Explaining Ghost Sightings (Part 2 – Temporal Lobe Epilepsy)

When I said that pareidolia can explain a lot of ghost sightings, I didn’t mean all of them. Sometimes the environment is bright and clear, you’re fully awake, and yet you still get that “ghostly” feeling. Scary, eh? Well, that may just be a hallucination, and here I shall tackle a common cause for hallucinations – temporal lobe epilepsy.

Defining Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

The temporal lobe would be the part in red. Only the left temporal lobe is shown.

The temporal lobe is separated into 2 parts: right and left. It’s responsible for auditory processing, processing of semantic & lexical information in speech, and long-term memory. On the other hand, epilepsy aka seizure disorder is a common neurological disorder that causes recurrent & unprovoked seizures in patients. These seizures happen when clusters of neurons fire excessively/abnormally/synchronously. Combine these two, and you’ve got temporal lobe epilepsy.

Temporal lobe epilepsy causes simple and complex partial seizures. Simple partial seizures simply cause unusual behaviours and patterns of cognition, including hallucinations and paranormal experiences; complex partial seizures can render the patient disabled and lose awareness temporarily. If one is unlucky though, it may spread and become a tonic–clonic seizure, a type of seizure that affects the entire brain, and is much more lethal.

Causes

Temporal lobe epilepsy may be caused by a variety of factors, including:

1. Hippocampal sclerosis, which is present in 2/3 of patients, and causes mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).
2. Infections
3. Febrile seizures
4. Malignancies
5. Vascular malformations
6. Idiopathic (genetic), but it’s rare.
7. Trauma producing contusion/haemorrhage that results in encephalomalacia or cortical scarring
8. Difficult traumatic delivery such as forceps deliveries
9. Hamartomas

Symptoms Related to Ghost Sightings/Paranormal Experiences

Since the temporal lobe is responsible for hearing, information processing, and long-term memory, abnormal functioning in the temporal lobes will also cause these brain processes to function wrongly. Complex partial seizures are unrelated to ghost sightings, so I’ve decided not to write about them.

Simple Partial Seizures/Auras

Just to make it clear, the word “aura” in this context is defined as a “warning” before “a complex partial seizure occurs, not the pseudoscientific human/soul aura or whatever it’s called. For patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, they may have a simple partial seizure, which creates an aura, and usually leads to a complex partial seizure.

Somatosensory and Special sensory phenomena

Auras may come in the form of olfactory, gustatory, auditory, and visual hallucinations and illusions. Auditory hallucinations consist of a buzzing sound, a voice/voices, or muffling of ambient sounds. On the other hand, visual hallucinations may take the form of distortions of shape, size, and distance of objects, shrinking (micropsia) or enlarging of things (macropsia), and also tilting of structures.

Psychic Phenomena

Patients may also feel déjà vu, the feeling that’s you’ve seen something before, although you’ve not, and jamais vu, in which one suddenly feels eerie and unfamiliar to the environment, although he/she has been in the same situation before, and he/she knows it.

Patients may also experience depersonalization (feeling of detachment from oneself) or derealisation (surroundings appear unreal). “Out of body” experiences can also happen to the patient, a phenomenon known as dissociation/autoscopy. Plus, if the seizure arises from the amygdala, the patient will become fearful and anxious, sometimes to the point of having “an impending sense of doom”.

Conclusion

Here, I’ve shown that so-called ghost sightings may be caused by temporal lobe epilepsy instead of a real ghost appearing, which goes against Occam’s razor and science too much (violation of the laws of physics, anyone?)

However, I am aware that not everyone has temporal lobe epilepsy, yet many still experience its symptoms. There’s another similar cause for such experiences – electromagnetic disruption of the temporal lobe, and it’s one that I shall address next.

Explaining Ghost Sightings (Part 1 – Pareidolia)

During a debate with my friend on the existence of the soul, he raised ghost sightings as an argument for the soul’s existence. While I quickly refuted his argument, it led me to consider writing a naturalistic explanation for ghost sightings, since they’re frequently used when spiritualists argue against naturalists. I’ll start with pareidolia, a common psychological/neurological phenomenon.

What's Pareidolia?

Did your friends ever said to you: “I saw a ghost when I was walking to the toilet with my own eyes”? Or have you ever heard someone calling your name, but there’s no one around? Meet pareidolia, the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer; such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals or seeing shapes in clouds.This phenomenon is extremely common, and can be created easily. Lets see….

That's an alien on Mars...... or is it?

That may be an alien disguising as a tree sticking its tongue towards us... Yeah that's obvious.

In addition to the ghostly female face, I also see the head of an avian-like monster beside the face, and a ghost with eyes, hands and a mouth at the centre-right of the 1st image. Something’s definitely wrong, or I simply have a great imagination.

I bet you saw the faces. And if you did, congratulations, for you're a normal human, and like all of us, susceptible to illusions and pareidolia. So if you see a ghostly apparition, don't worry - it's your mind seeing an image that vaguely resembles something you’re familiar with, in which your brain then exaggerates and modifies to be clearer.

Conditions that Cause Pareidolia

Vague Stimuli (Blurry Images/Sounds)

The brain is a gifted interpreter – it’s capable of responding to blurry face-like images and interpreting them rapidly – in fact this study suggests that it takes only 165ms for our ventral fusiform cortex to be activated, compared to 130ms for a true face. This study shows that pareidolia is an instinctive response, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.

Despite that, our first instincts are often wrong, and when the same object is looked more carefully and with more detail, it’s often revealed that the so-called “ghost” is an illusion after all. The best example for this would be the “Face of Mars” in the Cydonia region.

Here's part of the Cydonia region, taken by the Viking 1 orbiter and released by NASA/JPL on July 25, 1976. And yes, that's the so-called face of Mars near the top.

Upon seeing the “face”, conspiracy theorists claimed that it was “intelligently designed” by Martians, and that it was located next to a city whose temples and fortifications could be seen. On the other hand, NASA and the skeptics explained that it was simply the effects of light, but the conspiracy theorists took that as a sure sign of a cover up. Until the high-res images appeared.

High resolution Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006-present) image of the "Face on Mars". Taken using the onboard HiRISE camera.

Similar high-res images were took by the NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (1997-2006) and the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe (2003-present). All wild speculations about the “face of Mars” were put to rest, and the conspiracy theorists went silent (if not embarrassed). However, this is not the first case of pareidolia caused by vague stimuli, and will certainly not be the last.

Examples of pareidolia inducing environments (happens especially, if not only at night):

1. Half-lit hallways.
2. Toilets.
3. Dorms.
4. Camping sites.
5. Highways.
6. Quiet parks.

When You're Half-conscious

Sometimes, the stimuli doesn’t have to vague/blurry -  pareidolia can also happen when you’re aren’t fully self-aware (half awake, fatigued, sleepy etc). When we’re not fully conscious, our brains tend to misinterpret things, and pareidolia can occur easily. That’s why ghosts love to come out at night, or when you’re working overtime, or when you wake up at night. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Evolutionary Origins of Pareidolia

Since pareidolia is literally hardwired into our brains, there must be a evolutionary advantage for our brains to see "faces" or hear "voices" when there are none. A plausible explanation is the false-alarm hypothesis (or whatever it’s called).

The False Alarm Hypothesis

Let's assume that there're 2 individuals, A & B living in the wilds of yesteryear. A is able to respond to familiar stimuli (faces, animal voices) quickly, but is susceptible to pareidolia; B doesn't respond as well, and thus never have any false alarms. In the prehistoric world (perhaps even in the modern world), A would be much more likely to survive by recognizing familiar patterns quickly, and escape on the first sign of a threat. Even it was a false alarm, it wouldn't affect  A negatively. B, on the other hand, failing to recognize patterns quickly, would be less self-aware, and fall prey to sabre-tooth tigers easily.

On a not-so related side note, I propose that we fear ghosts because they look so damn similar to the predators our ancestors had to escape from at night – blurry, vaguely resembling things we’re familiar with, making all sorts of noises, and yes, their ghastly eyes. Those who were afraid of the predators survived, while the others left offspring. Thus, when we see similar images in our lives, we still invoke a “fight or flight” response and get freaked out.

Conclusion

Here, I’ve put forward pareidolia as the first of my explanations for ghostly encounters, and there’s going to more. I just hope that my friends would try and take a look at my explanations, instead of simply repeating the same-ol’ argument every time. I bet they won’t though.

How about you, my fellow readers? Do you think that pareidolia manages to explain some, if not most ghost sightings? If it can’t, then why is it so?

Problems of the Soul (Arguments from Physics)

The soul theory’s contradiction with neuroscience isn’t the end to its implausibility; it’s strongly at odds with modern physics as well. While neuroscience may be a more subjective field, physics is certainly not, and here I shall present problems that the soul theory faces according to physics (some of my arguments are directed specifically at ghosts aka wandering souls).

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics, which is the principle of conservation of energy states that the overall energy within a closed system will remain constant, although it may be converted into other forms. For its energy level to change, it must come into contact with another system. In such a case, the energy level of the system will increase if work is done onto the system, and vice versa. As far as evidence goes, the Universe is a closed system.

Here comes the problem. For the soul to be able to do work in the material world, some of the soul’s energy must be converted into physical energy. Since the soul exists independently of the physical universe, the total energy in the universe will increase when the soul does work, and this must mean that the universe is an open system, which is contradictory to modern science.

Another saying that I’ve heard from my friends is that instead of existing in a separate realm, the soul enters the physical world when one is born (or during fertilization, gastrulation etc.). Somehow, the soul can affect physical entities, but not the other way around. This hypothesis doesn’t make sense, as they’re implying that the energy that makes up the soul is limited, and being unable to receive energy from the physical universe, it will use up its energy quickly and cease to exist.

Light

For us to see something, then that thing must either reflect or emit visible light. Ghosts are supposedly visible in quite some anecdotes, but that’s not possible if we’re to follow the usual definition for ghosts. Let me explain.

First of all, a ghost shouldn’t be able to reflect light. For light to be reflected, it must hit a surface. Since the soul is defined as being made up of only energy, there’s no way it can reflect light, and if I’m not wrong, all forms of light emission require matter as a source of fuel. Thus, for us to see ghosts, they must be made up of matter (at least partially). However, as the soul is supposed to survive physical and material death, such a definition is self-contradicting.

Gravity

In every single anecdote that my friends gave me, ghosts have the ability to float. This, however, simply contradictory to most widely established model for gravity – general relativity. Unlike previous models, general relativity describes gravity not as a force, but as a curvature of space-time, and everything in this universe is subject to the effects of gravity – matter, light, electromagnetic waves, energies etc.

If the souls exist within the material plane, then it must be subject to the gravity as well, no matter what it’s made of. No matter what universe you’re in, you’re going to subject to it’s time-space constraints. It’s logically contradictory for a ghost to float and not be affected by gravity. If a ghost is to float, then it must exert force against the centre of gravity. Such an act would require massive amounts of energy, and the soul would quickly cease to exist. Unless the 1st law of thermodynamics is violated, of course.

And by the way, if ghosts are free from gravity, they should be hurtling into space.

Conclusion

Here I have put forward a few points showing that the concept of the soul is quite problematic from the viewpoint of modern physics. It’s a wonder that mind-body dualists can still insist that the soul theory is true even when it contradicts one of the most objective fields of science.

Of course, the list is far from complete, and I would be thankful if anyone can come up with even more ideas showing how the soul contradicts physics.

Problems of the Soul (Arguments from Neuroscience)

The concept of the human soul and life after death is almost universally accepted among the people. One may not accept the existence of gods, deities, or ghosts, but if asked on the validity of souls and spirits, he/she is most likely to answer yes. Yet, to the naturalist, such a concept is very problematic, and being a naturalist myself, I’ll give a few thoughts on why the concept of the soul contradicts neuroscience, and is thus highly implausible.

René Descartes's illustration of dualism. Inputs are passed on by the sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Neural Development

The soul is eternal, and it controls our body, as mind-body dualists love to claim. Consciousness is retained even after we die, and is passed on to our next body (whether it’s a human, animal, fairy, ghost, demon). But neural development challenges this belief strongly.

Maturing of the Mind

The mind matures as the brain grows, as shown in this picture where our brain achieves full grey matter volume during our 20s.

As we all know, when humans grow up, our thoughts start to mature, and begins to decline once we reach an old age. To the biologist/naturalist, the explanation for such a phenomena couldn’t be simpler: neural development. As we grow towards the adult stage, our brain starts to increase in complexity and amount of grey matter. Then, as we start ageing, our brain begins deteriorating, through a multitude of factors including DNA damage and free radicals damage.

A dualist, however, will find this problematic. If the soul retains our consciousness and thoughts after we die, then one should be reborn with similar thoughts from the previous life. But that’s certainly not the case, as we’re born with almost nothing in our memory, and we don’t act maturely at all until we’re older.

The Beginning of Consciousness

I put forward a simple question to all mind-body dualists: In which stage does the soul enter the body?

Theistic evolutionists face a very problematic question: When did God decide to insert the soul into the human body in the passage of evolution? During the point where Australopithecus lived? Homo hablis? Homo erectus? Homo sapiens? Theistic evolutionists have a hard time agreeing on the exact point. The same problem is there for mind-body dualists. When does the soul enter the body? During the moment of conception? Gastrulation? When we become an embryo? Perhaps the moment of birth? Dualists will have a hard time agreeing on this. While this isn’t a rebuttal to the soul theory, it does present a problem in the soul theory.

The Nervous System

It’s widely accepted to any student of science that our senses are controlled by our nervous system, which sends information to our brain through electrical charges, and our brain will respond accordingly. Such a model doesn’t fit well with the soul theory.

Our Senses

Here’s the 5 traditional senses. Obviously, all of them stop working once the specific nerves get damaged.

If the soul is to retain full consciousness in the material world after death, then it must be independent of our nervous system. The soul must be able to receive information from the material world through another method, if it’s to work as dualists claim. Such is not the case. When a person’s optical nerves get damaged, he/she loses his sight; when his/her auditory nerves stop functioning, he/she becomes deaf etc. It’s very clear that our interaction with the environment is reliant on the nervous system. So either the soul loses all connection with material world once we die, or the soul somehow regains full consciousness the moment we pass away. The first hypothesis requires a radical change in the soul theory; the second hypothesis is simply laughable.

Brain Damage

If the soul is responsible for our consciousness, then why does patients with brain damage suffer from reduced mental abilities?  In fact, neuroscientists are capable of predicting damage in which part of the brain will cause what kind of mental deterioration. The fact that mental abilities are subject to the state of the brain is at odds with common dualist anecdotes which claim that the soul can leave the body, or that the soul can keep on having thoughts in the material world after death.

Conclusion

In this post, I have raised a number of problems that challenge the soul theory greatly. The phenomena above points strongly to the view that the mind and consciousness is the product of the brain, not the soul. Before any dualist manages to explain away those problems, I’m a naturalist. But I’ve only pointed the problems from the neuroscientist’s view. In my next post, I’ll point out why the soul is completely implausible from a physics point of view.

PS: If my anyone finds any logical or philosophical errors in my opinions, please tell me. :-)

Sceptical Towards Pseudoscience – Diamond Water Quackery

It's about time to debunk this company's unfounded and misleading claims.

Don’t you just hate it when some guy comes to you and say: “Hey, we’ve got this new product that can enhance your bio-field and energy vibrations! It has been proven by Japanese/US scientists and passes the Federal standards!” Don’t you? Yet, while sceptics will simply laugh off these pseudoscientific products, many people are unfortunately scammed. This time, I will deal with the great energised water scams so prevalent across the globe, and here’s the leader in Malaysia/Hong Kong – Diamond Energy Water. Let’s look at Diamond's claims.

Smaller Water Clusters for Better Absorption by Cells?!

So after 30 years of research from Japanese scientists (one must wonder where did the funding come from, and how no one knew of it beforehand), they developed the Energy Conversion technology that breaks water clusters into smaller clusters for easier absorption by body cells, which in turn improves our body’s metabolism and absorption of nutrients and allows for more dissolved oxygen. Sounds quite familiar, eh? Time to debunk the pseudoscience.

What Water Clusters Really Mean

In true chemistry, water clusters are defined as a hydrogen-bonded cluster of molecules of water. Let me explain what’s a hydrogen bond.

Hydrogen Bonds

A hydrogen bond is a type of electrostatic interaction between electronegative atoms (fluorine, nitrogen, or oxygen) within a molecule and hydrogen atoms bound to another electronegative molecule. The bond can occur between molecules (intermolecular), or they can occur within the same molecule (intramolecular). Hydrogen bonds are only about 1/10 as strong as normal covalent bonds.

A water molecule can be bonded to 4 other molecules at one time. This is because its 2 hydrogen atoms can be bonded to 2 other oxygen atoms, while its oxygen atom can accept up to 2 hydrogen bonds. As a water molecule can bond with the most number of other water molecules at the same time when compared to similar chemicals, it has a relatively high boiling point, melting point and viscosity.

Here's what I mean: A water molecule with its hydrogen atoms bonded to 2 other oxygen molecules and its oxygen molecule being bonded by 2 other hydrogen molecules.

Waters Clusters Don't Work the Way Diamond Water Implies

Let’s assume that the Energy Conversion technology actually works, and it’s perfectly capable of breaking waters clusters down to the smallest possible cluster (that’s a water dimer, which consists of 2 hydrogen-bonded water molecules). But for the technology to really work, the water cluster’s structure must remain unchanged from the moment it passes through the filter to the time it’s absorbed by our cells. That’ll take minutes, at the very least.

So here’s the fact: that isn’t possible. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Science (that should be a reliable source), water

“… imposes a high degree of structure and current models supported by X-ray scattering studies have short-range ordered regions, which are constantly disintegrating and reforming.”

And, according to these peer-reviewed scientific reports in the “Read More” section below, the lifespan of hydrogen bonds are counted on the scale of picoseconds, or 10^-9 seconds. You read that correctly, those who are interested in buying energised water of any sort. The structure of the water clusters would’ve changed innumerable times before you can even flinch.

But that’s not the end to Diamond’s claims. They say that they have a far-infrared technology that stabilizes energy within the water to allow the structure to be maintained for a longer period. This claim is without scientific evidence, and it’s not sure what they actually mean by “stabilizing energy”. But even assuming that water clusters can actually be stabilized, can it still maintain its structure during the move from the 4th filter to the 5th filter? Since we’re talking about change within picoseconds here, it’s a no.

Conclusion

I’ve made it pretty clear that Diamond’s so-called energy water are full of pseudoscientific bunk. Moreover, Diamond’s act of making false claims about their products is simply unethical, and isn’t justified by the law. Yet, the public is still misinformed on their claims, and it’s still the most famous water filtering company in Malaysia (and perhaps Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan). So if you have any Malaysian friends, inform them of this!

PS: Because of time constraints, I decided not to write on cell hydration in this post, but I’ll address it later. :-)

Read More

Unified description of temperature-dependent hydrogen-bond rearrangements in liquid water

PMR study of the lifetime of complexes with a strong hydrogen bond at low temperatures.

Hydrogen-bond lifetime measured by time-resolved 2D-IR spectroscopy: N-methylacetamide in methanol

Ultrafast Dynamics in Na-doped water Clusters

Answering Creationist Claims – Morality in Evolution

A common claim of creationists would be that evolution promotes immorality. Such claims can arise from nothing less than ignorance, and here I shall explain why evolution does promote morality and altruism, instead of challenging it.

Scientific Theories are Descriptive

Science is a method to understand the world around us, and it does so through the scientific method, which is tried-and-true. Now, as science observes and make conclusions, that means it is descriptive – it simply tries to give us a better understanding of the world. To blame immorality on scientific theories is simply absurd, as science is not an instruction manual - it is up to us to determine what actions should we take.

This is very unlike religion, which explicitly and repeatedly requests that we follow its teachings, making it instructive. Moreover, it does so through blind faith, not through reason and evidence.

Social Darwinism – Natural Selection Misunderstood

Creationists also frequently claim that the teachings of natural selection leads to Social Darwinism, which is political ideology in which only the “fittest” survive, and the weak are left to die, and Adolf Hitler implemented this system. His rationale was that based on the misunderstanding that natural selection meant “survival of the fittest”, and the Catholics are superior to Jews, thus Jews must be exterminated. Creationists frequently refer to his actions as evidence that evolution leads to immorality.

Yet, this is not the case. Natural selection doesn’t necessarily means that a particular individual must kill as many other organisms as possible; nor does it mean that an individual must be vastly superior to other individuals to survive. It simply means that the phenotypes that are better adapted to the habitat would have a greater chance of reproducing and passing on their genes (or more specifically, alleles). The phenotypes do not need to be competing with each other to survive – they can be helping each other directly or indirectly, increasing both individual’s fitness. Such interaction between 2 different species is known as mutualism (between sea anemone and hermit crabs, bees and flowers, ungulates and digestive bacteria etc); within the same species, it is known as co-operation (ants, bees, and of course, Homo sapiens).

Altruism – An Evolutionary Explanation

We have already mentioned that natural selection doesn’t need to be competitive, but also collaborative. However, how does evolution explain the appearance of morality and altruism? There’re many possible mechanisms suggested, some of them may be right, some of them may be wrong – it is even possible that all are true. Let’s take a look at the proposed mechanisms. But before that, let me note that the problem of morality is much greater for creationism than evolution. After all, as stated in Plato’s Euthyphro:

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? – the Euthyphro dilemma

or in modern-day words:

Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

Answer that, theists.

Kin Selection

Kin selection refers to the theory that organisms may display caring towards their relatives, thus increasing their relatives reproductive fitness but at a cost of their own fitness. If viewed from a purely competitive and individualistic perspective, natural selection would’ve got rid of individuals that exhibit such behaviour, and thus genes that promote such behaviour would rarely (if ever) reach fixation. However, such behaviour is found in many organisms, the most famous example be the infertile worker ants and bees, who are unable to reproduce and yet decide the fate of the entire hive.

Hamilton's Rule

Altruism with have superior to a particular genes survival when Hamilton’s rule as put forward by W.D. Hamilton is met:

rB > C

where r = coefficient of relatedness between the individuals, B = the benefits in fitness received by the recipient, and C = the cost in fitness imposed on the actor.

The value of r can be calculated pretty easily. In a diploid organism, an offspring gets exactly half of its genes from one its parents. Thus their relatedness is 0.5. For the cousin and grand offspring, they get 1/4 of their genes from one their last common parent, and thus their relatedness with that parent is 0.25. Based on this equation, we know that r=n⁵.

Hamilton proposed 2 ways in which altruism would be favoured. The first is when kin recognition is high enough, which means that an organism favours those that are more genetically similar to it. However, as organisms are most certainly unable to measure the genetic relatedness of a relative, kin recognition only occurs if the particular genes can have externally visible phenotypical effects. This is known as the “Green-beard effect”, and it serves as a valid explanation for the evolution of morality.

Kin selection can also happen even if kin recognition is not present in viscous populations – a population in which the movement of organisms from their birthplace is relatively slow. In viscous populations, individuals will frequently breed with close genealogical relatives, and thus Hamilton’s rule can be met. This doesn’t explain altruism, though.

Reciprocity

Reciprocal altruism refers to the behaviour that an individual would help another individual in the hope of mutual interaction with the recipient in the future. In social terms, it’s: “I helped you, and thus I expect you to help me back.”. This is a very possible explanation for the evolution of morality (and revenge), as this behaviour is see in cleaner fish, vampire bats (possibly), chimps, orang-utans, and of course, human society. It’s also used to explain why humans help strangers, which are hard to explain using kin selection.

Direct Reciprocity

Robert Trivers presented direct reciprocity as a model for the evolution of cooperation. This form of reciprocity requires that the 2 individuals meet again, recognize each other, and remember their last encounter to predict what would happen in the future. Direct reciprocity is highly similar to the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD). In this dilemma, there are 2 individuals. If both cooperate (C), both will gain rewards (R); while if both defect (D), both will get penalties (P). However, if one individual cooperates while the other defects, the co-operator will be penalized, while the defector will be rewarded handsomely.

Direct reciprocity can only promote altruism if:

w > c / b

where w = the probability of another encounter between the same two individuals, c = cost, b  = benefit. Thus, it is required that the probability of another encounter between the same two individuals exceeds the cost-to-benefit ratio of the act.

Indirect Reciprocity

Indirect reciprocity doesn’t require repeated encounter between the same individuals. In indirect reciprocity, one individual is the donor while the other is the recipient. The donor can decide whether to cooperate and help the recipient.

Indirect reciprocity has 2 models:

The "Upstream" Model

The “upstream” model states that when the donor helps the recipient, the recipient will be motivated to help another individual, perhaps because he/she got a positive feeling about it. This may create a domino effect which spreads through the community. While this model is harder to understand in detail, it has been observed in economic experiments.

The "Downstream" Model

This model is based on reputation. If an the donor helps the recipient (and someone knows of it), his/her reputation will be enhanced. Such a system is all too common within human society, and studies have shown that an individual of good reputation is more likely to be helped by others in the animal kingdom as well.

Indirect reciprocity can only promote altruism if:

q > c / b

where q = probability of knowing someone’s reputation, c = cost, b = benefit. In other words, it only works when the probability of knowing someone’s reputation exceeds the cost-to-benefit ration exceeds those of the altruistic act.

Diagram (a) shows direct reciprocity, in which A helps B, and B helps A, or they may defect. Diagram (b) shows the “upstream” model, which is based on motivation; and the "downstream" model, which focuses on reputation.

Sexual Selection

In many animal societies, the female are responsible for taking care of their children. This is very detrimental to the survival of the mother – it requires time, energy, and resources. Now, if both parents are responsible for caring the children, the load would be ultimately be decreased for the mother. However, that doesn’t work if the father (biological or not) doesn’t even think of the children, much less care for them. Thus, it is proposed that females may have preferred loyal, caring partners over individualistic partners, and thus the “moral” gene is the one had a great probability of being inherited.

Conclusion

In this post, I not only debunked the creationist’s claim that evolution leads to immorality, but also gave an explanation on how evolution is perfectly able to explain altruism as well. I’ll wait for creationists to refute what I just said.

As a side note, though, all the explanations above have one thing in common: they all imply that altruism succeeds because of selfishness. Kin selection is not “true” morality, one only helps those that are closely related genetically, and that doesn’t fit with how our society thinks morality should be.

As for reciprocity, it happens because the individual expects something in return. In direct reciprocity and perhaps the “upstream” model of indirect reciprocity, you help someone because you want to get help from them in the future. Hell, they’ve got this Chinese saying that “Good deeds shall be rewarded in return”, and I simply hate it when charities used this saying to urge us to donate – that’s actually an act of selfishness.

In the “downstream” model of direct reciprocity, you help someone, and you get reputation for it. Who doesn’t want it? Some may protest that this is caused by the willingness of the spectator – the donor didn’t explicitly want better reputation. I doubt that. I’ve seen a lot of cases (including mine) when an individual helps someone because he thinks that’s politically correct, because people may look down upon him if he/she doesn’t lend a helping hand, because by doing he feels “good” etc. Self-centeredness under the guise of helpful acts, that’s what we all (or at least me) see in most cases.

However, despite my cynical view of morality, I don’t think that it should be removed from society or ignored altogether. At least, it still maintains harmony and peace much better than a purely competitive mindset.

Sceptical Towards Pseudoscience – The Pseudoscientific Method

What differs science from pseudoscience? Why do we call astrology, numerology, and feng shui pseudoscience? New Age followers frequently claim that science-fans are simply too arrogant and ignorant to look at the evidence, but how true is that? Here, I contrast the scientific method and the pseudoscientific method, and show why we sceptics are justified in labelling them as simply superstition.

Science is Self-correcting; Pseudoscience is Static

Scientific theories are self-correcting, that is, they change in the light of new, contradicting evidence. As a perfect scientific theory should have zero flaws, it is not surprising that what you’ve learned today may be completely wrong tomorrow.

Take the Theory of Evolution as an example. Initially, there was Lamarckism, a theory stating that changes in an individual’s genotype will be inherited by its offspring. Yet, the arrival of genetics on the scene completely rendered the theory wrong, and gave overwhelming evidence for Mendelian-inheritance.

Yet, by the early 21st century, it was found out that organisms don’t follow strict Mendelian inheritance patterns. This can be caused by epigenetics, environmental factors etc. In fact, in 2006, Minoo Rassoulzadegan from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France, and her colleagues reported the first instance of non-Mendelian inheritance in mammals. They interbred wild-type mice with heterozygous with engineered Kit DNA. The wild-type mice had tails uniform in colour; the heterozygous mice had spotted tails. When they interbreed the mice, they got a litter full of spotted tail mice when Mendelian inheritance expected about half of each mice. They found out that the Kit mRNA in the heterozygous mice and the pups was lower in level and degraded, and the degradation was caused by Kit microRNA. This shows that DNA (RNA in some viruses) is actually not the only biochemical that affects inheritance, and once again, the Theory of Evolution needs to be updated.

It was found out that the damaged mRNA in the heterozygous mice was inherited by the para-mutated pups, giving them spotted tails.(Soloway/Nature, 2006)

But what about pseudoscience? Do they revise their theories in response to contradictory evidence? No, they don’t. Astrology, feng shui, numerology rarely update to reflect new findings, and is virtually the same as what they were thousands of years ago. The failure of Western astrology to address the precession of the equinoxes is a classical example and typical of pseudoscience. See my post - Debunking Astrology (Part 2 – Problems that Astrology Must Answer) for further info.

Science is Critically Peer-reviewed; Pseudoscience Spouts Claims Without Evidence

I don’t dare to say science is without fraud. Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Archaeoraptor etc. are examples we can all remember as embarrassments to the scientific community, a sore reminder that science must be honest to itself, and to be critically peer-reviewed.

A defining feature of science is that any single hypothesis must go through extensive scrutiny from the respective scientific communities before it even has the hope to be published in a scientific magazine, like Nature. With all those different hypotheses coming from everywhere, one has to ensure that they are truly of high quality, and it is the peer review system that allows us to judge whether a hypotheses is honest and truthful.

But, does pseudoscience have similar systems? Definitely no. Pseudoscience goes directly to the relatively uncensored mass media, telling the world of their “great” discoveries and predictions, in which they cannot give any evidence for. But what’s more disappointing is that quite some newspapers will praise their claims without second thought? Perhaps because of psychological and marketing factors? Whatever it is, the conclusion would be: pseudoscience never examines its claims critically, but it speaks louder than true science. Like a duck compared to an eagle.

Science is Objective; Pseudoscience is Subjective/Vague

A theory that explains everything explains nothing.

Science hypotheses, theories and laws must be falsifiable. What do we mean by falsifiability? It means that a theory/hypothesis/law must be specific and objective in its predictions so that they can be test and verified by other scientists. Here’s an example: Mendel’s Law of Segregation predicts that there are dominant and recessive alleles, and when both are present, the dominant allele will be expressed, masking the recessive allele. This was strongly supported when Mendel’s pea experiments showed a 3:1 ratio of 2 different traits, 1 being dominant and the other being recessive. Except in cases where non-Mendelian inheritance is involved, this law has always stood up to the test, and can thus be rightfully called a scientific law.

But pseudoscience never does this. Their claims are usually vague enough to be untestable using the scientific method and generic enough so that the predictions apply to everyone. Take astrology’s sun sign predictions as an example:

Capricorn, the tenth sign of the zodiac, is all about hard work. Those born under this sign are more than happy to put in a full day at the office, realizing that it will likely take a lot of those days to get to the top. That's no problem, since Capricorns are both ambitious and determined: they will get there. Life is one big project for these folks, and they adapt to this by adopting a businesslike approach to most everything they do. Capricorns are practical as well, taking things one step at a time and being as realistic and pragmatic as possible. The Capricorn-born are extremely dedicated to their goals, almost to the point of stubbornness. Those victories sure smell sweet, though, and that thought alone will keep Capricorns going.

That’s for Capricorn. Wow, doesn’t this sound like the perfect employee/employer? Note how does astrology (and also other pseudoscience) prey upon our dreams and visions so that we happily agree with it.  Moreover, the prediction above only explains a part of our life. One can look at a Capricorn sign and say that it fits his/her work-life, and look at an Libra sign and say: “That’s me! Charming, attractive, graceful! After all, that’s what I am in my personal life!” By making predictions which could apply perfectly depending on the situation, pseudoscience manages to be “accurate” in its predictions, when it is simply using the same-old tactic.

Science Uses Clear and Precise Words; Pseudoscience Uses Scientific-sounding Mumbo Jumbo

To allow your theory/hypothesis to be verified accurately by other scientists, what you need to do is to use the most precise, and the clearest words possible. They can then be verified using scienitific experiments, which will determine its validity. That’s needed so that science remains objective and falsifiable.

However, it seems that a lot of people frequently criticise science for using hard-to-understand jargon in place of general, understandable words. But be aware that when I say clear, I don’t mean easily understandable by the general public, but precise enough so other scientists can know exactly what are you referring too. This is how it is in the scientific community; on the other hand, more simple and generic words are used when informing the public.

But pseudoscience also uses the same words, so does that give it the same qualities? That’s a no. Take a look at the some “scientific” mumbo-jumbo used by pseudoscience: “energy vibrations”, “enhanced bio-field”, “non-Hertzian scalar energy”. Despite using scientific sounding terms, such terms don’t exist within the scientific community, as their existence have never been proved. Thus these terms are meaningless, nothing more than a trick to sound genuine to the public.

In other cases, pseudoscience will quote mine true and valid scientific theories to further their case. Take the notorious FusionExcel company as an example. The say that their “quantum pendant” are capable of generating “scalar energy”, which are supposed to improve our wellbeing. But wait! In physics, the word quantum is used to describe quantum mechanics, which is currently the best system for explaining interactions on the atomic/subatomic scale. Are they implying the pendants are created through manipulating molecules on the subatomic scale? And what is scalar energy? They try to use the Maxwell Equations to validate its existence, but I cannot find any link. That’s typical of pseudoscience.

Science Keeps Trying to Verify Its Predictions; Pseudoscience Rely on Confirmation Bias

A scientific theory must stand up to the evidence consistently. It must always match real-world observations, and the whole theory could be dismantled with one contradicting evidence. That’s why scientists constantly test scienitific theories against new observations to ensure its validity. If it doesn’t hold, then try to create a better one.

But pseudoscience never does this! They keep on giving vague, generic predictions, and in the case that even those predictions fails, they usually give some kind of rationalization, such as “The theory is just a guideline”, “Well you shouldn’t rely only on stars signs, there’s more to astrology”, “Maybe you missed something”, “You can’t judge someone from his/her looks” etc. Never do they admit to be wrong.

On the other hand, pseudoscience gets ecstatic when their claims are found to be true. They will declare it as empirical evidence, while ignoring the times when the predictions have failed to hold. It is of course frequently shown that these “evidence” can also be explained through pure chance, which may be why believers don’t look at contradicting observations. In psychology, this is known as confirmation bias, in which people deliberately ignore contradicting evidence, in favour of supporting observations. While commonplace in pseudoscience, confirmation bias in the scientific community is quickly exposed thanks to the peer review process.

Science Relies on Empirical Evidence; Pseudoscience Relies on Anecdotes

The last, and most annoying feature of pseudoscience is its overuse of anecdotal evidence. Science is empirical, requiring strong evidence and repeatable, testable predictions. Just because a well respected scientist or the majority of scientists claim something to be true doesn’t verify a theory/hypothesis. It must go through the peer review system as stated above, and be tested repeatedly to be valid.

But obviously, pseudoscience doesn’t do this. As evidence can’t be found for their claims, they instead rely on anecdotes from customers or supporters. When I asked my friends for evidence of ghosts, they say: “I saw it! It was late night in my camping tree, and I saw a spectre in the trees”, “I hear weird sounds sometimes!” or “My friend them, I saw them, doesn’t that make ghosts true already?”. Classic example of pseudoscience/superstition.

But why not anecdotal evidence, you ask? The problem with anecdotes is that human errors are simply too frequent, we have great imagination, we all have slight confirmation bias, and yes, the placebo effect is quite a powerful force. This problem exists even in mass hallucinations, where the power of suggestion can cause a group of people to have “God” show up in front of them, when spectators see nothing except for a bunch of lunatics. Anecdotal evidence cannot be used as scientific evidence for this reason.

I saw a vaguely-humanoid shaped fog: Evidence for ghosts!

Conclusion

I think I’ve given enough reasons on why pseudoscience is pseudoscience. To sum it up, it’s dogmatic, unverified, untestable, and relies and anecdotes and confirmation bias. So stop claiming that we sceptics are close minded. How about this, believers – review your claims. Perhaps you’ll find out that those superstitions aren’t that factual after all.

Debunking Astrology (Part 2 – Problems that Astrology Must Answer)

A key feature of all scientific theories it that they must stand up to extreme, honest scrunity by the scientific community and strongly supported by empirical, not anecdotal evidence. Yet astrology has been around for thousands of years, and it seems that there are still great problems in which it cannot answer. Let’s take take a look.

Axial Precession

Precessional motion occurs when torque is applied to an rotating object and changes the direction of its axis of rotation. This occurs because the torque increases the angular velocity of the initial angular velocity of the rotating body, causing the axis of rotation change direction.

This effect also happens to the Earth. Known as the precession of the equinoxes, it is the slow westward motion of the equinoxes about the elliptic, and it is caused by the torque crerated as a result of the gravitational attraction of the Sun and the Moon pulling the bulge at the equator towards the elliptic. A full 360 degree turn takes about 25,800 years.

So what does this hold for astrology? Nothing good. Take 25,800 years divide 360, and you get around 72. In other words, it takes around 72 years for the direction of the axis of rotation to be offset by 1 degree. Since the house in astrology have never been updated since the Babylonians created them around 2000BC, that means they have means the equinoxes have gone out of place by around 56 degrees (4032/72 = 56). Oops.  If you’re Capricorn, you should be a Scorpio/Sagittarius now. Why hadn’t astrologers update the position of the houses?

Precession of the equinoxes

Why Isn’t Natal Astrology Based on the Moment of Fertilization?

Natal astrology focuses on predicting a person’s life based on the individual’s exact time, date, and place of birth. Needles to say, this is very problematic. Why care about when is the individual born? The hypothetical force should after, be perfectly natural as astrologers love to claim (after all, astrology is a science, and science only addresses the natural!), and I don’t see why should the mother’s womb act as a barrier to that force, preventing it from having any effects on the baby. A better model would be to measure the moment of fertilization, as all embryonic developments later on are largely dependent on this process. Of course, there is no way yet to determine when does this occur, which renders natal astrology useless.

Astrology Not Working as Predicted

There are quite a lot of studies that shows astrology isn’t better than chance. Just Google it. But let’s do a simple test, shall we? Let’s start with my supposed sign, Capricorn. Here’s a description I found on Virgin Media:

You are rock-solid, dependable, responsible, highly organised, goal-oriented, logical and clever.

You thrive in positions of power or any job where maths or money are involved. Consider an IT position because you love software and computers. You are also well-suited for being a doctor, accountant or lawyer.

I see. I should love maths and money. Well yes, I do, but I also love science, mysteries, debating, public speaking, writing blogs, challenging dogmatic religions etc. Not the what the conservative, quiet Capricorn should do. Anyway, let’s see some famous people born as on January 1st:

January 8, 1935 - Elvis Presley - Musician

January 10, 1945 - Rod Stewart – Singer

December 26, 1893 - Mao Tse Tung - Political Leader

January 2, 1880 - Joseph Stalin – Dictator

January 6, 1572 - Johannes Kepler - Astronomer

January 9, 1913 - Richard Nixon - President of US

January 14, 1412 - Joan of Arc – Saint

January 17, 1899 - Al Capone – Gangster

January 17, 1942 - Muhammad Ali - Boxer

Huh? I mean, why are there Capricorns overturning the Chinese monarchy, leading Communist Russia, being the King of Boxers, and shocking the world with his great songs? Shouldn’t Capricorn after all, be conservative? And how does Mao and Stalin be responsible and dependable when they killed millions? That just doesn’t fit. I’m waiting for an explanation.

Conclusion

Astrologers claim their work is science. To be considered as such, astrology must stand up to critical and sceptical scrunity. No astrologer I’ve ever seen could answer these questions, and before there is an explanation for the problems stated, astrology is bunk, or at least extremely inaccurate and unreliable.

References

John Daintith BSc, PhD & Elizabeth Martin MA. (Eds.). (2005). Oxford Dictionary of Science. New York: Oxford University Press.

Previous: Debunking Astrology (Part 1 – No Known Force is Strong Enough to Affect Us)

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Debunking Astrology (Part 1 – No Known Force is Strong Enough to Affect Us)

For the planets plus the Sun and the Moon to affect our lifes and personality, there must be a force that is strong enough to reach us, and have a profound impact. The claim the that Pluto, a planet about the size of the Moon can affect us when even when it is 7,228,829,857km from us is an extremely extraordinary claim, and so the force must be exceptionally strong. Let’s see if there is any evidence for such a claim.

The 4 Fundamental Forces of Physics – Can They be Responsible?

The fundamental forces (or fundamental interactions) describe the way in which particles interact with each other. So far, every interaction can be broken down into 4 fundamental interactions, as described below:

Strong Interaction (aka the Strong Nuclear Force)

The strong interaction has greatest magnitude of all 4 forces, which is why it got its name. It is 100 times stronger than electromagnetism, 10⁵ stronger than the weak interaction, and 10³⁹ stronger than gravity.

The Strong Force

Quarks and gluons are bonded together as a result of the strong interaction. Curiously, this force doesn’t decrease in magnitude with increasing distance. Instead, once it reaches a limit (roughly the size of a hadron), the force remains constant at about 100,000 newtons. When quarks are pulled beyond a certain distance, it would be energetically favourable to create a new quark/anti-quark from vacuum. That’s why quarks are only found clumped together as hadrons, and no free quarks have ever been observed. This is known as colour confinement (not related to colour in the visual sense. In this context, colour is a property of quarks and gluons in the strong interaction).

The Residual Strong Force (Nuclear Force)

The residual strong force, as its name suggests, is a residue of the strong interaction. This force works between hadrons within atomic nuclei. The hadrons consist of mesons (made up of one quark and anti-quark; examples: pions and kaons), and baryons (made up of 3 quarks; examples: proton and neutrons). Mesons are transmitted between nucleons within the atomic nuclei, binding them together (and preventing protons from repelling each other because of their same electrostatic charges). Unlike the strong interaction, the residual strong force does decrease as distance increases, and is doesn’t exist beyond 10^-15 metres. As electromagnetism decreases over distance at a much slower pace, the electromagnetism-to-residual nuclear force ratio falls in favour of electromagnetism as distance increases, causing nuclides with atomic number over 82 to be unstable.

Why Not?

The reasons why the strong interaction is definitely not the force that affects our lives should be clear by now. The strong interaction only works between quarks and gluons, which are unimaginably small. Moreover, when pulled apart beyond a certain distance, quark/anti-quark pairs are created, and this means that there is a maximum distance between quarks. The same goes for the residual strong force, with its maximum range of effect of around 10^-15 metres. To say that this force works on a planetary scale is simply absurd.

Weak Interaction (aka the Weak Nuclear Force)

The weak interaction is caused by the exchange of W and Z bosons (the intermediate vector bosons). It is called weak because it is 10⁻¹¹ times weaker than electromagnetism, and 10⁻¹³ times weaker than the strong interaction. It is most notable for causing beta decay.

Uniqueness of the Weak Interaction

The weak interaction affects left-handed leptons, quarks, and neutrinos (the only other force that affects neutrinos is gravity, but its effect are negligible).

Flavour Changing

The weak interaction is the only known force that changes flavour. (not the flavour of taste; flavour in particle physcis means the quantum number of elementary particles.) Take beta decay for an example. For a neutron (1 up quark, 2 down quarks) to change into a proton, (2 up quark, 1 down quark), it must change one of its down quarks into an up quark. By emitting a W-negative boson, which then breaks up into a electron(e⁻) and antineutrino(ν_e).

The Feynman diagram for beta-minus decay of a neutron into a proton, electron, and electron antineutrino via an intermediate heavy W− boson

Violation of Symmetry

The laws of nature were long thought to remain the same under mirror reflection. The results of an experiment viewed via a mirror were expected to be identical to the results of a mirror-reflected copy of the experimental apparatus. This is called the law of parity conservation.

Yet, in the mid-1950s, Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee suggested that the weak interaction might violate this law. Chien Shiung Wu and collaborators in 1957 discovered that the weak interaction in fact maximally violates parity, earning Yang and Lee the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.

CP symmetry explains that when a particle is interchanged with its corresponding antiparticle (C symmetry, or charge conjugation symmetry), and left and right swapped (P symmetry, or parity symmetry), the laws of physics should be the same. Yet, it was found that the weak interaction may violate the CP symmetry, and thus create asymmetry in the universe. This is the most likely explanation of why there is almost only matter in the universe, as without this violation, matter and antimatter would’ve cancelled out each other.

A simple diagram indicating the action of CP: CP reverses all spatial axes and takes particles to antiparticles. In this diagram, CP takes a spin-up electron to a spin-down positron.

Why Not?

As the W and Z bosons have a large mass of about 90 GeV/c² (on subatomic scales, that is), their mean life is only about 3×10⁻²⁵ seconds. Even at the speed of light, the effect of the weak interaction is limited to a mere 10-18 metres, which is a 1000 times smaller than an atomic nucleus. That’s 1000 times smaller than the residual strong nuclear force, so how can it be expected to be the force that astrology claims? Next.

Gravity

As the force in which matter attracts and are attracted to each other, gravity is obviously the force we are the most familiar with, and we are all too familiar the story that an apple fell on Newton’s head (that’s fiction, but whatever). Despite being the weakest among all 4 fundamental interactions, gravity decays very slowly over distance and has infinity range, and is thus a likely candidate for the “astrological” force.

General relativity is currently the best explanation of how gravity works, and is currently accepted as the best model of gravitation by the scientific community. Developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, the theory is extremely successful in its predictions, but not perfect; we mustn’t doubt the overwhelming evidence available for it though.

In terms of general relativity, gravity is caused by the curvation of space-time by mass, and that free-falling objects are moving along locally straight paths in curved space-time. These straight lines are called geodesics. It states that if there is a force applied to an object, it would deviate from the geodesics in space-time. Everything on Earth are not following geodesics, as gravity exerts force upon them.

Gravitation keeps the planets in orbit about the Sun. The curved lines represent the curvation of space-time. (Not to scale, obviously)

Why Not?

Although gravity spreads out infinitely, it’s effects still decay fast enough for the planets to have virtually none effect on the Earth. Jupiter, despite it’s massive gravitational pull doesn’t seem to affect the Earth’s orbit, much less Pluto (not a planet anymore in astronomy, but still one in astrology), with its smaller-than-Moon size and its unimaginably great distance away from the Earth. The only 2 celestial bodies in the Solar System that affects us directly would be the Sun, which locks us in orbit with it; and the Moon, which causes quite a number of tidal effects. Yet these are only a part of astrology, and thus gravity is no longer a candidate.

Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the force that affects charged particles and is the most misused force ever is electromagnetism. Saying it brings mystics, feng shui, and yes, astrology to mind. However, electromagnetism is the most encountered force in life, save for gravity. Electromagnetism holds your body’s atoms together; cause electrons to orbit around atomic nuclei; cause the repulsion and attraction of magnets etc.

Artistic rendition of the Earth's magnetosphere.

Why Not?

Astrology involves the planets, the Moon, and the Sun. But here’s the problem: only the Sun has a noticeable effect on the Earth. The only planets that have magnetospheres are Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and of course Earth – the other planets’ magnetic fields are too weak. Yet even Jupiter’s magnetosphere, which 14 times greater than those of Earth, extends only 7 million kilometres in the Sun’s direction, which means that it doesn’t affect the Earth at all. Plus the inverse square law stated above, and it is clear that the planets cannot affect our lives as astrology claims. The only celestial body that affects us electromagnetically would be the Sun,the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF), which is the magnetic field of the Sun that is carried by solar winds.

What about a 5th, undetected force?

The hard-headed new ager may claim: “So what? There may be an undetected force that works behind the scenes!” Of course, the onus of proof is on the new ager, not the sceptic, but for the sake of discussion, let’s entertain that possibility.

What Characteristics the 5th Force Must Have

1. It mustn't decay over distance.

All 4 fundamental forces of physics decay too quickly over distance to have any true effect on a interplanetary scale, and thus the 5th force must be constant in magnitude. However, this poses another problem. To prevent our brains from exploding, let’s just consider the celestial bodies present in the Milky Way. Well, it is estimated that there are 10¹¹ stars in our galaxy. Isn’t it a bit naive to simply ignore all those stars in astrology?

2. It should be independent of size.

Since astrology claims the Sun and Pluto to have equal effect on us, that means size must be ignored. Well, then perhaps we should take into account every single asteroid orbiting the Sun. After all, there are 70,000 Kuiper Belt Objects in the Kuiper Belt.

3. Or it could rely on some undetected property.

Yes, perhaps science hasn’t detected a unique property that only the planets + the Sun + the Moon has. Such a claim however, will create even more wishful thinking for astrology, and thus will push astrology even more into the realm of blind faith. Moreover, astrology must explain the missing planets 4 planets in ancient astrology, and how could they have been accurate at all. And who is to say that there are no other planets now with similar properties?

4. Or it is sentient.

Alright. This basically invokes something along the lines of the god(s)/deities. Nuff’ said.

Conclusion

It is very clear now that simply isn’t possible that any non-sentient force can affect our lives and personality as astrology claims. The 4 fundamental forces have proved to be impossible candidates, and the 5th hypothetical force creates more problems than it aims to solves. The only alternative is to invoke the supernatural, but that simply puts astrology into the field of superstition, which it has always been since its separation from astronomy -  the true science of the cosmos.

PS: I know that gravity and electromagnetism aren’t explained in detail here, but we all know how they work,. However, I may do so if there are requests :-)

Previous: Debunking Astrology (Introduction)

Next: Part 2 – Problems that Astrology Must Answer

Debunking Astrology (Introduction)

Who'd go back to astrology when they've sampled the real thing -- astronomy...? - Richard Dawkins

Unfortunately, Mr. Dawkins, you mean almost everyone who’ve heard of it. Astrology is obviously on par with feng shui as the 2 most widely believed and practiced pseudoscience in the world. Since it was most voted for in the the poll, I’ll give a detailed debunking on claims that astrology has any scientific basis, and show there is none.

Astrology Defined

As stated in the Compact Oxford Dictionary, astrology is:

The study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies and their supposed influence on human affairs.

Babylonian Astrology

The 12 horoscopes that we are so familiar with first originated in Babylon in the second millennium B.C. It started with the belief that the all phenomena are affected by the heavens, be it the life of humans, natural disasters, or simply the weather. 5 planets were identified at that time, with their respective gods: Jupiter with Marduk, Venus with Ishtar, Saturn with Ninurta (Ninib), Mercury with Nabo, and Mars with with Nergal. Together with the sun-god Shamash and the moon-god Sin, they affected the material world with their movements. Babylonian astrology attempts to predict their movements, and from that the fate of everything material. 12 houses were created, which set the basis for the 12 horoscopes today: 1. Life ; 2. Poverty/Riches ; 3. Brothers ; 4. Parents ; 5. Children ; 6. Illness/health ; 7. Wife/husband ; 8.Death ; 9. Religion ; 10. Dignities ; 11. Friendship ; 12. Enmity.

Hellenistic Astrology

Hellenistic astrology appeared in the Mediterranean region sometime around the 1st century BCE. It all began with the conquest of Alexander the Great, where the the Babylonian astrology and Egyptian Decanic astrology merged, forming the first horoscopic astrology. It was the first to use the ascendant, and the 12 celestial house which are derived from it. Much emphasis was shifted to the natal chart, which calculate the position of the heavens when one is born. Western astrology was derived from this.

Western Astrology

Western astrology is a an extension of Hellenistic astrology, and is based on the zodiac – the belt or band of constellations through which the Sun, Moon, and planets move on their journey across the sky. It is the most practised form of astrology nowadays, filling up newspaper columns daily/weekly. The zodiac begins at the position of Aries at the Northern hemisphere Vernal Equinox, which is always around March 21 of each year. Well, it was supposed to be so, but it has been offset by 1 month since 5000 years ago, and thus cannot be relied upon anymore. More on that later.

The 12 houses: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Kudos to somerod

Chinese Astrology

Chinese astrology is different from other variants in that one’s zodiac is determined based on the year (the Chinese calendar, not the mordern version) he/she is in. There is a 60-year cycle to it, the first of which is the Five Elements (in order Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) in their Yin and Yang forms. Then we have the of the 12odiac animal signs (生肖 shēng xiào) or Earthly Branches . They are in order as follows: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep (ram or goat), monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. It is usually used in conjunction with feng shui and other Chinese superstitions.

The 12 Chinese Zodiacs. Note the Dao in the middle.

Why am I Critical Towards Astrology

If people simply took astrology as outdated superstition and an ancient culture, the world would be better off. Why do I say so? Here’s the reasons:

Taking Focus Away from Science

It would be perfectly normal to go into a bookstore and see astrology/zodiac/feng shui books taking up over ten times more shelf space than books on science. Why? The answer can’t be simpler. The market for readers of astrology and related superstitions is overwhelmingly bigger than the market for science lovers. And that’s not just it. I bet you to take a look at those apps on social networking platforms, and see how many astrology quizzes there are compared to apps on science education! Or take a survey on our future leaders – teenagers, and see ask how many of them trust astrologers over critical thinking and the scientific method. I did it, and I can tell you, the results aren’t optimistic.

So what implications does this hold? Well, instead of driving the progress of science and technology, astrology distracts the people from the true beauty of science, and deludes them with unproven fantasies. Think of it! With decreased numbers of those interested in science, fewer will dive into the field of science/technology, and guess what? Science and tech slows down. Without superstition (most religions included), we should be exploring the galaxy by now.

Scams

According to the Compact Oxford Dictionary, the definition of scam is:

1. wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
2. a person intending or thing intended to deceive.

It is all too common to see astrologers promising a good love life, better income by taking readings and predicting your future. The results are always the same: either the predictions are so vague to be useful, or they are never more accurate than chance. Yet even in face of such results, people are still scammed into giving their money for something that is completely unable to meet their needs, and doesn’t work as pictured in the ads. This is scamming, whether the astrologers are doing so consciously or not. And I damn hate these con-men taking advantage of the gullible.

Superstition Harms

See what happened when parents in England, Indiana, South Africa refused to give their children medical injection because of unproven fears that they would cause autism. Massive measles outbreaks, causing deaths in the hundreds. Or perhaps when people believe that they would get 72 virgins in heaven, and fly a plane into the World Trade Centre. These are only the tip of the iceberg, but it is clear: superstition is damn harmful, and they should be eradicated at all costs, astrology included. When people rely on star signs to guide their life, their productivity decreases, they worry about unfounded predictions, and they spend money and time on useless activities. This adversely affects not only the person, but the productivity of society as a whole.

Edit: Here's the latest example on superstition bullshit:

Conclusion

I have given my thoughts on why astrology is harmful, and should be removed. This shall the job of my following posts, where the concept of astrology itself would be completely debunked as superstition and pseudoscience.

We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humouring it as a piece of harmless fun. - Richard Dawkins again

Answering Creationist Claims (Part 9b - Evidence for a 4.54 billion year old Earth through Radiometric Dating)

While I did explain radiometric dating in my previous Answering Creationist Claims post, I don’t think I’ve given any direct evidence for an old Earth (not the Universe, that’s a different topic), and I think it’s my job to present them here:

Evidence from Rocks of the Earth

The Oldest Zircon – 4.404 Billion Years Old

Why are zircons are loved by geologists so much? Firstly, zircons are all too common in the Earth’s crust. It occurs in igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. Zircons are able to survive geologic processes such as transport, erosion, even metamorphism (recrystallization), are chemically inert and they have much to tell about the geologic processes that occurred in history. However, the greatest thing is that within this mineral are uranium and thorium, and thus can be dated by the extremely accurate Uranium-Lead dating method, fission track dating, and (U-Th)/He dating.

At Mt Narryer and Jack Hills in the Narryer Gneiss Terrane, Yilgarn Craton,
Western Australia, a 4.404 billion year old zircon grain have been found, about 130 million years older than the previous record. Stunning, indeed. What’s more, a high ratio of stable isotopes was calculated using the δ¹⁸O method (7.5 – 5.0%), and the magmatic oxygen isotope ratios of such range points toward the possibility that the the oceans may have formed 4.4 billion years ago, 100 millions years than previously expected! While this is still under debate within the scientific community, it nevertheless provides an exciting point of view.

Cathodoluminescence image of earth's oldest-known mineral (zircon grain - W74/2-36) with inset concordia plot showing the 4,404 billion year old region. Note the oscillatory zoning in the outer rim. Image by John W. Valley. © University of Wisconsin

The Oldest Rocks: The Acasta Gneiss Complex - 4.04 Billion Years Old/Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt – 4.28 Billion Years Old

The Acasta Gneiss Complex is a rock outcrop located at Slave Province, Northwest Territories of Canada. Dated to be at about 4.04 billion years old in the Hadean period (informal), the Acasta Gneiss complex is the oldest exposed rock to date. A zircon dated 4.2 billion years old using mass spectrometry was also found within a 3.9 billion year granite rock, providing further evidence that the Acasta Gneiss Complex is the oldest rock to date.

Close-up View of the Acasta Gneiss Complex

On September 25, 2008, researchers from McGill University, Carnegie Institution for Science and UQAM announced that a rock formation known as the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, located on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec may be older than the Acasta Gneiss Complex after all. Dated at 4.28 billion years old using the Samarium-Neodymium dating method, it is surely a great contender against the Acasta Gneiss Complex. However, Simon Wilde of the Institute for Geoscience Research in Australia said that:

On the weight of evidence from other studies in the area, I would still consider that 3.8 billion years is more likely the actual age of the rocks.

The Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt (Dammit, why is it so hard to pronounce?)

Nevertheless, should overwhelming evidence arise for the 4.28 billion year old age of the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, it would be plain awesome.

Evidence from Meteorites

Despite being so old, rocks and minerals still do not tell us when was the formation of the Earth. Why? Well, with the combined forces of geologic processes such as plate tectonics, weathering, eruptions and hydrothermal circulation destroyed most of the evidence available by mixing them and constantly resetting the point of closure of minerals. Thus, we have to look towards the fallen stars for an answer. But why meteorites? Firstly, meteorites are big pieces of rock without the dynamic geologic processes associated with the Earth; that is, they’re quite static, and the crusts have never been recycled. Secondly, it is only fair to assume that everything in the Solar System formed from the same molecular cloud, and the age of meteorites give hints to the true age of the Earth.

Canyon Diablo Meteorite - 4.550 billion years (± 70 million years)

Around 50,000 years ago, the Canyon Diablo meteorite smashed into Arizona, creating the Meteor Crater/Barringer Crater. This meteorite is particularly special as it a big piece of a rare type of meteorite that contains sulphide minerals (particularly troilite, FeS), metallic nickel-iron alloys, plus silicate minerals.

In 1953, Clair Cameron Patterson dated the Canyon Diablo meteorite at 4.55 billion years old using Uranium-Lead dating, by measuring the amount of lead in the sulphide within the meteorite, and not surprisingly, it was found in much greater amounts than uranium, the parent nuclide. This date is supported by  almost 70 well-dated meteorites with ages of 4.4-4.6 billion years. These meteorites, which are fragments of asteroids and represent some of the most primitive material in the solar system, have been dated by 5 independent radiometric dating methods (got this info from the United States Department of the Interior).

Holsinger Meteorite: the biggest recovered fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteorite.

Evidence from the Moon

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. – Neil Armstrong

I did not hear that word, and I assume that many of you never did too. Yet, when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, it fulfilled the our ancestor’s dreams of meeting the Moon. During the subsequent Apollo missions and the Soviet' Union’s Luna missions, many moon rocks would be taken home for research (plus those that fell to Earth as meteorites), and they all point to one thing: the Solar System is, at the very least, 4.5 billion years old.

The rock samples from the Moon range from 3.16 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, and up to about 4.5 billion years old for rocks derived from the highlands. As there is has been zero plate tectonic activity and no atmosphere (no weathering), we can be confident that this represents a quite truthful age for the Solar System.

Genesis Rock: A sample of early lunar crust from around the time the Moon formed. Returned by the Apollo 15 mission.

Conclusion

Thus, as I have shown, the evidence for an old Earth through radiometric dating is simply overwhelming, and that’s not taking evidence from the cosmos, erosion, etc. into account. It's a wonder that YECs can look at all this evidence and still insist that the Earth is 6000 years old. *facepalm*

References

Simon A. Wilde, John W. Valley, William H. Peck & Colin M. Graham. (2001) Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago. Nature.

Tsuyoshi Iizuka, Kenji Horie, Tsuyoshi Komiya, Shigenori Maruyama, Takafumi Hirata, Hiroshi Hidaka, and Brian F. Windley. (2006). 4.2 Ga zircon xenocryst in an Acasta gneiss from northwestern Canada: Evidence for early continental crust. Geology 2006;34;245-248. doi: 10.1130/G22124.1

Previous: Answering Creationist Claims (Part 9a – Deny The Age of the Earth and You Deny Science Itself)

Answering Creationist Claims (Part 8 - The Fluid Nature of Chromosomal Count)

Our genes lie within our chromosomes , which plays an extremely important part in heredity. A common creationist claim would be the “fixity of species”, and from this comes Bible Life Ministries’ and the Creation-Evolution Encyclopaedia's claim that the chromosomes counts are fixed (or if it changes, it’s deleterious). Such a claim can only come from ignorance on the topic of genetics, and it shall be my topic today.

What’s a Chromosome? (Brief)

A chromosome is a structure in our cells that is made up of DNA and proteins. It contains almost all of our genetic information, and comes with gene regulation proteins. Depending on the species, the chromosome can contain from 10,000 to 10,000,000 base pairs.

Chromosomes of Eukaryotes

Eukaryotes are organisms which cells contain nuclei (plants, animals, etc.). The nucleus of the eukaryotic cells houses the chromosomes, which are linear and rod shaped. Near the centre of the chromosome is the centromere, which is the point where 2 homologous chromatids and microtubules fuse. At the the tips of the chromosome are the telomeres, which contain repetitive DNA (with 2 chromatids present, that makes it 4 telomeres). It is shown that these repetitive DNA are responsible for maintaining the integrity of our genes, as they protect our genes by “capping” them. Eukaryotic chromosomes replicate through cell division, either by mitosis; and meiosis (in which the chromosomal count of the cell is halved), which is responsible for producing gametes.

(1) Chromatid. One of the two identical parts of the chromosome after S phase. (2) Centromere. (3) Short arm (4) Long arm.

Chromosomes of Prokaryotes

Prokaryotes (bacteria & archaea) chromosomes are single and circular, and vary greatly in size, from 160,000 to 12,200,000 base pairs in the bacterium Candidatus Carsonella ruddii and Sorangium cellulosum, respectively. Prokaryotic chromosomes are less sequential than those of eukaryotes, and replicate from a (or multiple) point(s) of origin. As they do not have a nucleus, prokaryotic chromosomes are organised into a structure known as the nucleoid instead.

Best Case of Chromosome Number Change – Chromosome 2

Most members of the family Hominidae have 48 chromosomes. Humans have 46. Huh? How could this be? After all, if evolution was true, we should have same chromosome counts, right? Well, at least that’s what claimed by creationists. To find the answer to this, let’s take a look at Chromosome 2 of humans.

Chromosome 2: Strong Evidence for Common Ancestry of Humans and Modern Apes

What’s so special about Chromosome 2? Because it’s damn similar (near-identical) to Chromsome 2a and 2b of chimps combined. Moreover, it’s a telomere-telomere fusion at region 2q13. And we have scientific evidence for that.

Firstly, there is is a inverted head-head arrangment of the TTAGGG array and the adjacent sequences at the predicted fusion site, which are surprisingly similar to the telomere points found in human (and ape) chromosomes. In other words, after the repeated TTAGGG sequence, the sequence inverts, becoming CCCTAA (it’s not GGGATT as CCCTAA is the reverse sequence that TTAGG maps to {A <> T, G <> C}).

Secondly, since Chromosome 2 is said to be a fusion of Chromosome 2a and 2b, there must be 2 vestigial centromeres, right? Well, that’s exactly the case. When scanning with DNA probes, signals for the presence of a centromere was detected somewhere around q21.3-q22.1, in the long arm of Chromosome 2. The other centromere is actually used (so it's not vestigial after all), and it lines up with 2p chromosome of chimps.

These 2 chromosomes strongly point to the fact that after diverging from chimps around 6-7 million years ago, Chromosome 2a and 2b underwent a telomere-telomere fusion, and thus is evidence for evolution.

Other Cases in Which Individuals of a “Kind” Have Different Chromosome Counts

Since chromosomes counts are supposedly “fixed” and all chromosomal changes are deleterious, let’s see the diploid chromosome count of “kinds”.

Fox “Kinds”

Arctic Fox	Alopex lagopus	50
Bat-eared Fox	Otocyon megalotis	72
Bengal Fox	Vulpes bengalensis	60
Fennec Fox	Vulpes zerda	64
Gray Fox	Urocyon cinereoargenteus	66
Kit Fox	Vulpes macrotis	50
Red Fox	Vulpes vulpes	34
Tibetan fox	Vulpes ferrilata	36

Horse “Kinds”

Horse	Equus ferus caballus	64
Przewalski's Horse	Equus przewalski poliakov	66
Donkey	Equus africanus asinus	62
Moutain Zebra	Equus zebra	32
Plains Zebra	Equus quagga	44
Grévy's Zebra	Equus grevyi	46
Burchell's Zebra	Equus quagga burchellii	44

On a side note, a normal horse (64 chromosomes) can breed with a Przewalski's Horse (66 chromosomes) and produce a completely fertile hybrid offspring (65 chromosomes).

Conclusion

Thus, as it have been shown, the chromosome count is in fact variable. Not only can we see evidence for it in Chromosome 2, but even different species of the same "kind" (which means nothing in science) have different chromosome counts. Thus the creationist claim that all chromosome changes are harmful and that there is a "fixity of species" is completely wrong.

And since the most of Bible Life Ministries following claims are completely unrelated to evolution, I will only address the one that is. (Tip: something to do with the age of the Earth).

References

IJdo et al. (1991). "Origin of human chromosome 2: an ancestral telomere-telomere fusion". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 88: 9051–5. doi:10.1073/pnas.88.20.9051. PMID 1924367

Previous: Answering Creationist Claims (Part 7 – The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Truthfully Explained)

Next: Answering Creationist Claims (Part 8 – Deny The Age of the Earth and You Deny Science Itself)