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• I have access to everyones birth date, and we
  have prepared a personalized horoscope for every
  person in the class.
• Please take the one with your name on it.
• DO NOT OPEN UNTIL INSTRUCTED TO!

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Science and the ParanormalDouglas Duncan and
Nahum Arav
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What is the scientific evidence for paranormal
phenomena?

• Astrology
• Psychokinesis
• ESP
• Clairvoyance
• Crystals
• Numerology
• ET visits
• Channeling
• testable repeatable

• Crop circles
• Tarot reading
• Pyramidology
• Palmistry
• Big Foot
• Alien abductions
• Divination
• Things on the fringe of science

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Lots of TV, movies, about ghosts, UFOs As with
my own experience explaining ghosts, popular
media rarely publish when paranormal claims are
false.
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• If any of these phenomena has factual validity it
  will have a profound impact on the way we
  understand the world. Remember that only 4
  forces have ever been discovered (maybe 5 with
  dark energy).
• Many paranormal claims demand new ones
• Extraordinary claims demand Extraordinary
  proof.

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Paranormal belief

• Is widespread many people want to believe
• Anthropologists have yet to isolate a single
  human society without a well established system
  of Paranormal belief.
• People dislike being told, We dont know.

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• Anthropologists have yet to isolate a single
  human society without a well established system
  of Paranormal belief.
• People dislike being told, We dont know.
• Since the human mind conscious and subconscious
  is so powerful, we need to be very careful in
  how we test these questions.
• Remember the gorilla!

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We have a powerful and precious way of not
getting fooled

• Scientific progress
• The cumulative growth of a system of knowledge
  over time in which useful discoveries are
  retained and non useful features are abandoned,
  based on
• the rejection or confirmation of repeatable,
  testable knowledge.

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What is the alternative?

• Do we want to test our paranormal beliefs?
• How would we guard ourselves from
• self-deception, blatant fraud, being led
• astray by dogmatic people, wasting our
• time and money on useless things?
• Science is a way of trying not to fool
  yourself.
• Richard Feynman

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Lets test astrology

• We have prepared a personalized horoscope for
  every person in the class.
• You may open yours now.

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How well does your astrological description match
your life situation NOW?

• Excellent
• Very good
• Good
• Fair
• Poor it doesnt apply to me at all

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Trade your horoscope with someone sitting near
you. How well does the astrological description
match your life situation now?

• Excellent
• Very good
• Good
• Fair
• Poor it doesnt apply to me at all

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Everyone was given the same horoscope!

• The first half of the month focus on work. Your
  Tenth House is brimming with planetary activity
  that cant be ignored. Peak days for this to
  manifest itself are the 1st and from the 7th
  through the 17th, so the worst will be behind you
  before long. The next week abounds with romantic
  energy for you. Be honest about demands on your
  time, both to yourself and others. With all the
  demands placed upon it now, pay particular
  attention to your body. To help with that
  disjointed feeling, try meditation or a good
  physical workout to help realign your energies.
  Taking an hour or two to commune with that
  special someone will help immensely too!
• most rated it very good, before knowing everyone
  got the same reading

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An alternative is to watch a professional do the
same thing!

• Good horoscope readings?

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Astrological Time Twins

• A study involving 2,101 persons born in London
  during
• 39 March 1958. They were born on average 4.8
  minutes
• apart, so they were precisely those for which
  astrologers
• had predicted really exceptional similarities
  of life and
• temperament.
• Measurements at ages 11, 16 and 23 provided
• scores for IQ, reading and arithmetic
• teacher and parent ratings of behavior such as
  anxiety,
• aggressiveness and sociability self-ratings of
  ability such as
• art, music and sports and various others such as
• occupation, accident proneness and marital status

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No correlation was found!

• The effect size due to astrology was 0.00 0.03.
• It disconfirms the idea of sun signs (2,101
  Pisceans evidently had few similarities!)
• The above result is consistent with empirical
  studies of signs, aspects and so on, which
  consistently failed to find effects commensurate
• with astrological claims (Eysenck and Nias,
  1982 Culver and Ianna, 1984 Dean, Mather and
  Kelly, 1996 Martens and Trachet, 1998 Dean et
  al., 2002).

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The Australian astrology experiment shows how
astrology works
The results from a genuine horoscope and from a
placebo horoscope are the same! (both
favorable according to the clients).
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Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.The case of
cold fusion
Not published in peer-reviewed journals. Could
not be replicated by other scientists
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UFOs
Play video
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• Figure 2. A Landstat image of the three oil
  platforms in the Campec
• the area off the coast of Mexico (Akal-C with 4
  flares, Akal-J with 4 flares and Nohoch-A with 2
  flares).  The white lines indicate the narrow
  camera field during the video segment.

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• (A) Flares as they would appear at sea level.
• (B) Additional flares as they would appear if
  located on 100 foot towers.
• (C) Choosing the best match from the above two
  options
• (D) A frame from the video image taken at
  170653 for comparison  

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Doug Duncans genuine UFO (unidentified floating
object)
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The role of the commercial media

• Little interest in serious (boring) study
• of paranormal phenomena.
• Fanatic adherents and unsolved mysteries are
  much better for ratings.
• The integrity fig leaf you decide
• (but they provide only one-sided evidence)
• You do better with public TV and NPR.

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Is there a scientific debate whether the Big
Bang happened?

• No. (less than 0.001)
• Is there a scientific debate how the Big Bang
  happened?
• Yes, all the time.
• based on data, makes testable predictions

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Is there a scientific debate whether evolution
happened?

• No. (less than 0.001)
• Is there a scientific debate how evolution
  happens?
• Yes, all the time.
• based on data, makes testable predictions

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Is it more difficult for people to accept
biological evolution than astronomical evolution?

• Yes
• No

Why?
Two comments 1. Evolution is not random but
has random elements. 2. No one can PROVE to you
the world wasnt created yesterday but that is
not a scientific theory. Its not testable.
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Is it dangerous when many people do not accept
biological evolution, or do accept pseudoscience?

• Yes
• No, their beliefs dont hurt anyone else

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When evolution and the microbial basis of disease
were discovered in the 1800s, what was life
expectancy?

• 30 years
• 40 years
• 50 years
• 60 years
• 70 years
• by Darwin and Wallace, and by Pasteur.

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When evolution and the microbial basis of disease
were discovered in the 1800s, what was life
expectancy?

• 30 years
• 40 years
• 50 years
• 60 years
• 70 years
• by Darwin and Wallace, and by Pasteur.

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Some people still believe that crop circles are
not made by humans.
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Predictions and Prophecies

• Where are the predictions for 9/11
• or for the horrible Asian tsunami?
• Remember that science is based on pre-diction,
  not post-facto explanation.
• Beware of people who claim prediction after
  something happens!

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So what paranormal phenomena have proven true
when tested scientifically?
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The Data so far
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• Ex-magician James Randi has become a foremost
  spokesperson on behalf of critical thinking,
  reason and a willingness to ask questions --
  especially when claims are made concerning the
  paranormal or spiritual. He offers 1M for proof!

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Standing against the establishment does not
guarantee correctness!

• They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Galileo
  and they laugh at my claims.
• "But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".
• (From Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain)

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For further reading on metaphysics, science and
psychology

• Michael Shermer Victor Stenger
  Demon Haunted John Shumaker
• I have some fun handouts about these topics for
  anyone who wants to take them home (and get a
  book for the holidays?)
• 
  

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• I hope this class has provided you with an
  interesting perspective on the universe we live
  in.
• And Id like to end with my favorite quote.

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Carl Sagan author of A Pale Blue Dot The
Demon-Haunted World, Contact, Cosmos

• We succeeded in taking that picture from deep
  space, and, if you look at it, you see a dot.
  That's here. That's home. That's us. On it,
  everyone you ever heard of, every human being who
  ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate
  of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of
  confident religions, ideologies and economic
  doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero
  and coward, every creator and destroyer of
  civilizations, every king and peasant, every
  young couple in love, every hopeful child, every
  mother and father, every inventor and explorer,
  every teacher of morals, every corrupt
  politician, every superstar, every supreme
  leader, every saint and sinner in the history of
  our species, lived there on a mote of dust,
  suspended in a sunbeam.

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• The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic
  arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by
  all those generals and emperors so that in glory
  and in triumph they could become the momentary
  masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the
  endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of
  one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable
  inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How
  frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they
  are to kill one another, how fervent their
  hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined
  self-importance, the delusion that we have some
  privileged position in the universe, are
  challenged by this point of pale light.
• Our planet is a lonely speck in the great
  enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in
  all this vastness -- there is no hint that help
  will come from elsewhere to save us from
  ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that
  astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a
  character-building experience. To my mind, there
  is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly
  of human conceits than this distant image of our
  tiny world. To me, it underscores our
  responsibility to deal more kindly and
  compassionately with one another and to preserve
  and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home
  we've ever known.