medical and science advances in order to know the causes and effects of this disorder.

These are the trailers for both of the movies listed above!

Sybil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPIDt3yu1M
Me Myself & Irene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssx_riw1Y9Y

Ch.9.1

trepanation

http://www.vice.com/read/drilling-a-hole-in-your-head-for-a-higher-state-of-consciousness

Who drill a hole in their head? I honestly never heard of trepanation in my life until I started this class. Doe this actually work? After I read about this and watch the video in the lectures about this, I started reading and trying to find videos about this. Most people that get it done is for depression. Looking into this drilling a hole in the head thing, it is popular around the world and goes way back hundreds and thousands years. It just mind boggles me that some people actually did this themselves. People that did do this for multiple reasons like depression, headaches, for a high, or even to release evil. I don't know how well it works for that but thinking about i would imagine i would have more headaches and be more depressed because I am walking around with a hole in my head and have people looking at me funny. A lot of the videos I watch people seem to be drug users or hippies back in the day. The african people still do this procedure and so do people around the world. In our country I don't think it is legal but in some others I think it is. They say some doctors tried to research it but nothing is certain. If it was reliable and certain everybody would be doing it for there illness they have and be legal everywhere right? Trepanation Is suppose to release pressure and have more blood to flow to the brain. Thats what i got out of it. ABove is a link to some lady that is doing research on it and did it herself I thought is was somewhat interesting Enjoy.

Dreams

I've always been interested in the topic of dreams and what they really mean. A few months ago my grandmother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, and put on hospice almost immediately. My father stayed by her side day and night, until she passed two weeks ago. The night after she passed, my dad dreamed that he was right there in her living room (the same spot he was sleeping that night), and he woke up to her sitting next to him on the edge of the couch. Behind him, his brother who had passed away years ago was sitting there also, but he couldn't see him. His mother handed him a box with a balloon tied to it; inside the box there were gift cards and money. After she handed him the box she went to give him a hug; when he went towards her she disappeared and he woke up. This dream was really interesting to me, and when I looked it up each piece of the dream has a different meaning. For instance, his brother being there with him shows a sense of companionship. I feel that this is important because losing his mother is a time that he needed his brother by his side. The balloon being tied to the box represents an ability to "rise above it all", which is significant to the long journey of battling cancer. I used a website given in our lecture to interpret the dream called mydreamvisions.com.

Here is the link to the site: http://mydreamvisions.com/

EL Chupacabra

I would like to give you a little bit more on that idea of the creature called EL Chupacabra (goat sucker).  Well if you do not know already let us breakdown the meaning of the word.  Chupar means suck and cabra means goat, this is a legendary creature that inhabits parts of the Americas, but first reported to be seen and noticed on the small island of Puerto Rico.  It got its name from the attacking of livestock and drinking of their blood especially goats.  This creature was supposedly first sighted in March of 1995 and its myth and legend has been reported as far south of Chile and far north Maine.

When first reported in Puerto Rico eight goats were attacked with each one having 3 puncture wounds in the chest area and drained of all their blood.  Soon after visual sightings were being reported of this creature.  After this more and more livestock were found killed and drained of their blood.  Some people on the island blamed it on the Chupacabra while others believed it was part of a Satanic Cult.  Now more sightings and animals were being reported throughout the Americas.  In the United States Biologist Barry O'Connor stated that these attacks were not that of the Chupacabra but that of coyotes infected with a parasite, that explained how people could have mistaken infected coyotes with that of the creature the Chupacabra.  The coyotes appearance would have little fur, thickened skin, and a horrible odour.  With coyotes having this infection it would possibly have put them in a weaken state reason why they attacked livestock more because they were easier prey.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra

As you can see how this creature has become part of our badly made but funny movies.  Of course this is not the only movie made regarding this creature.  It just shows how a possible sighting from someone can go to stir up our ideas and thoughts.

Even though the first reported attack was introduced not to long ago many individuals have seen, taken pictures, and actually have video footage of the Chupacabra.

As we can seen many images have been taken of this creature and we can only wonder how real or fake they are but there have been video evidence also.  

I believe this all falls under the idea of Social Psychology and how a small myth can stir into something much larger. At first this just seem to be an isolated thing but it grew to become something much more.  It just shows how people can fall to mass delusions and hysterias.  I will say unlike bigfoot there is more evidence supporting the Chupacabra but also scientific thoughts on what it really could be.  

In my final thoughts I personally do not believe in a blood sucking goat attacker.  I do feel it is more possible for an infected animal to do these things or just a really ugly dog that lives in the wild, but it just solely ingesting blood with out any other food source is hard for me to believe.  You might as well say it is Dracula's pet dog running around doing these things.  

Past-Life Identities

The debate of whether people can recall their past lives or not has always been a complicated one; this stems from reincarnation, the religious concept that the soul begins a new journey through life in a new body after biological death. There are many stories about people who can remember their past lives, but one article really stood out to me. This article is about a three year old boy who remembers his own murder in his previous life; the boy lead the elders of his ethnic group to the site of his own body, where his skull was found with a split down the middle. Before the body was found, the boy had told his elders he was murdered with an ax, which was uncovered in another location near the body. I find this article very interesting, and I hope you all do as well.

Article: http://wallstreetinsanity.com/3-year-old-claims-to-remember-who-killed-him-in-past-life-leads-police-to-body/

See book: Chapter 6.2, Page 160

Dream Interpretations

Recently, I have been having very strange dreams; my dreams have been so absurd that I have started recording them moments after waking up, before all of the memory is lost. The most farfetched of them all was a dream about the apocalypse, an end to the world in which a group of people were taking over society. These people were dressed in red polo shirts, decorated with a small symbol that I cannot remember. We were given 24 hours to make a decision: live, or die. If we chose to live, we had to abide by the new rules; this option was for everyone who valued the idea of life more than actually living it. The second option, death, was to be executed by a form of radiation delivered in a glass box, where a metal sheet would descend from the top of the glass and zap your forehead, killing you instantly. We were given 24 hours to make a decision, but we had to avoid the red shirts, or we would be dragged to the glass box and forced to make our decision instantly. I remember searching for my family, only to find them with an hour left on the countdown. My father, a man I truly look up to, decided to die; however absurd and frightening that may be, I understood his decision, because who would want to live in a world where you are told how to live? My mother, the kindhearted person she always is, decided to live; she values her life more than how she lives it, even in the present world. I had decided to die, like my father. For some reason, I was separated from my family once more, and was dragged to the glass box by a woman in a red shirt. After exclaiming my choice of death of life, I was placed in the box and the metal sheet came down. I was zapped, but, for some reason, I lived. My memory then skips ahead a little while in to the future, where I eventually find my mother again. When the officials discovered I had lived through the radiation, they let me have another chance to make my decision. Again, I chose to die; again, I lived. At some point I must have found my father, because I was shocked to discover him alive. My father, however, was not the man he used to be. In this new world, he was cold; he ignored my mother and I, without even a head nod of recognition. Later I realized that some people were given the option to live, regardless of whether they had originally chosen to die, and would continue out their lives in splendor, granted they follow a set of rules given to them by the administration. My father was forced to live, but had to deny any relation to my mother and I.

This dream was a very frightening and vivid nightmare, and I have tried to analyze it every day since that night. In Chapter 3.3 of Scientific Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, the second paragraph reads, “Today most scientists view dream interpretation as a pseudoscience that can produce inaccurate and potentially harmful results.” At first, I didn’t understand that line. After relating it back to my dream, however, I have realized just how dangerous these interpretations can be.

See book:  Scientific Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (Chapter 3.3).

Persuasion and Placebos

Within the two pages of the book, Scientific Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, I immediately thought of a lecture I was given in Elizabeth Shobe’s Intro to Psychology course last term. During that lecture, Liz explained the significance of advertising and persuasion; she emphasized that most advertisements shown on TV are an exaggeration, sometimes even entirely unreliable. When the product that is being advertised receives reviews throughout the commercial, each person who speaks is a stranger to the audience. Liz stated, and I quote, “For all we know, those people proclaiming their dire need for the new ShamWOW! could be family of the inventor.” After reflecting on this lecture, I have realized she was right. We don’t know those people who are reviewing the product, and we certainly don’t know if they have any relation or ties to the people selling the product. On Pg. 4 of Scientific Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, it reads, “Notice that the pseudoscientific approach did not involve systematic empiricism; in other words, the pseudoscientist did not conduct a study that was carefully planned to rule out alternative explanations for the improvement in patients’ symptoms. We do not know for sure whether the people who tried the herbal remedy were clinically depressed before taking the remedy…” This particular excerpt is referring to a pseudoscientist who delivered an herbal remedy spoken to relieve the symptoms of depression. The author, Timothy Lawson, has a very good point in relation to Liz’s lecture. Not only  are we unfamiliar with the reliability of a testimonial, but we also cannot prove how that testimonial came to be. Was the product actually helpful, or was the sudden improvement just an act of subconscious will power from an ineffective placebo?

Refer to the book: Page 4, Chapter 1. 

Limited Brain Use

Chapter 3.1 of the textbook, Whence Cometh the Myth That We Only Use 10% of Our Brains?, immediately had me thinking of two movies; one movie I have already seen, and one that I keep seeing trailers of on TV commercials.  The movie Limitless starring Bradley Cooper, and the movie Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman would be the two movies, respectively.  Both movies’ plots are centered on the main character somehow ingesting a drug that enables them to access their brains full potential.  Limitless claims humans have access to 20% of their brain, and Lucy claims humans have access to 10% of their brain.  In Limitless, the main character doesn’t get any nonhuman powers, but his ability to think, do math, write, etc. greatly improves.  In Lucy, the main character has more and more powers as her access increases such as moving objects with her mind and making everything stop moving.  The plots are examples of the factoid, as defined by the textbook, that humans only have the ability to access or use 10% of their brain.  By calling this idea a factoid, it is understood that there is no evidence to support the idea or getting the evidence to support the idea is not possible. 

If there is no evidence in support, then how do these kinds of ideas stay alive? The textbook answers this question and discusses how an idea like this gives people the hope that they have more potential they’re just not capable of obtaining.  The two movies that I immediately thought of after just reading the title to the textbook section are another answer to this question.  By centering a movie’s storyline around this idea, true or not, will help to continue belief in this factoid.  Millions of people will watch these movies, and if some people have heard of this myth that we can only use a certain percentage of our brains, seeing a movie that says it’s true and shows what happens once we can access it may influence a person to believe even more.   

Here are the trailers to both movies!

Limitless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THE_hhk1Gzc

Lucy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN7ksFEVO9U

I also recently came across a video talking about 7 common myths about the brain.  One of the myths discussed in the video is that humans only use 10% of their brain.
Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfgkAJmp9-A

Magic Trick

So I decided to take a look at one of those videos you see posted all over your news feeds in which people believe without any hesitation. This video basically illustrates how a pre-recorded magician is going to guess the card that is on your mind. After watching you will see that all he did was jumble the cards and suits to produce an illusion that yours is missing. If you go back and analyze the remaining cards, you will see, at least in my instance, that your card is halfway there. This reminded me of our into in chapter one, on pseudoscience. I believe that this perfectly demonstrates how someone's supposed "expertise" is appealing to a false authority, being us. This also draws my attention back to the Q-Ray. It was advertised to get people to believe that it does such wonderful things, such as this instance of mind reading. How do we really know though? If it's not labeled as a definite in science, is it automatically considered pseudoscience? This trick definitely breaks the laws of reality as well as going against what can be replicated. I do understand its a trick not so much as an ancient belief or even a home remedy to disease. Could this still be considered a part of pseudoscience since it follows the general guidelines?


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Welcome Summer 2014 Students!

Welcome Summer 2014 Students! This is our site for your posts and book report.
Thanks, Mark

Broken Mirror

It is said that when you break a mirror, your cosmic reparation is to endure seven years of bad luck, unless you can find a way to counteract the negative effects. The source of the " break a mirror and face seven years bad luck" superstition can be traced back to the Romans. The Romans, Greek, Chinese, African and Indian civilizations thought that a mirror had power to take part of a person's soul. If the user of a mirror were to break it, the person's soul would be trapped inside the mirror. A broken mirror created a broken soul, which in turn lead to the broken health of the unfortunate user. The Romans also believed that a person's physical body renewed itself every seven years, so under that criteria it would take seven years before the user's soul would be fully restored. Up until then, life for a mirror breaker would be one long string of unfortunate events, since he or she no longer had a healthy soul to ward off spiritual evildoers.

El Chupacabra

The Chupacabra, which means goatsucker in Spanish, is a legendary cryptid that is believed to inhabit parts of the America's and first sighted in Puerto Rico. The first attacks happened in Puerto Rico when eight sheep were found dead with three puncture wounds in their chest and drained of all of their blood. A common description of the Chupacabra is it is reptile like animal with a leathery grayish skin with sharp quills along its spine. It stands around 3 to 4 feet and stands and hops like a kangaroo. Its been reported to have large fangs, eyes, and a forked tongue. Others have reported that the Chupacabra looks like a mutated coyote. Many people report finding this creature but after examinations they always turn out to be dogs and coyotes with severe cases of mange.