Trying to Do Something New With It?

It seems that, whenever I encounter someone who is an advocate of some form of pseudo-archaeology, after I have exhaustively pointed out the flaws, inconsistencies, and made-up-shit that goes into their pet hypothesis, I am told something along the lines of "well, at least I (or the person who they are quoting) am trying to do something different with this information!  THAT has value!"

If you are genuinely trying to do something new and innovative with old information, and trying to do it in such a way that you are not engaging in fabricating information, using special pleading to make your case, or in some other way being a dishonest bastard, then yes, trying to do something new has value.

The people who use this as the last-line defense for their pet hypothesis, though?  Well, A) they are almost always just trying to maintain an older, stupid idea ("ancient astronauts," Biblical literalism, etc.) and aren't actually trying anything new, and B) they are pretty much always conflating "trying something new" with playing fast-and-loose with evidence and ignoring anything even vaguely approaching logic or honesty.

If you think I'm being overly harsh, then let's consider the fact that this explanation is pretty much only used in pseudo-science, and is not present in any other realm where people try to arrive at some sort of coherent explanation of events.

For example, in criminal investigations, you would rightfully dismiss someone as a nut if they insisted that a theft was committed by aliens, and then proceeded to "prove" this by making references to out-of-context information from unrelated crimes, pulling bits and pieces of conspiracy beliefs from pop culture, making up "facts", and ignoring relevant information from the actual crime scene.  They would certainly be "doing something new" with the information...but that something new would not only not get you anywhere closer to solving the crime, it would, in fact, move you farther and farther away from the real solution.  A person doing this would be immediately drummed out of the investigation and replaced with someone who was, you know, actually mentally competent.

And yet this same basic procedure - pulling out-of-context information from unrelated sites, pulling "facts" out of pop culture rather than data, making false claims about relevant sites, and often just making shit up - is the norm in pseudo-archaeology, and even people who are not directly involved in it often defend these practices by claiming that the pseudo-scholar is "trying to do something new" with the information.

Often, perhaps typically, implied under all of this is the notion that real archaeologists (or, as the pseudo-archaeologists often label us "establishment archaeologists - booo, hisssss, bad establishment!") aren't trying to find anything new.  Sometimes it is flat out stated - there are many claims from the pseudo scholars that actual scholars are just trying to maintain some sort of "status quo", which reveals the true depth of the ignorance of the pseudo scholars - but at least as often it's just sort of implied, clearly there as an accusation, but covered up enough that the accuser can deny it if called on it.

The truth, however, is that we are working far harder than any of these twits.  We are routinely trying to test and verify our methods and our results (see here for a summarized history of how archaeology has changed, or read this for a more thorough discussion).  I have opened myself up to criticism by my professional colleagues for presenting papers that were not in-line with established models of past cultures, I have also found and publicized artifacts that are out-of-keeping with established cultural chronologies, and I have long supported archaeologists who work on the frontiers of what we think we know (for example, those working on pre-Clovis archaeology in North America).  And I am not alone, some solitary warrior fighting against the "establishment" - every archaeologist that I know who presents papers or publishes their findings does similar things.  Trying to "do something new" is what archaeologists do.

Now, it could be said that we should be better at communicating this to the general public.  That is a valid criticism, and certainly one that I, and others try to address by keeping blogs, giving public lectures, appearing on podcasts, and so on.  Some of us are lucky enough to be able to participate in radio and television, which is where most people get their information.

However, while we might do a better job of communicating our work and our findings, that in no way absolves the pseudo-archaeologists who distort, lie, and obfuscate.  And, if you are someone who is going to  claim that real archaeologists aren't "doing something new" then I offer you a challenge:  When is the last time that you read an issue of National Geographic?  Smithsonian Magazine?  Or looked at professional journals such as American Antiquity?  If you haven't done so lately, then you don't know what archaeologists are up to, and you sound as ignorant as you truly are when you imply that we aren't doing anything, or are simply supporting the "status quo."

What's in a Name? Or, Why You Should be Cautious in Comparing Languages...

While driving out the the field the other day, one of the archaeologists with whom I am working asked what the linguistic connection was between Cachuma - a place name from Santa Barbara County - and Kuuchamaa - a similar-sounding place name from San Diego County.

I didn't know the origin of Kuuchamaa, but it is the native name for Tecate Peak, an important sacred mountain that is the spiritual center for the Kumeyaay peoples of southern California and northern Mexico.  Having read up on it, I still haven't a clue as to what the word means, but it is the name of both the place, and of a culture hero - a wise and powerful shaman - said to have once lived in that place*.  The translation of the word appears to be hard to come by, so I am at a bit of a loss.

Cachuma, however, is a bit easier.  Cachuma is the English bastardization of the Spanish bastardization of the Inezeno Chumash word Aqitsumu, meaning "constant signal", which was the name of a village located in the Santa Ynez Valley, near the current location of Lake Cachuma.

So, while Cachuma and Kuuchamaa seem similar at first glance, one appears to be the actual Kumeyaay word, while the other is a rather tortured telephone game version of an Inezeno word.  Now, there could still be some linguistic connection between them, but that seems somewhat unlikely, as Aqitsumu fits in perfectly well with the Chumash language family**, and Kuuchamaa, as far as I have been able to tell (though I am a bit shaky on this) seems to fit in well with the Kumeyaay language, a dialect of Diegeno, part of the Yuman language family.  So, there is no reason to assume a connection, despite superficial similarities.

The words, though similar, refer to different types of things (a sacred mountain/person's name and a village), and there is no reason to assume that they would have similar meanings.  What's more, the version of Aqitsumu that bears the most resemblance to the Kumeyaay word, Cachuma, is also the version that is most divorced from native pronunciation.  Further, the names come from two unconnected languages.

There is, in short, no reason to think that these words are in any way connected, and some reason to think that they are not.

What is interesting about this is that there is no reason to assume a linguistic connection between two groups of people who were separated by only a few hundred miles of space for centuries.   Pseudoscientific language comparisons are often employed by people who wish to show a connection between two completely unrelated groups of people.  It is a favorite approach of those who see the ancient Isrealites landing int he Americas, the Celts taking over parts of the midwest, Medieval Japanese explorers settling Mexico, or Egyptians colonizing South America (yes, there are people who believe every one of these things).

The method is as follows:

Step 1: Find a few words (or sometimes even one) from two languages that have even a superficial similarity

Step 2: Claim that the link between these two populations is proven

Step 3: Ignore everyone who actually knows what they are talking about when they point out that you are a fool.

But, as illustrated, even in a case where two words are both used as placenames, sound extremely similar, and are from groups separated by only a few hundred miles, there is still reason to doubt a connection.  Keep this in mind whenever your wacky neighbor claims that some vague language similarities prove that the native people of New Jersey were actually descended from a clan of Bavarian sausage-makers.




*Kuuchamaa appears to be a manifestation of a messianic religious concept that appeared throughout southern California either shortly before or around the time that the Spanish arrived.  Whether the Kuuchamaa version of the story is the origin for the others, represents a merger of the messianic story with another older religious tradition, or else a spontaneous manifestation of a similar story, I do not know...nor does anyone else as far as I have been able to tell.  It's neat that even after well over a century of research, we still have some mysteries like this to explore in California.

**Chumashan languages were, until recently, thought to be part of the Hokan language family, but that view has now been largely discredited.  As a result, Chumash is an oddity in that it has no known related languages (similar in this respect to the Basque language of Spain) and exists as a linguistic island alone on the California coast.  While this is speculative, some researchers have posited that Chumash may be the last version of the original Native Californian language family, as the other languages in California appear to have come in from elsewhere.  While intriguing, this idea remains speculation until such time as physical or paleolinguistic evidence can be found to back it up.

So You Want to be a Paranormal Investigator, Part 3

This is the third part of a series of posts geared towards how to think about research if you are someone who wants to be a paranormal investigator. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

I had previously discussed issues with equipment and data-gathering.  But there is a deeper problem, which I discussed briefly in the previous entries: Even if you get truly and clearly anomolous readings or weird sightings that shouldn't be there, what do they mean?  Claims that temperature changes, eerie feelings, EMF fields, strange sounds, ionizing radiation, etc. are related to ghosts is always, without exception, based on assertions that are not backed up with any sort of bridging arguments linking the data to the conclusion.  Unless you have a clear idea of what you are looking for and, even more importantly, why you are looking for it, any information gathered is absolutely meaningless. You need theory.  Without theory, whatever it is that you are doing, it isn't research.

We need to be clear, though, and what, precisely, theory is.  Contrary to what most of the public believes, theory is not synonymous with "wild ass guess", and contrary to what your elementary school teach taught you, it doesn't mean "a tested hypothesis that hasn't yet become a law."

Wikipedia actually has a pretty good definition in it's entry on the word:

In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge,^[2] in contrast to more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven or speculative.^[3]Scientific theories are also distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions

In other words, theory is the set of observations, concepts, laws, and bridging arguments that provide a framework for exploring a concept.  The germ theory of disease, for example, is the based around the concept that many illnesses are caused by microbiological agents, such as bacteria or viruses.  Gravitational theory incorporates our observational data regarding gravity, and also provides testable hypotheses concerning what gravity actually is and precisely what causes it to work.

An important aspect of theory is that it changes over time.  Gravitational theory was once limited to discussions of how gravity worked to make large objects attract each other.  It was descriptive, and sought to describe things such as the motions of the planets, as well as objects falling to Earth.  Over time, however, it grew, and now incorporates Einstein's general relativity, elements of particle physics, and so on.  It began with observations of objects on Earth as well as the movement of objects through the sky.  As more information was gathered, observations refined, and other physics questions probed and discoveries made, more and more information was added to gravitational theory.  It grew from being descriptive (telling us how things behaved) to being predictive (telling us how they should behave under different conditions), and is increasingly explanatory (telling us not only how things have been observed to behave, and how we should anticipate them to behave, but also why they behave that way - what is gravity, exactly, anyway?).

All legitimately scientific fields build theory in this way: phenomenon are observed, the way in which they occur is more closely scrutinized and data gathered, the new data allows predictions to be made (that is, allows you to formulate hypotheses), which in turn allows you to further refine observations, ideas, and explanations.  Theory allows you to keep track of the various parts of a field of study, keep them coherent, and keep them from getting lost or confused.  Without theory, any attempt at research is dead in the water.

Within paranormal research, there is very little in the way of theory-building.  This is due, in part, to the fact that there is little in the way of coherent data gathering.  All of the ghost hunters running around with all of the infrared cameras and EMF meters available isn't going to produce anything worthwhile if there isn't some sort of structure to the matter.  Why are EMF meters used?  Why are infrared thermometers used?  What are you really capturing on your digital voice recorder?  Who knows?  There's no reason to use any of this equipment, outside of "well, it's what those guys on TV do!" or "it's what the Shadowlands website says investigators should do."

Consider that physicists don't just run around with whatever pieces of equipment they can come up with and declare that their readings are indicative of, say, proton decay.  No, they work out what a proton actually is based on a variety of different lines of evidence, how it's structured, and what the necessary results of its decay would be. THEN they use specific pieces of equipment that detect the particular things for which they are searching to see if their basic hypothesis is correct.  Similarly, if you wish to do real, legitimate paranormal research, you must first choose the phenomenon that you wish to look into, then you must start collecting basic data, then you form research questions based on those observations, and then, and only then, do you start to work out which specialized tools are appropriate for what you are trying to discover.

So, if the paranormal phenomenon that you are interested in is ghosts (my own go-to, as shown by the fact that I have essentially geared this entire discussion towards it), you must first determine if there is even a phenomenon to be studied by collecting information from both accounts of alleged hauntings and from research on related fields - and you have to be very, very cautious in accounting for as many potential fields as possible.  In the case of allegedly haunted places, you are looking at claims based on perceptions and people's memories of events, so you have to make sure that you are accounting for current work in the fields of perception and memory.  Once you have used these fields to analyze the information that you have, you look for anomalies.  You then set about trying to make some sort of sense of these anomalies - is there a pattern to them?  Can they be explained by known phenomenon (for example, most "shadow people" sightings can be easily explained by a knowledge of how the eyes function)?  If they can not be explained cleanly by known phenomenon, is there a known phenomenon that kind-of fits it, and if so, is the observation in question better explained by altering the explanations of the known phenomenon in a reasonable way (say, by appealing to other known phenomenon that may influence the first), or is it really something new?  If it is something new, you once again gather information, looking for patterns, and seeing if there is anything that connects the data together.  Over time, you will start to see links, you will start to piece things together.  But it takes a long time, and it take alot of work, and it is something that is never going to be achieved by running around old houses using whatever random piece of equipment is in vogue with the ghost hunters this year. And, importantly, if you do this, while you may discover something new and interesting, if you are doing real research, then you absolutely must be open to the fact that you may find that exotic-seeming events may in fact be best explained through mundane phenomenon.  If you discover that ghost sightings are best explained by neurology, or bad reactions to certain chemicals, or pet allergies...well, then, that is what you discovered, and a real researcher accepts this.

Rather than this, however, the current fields of paranormal investigation in general, and ghost hunting in particular, is a weird, cobbled-together Frankenstein's monster of unsubstantiated claims, faddish devotion to particular tools, and concepts borrowed from fantasy stories dressed up to sound scientific (psychokinetic energies, quantum energies leading to psychic phenomenon, inter-dimensional beings, etc.), but always essentially being assertions or suppositions without evidential backing, or even a real line of logic leading to them.

But it was not always this way.  During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, real researchers began to look into questions regarding whether or not there is something more to us than our living bodies, whether or not there are things such as psychic powers, and whether reports of hauntings indicate and actual paranormal phenomenon or were simply quirks of human perception. 

This ended for a number of reasons - some social, but many scientific.  Initial tests on precognition and clairvoyance, for example, often seemed to show something, only to have later results demonstrate a regression to the mean, indicating that it was random chance at work.  In other realms of paranromal research, investigation often revealed fraud or simple mistakes.  Over time, without clear, favorable results, enthusiasm fizzled.  After a time, the only people willing to engage in this work were the people who were perfectly willing to ignore negative results, and to focus instead on what looked like positive results when taken out of the broader context of the total results.

In other words, most of the people who stayed in the game were unwilling to follow where their results led, and would instead falsify or ignore data.  In that sort of environment, it didn't take long for every claim to be considered at least viable, no matter how absurd.  And so it is that we have paranormal researchers yammering on about "stone tapes" and "quantum potentiation leading to life after death" and "everyone having psychic abilities" despite the fact that none of these claims have been demonstrated, and many (basically, any claim involving the words "quantum" or "dimension") being so divorced from the actual, legitimate scientific uses of the key words that they are, literally, gibberish.

So, if you really want to do real paranormal research, this needs to change.  There needs to be a concerted and honest effort to build up theory.  Data needs to be recorded honestly and cleanly, negative results need to be acknowledged as being just as valuable as positive results, and you have to abandon all great edifices of pseudo-scientific gobbly-gook and start from basics. 

And understand - when you approach professional scientific researchers, you will likely have to fight back their preconceptions about what you are doing.  It's not that they are "closed-minded fools", it's that they have encountered many would-be paranormal investigators in the past, and none of them have ever been willing to do the hard work of real research, and have instead insisted that unsupported assertions be taken as fact, that an ignorance of data gathering methods was somehow superior to a clear and thought-out research methodology, and that data should be accepted only when it is favorable.  In short, they will have crossed paths with people who are closed-minded and not willing to hear constructive criticism, and then been accused of being that themselves (I have encountered this myself, as has every researcher that I know).  It may not be fair for them to view you with the cynicism that decades of this have earned, but it is human nature, and you have to be ready for it.

Also, understand, criticism is an important part of real research.  Whenever I present results, I expect to be criticized, because there will always be something that I didn't think of but that should have been considered, or some piece of data of which I was unaware, or some other way to think of the results that never occurred to me.   If you spend time reading the work of various paranormal investigators, you will hear that the "mainstream" scientist are criticizing them out of fear, or loathing, or a desire to "shut out undesired voices."  Bullshit.  Criticism is an important part of science.  We criticize each other's work, because that is how we keep ourselves honest, and how we ensure that the best ideas, explanations, and data will eventually rise to the top (admittedly, sometimes it takes a while, but it gets there eventually).  If you are being criticized, it means that you are being treated like a scientist, not that you are being shut down.

It will be difficult, it often won't be fun.  But if you are serious about being a researcher/investigator, and not just being some goofy person who runs about with equipment that they don't actually understand, then you absolutely have to do this.  And if you do this, then any positive results that you may get will be meaningful, and will be real contributions.  If you don't do this, then your work will continue to be pseudo-science at best.

Good luck. P.S., if you are reading this and insisting that paranormal research has developed good, solid, theory, then I would point out that such theory regarding the sorts of things implied would allow for working applications of the concepts and powers studied. To that end, I will simply point you to this:

So, You Want to be a Paranormal Investigator, Part 2

It's been a little while since I posted part 1 of this, but here I am with Part 2 (edit to add: part 3 is here).  A quick re-iteration: there are many people who engage in activities that could be labelled "ghost hunting" or "paranormal investigations."  This set of entries is directed at the sub-set of them who are genuinely interested in trying to do good, robust work, and not those who simply want to hang out in creepy places (which, it must be said, is something that I enjoy doing, so I see nothing wrong with it).  So, here we go...

In the last entry in this series, I discussed the problems inherent in basic data gathering.  Although I focused on eye-witness testimony, and specifically all that is wrong with it, the basic concepts (know what type of data you are collecting, what [if anything] it actually means, and why you are collecting it) apply to any situation in which you are attempting to gather information. 


So, the last entry focused on some of the basic ways to think your way through data gathering, this one is aimed at saving you time and money by looking at the different tools of the trade.  I am going to be focused on actual tools that measure actual things - not on the use of "psychic devices" ranging from a medium's impressions to dowsing rods (which certainly have their own problems, but other have explained the issues there more clearly than I ever could).  I will briefly discuss some of the more "exotic" tools amongst the ghost-hunter's cache, but will spend a bit more time on two types of equipment that I have more direct personal knowledge of: cameras and audio equipment.

Now, many a ghost-hunting enthusiast will say "ha!  Well, this guy admits that his experience with this equipment is limited, so why should you listen to him and not us, us who use this equipment all the time?"  Simple:  Unlike them, I actually bothered to read up on what the equipment actually does and does not do, and while my direct experience is limited, I have been able to find enough to figure out that they are either lying or else know even less than I do about these devices.

So, for starters, here's a run-down of some of the more common equipment, what it gets used for, and what it actually does (Much of this information is well-summarized here, for the curious):

For starters, the ghost hunters seem to have a love affair with everything infra-red, which is odd.  Infra-red devices read heat signatures.  That's it.  They do different things with these signatures (create images, measure temperatures, etc.), but their purpose is, simply to read heat signatures.  What's more, each type of infra-red device reads heat signatures in a specific way, and usually (though I can't swear that this is always the case), they read SURFACE heat signatures.  So, for example, an infra-red thermometer reads the temperature of a surface - not the air, not gases, not ectoplasm, but a surface.  So, if you point an infrared thermometer through a room, you will get the temperature of whatever object happens to be on the other side oh the room (most likely the wall), but not something insubstantial, such as gasses, smoke, or a ghost.  What's more, depending on what the object that you hit is made of, and what is connected to it, you may get radical-seeming variations from fairly common things.  Infra-red motion detectors do a similar thing, detecting either major changes in temperature or the movement of objects with heat signatures different from whatever the background field is.  Even if one is claiming that there is a "cold spot", it would need to be of sufficient temperature difference and size to trigger the motion detector. 

Also, there tends to be a bit of an inconsistency with how these objects are used by ersatz investigators - I have seen shows, and had conversations with people, wherein images from infrared camera showing warm, human-shaped areas were held up as evidence of ghosts, while "cold spots" were also used simultaneously.  So what is it?  Is the ghost cold or warm?  The fact that both tend to get used depending on what the equipment is picking up indicates that these people are detecting randomness, not ghosts - in any sort of field of measurement, there will be natural "clumpings" of readings due to basic random distribution (remember, random does not mean "evenly distributed", it means "without pattern", and "clumps" will appear whenever a pattern is lacking).  Whenever you see these clumps, they can seem striking, if you don't understand the nature of random distribution (one thing I have learned about ghost hunters - they are, to a person - very, very bad at understanding statistics).  So, finding areas that appear hot or cold with an infrared device is not really useful information unless you can demonstrate a reason for it to be a different temperature (the common trope of "we can't explain these readings, therefore- GHOST!" grows out of a basic mis-understanding of how this works - there is always the possibility of seeming anomalies in randomness, the odd readings only mean something if you have good reason to expect them to be something other than what they actually are - and area that remains cold after being hit with a blow-torch, for example). 

Anyway, unlike some other critics of paranormal investigation, I will not say that infrared equipment is useless.  I will, however, say that it is only useful if you have a clear reason to be using it, and you have a sufficient understanding of both how the equipment works and of the environment in which you are deploying it to be able to know with some degree of reliability whether or not you should be getting one set of reading and not another - and knowing that tends to require alot of background knowledge of both the place where you are, and of the basic engineering that went into building it and selecting the materials to build it.  If you haven't done this minimal research, then your readings are essentially meaningless.

Similarly, electromagnetic field meters are often abused in the name of parapsychology.  What an EMF meter does is measure the electromagnetic field.  Electromagnetic fields are all around us - the Earth generates a giant one, and out bodies generate them as well, as do all electronics.  These tools are useful in the hands of people who work with electrical equipment for a living, but tend not to produce meaningful results in the hands of anyone else.  Why?  Simple: there are many possible sources for EMFs, and someone who is accustomed to dealing with them will have an idea of what EMFs are anomalous, and which are to be expected.  Moreover, when they find an anomalous one, someone with a background in electrical work is going to have an idea of what to look for as regards its source*.  Moreover, the readings that one gets with an EMF meter depend in large part in the specifics of how one uses it.  Many commercially available meters require multiple readings to be taken in a few different ways in order to find anything meaningful (so, someone walking into a room, taking one reading, and announcing that they have found something is a sign that the person in question hasn't a clue as to how to use their equipment).  Similarly, the way one handles the meter may create anomalous readings:  for example, my fiance and I once did a ghost walk during which we were all handed EMF meters, and she and I quickly discovered that we could make these particular models spike by flicking our wrists slightly while holding them - doing little to the electromagnetic field, but screwing with the sensors - it was fun watching the other tour members try to figure out why the ghosts wanted to play with her and I, and not any of them.

Similarly, people tend to like to use ion detectors and Geiger counters (although the Geiger counters are usually given another name).  Ion detectors detect ions, atoms in which the total number of electrons are not equal tot the total number of protons and therefore have an electrical charge (positive or negative).  Ions are both naturally occurring and can be created by a variety of different pieces of equipment.  Geiger counters identify ionizing radiation from nuclear decay (alpha particles, beta particles or gamma rays), which, again, can be (in fact, usually is) naturally occurring, or can be the result of human activity.  As with EMF fields and heat signatures, readings on these pieces of equipment are essentially meaningless unless you have a good reason to expect one type of reading over another. 

In all of these cases, the infrared devices, the EMF detectors, the Geiger counters, and the ion detectors, the devices are not measuring something mystical, something weird, or something abnormal.  They are not measuring paranormal energy, ghosts, or the Force.  They are measuring properties that exist in the world, all around us, at all times.  And all of them can only produce meaningful measurements if you know what should and/or should not be in a given location, which requires a whole heaping load of background research.  Hell, in the case of things such as radiation and ions, a basic knowledge of local geology and weather is necessary to know what should or should not be present, and I rarely see a paranormal researcher consult a geology or meteorology textbook. 

Okay, so now onto the items with which I have a bit more direct experience and a bit more to say. 

While in college, I trained to be a radio DJ, but found that I had a much greater affinity for the recording and manipulation of audio than for the on-air hijinks that accompanied DJ-dom.  I became pretty good at making the various audio devices to which I had access make all manner of weird sounds, manipulate signals in odd ways, and create audio effects unintended by the equipment's manufacturers.  What's more, I learned of the many ways that audio equipment can pick up unexpected noise, and I learned that following a basic train of cause-and-effect, I could invariably find the source of the sound (which, often, was very different from what it initially sounded like on the recording).  Now, mind you, I could track down the sources in a controlled studio environment - if the same sorts of things had occurred with a tape recorder out on the town, I'd have had a much harder time tracking down the source - it likely would often be impossible - but my experience in the studio had taught me that unlikely sources can create odd noise and effects in recordings. 

Most commercially available audio equipment is different from the professional-grade stuio equipment in that it is usually more compact, and gives the operator less control - but it has all of the same basic parts and features, it just either pre-sets them to "typical" conditions, or else automates them into a few pre-sets.  The point is, this equipment has pretty much the same ability to create anomalous sounds as the studio equipment that I used, but fewer ways for the operator to minimize interference or alter the sound produced to create a cleaner recording.  What's more, outside of a controlled studio environment, things such as tape recorders picking up faint radio signals, as well as the re-use of old tapes creating "bleed through" is common. 

Digital recorders avoid some problems (such as bleed through), but still have some of the same issues, and several new ones unique to digital audio.

To make matters worse, most enthusiasts of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP - the alleged voices of spirits captured on electronic equipment) advocate the use of white noise int he background when you make recordings.  This is dumb.  Dumb, stupid, foolish, and asinine.  As you may recall from Part 1, the human brain looks for patterns in randomness, and in laboratory experiments it has been shown to be very, very common for people to swear that they have heard human voices saying specific, coherent things in randomly generated noise.  So, if you create white noise and then sit and listen to it for voices, you are very likely to hear voices whether or not there is anything there.

So, when someone plays spooky noises that they recorded at the local cemetery, it probably goes without saying that I am singularly unimpressed.  Even when they are sure that they hear a human voice answering questions, it is really, really unimpressive.

Now, am I not saying that audio equipment is useless.  If you can routinely replicate certain types of phenomenon, and you are able to successfully rule out all common sources of interference, then you may have something.  Now, what you have may be an uncommon problem with your equipment, or it may be something truly strange, and you will have to find different ways to further explore it, but you might (and note, I say "might" not "are") be on to something.  In a more pedestrian sense, audio equipment, especially a good, simple tape recorder or digital voice recorder, is an excellent way to take quick, on-the-fly notes to help you out later.  These things are useful pieces of equipment for any researcher, but as with everything else discussed here, you have to understand what they are and how they work, and how your brain interprets sound in order to get any real use out of them.

And now, onto cameras.  I am a hobbyist photographer and have been for many years, so while I am not a professional photographer, I do know a thing or two about the subject.  And when I see photographic "evidence" of hauntings, I am consistently underwhelmed.

First off, there's the fact that many of the things that are currently held up as evidence of ghosts - streaks, "orbs", etc. - are actually pretty well understood properties of how cameras function.  A camera operates by bringing light in, and turning that light into an image, either on a photographic paper or through electronic sensors. Anything that reflects light will effect the image, and as cameras bring in light in a manner a bit different than how the human eye does, this means that objects may appear on film or in digital images that are not visible to the naked eye. Small objects that can reflect light (raindrops, motes of dust, insects, etc.) tend to reflect it in a spherical pattern that is not visible to the human eye, but does show up on camera. If the object is caught in a particular way or is moving quickly enough, this may show up as a "streak" rather than a sphere. Likewise, small light sources, maybe dim enough to not be noticeable to the naked eye, may show up on film as streaks if the camera or the object emitting the light is moving, even slightly, when the shot is taken. This is especially true in low-light conditions.  Now, some people will say "well, this orb is translucent, that one is solid, therefore we know that this one is an artifact of light, BUT the other is a ghost!"  Nope, sorry, both are artifacts of light, and anyone who tells you different is either completely ignorant of photography, or is lying to you.

Indeed, it is a sad fact that the reason why we have these obvious artifacts being held up as ghostly images is because most of us are familiar enough with special effects that we will no longer uncritically accept a modified image.  As a result, those who wish to capture ghosts on film have tried to find ways to use unmodified images to support their claims.  The problem there, of course, being that, to anyone who knows the ins-and-outs of camera functionality, these images are pretty clearly mundane.  The fact that there are some photographers who are only to ready to jump on the spooky bandwagon (usually to make money off of selling either their services or their photographs) doesn't change the fact that these really are pretty damn mundane.

On a related note, it is common for people to take other types of photographs from other people as evidence of ghostly activity.  Typically, the line goes something like this: a photograph appears to show something strange, it was taken to a photography expert who states that there are no signs of tampering with the image, and therefore the image really does show something strange!

Leaving aside the images created via pariedolia, there is another problem here.  All of the images below are analogous to types used as evidence for paranormal phenomenon.  None of them have been tampered with, and therefore would show no signs of tampering if examined:

Every one of them shows a vague human outline, or a human form that is insubstantial, or a face that seems somehow wrong.  In some of them you will have to look closely, but these sorts of ghostly images are present in every one of them.  Several have strange streaks of light or "orbs".

Those human shapes in the ghostly images are myself, and my friends Robin, Michael, and Robert.  None of the images were created using photo manipulation software, studio editing, or any other form of image manipulation.  In other words, not a single one was tampered with, and none of them would show signs of tampering if examined.

Which doesn't mean that there was no trickery involved.  I used a variety of techniques to create these images: pinhole apertures, slow shutter speeds in low-light conditions, and a mix of digital and film cameras, utilizing properties unique to each of them.  In some of the images, I intentionally used non-optimal settings (making the exposure to bright or too dark, putting the image slightly out-of-focus, etc.) to make the image look just slightly not-right before inserting the spooky element (this serves to prep the viewer to see the image as spookier than it really is).  I used cameras with light leakage, or used flashes, to create the streaks and orbs.  I created the images intentionally, knowing full well what I was doing, and what I was going to get when I was done.  So, just because a photo has not been edited or altered doesn't mean that it is real, and this should be kept in mind whenever you are presented with a photograph as evidence.

But this also brings us to another issue: that, like the audio equipment, lower-end cameras (especially digital point-and-click cameras, but also many non-professional film cameras) have the same parts as higher-end cameras (lenses, film or sensors, apertures, etc.), but generally automate those parts or have them at pre-sets, limiting the ability for the user to manipulate them in order to cut out interference, creating numerous anomalies that may seem odd or even spooky to someone not familiar with how to intentionally create the same sorts of images.  Moreover, an unwary user of a film camera is likely to end up with double-exposures, which can result in "a person who wasn't there appearing in the image!", and most people using these cameras on ghost hunts do not keep accurate photo logs in order to recall the precise conditions under which images were created.

Like audio equipment, cameras are useful tools.  They can allow you to document conditions, act as a supplement to your field notes, and there is a small but real chance that you may even catch something in the image that might prompt further investigation.

While the IF devices and EMF meters, etc. are probably best left at home, cameras and audio equipment are legitimately useful, and should accompany someone who is trying to do real investigation.  But you should always be aware of the limits of your equipment, the nature of your equipment, and of the fact that many of the things taken as evidence of ghosts are, in fact, easily explainable by someone who knows what the equipment is and how it works.  So, bear all of this in mind when using it.

Okay, the next part, which I hope to post in the not-too-distant future, will focus on the basica problems inherent in the lack of theory and testable hypotheses in paranormal research, and what you can do to make things better.






* Fun fact: on occasion, a television show will bring someone in who is said to have the correct background to make sense of EMF readings.  Assuming that they do (and given the way that paranormal television shows often play fast-and-loose with the qualifications of people who I have actually know the background of, I have little hope that they get anyone else's qualifications correct), the devices are almost always shown being used in a manner inconsistent with what is needed to get reliable readings.  So, even in these cases, the devices are being mis-used.

So, You Want to be a Paranormal Researcher? Part 1

Every now and again I get an email at the ghost story blog from someone who wants to engage in "paranormal investigations" and wants some pointers.  So, I thought I'd write up what most of them have asked for as a blog post to which I can point them in the future.  I should also not ethat this was inspired, in part, by entries written by my friend Dave Hasbrouk. 


Now, let me make it clear to whom this entry is addressed - there is a sub-set of people who wish to engage in paranormal investigations who actually want to do it well and in a way that produces usable results.  These folks may or may not believe that they are going to find something, but they absolutely want to make sure that if they do, it will be something that could convince any fair-minded but discerning audience.  So, I am writing specifically for some of those people, not for the large number of people who simply engage in ghost hunting for fun (and activity with which I have no problem), or those who are convinced that there is some sort of big, bad "scientific establishment" out to "hide the truth" (a viewpoint based in delusion)

There is no shortage of how-to guides both in print and online, and pretty much every one of them is filled with nonsense.  I am, admittedly, not an expert on paranormal claims (I would point out that such a title is pretty much always self-appointed, though), but I am trained as a scientist, which means that I know how to look for and analyze data, and also that I know the potential that we all have to fool ourselves into thinking that we have proven something that we actually failed to prove (the entire scientific method is, in fact, built around trying to prevent a researcher from fooling themselves).  So, my how-to-guide isn't going to tell you what equipment to use, but it will tell you how to think about what you are doing so that, should you find something, it is likely to be something real and not simply a figment of your own imagination.

This is in two parts - Part 1 is about data gathering, and points out some of the basic issues involved in gathering your data.  Part 2 will be about the use of technology in gathering data.  Part 3 will be about theory - that is, the body of evidence and conclusions that form the basis of any solid research.  So, here we go with the data gathering:

Do your background research!

Typically, the paranormal investigators that I have encountered will assume that local rumors or folklore are accurate descriptions of historic events at an allegedly haunted location.  The problem is that they usually aren't.  It's pretty much a given that in looking into ghost stories for a location I will encounter someone who claims that a particular person once owned a property only to discover that the person is not in the chain of title for the property in question, or that a location housed a particular type of facility that even preliminary historic research demonstrates never existed on said property, or that there will be claims exaggerating real events (a good example is that hospitals with reputations for being haunted are often said to have had a number of deaths that, if accurate, would actually have killed more people than lived in the region that the hospital serviced).  That doesn't even get into the number of places that are allegedly built on Native American burial grounds, but are, in fact, quite a distance away from any type of archaeological site at all.

Here's the thing - records exist for all of these things.  The archaeological records are hard to access (there's alot of issues with sites being looted, so site records are usually considered confidential), but most of the other records can be gained through visiting the county assessor's office (to work out the historic ownership of a parcel) or even the local library (many libraries have local history sections that have both published works and primary sources for regional history).  If the property that you are looking into is particularly famous, you may even be able to find books written by qualified historians documenting the history of the place.  In addition, looking into more general local information will provide a good reality check - for example, if a hospital is reputed to have had 1,000 deaths per day due to tuberculosis, but is located in a county that at the time of the outbreak had a population of 10,000, you can be pretty sure that the death estimates are bullshit.

This background research is usually not easy - it takes time, effort, and a willingness to deal with basic bureaucracy, which can be trying.  However, if you have not done it, then you have no reason to assume that any of the information that you have gathered for a property is in any way accurate.  More importantly, if you have failed to do this research because it is hard and time consuming, then you have essentially demonstrated that you are more interested in the folklore than the fact, which is fine in of itself, but it does mean that you should call yourself a folklore collector and not a paranormal researcher, as you are failing to do even the most basic preliminary level of research research.

If nothing else, the fact that you can correctly point out where the folklore gets the facts wrong, and also give a well-documented accounting of what non-supernatural things are known to occur in a place, you will buy a good deal of credibility with whomever you are speaking.

The Problems of Eyewitness Testimony

Okay, you've done your background research, and now you're ready to collect data.  No problem, there's loads of people who have experienced strange things at the location of the investigation, so you're going to have no shortage of eyewitnesses to weirdness!  The skeptics will have to have their eyes opened when they can't explain what people have seen, heard, and experienced here.  AmIright, or what?

Well, no, not really.

See, most data regarding supernatural events comes from eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. In fact, it is increasingly becoming a concern when used as evidence in trials, see here, here, here, and here.  In fact, the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey recently made a ruling calling out for new rules to be used in eyewitness testimony because of the problems with eyewitness unreliability.

There's a fair chance that you are reading this and wondering just what the hell rulings on criminal law have to do with paranormal investigations.  It's relevant because the issues with eyewitness testimony in a criminal trial also apply to every other form of eyewitness testimony.  And understand, these criminal cases involve trained observers such as police detectives, as well as people who have often witnessed huge important events (and are therefore often certain that they have a vivid memory of said event), and they are testifying in cases that at the very least involve property and are often literal matters of life and death.  If eyewitness testimony is problematic in criminal trials, it's fair to say that it is at least as problematic in a paranormal investigation.

Eyewitness testimony has its place, but from a scientific standpoint it is a weak form of evidence, and should never be taken at face value without other evidence to back it up.  There are a few reasons for this, and you need to understand them if you are going to actually use eyewitness testimony (including your own) as evidence for a claim.  Basically, it boils down to the limited nature of human perception.


Our eyes don't see all of our field of vision at any one point in time.  They are constantly moving, scanning, and only see a small portion of our field of vision at any given instant.  Our brain compensates by filling in the rest of the picture via our memory of what our eyes saw the last time we looked in a direction, as well as our general memory to fill in gaps.  As a result, it is common for people to mistake one type of object for another if it is hovering just at the edge of our field of vision - our brain fills in the details and tells us that one thing is in the area when something else is (edited 7-17-12: the webcomic XKCD has a great illustration of this here).

A case in point - a couple of years ago, I was standing in the post office, when a woman walked in behind me.  I saw her just out of the corner of my eye, and she bore a striking resemblance to the character of Veronica Palmer from the show Better off Ted, complete with grey business suit.  When I turned around again, I realized that, while the woman was tall, thin, and blonde, she otherwise bore no resemblance to the character, and her clothing consisted of a white shirt worn under a black apron from the bakery across the street.  My eyes had caught just enough of her to mark a few elements of size and color, but not enough to accurately account for her appearance, and so my brain filled int he rest with an image from memory that had some similarities.  When I turned around and was able to actually see her, she bore little resemblance to what I originally thought that I had seen.

This is very common - all of us do it, it's how our vision works.  And when we're tired, or stressed, or pre-occupied, or in low-light conditions, our eyes don't scan as well, and our brain has to go into overtime filling in gaps that our eyes are missing.  It's the reason why so many ghost witnesses describe seeing things "just at the edge of my vision."  And remember that our brain seeks patterns from our memories, so if you are constantly reading paranormal books, watching horror movies, etc., then the things that your brain has to draw from include those things as well - in other words, your' vision of an apparition might just be your brain trying to compensate for tired eyes. And, weirdly, these false images actually mean that your brain is working correctly, even when your eyes might not be.

In other words, many a spooky encounter might be due to the fact that our eyes suck.

There's another problem with perception that comes into play, as well.  This is called pareidolia, the tendency for our brains to try to force a recognizable pattern onto randomness.  It's the reason why we often perceive faces in the leaves of shrubbery, animals in the shapes of clouds, and so on.  It doesn't just work in our vision, though.  People tend to hear voices or music in what is clearly just random noise (for some cool examples, go here), and may even feel sensations on their skin that they misinterpret due to unfamiliarity. 

Okay, though, you have someone telling you that they saw something head-on, that it wasn't at the corner of their eyes, it was very detailed (ruling out simple pareidolia), that they were well-rested and out in daylight, and it was there long enough that it couldn't have simply have been their brain filling in details until their eyes could catch up.   What's more, there's no reason for this person to lie.  That would be proof, right!

Well, this is definitely better evidence than is usually presented to support claims of hauntings.  However, there is another problem: human memory.

People tend to think of memory as being like a computer's hard drive - data is stored, and then recalled as needed.  This isn't how it actually works, though.  Our memories are malleable, always changing, and changing due to a number of factors.  To make matters worse, whenever we recall a memory, we don't simply re-play it, we re-write it, taking things out and adding things in as befits the narrative forming in our mind at that time.  This means that our especially vivid, often recalled memories (where you were on 9/11, the first kiss with your spouse,  the death of a pet, your favorite childhood outing) are far more likely to be flat-out wrong than the memories that we recall less often.  And, to make matters worse, we can form unshakable, but patently false, memories due to suggestion.  And this is important:  this is true of normal, perfectly sane and healthy people.  This is not unique to people with psychiatric disorders, it is true of every human on the planet. 

To make matters even worse for eyewitness testimony, these tendencies are very prone to impacts from our direct experiences and social pressures.  This is the reason why someone who doesn't take ghosts seriously is very unlikely to encounter one, while people who hang out with believers are very likely to experience one.  Our brains are processing information based in part on the external world, and in part on our own internal workings and the social pressures working on us.

So, a perfectly sane, honest person can have fabricated memories of events based on their own psychological pressures as well as on the faultiness of human perception. 

By all means, gather eyewitness accounts.  These can be valuable when you are trying to figure things out.  But be aware that even the best eyewitness account is poor data from a scientific standard because of all of the issues discussed above.


Third Men, Emotion, and Perception

Related to the above-discussed issues with human perceptions, you also have a few other psychological factors at work that can be problematic to someone wanting to research a haunting.  Let's start with reported emotions.

When you read the accounts of haunted places, a very common thing that ersatz researchers will report is feelings of dread, fear, or startlement that they encountered when entering an allegedly haunted location.  Many people, called themselves "sensitives" will act as if their experience of these feelings is somehow objective proof of something spooky.

The problem is that we tend to ignore what our emotions actually our.  Our emotions are not the results of us somehow receiving "vibes" through the air, or being hit by weird energies (indeed, when someone talks about "energies" or "vibrations", you can be pretty sure that they don't know what they are talking about).  Our emotions are evolved responses to help us survive, and as such they have environmental triggers that make us feel certain things when confronted with particular stimuli.  So, entering a dark place where you expect to encounter something scary and weird?  That's going to make you experience feelings of dread, and it will make you easily startled, even jumping at things that are products of your own eyes and brain (as described above).  Feeling dread, fear, feeling as if we are being watched, etc. in the dark or when entering a place where we anticipate trouble is evidence of our evolutionary history amongst predators and other (sometimes violent) hominids, not of us being "tuned in" to something paranormal.  These types of reactions are normal, and have been studied by neurologists and psychologists, and so appealing to them as evidence of the paranormal indicates that one hasn't done their necessary research into perception, not that one has encountered a spirit.

To make matters even weirder, we have psychological effects such as the Third Man Factor (a term coined by author John G. Geiger), where a person under extreme duress (you know, like being extremely frightened while hunting for ghosts) will experience the presence of an incorporeal being who encourages them.  This appears to be another evolutionary adaptation in which our brain is literally telling itself to go on.

Now, I am going out on an interpretive limb here, but I would make an observation: most of our brain's survival techniques can get triggered by weird things, and are often triggered differently in different people.  I suspect, though I will be the first to admit that I have no evidence of this, that for some people, the Third Man might be triggered with minimal duress, or maybe with none at all.  This would explain why many otherwise perfectly normal people experience "presences" under some circumstances.  Given that many people have even inadvertently trained themselves to access some of their brains funkier functions, it seems reasonable to think that many people may have likewise trained themselves to experience a Third Man under particular conditions, possibly explaining why some people seem to routinely be contacted by spirits - it may literally be a normal part of their brain's functions being triggered under odd conditions.

Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that you should ignore emotional/internal reactions to places.  It does, however, mean that you shouldn't assume that you feeling something or sensing a presence means that it is really there, rather than something internal to you.


Does Your Data Mean Anything?

It is extremely common for paranormal researchers to gather data - whether it be their impressions, or information from equipments, or the claims of psychics - without any regard for what it actually means.   Here's a primo example:  if you hang out with ghost hunters, it won't be long before someone declares that a battery being drained quickly is evidence of a ghostly presence.  How do they know?  Well, everyone knows that the presence of ghost drains batteries, therefore a quickly drained battery = a ghost is about.

the problem is that nobody has ever established that this is actually the case.  It is, as far as I can tell, just a bit of lore that gets passed along from one ghost hunter to another.  Account is never made for the types of the batteries, the failure rates of the batteries, how old the batteries were before they were put into the device in which they are being used, whether or not their was some sort of equipment malfunction that could train the batteries*, etc.  All of these things are relevant to the use-life of a battery, but none ever seem to be accounted for (or they are hand-waived with a statement like "they were new batteries" - but, you know, I have had crappy new batteries that died quickly).  In other words, the data is collected ("battery drained") without any real reflection on whether or not this bit of data actually means anything at all.

Likewise, if you gather data based on what you see or feel, then you should also keep account of the various different factors that may influence what you perceive.  Hell, in field archaeology I have to keep track of this sort of thing (noting levels of fatigue, weather conditions, lighting, etc. in my notes), and we are nowhere near as subjective in our observations as ghost hunters are.

Add to this that there is often no attempt at bridging arguments made between data collection and the drawing of conclusions.  Basically, if you say "we saw strange lights, therefore: GHOSTS!"  you are being a fool.  Why would ghosts cause the lights?  Is there no other phenomenon that could cause them?  Even if you have ruled out all other phenomena that you can think of, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is ghost, it may simply be a phenomenon that you haven't considered. 

What I am saying is this: not all data is meaningful.  Some of it is just due to flukes (you got bad batteries, bro!), some of it is only relevant in context (what were the lighting conditions when you saw this shadow person?), and all of it has to be interpreted to be meaningful.  I'll go into this in Part 3, but you need to keep all of this in mind when you attempt to make sense of your data.


So, in Conclusion...

Many years back, I read an article in which a parapsychologist was being interviewed.  He said that he found it frustrating that scientists weren't taking his work seriously when he was doing "solid, good science."  The problem is that, as he described his work, he never did his background research (relying instead on local folklore), he always took the perceptions of himself and his team at face value without considering the limits and problems of human perception,  and he routinely gathered emotional and psychological impressions of places as if they were solid, reliable data.

In other words, he was routinely failing to observe even the most basic rules of data gathering: identify and account for potential biases; do not become overly-reliant on biased data.

He was not doing good science.  He really wasn't even doing science at all, contrary to his claim. 

If you are serious about investigating paranormal phenomenon, then don't make the same mistakes that every (and I do mean, pretty much without exception, EVERY) self-proclaimed parapsychologist makes.  Instead, learn something about the place, be aware of the limitations of yourself and your colleagues, and approach your work with the mind-set that you can be fooled, sometimes even by your own senses, and that you have to find ways to account for that.

Next time I'll get into the issue of using equipment in this sort of work, and how a serious paranormal researcher can save themselves some money.




*In high school I took classes on basic electrical work, and one of the fun pranks we would play was find small ways to tweak someone's work so that it would drain their batteries, but appear to function normally.  In other word,s your video camera may seem to be working without a hitch, but could still have a problem (sometimes an intermittent problem) causing battery drain. 

More Useless Advice Regarding Pregnancy and Childbirth

I was prepared for some of this, and I know that Kaylia is getting it worse than I am, but I am growing increasingly tired of the sheer volume of pregnancy and baby-related mystical nonsense and dubious and dangerous pseudo-science being pushed our way.  It began as a bit of a trickle, but the waters are rising, and I suspect it will be a full-on deluge before all is said and done.

As I say, it started small, but early, when Kaylia wrote on Facebook that she had eaten a few Chicken McNuggets early in the pregnancy for the wacky reason that they were about the only thing that her body wasn't making her vomit up. This received a huge amount of criticism, accusing Kaylia of "poisoning your baby!" as the people commenting on it demonstrated a complete and utter lack of comprehension of reality by confusing their culturally-conditioned notions of what is "gross" with more objective standards regarding what is actually dangerous.

Since then, we have received routine advice from well-meaning but ill-informed people about the value of such quackery as homeopathy and power-balance bracelets in dealing with pregnancy related problems.  As the people offering the advice usually have the best of intentions (and in the case of homeopathy, have typically been misled by the way that that particular quackery is marketed, and aren't aware that it is literally just water or sugar pills), we sometimes argue the point and sometimes just let it go, but have so far not followed any of it. 

As we have moved farther along in the pregnancy, we have been further drawn in to the absurdity that I call the Breast Milk Wars.  Now, to start, I should state the following:  I am well aware that the data supports breast feeding as an excellent way to ensure that the child is well-nourished and healthy, and may also provide psychological benefits for both the mother and child.  Moreover, I am not bothered by women breast-feeding in public.  So, people who find breast feeding repugnant, frankly, do seem to be pushing away a healthy practice, and people who get bent out of shape about children being fed in public places strike me as remarkably silly, often bordering on misogynistic.

However, breast milk is not magical.  While it may be the healthier choice, it is not an alchemical elixir that will solve all ills, and I have become more than slightly tired of smug, arrogant (and, it should be noted, generally privileged white people) attempting to stretch the actual data beyond all recognition in order to vilify or otherwise look down upon mothers who are unable or unwilling to engage in breast feeding.  Moreover, not every mother is capable of breast feeding as often as they would want, or their child would need.  In addition, we live in a world in which physical reality trumps all, and if the mother is away when the child needs to be fed, someone other than the mother is going to have to do it. Some of the logistical problems can be dealt with via a breast pump, but if the mother is unable to produce enough milk, even the pump isn't going to help.  Nonetheless, I have seen and heard more than a few rants lately in which the speaker (who while typically female is, interestingly from a social standpoint, also often male) rants about the evils of forumla, breats pumps, and any other thing that doesn't involve the child directly drinking from the mother, and about how anyone who would use such materials or devices is clearly either deluded or evil.  These rants are usually followed with "but I would never think to judge the decision of a woman who does differently than I."

In fact, for almost every one of these types of things that we have encountered, at least one person delivering a rant, pitch, or insane ramble is followed by them stating that they are not judging parents who do not act as they did.  Sorry, folks, but when you have just made your judgmental nature clear, you don't get out of it by claiming that you are not being judgmental anymore than a KKK member gets out of being racist by announcing that they aren't racist.

And the list goes on.  Recently, we were informed that choosing to have our child in a hospital (you know, those institutions with trained medical staff, each of whom has years or decades of experience in dealing with the myriad of potential complications involved in childbirth, on hand to deal with emergencies - AKA the institutions that mad the phrase "died in childbirth" something of an anachronism) is "sad."  No, it's not sad to want to have our child in a place and with people who can make sure that both our child and Kaylia are well taken care of.  The notion that we have committed some grievous wrong or are otherwise doing something bad in choosing to make a wise and prudent choice for the health of Kaylia and our child is what is sad.  No, actually, it's not sad, it's disturbing.

Oh, and, of course, there's the lunacy of people who think that vaccines are some big corporate conspiracy.  Vaccines.  You know, the things that made measles, polio, and rubella largely things of the past - though they are coming back due to the foolishness of the fore-mentioned privileged people who have never had to actually see the effects that these diseases have on children and communities.  Let me tell you this:  I have seen, first-hand, the long-term effects of some of these illnesses, and those who are choosing to avoid vaccines because they belief in the insane propaganda pushed by ideologues and fools are irresponsible and should be deeply ashamed of themselves.  But, of course, they won't be, instead they'll continue to put their communities and their own children at risk in the name of their bizarre and paranoid ideologies.

And all of that is the stuff that gets aimed primarily at Kaylia.  Let's talk briefly about the bizarreness that is aimed at fathers.

It came as little surprise to me that the majority of popular books on pregnancy and childbirth subscribe to the antiquated "dad, the idiot" model.  While the information in these books for fathers is useful, it is typically written in the most astoundingly condescending manner possible, and often verges into the realm of the mind-numbingly obvious.  For example, I have been informed that my partner may not be interested in sex when in the throes of morning sickness (if a man doesn't recognize this fact, then he has some issues that pre-date the pregnancy and likely render him unfit as a human, much less a father), that my partner may need emotional support while going through the pregnancy (what?  She might need emotional support while going through massive physical changes and alterations due to hormonal changes?  If you didn't already know this, how did you convince a woman let you get close enough to get her pregnant?).  Likewise, while these books do provide useful information on infant care for both mothers and fathers, they again adopt the attitude that childcare should be left to the (female) adults, and that the children (anyone with a Y chromosome, regardless of age) should just run along to their workplace to play and not worry their pretty little heads with the responsibilities of a caregiver.

Interestingly, one of the few books I have so far seen that accepts a significant role might be played by the father after fertilization is the "Husband Coached Childbirth" (AKA the Bradley Method) approach which, as far as I can tell, is not specifically religious in nature, but has earned a degree of popularity amongst the various religious-right sorts that I have met.  While it does have some really good ideas about how to reduce medical interventions during labor and delivery, it was written largely as a response to now-discarded practices from the 1940s and 1950s, and as such, its creators' anti-intervention stance should be more critically examined than it seems to be.  The culture of the Bradley Method is also so thoroughly steeped in pseudo-science and anti-medical rhetoric that, while it may have some useful ideas for the role of fathers, I have to admit that I have had to hold my nose when thumbing through the book.

So, the more "traditional" books seem to regard the father as an expendable amateur.  Surely the progressives will recognize the importance of both parents and encourage the father as a nurturer both to his partner and to their child, right?

Well, sort of, some of the time.  When it doesn't interfere with mystical thinking.

Many (though, it should be noted, thankfully not all) of the self-described "progressive parents" with whom I associate seem to have developed very clearly defined and inviolable roles for men and women in their minds, and these roles seem to typically play very much into the standard gender stereotypes with which Pat Robertson et al. would be very comfortable:  The father goes to work, brings home the money, and has only a limited role in childcare; the mother does all (and I mean all, no exception) feeding, most (if not all) basic care (bathing, changing, comforting, etc.) of the child, and is responsible for early childhood education.  Kaylia has been informed that she should not allow me to feed our child (even if I am using stored breast milk), and I have been often informed that, as I lack a uterus, I am incapable of reaching any sort of informed decision regarding childcare.

The difference between the religious right version and the progressive version of this seems to be centered around the idea of whether men or women are more valuable.  The religious right holds that the man is the head of the household, and all within it must submit to him.  The progressives hold that women are magical (though they will usually use terms such as "natural caregivers and nurturers" rather than "magical", but the use of the term "natural" might as well be substituted with the word "magical" for all of the actual meaning that it has), and fathers are doofuses who shouldn't be entrusted with the well-being of the child.  Us men are either dominators or dorks, and either way, we don't have what it takes to be anything other than either the breadwinner or the disciplinarian. 

Both sides will, of course, insist that they aren't claiming either gender is superior, they just have different roles.  Both sides are, of course, actually claiming that one gender is, in fact superior, and the other worthwhile only within a particular confined role.

Anyway, I have no more to say at the moment.  I'm just irritated and annoyed. 

On the upside, I will be a daddy soon, and I am looking forward to pissing off all ideologues by taking an active role in every aspect of my child's life.

New Age Energy vs. Anthropology and History

In a recent argument regarding Reiki, the person with whom I was arguing (who is fully convinced of the efficacy of Reiki*) made a number of supporting claims.  There were the usual citing of anecdotal claims and dubious readings of situations, and claims of big pharma cover-ups, of course, but in the middle of it there was the following claim (paraphrased by me, but close enough to the original that the claimant is unlikely to take any issue with it):

"All cultures have some form of energy healing, which makes the claims of Reiki practitioners credible!"

Really?  All cultures do, eh?

No.  Not really.

There are numerous problems with this claim - not the least of which is the notion that a commonly held belief is inherently true (AKA, the bandwagon fallacy).  Let's start with the first one - the imposition of the concept of energy onto the practices of cultures that would not have recognized the concept itself.  Most New Age beliefs tend to refer to mystical energies, but the problem here is that energy is well defined within physics (go here for a good explanation of what it is, or here for a good explanation coupled with how it is abused by New Agers), but not within the various New Age schools of thought.  In fact, my own experience has been that pursuing the New Age definitions of energy invariably results in either non-answer deflections ("well, you see, energy is vibrations!" "Huh?") or muddled nonsensical answers that collapse in upon their own weight. 

The problem, I suspect, is that because energy is not a physical object, but rather a potential for work/force, a property of physical objects (so, kinetic energy is the energy of an object in motion, electrical energy is the energy of electrons moving through an object, thermal energy is the heat generated by a chemical reaction within an object, etc.).  Because energy is physical in nature, but as a property does not manifest as an object itself, people tend to view it as a weird, ethereal thing, even though it is really a very simple concept that is quite clear once properly explained.  It is similar to quantum physics - a very real subject of scientific study the name of which is routinely employed by people who want to push their made-up crap.

So, the first problem with the claim that every culture has some form of energy healing is the fact that the term "energy healing" as used by New Agers reveals a deep ignorance of what the term energy means, and a replacement of its real definition with a hazy "mystical force" definition.

The next problem is that it's not at all clear that energy healing beliefs are all that common.  Many New Agers will refer to shamanic practices geared towards manipulating a person's energy to remove illness as a form of energy healing.  However, as described by ethnographers ranging from Claude Levi Strauss to Alfred Kroeber to J.P. Harrington and Franz Boas, these practices were geared towards removing illness-causing agents, not energies.  These agents might have been spirits, but they were at least as likely to be thought of as physical objects (for one example, Levi-Strauss documented cases where shamans claimed that bits of blood mixed with other objects were the causes of sickness).  Similarly, both anthropologists and journalists working in rural Asia have documented cases of local healers claiming to pull physical objects out of an individual in order to heal illness.  In other cases, shamans and healers fought to stave off illness caused by sorcery. 
So, many of the cases that get cited as "energy healing" are, in fact, viewed by the practitioners not as energy healing in the New Age sense, but as the removal of physical objects causing illness.  In those other cases, where spirits or sorcery are viewed as the cause, a reading of the actual anthropological literature demonstrates that the people who engage in these practices do not see spirits or magic as vague "bad vibes" in the way that so many New Age healers do, and that the claim of these being energy healing is a post-hoc rationalization and imposition to try to bring their beliefs into line with those of the New Age believers, and not an acceptance of the actual practice as viewed and experienced by the actual people doing it.

If we look into European history, we likewise see a mix of magic, spirit/demon beliefs, and physical causes for illness.  Folk beliefs often cited witchcraft as a cause of some illnesses, and depending on the tradition being examined, witchcraft might include anything from simple folk magic to attempted deals with spirits and demons, but, again, not some fuzzy, ill-defined "energy."  Early European medical doctors were often dependent on the concept of the "humors" - blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm.  While the concepts surrounding the humors often ranged into the mystical, they were, nonetheless, real physical things that could be manipulated by physical means (fr example, bleeding a patient), and not "energies." 

Even in east Asia, where so many New Agers get inspiration for claims about "healing energies", the notion that this was a common belief is a bit dubious.  Certainly, the notion of Chi (or ki, or qi) as currently used seems to meet it, but it is itself a term that has had many different definitions throughout history (read up on it here), and the notion that it was an "energy" as opposed to something else post-dates European contact, and historically it has even been thought of as a building-block of physical matter, rather like many similar concepts held by Greek philosophers.  Prana is a similar concept with a similar history.  So, even here, where we have the closest approximation to New Age energy, the history of the concept doesn't quite line up with what the Reiki practitioner with whom I was arguing claims. 

Are there cultures which do have beliefs that have rough similarities ot New Age "energy healing" practices?  Yes, there are.  But, again, they line up roughly, not precisely, and the New Age tendency is to tend to force the "energy healing" concept onto these beliefs and practices rather than take them as they are.  Moreover, while these types of concepts are not unheard of, they are FAR from universal, and someone who claims that every culture has them is someone who has demonstrated that they are disinterested in the practices of other cultures.  






*For the uninitiated, you lucky bastards, Reiki is the practice of waving one's hands over someone to manipulate their "energies" [in keeping with it's Asian origin, this is usually referred to as "ki", "qi", or "chi", and heal them*, with some people doing actual massage, which does have limited but real therapeutic value, and claiming to be doing Reiki simultaneously.  Though often claimed to be an "ancient healing art, Reiki is, in fact, quite modern, dating to the 1920s.  However, its adherents are usually very clear that it comes from Asia, which, as with so many culture-porn related things, seems to give it an aura of mysticism in their minds.

Ancient Aliens - the Test!

The History Channel needs its ass kicked

So, you may have heard of the show Ancient Aliens.  It is on the History Channel and is basically the latest iteration of the old bullshit that alleges that the various ancient achievements of humanity couldn't have possibly been accomplished by, well, humans, and therefore it must have been aliens!

You can probably guess my reaction to this proposition.

However, like so much of the rot that's on allegedly educational television, I just sort of ignored it.

Until about a year ago.

I don't know what the hell happened, but around December 2010/January 2011, a frighteningly large number of the people that I know and encounter began to watch this damn show.  Not just watch it, but began to take it at least slightly seriously, as evidenced by the fact that I now have to routinely explain to people why producer/on-screen personality Giorgio Tsoukalos is, perhaps, not the best source for information regarding Earth's past.

On a fairly regular basis, both family members and friends contact me, by phone, or email, or just walk up and start talking to me, wanting to know about the claim that the ancient King Hamburgular of southern Podunkistan was actually a reptoid alien based on the artistic representations of him as a snake found on friezes in his palace.  I then have to explain that the friezes in question actually show King Hamburgalar's zoo, and the reason why the images look like snakes is because they are, rather clearly, images of snakes.  If the person is at my home or visiting my office, I then pull out a book on southern Podunkistan archaeology in order to prove my point.  The person with whom I am speaking will then assert that they never really believed it, but thought it was a fun idea, and wanted to ask.  But, of course, they began the conversation insinuating that they find the claim plausible, even if they didn't completely buy it.

A week later, someone, often the same person (there's a rotating cast of around seven of them) will come to me with the latest lame-brained claim from Giorgio Tsoukalos and the Ancient Aliens swarm.  And the process repeats.



             Giorgio Tsoukalos.  Gaze into the hair of madness!


I can not, for the life of me, figure out why otherwise intelligent people think that this guy has any credibility.  Leaving aside the fact that he has a surname that sounds like a Yiddish slang word for one's posterior, and that he looks like he failed to learn Don King's hair gel secrets, there's the fact that Mr. Tsoukalos never met a specious claim or false "fact" that he didn't like.  This guy has been a fixture on pseudo-science and pseudo-history shows on Discovery and the History Channel for years, and he's never made a damn lick of sense.  He always goes for whatever outrageous claim is made, no matter how clearly stupid it is, and will insist that "anyone who is open-minded" has to accept his claims, while managing to show himself to be so closed-minded that he is ready to ignore the mountains of evidence showing himself to be full of bovine feces.  On my list of trustworthy people, Tsoukalis ranks just above Biblical creationists and just below used car salesmen in plaid jackets. 

Nonetheless, I have enough interactions with people who don't know how to identify someone who's pre-frontal cortex is clearly being devoured by his own hair that I have developed something of a formula for talking to people about this show.  In fact, I think that I can convert that formula into a simple questionnaire, available for anyone to use:


1.  Is the culture depicted as influenced by aliens non-European?* 

2.  At what point in the episode did someone insist that "establishment" archaeologists are "hiding the truth" or "too cowardly to face the evidence?"  How many times was this assertion repeated after the initial statement? 

3.  Did the person making the statement also make statements indicating their ignorance of the fact that an "establishment" archaeologist can get more grant money and positive attention actually for proving a radical theory than by trying to crush it?

3.  Are the aliens said to be humanoid or reptilian?  Are they extremely tall, or quite squat? 

4.  What best describes the shape of the alien spaceship: A) Dinner Plate; B) Cigar; C) Arrowhead; D) Hamburger?

5.  How often did the presenter or "experts" on the show make unverifiable claims?  A) Once per ten minutes; B) Two-to-four times per ten minutes; C) Five or more times per ten minutes; D) No actually verifiable claim was made during the episode - or, all claims made were unverifiable.

6.  Please circle each of the following items that it is claimed in this episode was part of the ancient knowledge that is being covered up by archaeologists: 
   
    Super Technology   

    Not-so-super technology that nonetheless was too advanced
    for these primitive savages to have had without alien
    intervention
   
    Magic   
   
    The Existence of the Soul   
   
    The "True extraterrestrial" origins of humanity   
   
    Astronomical knowledge only recently re-learned by NASA   
   
    Astronomical knowledge still unknown to NASA  

    Why people ever thought that Jim Carrey was funny

    Super healing (which nonetheless somehow did not raise the average life expectancy
    above the age of 35)


7a.  How many times during the course of the episode did the "experts" compare themselves to (or compare their claims to the theories of) either Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or Galileo?

7b.  If they compared themselves to Isaac Newton, did they also compare themselves to Isaac Hayes?  If not, why not?

8a.  How many times per episode did somebody state that they would easily give up their "ancient alien" claim if only there were another explanation available?     

8b.  How much video was then given over to that individual going to a library, or even doing a Wikipedia search, to look up other possible, non-alien, explanations?

9.  Did anyone in the episode insist that "establishment" archaeologists refuse to take their claims seriously, and then appear later in the episode stating that they were unwilling to look at the work of the "establishment" archaeologists?**

10. Was quantum physics at any point mentioned as an explanation for anything in the episode?

Now, fill out this questionairre for each episode watched.  Keep the questionairres, and once you have seen ten episodes, begin looking for patterns.  If that doesn't convince you of the level of bullshit that the Ancient Aliens crew likes to produce, you may want to consider upping your medication dosages.




*This is important, as it is typically not white people who are accused of being incapable of developing civilization/technology/non-stick pan coating.  If the alien-influenced culture is European, the claim is still delusional, but at least it's not racist.

**Just pointing this out - if you insist that everyone else look at your work and take it seriously, but you refuse to look at the work of the professional and trained people who have dedicated their lives to this, then you are a tool and a hypotcrite.