Michael Prescott's Blog

Thanks for the memory

Jill Price, a woman who remembers every detail of her life from age 14 to the present, has been getting a lot of media attention lately. Now the story has shown up on the political blog Ace of Spades.

What interests me about the Ace of Spades entry is the ridiculous knee-jerk skepticism exhibited by some of the commenters (and, to a lesser extent, Ace himself).

Remember that this woman has been extensively tested, and that she is not the only person who apparently has this condition. So there is every reason to believe that her memory is genuine.

Nevertheless, some self-styled experts immediately cry BS on the story. Ace himself opines,

I have a question about how they've determined her to be "bona fide," though. They determine this, they say, by checking her recall versus the diaries she's kept since a teenager; but that doesn't prove she remembers her life. That proves she's memorized her own diaries ....

Another big offer of proof from her as well as another man who's stepped forward to reveal his gift is the fact that she can remember what day of the week any particular date fell upon. The trouble is ... there's a mathematical formula to determine that ....

So I don't know. It's not so much that I doubt this is possible as I'm just unimpressed by the proof that these people can remember what they say they remember.

Get that? He's unimpressed. But wouldn't the scientists who've studied this and similar cases have already thought of these objections and countered them? Obviously, yes, as could be established merely by reading the USA Today article Ace links to. The article reports:

She was studied by memory experts at University of California-Irvine for six years before they reported the [results] in an esoteric professional journal in 2006....

[Neuroscientist James] McGaugh, with colleagues Elizabeth Parker and Larry Cahill, gave Price a battery of memory and cognitive tests. She'd kept a diary from ages 10 to 34, so the researchers could verify Price's recollections with pages randomly selected from 1,460 diary days, he says.

But that wasn't all. You could give her a date, "and within seconds she'd tell you what day of the week it was, not only what she did but other key events of the day," McGaugh says. Aug. 16, 1977? A Tuesday, Elvis died. May 18, 1980? A Sunday, when Mount St. Helens erupted. She also quickly could come up with the day and date of noted events: the start of the Gulf War, Rodney King's beating, Princess Diana's death (Aug. 30 or 31, 1997, depending on France or U.S. time, she told McGaugh).

In other words, it wasn't all diaries and days of the week. It was memories that could be checked from other sources. A couple of Ace's more informed readers point this out. One writes:

Actually, this woman was featured in a National Geographic cover article about memory a few months back. There are other people with similar conditions, and each time it's been the real deal. Memorizing diaries, for example, wouldn't be enough because she remembers details that wouldn't normally be written down.

To which some idiot responds:

If there is no record of the details, who's to say that they are, in fact, correct?  She could be making up details that fit with the notes in the diaries.

Again, the point is that she remembers details that can be checked from other sources. But the skeptical idiot - let's call him a skeptidiot - has not even bothered to read the USA Today article and, left to his own devices, cannot imagine a team of scientists taking even the most elementary precautions.

In contrast to this idiocy, a clear-headed commenter writes:

Some of the other tests were not based on her diaries.  I believe one of the checks was asking her about concrete events such as when she watched the Very Brady Christmas special.  Since she had watched it 20 years ago she was able to correctly describe when it aired, even to the point of having to correct the doctors since their source material had the dates reversed with another Christmas special (which she had also watched).

That type of recall and the fact her brain is highly overstimulated in a few key areas confirmed her diagnosis. 

Which of course is exactly the kind of common-sense test that any reasonably intelligent person would apply to this case. But since the skeptidiots cannot even think of such tests themselves, they blithely assume that no one else could think of them, either.

Most of the skeptical comments do not even attempt to engage the evidence.

Check if she's ever read Star Wars novels by Michael Stackpole or Timothy Zahn.  Perfect memory is an ability at least two of the characters they use extensively have.

So if she's ever read about a fictional case of this condition, then she must be faking! Does this mean that if I read a book about someone with cancer - Cancer Ward, say - then I can never actually get cancer? Or if I were to read one of these Star Wars books, would I then be able to simulate memories of every event in my lifetime for the past 33 years?  

Someone else snarkily asks:

But does she ever do jack shit worth remembering?

Well, she probably didn't live the kind of deeply fulfilling life exemplified by posting snark on comment threads. But that'll always be the dream.

Quoth another pompous pontificator:

This kind of claim is sooo easy to check - if one is skilled at logic and observation. Pity journalists apparently don't seem to possess those skills in abundance.

Only skeptidiots have those qualities, it seems! They can "check" a claim just by snarking about it.

Then there's the inevitable scientific fundamentalist, for whom life holds no mysteries. He already knows all the answers because he learned them in junior high:

Well I call bulls**t.  Brains just don't work that way.  If they did you'd run out of "space" pretty fast.

Unless, of course, humans actually remember by storing bits using quantum superposition.  And supertiny flying monkeys with pens and notepads.

Ha ha! ROTFLMAO. "Flying monkeys!" Priceless! After all, everybody knows that applying quantum physics to neuroscience is just as silly as theorizing about miniature flying monkeys! We already know that "brains just don't work that way." We know everything. Ain't omniscience grand?

These people really are hopeless. Carefully researched, extensively documented, multiply verified anomalous facts stare them in the face, and rather than revising their worldview, they close their eyes and sing, "La la ... LAAA!" at the the top of their lungs. And if that fails, they crack dumb jokes about them danged wimmin and their nutty, estrogen-stoked behavior (which is what the rest of the thread consists of).

The Internet is often compared to a worldwide nervous system, a planetary brain. Maybe so.

But has anyone tried measuring its IQ?

Awesomely cool

There's no other way to describe this BBC report on a regenerative powder that apparently can regrow missing fingertips - and potentially much more.

Watch the video (it's slightly graphic), read the article, and be amazed.

HT: HotAir.

Toxic clean-up in aisle four!

I kinda like these newfangled Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs). They're too dim to make good reading lights, but they serve well in situations where changing a lightbulb frequently would be inconvenient or impossible - say, when you're leaving the lights on while staying away from home for an extended period.

I broke a CFL once. I was trying to screw it in, and it slipped out of my fingers and broke on the end table. Part of the bulb fell on the carpet. So I swept up the pieces and threw them away, grumbling about the loss of eight dollars. Then I ran a handheld vacuum cleaner over the table and floor. I did all this in a room with the windows closed and the AC running.

Now I learn that every single step I took in handling this household chore was a dangerous blunder. In fact, I was mistaken even to think of it as a household chore. I should have treated it as a toxic spill. CFLs, you see, contain mercury - anywhere from about one to five milligrams of it. And when they break, they release toxic dust into the air.

According to the EPA, here is how you should actually deal with a broken CFL:

How to clean up a fluorescent bulb

Before cleanup: Vent the room 1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more. 2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one. Cleanup steps for hard surfaces 3. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag. 4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. 5. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag. 6. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces. Cleanup steps for carpeting or rug 3. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag. 4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. 5. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken. 6. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag. Disposal of cleanup materials 7. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash. 8. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing cleanup materials. 9. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken lamps be taken to a recycling center. Future cleaning of carpeting or rug 10. For at least the next few times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming. 11. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Wow. Sounds like overkill to me. I'm reminded of news stories about some kid who breaks a thermometer (containing mercury) in a school, and the school authorities immediately evacuate the facility, bring in EPA experts wearing HazMat suits, and spend three days decontaminating the place. Yes, this really happens. (Many more examples here.)

Anyway, I doubt that a little mercury dust is going to kill anyone, just as I doubt that the dollop of mercury in a thermometer needs to be treated like The Blob. But it does seem that mass consumption of CFLs will lead to a landfill problem, as this MSNBC article points out. 

The same article includes a stirring anecdote of bureaucracy in action:

Manufacturers and the EPA say broken CFLs should be handled carefully and recycled to limit dangerous vapors and the spread of mercury dust. But guidelines for how to do that can be difficult to find, as Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, discovered.

“It was just a wiggly bulb that I reached up to change,” Bridges said. “When the bulb hit the floor, it shattered.”

When Bridges began calling around to local government agencies to find out what to do, “I was shocked to see how uninformed literally everyone I spoke to was,” she said. “Even our own poison control operator didn’t know what to tell me.”

The state eventually referred her to a private cleanup firm, which quoted a $2,000 estimate to contain the mercury. After Bridges complained publicly about her predicament, state officials changed their recommendation: Simply throw it in the trash, they said.

HT: Hot Air.

That's cold, baby

Skeptical of global warming? I know I am. And according to a story in Daily Tech, the latest data give additional grounds for doubt.

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Daily Tech also notes,

Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Sounds like it's time to fire up the grill and burn some fossil fuels! You know - to save the planet and all.

Building a better fish

In an early chapter of A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber discusses the shortcomings of current evolutionary theory. With all the Sturm und Drang about creationism, intelligent design, and Richard Dawkins-style Darwinian polemics, comparatively few people realize there is a vigorous ongoing debate among evolutionary biologists themselves as to the exact mechanisms by which one species evolves into another.

Microevolution -- small changes such as the shape of a bird's beak or the color of a bear's fur -- seems to be adequately explained by Darwinian theory in conjunction with genetics. But the much more vexing question of macroevolution -- the really interesting changes, such as evolution from a fish to a frog -- remains up in the air.

As Wilber puts it, writing in 1996:

The standard neo-Darwinian explanation of chance mutation and natural selection -- very few theorists believe this anymore. Evolution clearly operates in part by Darwinian natural selection, but this process simply selects those transformations that have already occurred by mechanisms that absolutely nobody understands...

Takes the standard notion that wings simply evolved from forelegs. It takes perhaps a hundred mutations to produce a functional wing from a leg -- a half-wing will not do. A half-wing is no good as a leg and no good as a wing -- you can't run and you can't fly. It has no adaptive value whatsoever. In other words, with a half-wing you are dinner. The wing will work only if these hundred mutations happen all at once, in one animal...

Talk about mind-boggling. This is infinitely, absolutely, utterly mind-boggling. Random mutations cannot even begin to explain this. The vast majority of mutations are lethal anyway; how are we going to get a hundred nonlethal mutations happening simultaneously? Or even four or five, for that matter? But once this incredible transformation has occurred, then natural selection will indeed select the better wings from the less workable wings -- but the wings themselves? Nobody has a clue.

For the moment, everybody has simply agreed to call this "quantum evolution" or "punctuated evolution" or "emergent evolution" -- radically novel and emergent and incredibly complex [features] come into existence in a huge leap, in a quantum-like fashion -- with no evidence whatsoever of intermediate forms. Dozens or hundreds of simultaneous nonlethal mutations have to happen at the same time in order to survive at all -- the wing, for example, or the eyeball.

However we decide these extraordinary transformations occur, the fact is undeniable that they do. Thus, many theorists, like Erich Jantsch, simply refer to evolution as "self-realization through self-transcendence." Evolution is a wildly self-transcending process: it has the utterly amazing capacity to go beyond what went before. So evolution is in part a process of transcendence, which incorporates what went before and then adds incredibly novel components. [Pages 31-33]

Wilber's particular example is perhaps not the strongest one that could be given. There are, after all, some possible uses for a "half-wing" -- it might be used to catch air currents and permit a small animal to drop to the ground more safely or even soar briefly, a la the flying squirrel. There's also been speculation that the feathered wings of early birdlike creatures may have been used, not for flying, but for sweeping up small insects.

Nevertheless, his basic point has merit, and other writers have illustrated the idea with more convincing examples. In his 1991 book Beyond Natural Selection, Robert Wesson considers many specific cases of biological adaptations that are hard to explain by purely neo-Darwinian mechanisms.

In one passage he looks at the phenomenon of electric organs in fish, which may be used as weapons or as a form of radar ("electrolocation"). He writes:

Darwin, who could propose an explanation for almost anything, admitted that he could not conceive how the electric organs of the fish could have been evolved. Modern science has not come much closer.

Certain sharks have developed such sensitivity to the discharges from the muscles of fish (like the impulses that make up an electrocardiogram) that they can perceive as little as .01 microvolt per meter, equivalent to about 10 volts at a distance of a kilometer. Other fish, combining the abilities to generate electricity and to perceive it, use an electric field up to several volts as a sort of radar, sensing disturbances caused in the field by other fish or solid objects....

Other electric fish use their discharge as a weapon. Electric eels (Electrophorus), with some 6,000 generating plaques, can produce about one ampere at 500 volts; they do well not to electrocute themselves....

For electrolocation, many things must work together: an apparatus to generate fairly strong electric pulses at a rate of as many as 1,700 per second, consisting of a large number of plates stacked up like batteries in series; effective insulation of the electric generator from the body to make it possible to pile up voltage without allowing it to leak backwards; special fins to swim without flexing the body and thus disturbing the field; a means of controlling the pulses; incredibly sensitive receptors capable of registering minute changes in the strong primary gradient of the field; means of filtering out the electric discharges of other fish, which are immensely stronger than the echoes of its own field; and a special structure in the brain to process and use the information received.

The various parts of the radar system would seem hard to achieve even quite separately. For example, the electric generating apparatus is derived from muscle tissue, but how a muscle could turn into a generator while remaining always useful is hard to imagine. Muscles have minute electric discharges, but for any probable utility, the discharge of many plates must be strengthened, coordinated and made part of an intricate response system.

Not the least of the difficulties is insulation. Living tissues contain dissolved salts, that is, positive and negative ions capable of conducting electricity; it is difficult for any tissue to be nonconductive unless it is cut off from the ordinary processes of the body. The blood supply and the nerve fibers activating the organ have to be conductive. Moreover, fresh water is a much poorer conductor than animal flesh; when the fish makes a voltage difference between head and tail, the easiest path for the current would normally be through its body. The fish consequently has thin, conducted skin where the current exits and reenters the body and thick skin elsewhere, composed mostly of nonconductive connective tissue; it also has an extremely elaborate system of membranes to permit the transport of nutrients and nerve signals while preventing ions from traveling out of the electric organ despite the powerful discharge.

A detail is that the electric generating plaques have to be stimulated at exactly the same time. Since they are strung out along the body, the nervous impulse must travel more rapidly to cells farther from the body; hence nerve fibers (axons) to farther parts of the electric organ are proportionally thicker or those to nearer parts take a circuitous route....

Despite their apparent improbability, electric organs have been perfected more or less independently in most of the ten different families in which they occur. [Pages 64-66, citations omitted]

Polemicists like Richard Dawkins are prone to suggesting that all the fundamental questions about evolution have been answered by neo-Darwinian incrementalism. This claim may be effective as propaganda in the Darwinists' war against creationists and intelligent design advocates, but it appears to be both premature and misleading. While Darwin's theory represented a huge advance in our understanding of life on Earth, it is not yet the final word on the subject.

Stimulating thoughts

Here's something interesting. Passing an electrical current through part of the brain seems to make it easier to retrieve vivid memories and to learn new information. It may even help to reverse degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's.

Of course, it has been known for decades that electrical stimulation can call up specific memories - Wilder Penfield did a lot of work in this area - but the new approach seems to offer hope of actually improving brain function.

But here's the kicker, reserved to the final paragraph in the linked article:

The name of the procedure [deep brain stimulation] is in some ways a misnomer as it often involves inhibiting electrical activity in an area of the brain rather than stimulating it.

Aha.

The article goes on to say that by inhibiting activity in one part of the brain, "balance" can be restored. But do we know for sure that balance has anything to do with it?

An alternative explanation is that the brain is a filter that blocks out much of consciousness (which originates outside the brain). This higher consciousness may need to be funneled into a more manageable form for use by the nervous system. By inhibiting brain activity, so-called deep brain stimulation may widen the funnel and allow more information to come through.

In other words, it's just what we would expect if the "transmission" theory of consciousness were true.

When we consider how often people report expanded awareness, vivid memories, and profound insights under conditions in which the brain is impaired or even shut down, this hypothesis gains additional weight.

Electroconvulsive therapy can alleviate severe depression by shocking the brain for a few seconds. I have sometimes wondered if this procedure works because when the brain is shut down, even briefly, more of the healing wisdom of the higher self can get through.

I've also noticed that people with Down syndrome are often happier and more contented than the general population. Could it be that their inhibited brain function allows them to experience more of the peace and love that flow from higher consciousness?

As a last speculation, consider that humanity was largely static, in terms of material progress, for most of prehistory. Something like 100,000 years may have elapsed while people made little apparent effort to improve their technology. Could it be that they saw no reason to do so, because they were focused on nonmaterial things? Perhaps only when the brain reached a certain level of activity did people start to lose touch with higher wisdom and to focus on aggressively competing for survival. Maybe that's where the story of the Garden of Eden (and other tales of paradise lost) came from - a dim recollection of a time when God spoke to us directly, and we didn't feel impelled to sweat and strive and make life an ordeal.

As I say, this is only speculation. But it is, at least, consistent with the findings noted above. 

Mass appeal

I got an interesting email relating to an older topic on this blog, and with the permission of the author, Topher Cooper, I've decided to post it here.

Many thanks to Topher for this informative overview.

----

I've been reading the archives of your blog and I just thought I
would write you a clarification of some stuff (at least my
understanding of it) from some closed discussions.

First off, the neutrino is really, truly, intrinsically invisible
(which is not true of the photon, obviously).  This is because it
only interacts with other matter (including other neutrinos) via the
weak force (and the gravitational force -- but it's so weak on the
level of individual neutrinos and photons it really doesn't
count).  In particular, it doesn't interact via the electromagnetic
force.  Since "vision" has to do with electromagnetic radiation,
neutrinos are invisible.  Another way of saying this is that they
cannot directly affect photons (which can only interact via the
electromagnetic force) in any way, nor vice versa.  Neutrinos cannot
emit light, they cannot absorb light, they cannot reflect light, they
cannot deflect light.  It's as if light and neutrinos existed in
different universes.

Now for mass:

There really isn't any controversy here, just some disagreement about
the best terminology.

The first thing to remember is the famous E=mC^2 formula, which says
that mass and energy are really two ways of looking at the same
thing.  The mass of something is the same thing as the total energy
in it.  In older writing about relativity, this included the kinetic
energy of the thing from its movement relative to the observer.  This
mass was called "relativistic mass" when someone wanted to be clear
what mass they were talking about.  But the relativistic mass of a
thing depends on the velocity of the observer relative to the
thing.  It isn't really a property of the thing itself.  The
"intrinsic mass" (a.k.a., invariant mass, or proper mass) is that
part of the mass that does not depend on the rest frame of the
observer.  When the intrinsic mass of something is not zero, then we
can also speak of the relativistic mass of that thing to an observer
who is not moving relative to it -- that is called its "rest mass"
and is equal to the intrinsic mass.  When the intrinsic mass is zero,
however, the speed of the object must be C for all observers, so it
can never be "at rest" and cannot, therefore be said to have a "rest mass."

Since the middle of the last century, however, there has been a
growing tendency among scientists to just use the term "mass" to
refer to the "intrinsic mass".  The relativistic mass is hardly ever
mentioned -- you can always just refer to the total energy or
momentum relative to a particular observer and be talking about the
same thing -- and when it is, the whole phrase is now always said by
scientists.  Note, however, that for complex objects, part of the
mass (intrinsic mass) is that which is due to the kinetic energy
internal to the object -- such as heat energy (yes, things get more
massive as they heat up -- but not enough under earthly conditions so
you could possible measure it).  So the idea that kinetic energy
provides mass is not really banished, its just considered "cleaner"
to arrange things so that it's kept off-stage.

So, photons have a zero intrinsic mass.  It was assumed until
recently that neutrinos did also.  But they do have a non-zero
relativistic mass, because they have energy and momentum.  A box with
perfect, parallel mirrors inside will have a greater mass if there is
a photon bouncing back and forth between them than if it does
not.  Because photons have mass of a kind (which can be thought of as
the "charge" of gravity) they can be deflected by a gravitational
field -- and are, as the famous demonstration of General Relativity showed.

I'm pretty sure that according to current theory, anything that is
observable from a frame has relativistic mass in that frame.  As we
look at frames closer and closer to one traveling at C in the same
direction as a photon, the photon's energy decreases, its
relativistic mass decreases towards zero and it becomes more and more
red-shifted, until at the limit, it disappears.

Penny in my hat and a cold armadillo

When I first glanced at this story about the discovery of a new fossilized species, I was unimpressed. "So what?" I said. "It's an armadillo."

Then I read that the critter in question weighed two tons and was "the size of a Volkswagen Beetle."

Now I'm impressed.

That's one big armadillo.

--

P.S. The title of this post is an in-joke for readers who remember the sitcom Just Shoot Me. You know who you are.

Wow

Stupidest "science" article ever.

Really. Ever.

Misinformational cascade

Here's an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times about scientific consensus and how it can go wrong.

The author's specific concern is the conventional wisdom on nutrition (fat = bad), which he believes to be in error. But to me what's interesting are his comments on consensus thinking in general.

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.

Cascades are especially common in medicine as doctors take their cues from others, leading them to overdiagnose some faddish ailments (called bandwagon diseases) and overprescribe certain treatments (like the tonsillectomies once popular for children). Unable to keep up with the volume of research, doctors look for guidance from an expert — or at least someone who sounds confident.

It seems easy enough to apply this to mainstream science's rote rejection of all evidence for the paranormal. The overwhelming majority of scientists have never studied psi and "look for guidance from an expert  - or at least someone who sounds confident." Skeptics like James Randi, Paul Kurtz, and Michael Shermer never lack for confidence, at least in  their public pronouncements.

And here's what happens when dissenters try to challenge the consensus:

The [dissenting] scientists, despite their impressive credentials, were accused of bias because some of them had done research financed by the food industry. And so the informational cascade morphed into what the economist Timur Kuran calls a reputational cascade, in which it becomes a career risk for dissidents to question the popular wisdom.

With skeptical scientists ostracized, the public debate and research agenda became dominated by the fat-is-bad school.

In the case of psi, it is unquestionably "a career risk for dissidents to question the popular wisdom." No, they won't be accused of having been co-opted by industry; instead, they'll be accused of being mentally illy or hopelessly gullible or pathetically unprofessional or desperate for media attention, or all of the above.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades.