Archive for the ‘General Topics’ Category

Cross-posted from That’s the Way the Banana Crumbles.

I had always heard, and thus assumed, that Pringles were not classified as potato chips because they were prohibited from doing so due to their mostly non-potato make-up. It’s well known that Pringles are not manufactured like ordinary chips. As opposed to being made from whole potatoes, they are formed from a type of potato dough containing less than 50% potato content and then baked.

However, it turns out that the truth is somewhat different from popular belief (imagine that!). According to this article by the BBC, the fight to have Pringles classified as a “cake or biscuit” was led by Procter & Gamble (the parent company of Pringles). The reason? Potato crisps (chips) are subject to a 17.5% value added tax (VAT) in the UK, whereas cakes and biscuits are not. By having the snack food de-classified as a crisp/chip, they were exempt from paying the tax. This just goes to show that often times the truth is much more straightforward than people make it out to be and reinforces the notion that if you want to find the underlying cause of an issue, you should “follow the money”.

Also of interest, according to a more recent article, the decision has been reversed on the grounds that the 42% of Pringles batter made from potatoes “is more than enough potato content for it to be a reasonable view that [Pringles are] made from potato”.

So what should we conclude from all this? No matter what you thought you knew about Pringles, you were probably wrong.

Still need proof that The Star wouldn’t know decent journalism if confronted by it at an intervention? For an article about the vernal equinox, Star reporter Nick Aveling decided to ask to professionals to explain the vernal equinox. The problem? One of the two ‘professional opinions’ was that of Michael Barwick, an astrologer who is a member of such prestigious organizations as ‘Astrology Toronto’, the ‘Canadian Association for Astrological Educators’, and the ‘National Council for Geocosmic Research’. The idea that an astrologer could lend any type of useful professional opinion to a discussion of astronomy is laughable at best.

Whereas Astronomer Randy Attwood served the article well, answering the questions which the article set out to have answered, Mr. Barwick managed to make a surprisingly large ass out of himself for what is (all things considered) a relatively short interview. However, don’t take my word for it, look at the two answers to the relatively simple question: Does the fact that the equinox occurred at 7:44 a.m. have any significance?

Attwood: It’s the exact time when the sun is directly over the equator, but it’s not like you can go outside at that time and notice anything. It’s like one of those really useless sports statistics, like the number of goalies who have red hair.

A simple answer that directly answers the question in a way that even most of The Star’s readers would be able to understand.

Barwick: For sure. People could do an ingress chart, which is basically a horoscope set up for 0 degree Aries. From the basis of that, you can use it to make predictions on a variety of things including elections. But that’s not the kind of work I do.

Ignoring the fact that this answer seems to require in-depth knowledge of astrology to begin to understand (ingress charts? 0 degree Aries?), it also fails to provide anything that could even be accidentally misconstrued as an answer. As for predicting elections, we already have Halloween masks for that.

Just because the words Astronomy and Astrology are spelled similarly, it does not mean that the professions are equally valid.

As much as I respect the media’s distinction to reporting ‘both sides of a story’, reporters need to learn that the other side to science is not pseudo-science. There is plenty of controversy and debate within the scientific community to make going elsewhere for debate a non-issue. Even ignoring that, the different sides of a story are not always necessarily equally valid. Sacrificing accuracy and intellectual honesty for the perception of non-biased reporting isn’t a sacrifice that any self-respecting journalist should be willing to make.

You can read more about it on the Bad Astronomy Blog, here.

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• The vernal equinox: Science and mysticism

If you’ve been following the news over the last couple of days, you may have heard about Gary Goodyear, Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, and his strange remarks regarding evolution. On Tuesday it was reported that he was asked whether he believed in evolution, and his response was, “I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate.” This created a bit of a stir, naturally, and he has since changed his answer – now saying that he does believe in evolution, but that the question was irrelevant.

Irrelevant, Gary? No matter what your beliefs, evolution is currently one of the most contentious points between religion and science – and as you are the Minister for Science, I’d say it is pretty clear what side you should be on. The question is as relevant as ever, and your wishy-washy answers have got a lot of rationally-thinking people feeling uneasy. I’d like to note that I personally am fine with Mr. Goodyear being a Christian. Despite what my personal feelings are on the compatibility of his religion with science, the fact is that many brilliant and successful scientists in the past have been religious in one way or another. But the way he drags religion into a question that should be purely scientific, quite frankly worries me. It’s not too hard to picture him promoting so-called “intelligent design” as a valid alternative to evolution. This is a road that we as a country do not want to go down. We’ve done a good job so far of keeping religion out of our government, and I’d like to see it stay that way.

Despite successfully running in several cities in Canada, including London, Calgary, and Toronto, the Atheist Bus Campaign was blocked from running in Ottawa (Link). Despite the city staff’s approval of similar Christian bible study advertisements, the ads were disallowed from being placed on Ottawa buses with no obvious explanation.

Despite this seeming like a gross violation of the Freethought Association of Canada’s freedom of speech, it’s troubling that the city government in our Nation’s capital would so blatantly apply a double standard to religious and non-religious messages. This would be less troubling if the city had a policy against religious messages of any sort, but this is simply not the case.

“I don’t follow the logic,” said Bus Stop Bible Studies founder David Harrison. “Why would they approve ours and not theirs? If we don’t stand up for (the atheists’) rights, ours will be trampled too.”

Hell, even the other side is sticking up for the rights of the non-believers. To say that I am ashamed in the City of Ottawa would be a gross understatement.

Now, if somebody really wanted to spice this debate up, they would try to get Qur’an verses displayed on the buses.

Originally posted on That’s the Way the Banana Crumbles.

Yet another arbitrary chronological marker successfully passed without any cataclysm befalling the human race. Oh well, I guess there’s always next year.

Happy new year from everybody here at Lintbox!

Despite the slow activity over the past several months, Lintbox is back on track, and to prove it, we introduce the next panel discussion!

As the LHC became active over the fall, those opposing its activation grew louder and received considerable attention on various news outlets.  On top of this, public opinion polls found that the majority of Americans felt that the risks (though debunked) of activating the LHC far outweighed its potential benefits.  The Large Hadron Collider’s opponents argue that the possible dangers resultant of the massive particle collider’s activity, ranging from the creation of micro black holes to the catastrophic invention of the mythical “strange matter” may damage or even destroy the planet.  These arguments have been resoundingly shot down by the entire scientific community as both scientifically inaccurate and too unlikely to be even considered possible.  However, as with any debate, there remains some ground to explore. Read the rest of this entry »

Conspiracy theorists are perhaps best known for their infuriating tactic of trying to punch holes into well-established theories, without ever presenting any logically consistent alternative theory of their own. Hiding behind the veil of “just asking questions”, they can (and do) get away with proposing ridiculous alternatives to historical events, based on anomalies (often non-existent) in trivial pieces of information.

That is why I found this post over at counterknowledge.com to be particularly brilliant. It turns the table on 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and asks them to defend their alternate theory of events by asking them to answer 15 factual questions.

Undoubtedly, any true conspiracy theorist would answer all 15 by telling you how everybody involved (the Saudi government, Al Qaeda, the CIA, Afghanistan, etc.) were all under the control of the Bush administration or the military industrial complex. However, what these questions make evident, is how ridiculously large any conspiratorial body would have to be in order for the conspiracy theory to remain logically consistent. By the time they are done answering these questions, any conspiracy theorist who still maintains their beliefs would have to believe that (more or less) every world government and all of the major middle-eastern terrorist organizations are under the control of the United States government.

Whereas I don’t expect these questions to change the mind of most conspiracy theorists, they’re still fun to read through — and useful ammunition for the next time somebody poses some “questions” about 9/11.

Recently, an article entitled “Does Science Really Have Laws?” appeared on Dinesh D’Souza’s AOL “News Bloggers” Blog. The article is an attempted defense of the existence of miracles, written by my all-time favourite person in the whole world: Dinesh D’Souza.

Summed up, the article explains Hume’s problem of induction, and uses this argument in support of the existence of miracles. The problem of induction explains how the scientific method (or any type of empirical knowledge) can never lead to metaphysical truth, due to all empirical knowledge being falsifiable¹. In theory, this is a good epistemological argument, but in practice, it is irrelevant, because nobody cares about metaphysical truth. Gravity is reliable to the extent that we no longer worry about it failing one morning. We can never conclusively prove without a shadow of a doubt that gravity will always continue to exist, and behave the way it does right now, but we have a pretty good reason to believe that it will continue to do so and therefore act under that assumption.

Is there a possibility (no matter how tiny) that the laws of physics will suddenly reverse themselves tomorrow? Yes; however, it is statistically improbable (“impossible” in common parlance) and we wouldn’t be around to appreciate it anyway. Furthermore, whereas there is no epistemological reason to believe that the laws of the universe will remain constant, we have yet to observe them change, so I suggest that the burden of proof is on Mr. D’Souza to prove the existence of these changes, and therefore the existence of the miracles that he believes exist. If the laws of the universe changed on a daily basis, then I would have more of a reason to believe D’Souza; but sadly, this is not the case.

Of course, the irony of D’Souza’s post is that Hume, in the same paper, wrote specifically about the problem of miracles. Simply put, he believed that testimony or observation (when it could be trusted, which he did not believe was often — if ever) leading to belief in a miracle could only be considered valid proof of a miracle if the opposite (i.e. the negation of the testimony or observation) belief more unbelievable than belief in the miracle. This is similar to Occam’s razor, and essentially means that a miracle can only exist insofar as it is the simplest (i.e. results in the fewest new assumptions) possible explanation for the observed events.

So not only has Dinesh D’Souza re-iterated a centuries old argument against inductive reasoning, which doesn’t even prove the existence of miracles, but he neglected to read the part of the very same essay that proved his argument to be incorrect. I’m sorry Dinesh… better luck next time.

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• Does Science Really Have Laws?

Hello my fellow skeptics, I’ve returned and apologize profusely for my long-held inactivity.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Mitchell for being an absolute champ in filling the void while I was AWOL.  Despite our obvious need for new contributors (whom we will ALWAYS be happy to hire), Mitchell did a good job keeping our site afloat with new content!

There are many things I’ve learnt throughout my absence per se, the first being that life can be unrelentingly unfair.  Theologians and apostles can often find comfort in the belief that our lives, and indeed the world itself is governed by some divine formula culminating in– by my understanding– an apocalypse somehow orchestrated for our benefit.  As an atheist, I find the image silly. As someone who has seen his sister undergo five separate cancer-related surgeries, I find it vulgar.  The overall point (and one which I’ll probably elaborate on in the not-so-distant future) stands that were human suffering part of an omnipotent being’s master plan, that realization alone would be reason to rebel (were it sane to rebel against an imaginary character).

Another thing I’ve learnt is that despite the overwhelming stress one can face in life, to back away or otherwise neglect one’s own projects (as I, admittedly, have), you end up losing your only source for normalcy.  This, above all else, is a mistake I’ve learnt never again to repeat.   While it certainly hasn’t held much time in the spotlight (yet), Lintbox is a pride and dedication of mine I’m not soon planning to turn my back on.

To avoid any more fluff, I’m back, and back I shall stay…  But that’s not all there is to say.

While updates haven’t necessarily been flooding in over the past several months, the aim to expand Lintbox is as strong as ever, which brings me to an announcement:

We’ve recently provided new special features for the site, namely the Panel Discussions (which, though delayed, will receive a new submission tomorrow), there’s an entirely new, exciting special feature to keep an eye out for:  Skepticles.

“But what is/are Skepticles” you may ask?  Skepticles is an idea I’ve been toying with since Lintbox’s conception; A weekly/biweekly-updated comic strip featuring a Skepticism and/or Scientific focus.  Though I’ve already spoilt the surprise, I won’t divulge any more details until the coming updates!

And so, be on the lookout for updates as they should now be much more frequent, and thanks for sticking around throughout the dark patches!

-Paul

Often times, the purpose or practicalities of a cause can get lost in the hype. Today, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) held their “Day of Action” to protest what they believe to be unfair tuition fee increases in Ontario. Whereas there are certainly arguments to be made for lowering–or even the elimination of–tuition fees, it is far from a consensus belief held by students, or the rest of society. Regardless of whether they are right or wrong, there is a disturbing lack of information surrounding their campaigns, with more of a focus on protests and rallies than working towards actual change.

Rallies are a good way of drawing attention to issues, but in order for them to be effective, the people first need to know what the issues are. The meaningless charts and statistics in the UTSU fliers are meant to make it look like the students are getting ripped off, but very few people are aware of the actual budgetary situations faced by both the government and the universities. Education funding is not a simple issue, and student politicians do everybody a disservice when they try and pretend that it is. Critical thinking is not just about science and pseudo-science, but also applies to your day-to-day life. The next time somebody hands you a flier and tells you to join their cause, take a moment to ask them why they think their cause is important; if they aren’t able to give you a satisfactory answer, then maybe you should take their claims with a grain of salt. The burden of proof is on them to convince you of their position. The worst that can happen is that you become more informed.