Apparently McCain is on record saying that the Phoenix Lights were "UFOs". Take a peek.
I'm hoping that he gets the wolloped, just like Kucinich did for his UFO deal.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Apocolypse Never
The Telegraph, an English Newspaper, has a list of 10 Doomsdays that came and went. In honor of us surviving the LHC on-switching, I thought I'd share. Interestingly (or not...) all of the World Enders on the Telegraph's list are crazy cults or nutball religious sects. It's a good list for that sort of thing, but I wonder about the more "secular" apolypsemongers, like the anti-LHCers out there.
Anybody out in the blogosphere know of some non-religious or non-cultish Doomsayers who came and went?
Anybody out in the blogosphere know of some non-religious or non-cultish Doomsayers who came and went?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
SWEET JESUS WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!!
Or not. Check it out!
The LHC has finished cooling down, and is up and running; today, early in the European morning (which has a funny accent and drinks more expensive coffee than our bumpkin-y American mornins) particles were accelerated to 99.99% the speed of light, and sent hurdling around the 17 mile track in hopes of recreating the conditions that existed in the first few seconds after the Big Bang.
AND they did it without blowing up the universe, or creating hellish vortexes for Cthulhu to crawl through, or whatever else doomsday scenarios the nutjob anti-LHCers were talking about. Maybe those scientists knew what they were talkin' about after all, huh?
Anyway, it is an exciting day in the world of particle physics (specifically) and for humanity (more generally). Here's to learning more about our amazing universe!
And better luck next time, insane anti-science kooks!
The LHC has finished cooling down, and is up and running; today, early in the European morning (which has a funny accent and drinks more expensive coffee than our bumpkin-y American mornins) particles were accelerated to 99.99% the speed of light, and sent hurdling around the 17 mile track in hopes of recreating the conditions that existed in the first few seconds after the Big Bang.
AND they did it without blowing up the universe, or creating hellish vortexes for Cthulhu to crawl through, or whatever else doomsday scenarios the nutjob anti-LHCers were talking about. Maybe those scientists knew what they were talkin' about after all, huh?
Anyway, it is an exciting day in the world of particle physics (specifically) and for humanity (more generally). Here's to learning more about our amazing universe!
And better luck next time, insane anti-science kooks!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
UFO Tours
Following in the proud, capitalist tradition of creating tourist-trap hellholes for people to visit in otherwise beautiful parts of the world, the town of San Clemente, Chile, has recently opened up it's very own "UFO Trail", complete with it's very own UFO Landing site and, I'm sure, souvenir giftshops full of gaudy alien stuff.
The trail is a 30 km-long stretch that includes El Enladrillado, a flat stretch of basaltic volcanic rock that is a landing site for UFOs.
See, its a landing site, because its so flat; nothing in nature is EVER flat on its own, ergo, it was obviously made by aliens for use as a landing pad. Additionally, this part of Chile was known for a saucer flap that took place between 95 and 96, with hundreds of reported sightings.
Hell, it has to be better than visiting Roswell, right?
The trail is a 30 km-long stretch that includes El Enladrillado, a flat stretch of basaltic volcanic rock that is a landing site for UFOs.
See, its a landing site, because its so flat; nothing in nature is EVER flat on its own, ergo, it was obviously made by aliens for use as a landing pad. Additionally, this part of Chile was known for a saucer flap that took place between 95 and 96, with hundreds of reported sightings.
Hell, it has to be better than visiting Roswell, right?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Ten Arguments against Bigfoot
Discovery news has a feature up entitled "10 Reasons Bigfoot is a Bust", most likely in response to the GA hoax fiasco and all the press is generated. The list was compiled by Benjamin Radford, the managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and is a fairly brief rundown of some of the major "problems with Bigfoot". Anyway, I though I'd take a look at each of the reasons, and offer some comments of my own.
1) Lack of Fossil Evidence for Bigfoot: Radford's primary point here is that there ain't no bigfoot-esque fossils to be found, ergo, no Bigfoot. This is a problematic line of argument, for a couple of reasons.
The first and foremost of these is called TAPHONOMY, which is the study of the hows and whys of fossilization and preservation. Briefly, some places on the Earth's surface are more conducive to the preservation of organism remains, while other locations are more hostile to preservation. So, places with lots of sediment available for burial and relatively little opportunity for disturbance by other animals (scavengers, etc) are better places for preserving animals. A classic of example of this are the various lake deposits of the Eocene Green River Formation in Wyoming, or in various floodplain deposits (where there is a lot of sediment being deposited). An example of a setting where there is poor preservational potential is the forest, where low sediment production and high biological activity conspire to rapidly (on the geological scale) breakdown and redistribute remains, making fossilization impossible (or nearly so).
An additional problem (and one that the bigfoot buffs out there probably thought of immediately) is that A) not knowing the exact phylogenetic position of "Bigfoot" makes it difficult to identify ancestors, and B) if it is a hominid (or hominoid, or whatever), then we may have some fossilized ancestors in the form of Old World fossils, and the taphonomic effect may explain their absence in the record.
That being said, it would STILL be nice to have evidence of a large, relatively recent non-human ape in the rock record.
2) The Lack of Modern Remains: This is a big one, frankly, and the strongest argument against the existence of a large unknown animal in North America. Folks spend a lot of time in the woods, you'd think they'd have found evidence of something out there.
Now, some bigfooters out there will counter with the argument that maybe these organisms possess a distinct, "human-like" culture of waste removal and burial of bodies, etc. These activities, however, would result in considerable disturbance as well, however; I mean, a bigfoot colony is going to produce a lot of shit, you know? And a 250 lb+ corpse needs a big hole if you're going to bury it.
Of all the arguments against Bigfoot, this one is the most damning.
3) Breeding Population: Radford contends that, in order to account for the large number of sightings, a large number of Bigfoot are required. It's an old axiom in the intelligence services that the risk of exposure of a group increases by the square of the number of individuals added (so that if you add 2 individuals, the risk of exposure goes up four-fold). So #3 is really a corollary to #2. Of course, maybe only 1 out of 1000 bigfoot sightings is real, which therefore results in a much smaller "required" bigfoot population.
4) Reliance of Eyewitness Accounts: Radford (rightly, in my mind) states the fact that most of the Bigfoot evidence out there are eyewitness accounts, which are notoriously untrustworthy. These are anecdotes, and shouldn't be tossed aside (which Radford agrees with), but they are a VERY weak line of evidence.
5) Blobsquatch: a funny word, but #5 is really rehashed #4, but with pictures.
6) No Academics: a legitimate point, though for a different reason than Radford states. The problem is that there is a general absence of academic rigor in Bigfootology and Yeticological Research, which means that there is no really well-documented, methodologically sound biological or ecology study out there. If you aren't doing research, then it's a hobby, pal.
7) Scientists haven't seen one: By this, Radford means that in the course of other detailed studies (as in the search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker), scientists haven't run across evidence for a Bigfoot. This is sort of tied to #2 above, really, with the general paucity of evidence being pretty grim for old Bigfoot.
8) New Species: The important point in number 8 is Radford's quote:
10) Nonuniform Prints: This goes back to number 9, and undoubtedly, many of these prints (with their multiple toe-counts) are probably hoaxes.
There is some redundancy on the list, and some problems here and there with reasoning, but all in all, I think Radford has a pretty reasonable list here. Any thing I've missed, or any points anyone else wants to make?
UPDATE 09/02/08: Loren Coleman discusses point number 8 on his cryptomundo blog.
1) Lack of Fossil Evidence for Bigfoot: Radford's primary point here is that there ain't no bigfoot-esque fossils to be found, ergo, no Bigfoot. This is a problematic line of argument, for a couple of reasons.
The first and foremost of these is called TAPHONOMY, which is the study of the hows and whys of fossilization and preservation. Briefly, some places on the Earth's surface are more conducive to the preservation of organism remains, while other locations are more hostile to preservation. So, places with lots of sediment available for burial and relatively little opportunity for disturbance by other animals (scavengers, etc) are better places for preserving animals. A classic of example of this are the various lake deposits of the Eocene Green River Formation in Wyoming, or in various floodplain deposits (where there is a lot of sediment being deposited). An example of a setting where there is poor preservational potential is the forest, where low sediment production and high biological activity conspire to rapidly (on the geological scale) breakdown and redistribute remains, making fossilization impossible (or nearly so).
An additional problem (and one that the bigfoot buffs out there probably thought of immediately) is that A) not knowing the exact phylogenetic position of "Bigfoot" makes it difficult to identify ancestors, and B) if it is a hominid (or hominoid, or whatever), then we may have some fossilized ancestors in the form of Old World fossils, and the taphonomic effect may explain their absence in the record.
That being said, it would STILL be nice to have evidence of a large, relatively recent non-human ape in the rock record.
2) The Lack of Modern Remains: This is a big one, frankly, and the strongest argument against the existence of a large unknown animal in North America. Folks spend a lot of time in the woods, you'd think they'd have found evidence of something out there.
Now, some bigfooters out there will counter with the argument that maybe these organisms possess a distinct, "human-like" culture of waste removal and burial of bodies, etc. These activities, however, would result in considerable disturbance as well, however; I mean, a bigfoot colony is going to produce a lot of shit, you know? And a 250 lb+ corpse needs a big hole if you're going to bury it.
Of all the arguments against Bigfoot, this one is the most damning.
3) Breeding Population: Radford contends that, in order to account for the large number of sightings, a large number of Bigfoot are required. It's an old axiom in the intelligence services that the risk of exposure of a group increases by the square of the number of individuals added (so that if you add 2 individuals, the risk of exposure goes up four-fold). So #3 is really a corollary to #2. Of course, maybe only 1 out of 1000 bigfoot sightings is real, which therefore results in a much smaller "required" bigfoot population.
4) Reliance of Eyewitness Accounts: Radford (rightly, in my mind) states the fact that most of the Bigfoot evidence out there are eyewitness accounts, which are notoriously untrustworthy. These are anecdotes, and shouldn't be tossed aside (which Radford agrees with), but they are a VERY weak line of evidence.
5) Blobsquatch: a funny word, but #5 is really rehashed #4, but with pictures.
6) No Academics: a legitimate point, though for a different reason than Radford states. The problem is that there is a general absence of academic rigor in Bigfootology and Yeticological Research, which means that there is no really well-documented, methodologically sound biological or ecology study out there. If you aren't doing research, then it's a hobby, pal.
7) Scientists haven't seen one: By this, Radford means that in the course of other detailed studies (as in the search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker), scientists haven't run across evidence for a Bigfoot. This is sort of tied to #2 above, really, with the general paucity of evidence being pretty grim for old Bigfoot.
8) New Species: The important point in number 8 is Radford's quote:
"The last large animal to be found was probably the giant panda, and that was
100 years ago," said Radford. "There has not been a single new creature that
doesn't fit the recognized taxonomy discovered in the last century, there just
simply hasn't."
The second sentence is the important part; evolutionary theory is predictive, and we can use the fossil record, genetic studies, and phylogenies to predict the occurrence of certain organisms in areas. The fact that primates went extinct in North America some 45 million years ago (or so), and the fact that apes (which, presumably, Bigfoot is supposed to be) evolved in the Old World, makes an endemic New World Ape problematic. That's not to say it couldn't be here, but it would require and explanation and further evidence to account for it.
9) Hoaxes: The fact of the matter is, there are a LOT of hoaxes out there (re: GA). So many, that the field is sullied by them, such that anyone making a claim not only has to deal with the extraordinary nature of the claim, but ALSO has to overcome the stigma of a possible hoax. The way to remedy this, of course, is to undertake rigorous, peer-reviewed research, with the level of scientific transparency present in real studies.10) Nonuniform Prints: This goes back to number 9, and undoubtedly, many of these prints (with their multiple toe-counts) are probably hoaxes.
There is some redundancy on the list, and some problems here and there with reasoning, but all in all, I think Radford has a pretty reasonable list here. Any thing I've missed, or any points anyone else wants to make?
UPDATE 09/02/08: Loren Coleman discusses point number 8 on his cryptomundo blog.
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