Penn State

I'm sorry.  I know this does not relate to the topic of the blog.  But I had to say it.  The behavior of Joe Paterno and the other officials at Penn State is grotesque.  Some individuals have already been charged with crimes.  That is a good thing.  I hope that Joe Paterno is also charged with a crime.  He is, unless the media reports are wildly at odds with the reality, guilty of an enormous moral offense, and it will be an injustice if the only consequence is loss of his job.  If it turns out that this is all some kind of mistake, which seems inconceivable, I'll apologize.  But for now, the District Attorney in Happy Valley should not be cowed by the god-like reputation of a man who has committed a detestable act in utter disregard for the well-being of children raped by a man within Paterno's sphere of influence.

UFOs

Right up front....  I don't think we've been visited by ET.  As time goes by, I will talk in this blog about specifics related to the UFO phenomenon.  For now, though, just a couple of points.

1) Please stop saying "It's arrogant to think we are the only civilization in the universe."  No one thinks or says that.  No one, that is, except UFO believers when they need a straw man to argue against.  I personally think it's a virtual certainty that there are technological civilizations out there.  Somewhere.  There's just too much real estate for me to believe we're alone. It's possible I'm wrong, though.  There is the "Rare Earth" hypothesis, that the combination of conditions on Earth that led to life is so improbable that they will only very rarely be duplicated.  Recent findings make that notion questionable, but in fact no one knows. 

2) Please stop lecturing me on all the irrefutable evidence that ET has visited.  Stop lecturing me about it and show it to me.  I've looked at the evidence I can find.  The evidence that is readily available to the public.  None of it constitutes anything like proof of UFO visitation.  I'll admit that I can't immediately explain everything you might show me.  But the fact that I can't immediately explain it does not mean it's ET.  You might think it's ET.  I suppose you're welcome to believe that if you want.  But don't pretend that you've "proved" anything to anyone who is moderately skeptical of unsupported claims.

3) Please stop telling me that I need to "open my mind."  My mind is at least as open as yours.  I'm ready to enthusiastically adopt ET 3 seconds from now if you show me something that warrants it.  I'm not, however, willing to leap across the gap left by the missing proof. That does not make me closed-minded.

4) Please stop telling me that asking for proof is asking for too much.  This is a physical phenomenon we are talking about.  If you don't think that, then I have no time for you anyway.  And if it's a physical phenomenon, you need to bring physical proof to the table.  Not some odd or "unexplained" video.  Not somebody -- even somebody you consider credible -- telling a story. Telling a story about something is not proving it.  Even if the person telling the story is a police officer or a pilot.  There are too many reasons why that story might be wrong.

For many reasons, ET visitation is a vanishingly remote possibility.  To convince many people that it's a reality is going to take more -- much more -- than is out there now in the way of evidence.  Show it to me and I'll be on your team in a heartbeat.

Steve Jobs and Acupuncture

The death of Steve Jobs caused a remarkable stir.  That’s understandable, because Jobs undoubtedly had a dramatic impact on our lives.  His technological vision changed the way we compute and communicate.  Even if you’ve never owned an Apple product, your experience of technology has been altered and improved because of the advances made by Apple, largely under Jobs’s leadership.

Here’s another way Steve Jobs could provide a benefit to humanity. 

It has become public knowledge that when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jobs first looked to acupuncture, herbal treatments and other “Complementary and Alternative Medicine.” 

It is also now known that he regretted that choice.  Acupuncture, as apparently became evident to Jobs, has no hope of effectively treating cancer.  The other “alternative” methods Jobs apparently tried are in the same boat.  They have no biological plausibility and no demonstrated efficacy in well-performed trials. 

I do not, of course, know what was in Jobs’s mind.  And I cannot, of course, say that starting real medicine sooner would have extended Jobs’s life.  I do know, though, assuming Jobs’s official biographer has it right, that even a person with the spiritual and non-traditional preferences of Steve Jobs realized that non-treatments (acupuncture and the like) were not helping.

I’ve talked to people who say things like “science just doesn’t know how to test for the holistic effects of these treatments.”  Bollocks and hogwash, I say.  If it’s supposedly a medical treatment then its efficacy should be determinable in comparatively simple trials.  Give the “treatment” to one group, give a sham treatment to a second group, and give no treatment at all to a third group.  Don’t let anyone who receives treatment know if their treatment is real or sham.  And don’t let those who administer the treatments or evaluate the results know who got real or sham treatment. 

When these kinds of trials are performed for, say, acupuncture, on a sufficiently large group, even investigators who are invested in acupuncture seem to end up with no effect, or with a “non-specific" (another way of saying “placebo”) effect.

Acupuncture is nonsense.  If you’ve got a headache, then by all means go have your acupuncture.  If you have a cold, go ahead.  Your cold is going to go away on its own in a few days anyway, and acupuncture is not going to hurt you (unless you get an infection or even a punctured lung and die, which happens far too often, given that acupuncture provides no positive benefit).  If you have a real non self-limiting illness, though, don’t go there. 

Steve Jobs leaves an out-sized legacy.  I hope that part of that legacy will extend to people who otherwise would have used ineffective magical treatments, but who now will limit themselves to reality.

If the death of Steve Jobs puts one more nail in the coffin of magical wishful-thinking “treatments” like acupuncture, then his legacy is even greater for it.

Cui Bono?

Here in Austin at an academic conference where I met a committed 9/11 conspiracy believer.  His chief (in fact, as far as I can tell, his only) argument was "Bush got the USA PATRIOT ACT out of it!  He had the perfect motive!"  No other arguments needed, in his view.

That's silly, of course.  Whenever someone benefits from an event, naturally it's reasonable to use that fact to initiate or guide an investigation.  However, the only thing that counts as evidence of involvement is evidence of involvement.  Belief that a party benefited is not evidence of involvement.  Not for Bush and 9/11.  Not ever.

In the case of 9/11, this reasoning -- Bush benefited, therefore he did it -- is manifestly wrong.  Let's think about who benefited.  The Russians benefited tremendously.  Are they responsible for 9/11?  The French and the British and the Germans benefited enormously.  Are they responsible?  The Chinese and Indonesians benefited.  Did they do it?  Virtually every national security service on the planet benefited.  Did they all do it?

For that matter, what about Osama bin Ladin?  He certainly benefited.  He must have done it.  And don't tell me bin Laden didn't benefit.  He was the toast of his community for years after 9/11.  He achieved what he wanted.  Sure, he ended up in a cave for a while, presumably, but he spent several years, at least, ensconced in a veritable mansion in Abbottabad.

There are lots of false reasons for believing in some sort of 9/11 conspiracy by the U.S. government.  The "Bush benefited, therefore he did it" folks are among the silliest.