I’d like to speak to you about the importance of skepticism.  I believe that people are often all too comfortable with their gullibility.  Often we get lazy and allow ourselves to believe what is comfortable instead of what is reasonable.  The problem with this is that we don’t get to choose what is true.  Assuming our goal is to understand the world as it truly is, our level of comfort with an idea is entirely irrelevant.  The important thing is the evidence, so I encourage you to keep a question ready for any astounding claim you hear: “Is there a more rational explanation?”

            The first example I’d like to touch on is astrology.  As a group of well educated college students, I hope I won’t be offending any of you when I say that astrology is entirely fraudulent.  I will even go so far as to say that if you believe astrology has any use beyond cheap entertainment, you are a foolish person.  There is no scientific evidence to suggest that a person’s astrological sign is related to their personality traits, luck, or fate.

            A person’s astrological sign is determined by the zodiac constellation oriented behind the rising sun on their birthday.  I was born on March 3^rd which many of you can probably identify as the sign Pisces.  The modern convention is that the Pisces sign applies to anyone born between February 20^th, and March 20^th, but here’s the kicker.  On my birthday, the sun doesn’t rise in front of the Pisces constellation.  In the 2000 years since astrology was “developed” the Earth’s orientation in inertial space has wobbled so that all of the astrological signs have shifted by about a month, so my “true” sign would be Aquarious.

            One might argue astrology is valid because it is consistent with real life, and I agree that it is consistent.  Take me for example.  You’ve all had almost an entire semester to get an impression of me.  Tell me if this astrological description of me sounds accurate:

The Pisces person is compassionate, empathetic, imaginative, sensitive, mystical, spiritual, dreamy, passive, easy-going, idealistic, visionary, inspirational, accepting, undiscriminating, charitable, believes in soul growth, self-sacrificing and artistic. They can also sometimes be distracted, detached, illusory, impractical, gullible, neglectful, escapist and lazy.

I personally don’t see myself as visionary, much less charitable, self-sacrificing, artistic, detached, impractical, gullible, or escapist; and I’m sure that the adjective “sensitive” isn’t the first one that pops into your mind to describe me.  There were a lot of adjectives in there that could apply to me, but it’s easy to find some accurate descriptions in such a long stream of adjectives.  The real question to ask here is how many of you felt like this described you a bit? 

            This is a “cold read” which means it’s vague enough that everything in it seems to apply to the reader.  James Randi once performed an experiment where he handed out professionally developed personal horoscopes to a classroom of students based on their birth information.  The students all rated their horoscopes 4/5 or 5/5 for accuracy.  Then James Randi allowed the students to trade, showing them that all of the horoscopes were identical.

            Now I’ll admit that this experiment didn’t prove all horoscopes false, but it does answer that question I posed to you earlier: “Is there a more rational explanation?”  So I ask you which is more rational.  Option 1: Someone can tell you about your fate, personality, and luck based solely on the month you were born.  Or option 2: Someone other than James Randi figured out how to write a cold read.  James Randi has a standing offer of $1 million to anyone who can prove paranormal abilities under laboratory conditions.  His offer has been standing since 1964 with no winners.

            Hopefully, debunking astrology is old news to all of you so I’d like to move on to a closely related field: psychics.  If you listen to a psychic, or pull up some videos on YouTube, you’ll notice that their responses are always vague enough to answer the question with little chance of being wrong.  If you’re asking for a name, they might give you a letter, but it won’t be any old letter.  It will probably be E, R, S, or T because these are the most commonly used letters in English.  If you’re asking for a location, they’re inclined to respond with something vague like “there’s something tall nearby” or a description like hot or cold.  Can any of you think of a place you go to normally that doesn’t have something tall nearby?

            Now I’d like to ask a new question specifically tailored to psychics.  Why don’t they gamble?  If they can read minds, they can win at poker.  If they can guess numbers, they can win at roulette.  If they can see the future, they can win the lottery.  As always, it’s important to ask “Is there a more rational explanation?”  Do psychics possess these amazing abilities, but avoid casinos because they would rather charge people in need of their help?  Or is it more reasonable to think these so-called psychics have learned how profitable vagueness can be?

            In fact, when psychics are forced to be specific, they show zero ability.  When psychic Sylvia Brown was asked to make predictions for the year 2007 on television, she was exactly incorrect.  She said George Bush would pull out of Iraq, major drug busts would be made on both the East and West coast, terrorists would be caught smuggling bombs into the U.S., and the housing market was the safest investment.  As soon as we check for objective outside verification, the fabrications fall apart.

            Keep searching for outside verification when you hear a claim, but search honestly.  It’s easy to find support when you start from a conclusion, so we must approach investigation scientifically.  I wrote an entire research essay in High School claiming that Attention Deficit Disorder was due to candy, and that medication couldn’t treat it.  That was the idea I had in my head before I started writing, and I found the support for it.  I had to rely on outdated studies and unscientific sources, but with a lot of effort I backed up my conclusion.  Had I started with the topic and done research before making my conclusion, I would have finished earlier.  I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time ignoring reputable studies.  I wouldn’t have had to dig through blogs to find personal anecdotes by unqualified citizens arguing unsupported opinions.  Only when we question our beliefs can we truly learn.

            I know it’s uncomfortable to question the things you believe.  It might lead you down a path you don’t like.  It might shatter your world view, or redefine what’s important to you; but I assure you, the truth is worth it.  I stand before you both as a victim of skepticism, and someone who has been saved by it.  When critical thinking started disassembling the beliefs I held so dear, I was terrified.  I didn’t know what to do if the things I had sworn were important weren’t.  I felt lost, scared, alone, and unimportant.  If you develop the habit of skepticism, you might go through some of the same crises. 

While they may be scary, they’re incredibly liberating experiences.  When you finally realize that you don’t have to contrive reality, you can spend time on the things you learn are actually important.  The bottom line is that you can’t change reality just by wanting it to be one way or the other.

            We face fabrications that can give us false hope, but we tell ourselves that false hope is still hope.  Why do people suffer from consistent gullibility?  It’s because we’re afraid.  We’re afraid that we can’t know what will happen next.  We’re afraid that there’s no structure and reassuring plan for our lives.  We’re afraid that we’re small and insignificant.  We’re afraid that our existence is a meaningless series of random events.  What if all it’s true?  What if tomorrow is a surprise?  What if our chances really are random?  What if you’re really just one of 6 billion people living on just one of billions of planets in one of too many galaxies to count?

            Like it or not, your existence is cosmically insignificant, but that’s not really a problem.  To me, we’re important.  I hope you think we’re important to.  So, lacking a strict definition of important who’s to say we’re wrong.  Why do we need to succumb to our gullibility?  Things are the way they are, and maybe there’s not a problem with that. Documentation:
I got the pisces info from wikipedia.org
I learned that the signs are shifting from Bill Nye (youtube clip), and double checked with another site, but I forget it's address.
I got the James Randi challenge info from his website randi.org
I got the info on Sylvia Brown from a video clip of her on youtube.com

I guess I'll start off with my rant on toenails because it's last in the title and this way makes no sense.  I'd like to know what the point is of toenails.  Seriously, they don't do anything constructive or even remotely useful. Fingernails have a point sure.  You can use them to scratch at stuff or you can get under things with them so you can pry things open like the pop-top on a can of soda.  Toenails on the other hand just slowly grow until they get to long and you have to cut them.  They use up valuable resources in your body to grow and accomplish nothing.

In fact, toenails actually cause a lot of problems.  Toenails are a weak point in the body for infection to leak in.  Just think about it, your foot is an excellent breeding ground for bacteria.  That's why athletes foot can be such a good problem.  Your foot is a warm, dark, moist environment with stagnant air most of the time because of shoes.  People get toenail infections because of this environment combined with the tender entry point below the nail for all of these germs.  Without toenails, nobody would get toenail infections.

Another problem that toenails cause is entirely their own fault.  They can grow in such a way that they end up digging into your toe.  Take my little toe for example.  It has a pitifully small toenail wich only seems to be there because it feels obligated to be.  This little nail will be a pain in the ass when it gets long by catching on socks or just sucking in general.  I keep it short because of this and that means that sometimes I cut it too short.  The nail is set really far back on my toe so when it gets cut too short, it will grow back and start digging into my poor little defenseless toe like an ingrown toenail. When this happens, I get mad at the little son of a bitch and cut it short again.  Now I have to keep an eye on the little bastard because I really don't want to get an ingrown tonail.  I have heard that they really hurt.

What purpose do toenails serve?  I think they're just pathetic little wastes of bodily resources that are trying to imitate the noble fingernails.  Well I have news for everybody's toenails: YOU SUCK AND YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS FINGERNAILS YOU PATHETIC LITTLE WANNABES!!!  I'm actually kinda considering getting mine removed.  If it weren't for the facts that I don't really like doctors much and surgery is expensive, I might just get the tiny buggers taken off.  Oh well, I guess there are worse things to be dissatisfied with in your body.  Some people are not happy with their muscle build for example.  Oooh yay new topic.

I actually just noticed that I have a kinda toned upper body.  This is pretty surprising for me because I always remember being a scrawny little kid.  In fact, I even lifted weights in my basement pretty often during middle school because I wanted to get buff.  I always would get bored with my routines though so I never lasted more than a few months before I got distracted.  Now I'm not saying that I'm buff, but I was walking to the shower when I passed a mirror in the bathroom and I noticed that my arms aren't tiny and pathetic any more.  I even noticed that I kinda have pecs now and I almost have a six-pack.  WTF?!

I really don't know when this happened, but apparently some other people have noticed too.  As a matter of fact, one of the track coaches suggested that I tried the throwing events because I was "one of the bigger guys on the team."  When he said that, the scrawny 7th grader inside of me thought "Really?  Wow, when did I end up being referred to as 'bigger'?"  I kinda dismissed this because we had a lot of little people on our team.  After I got into throwing, the coach for that made another comment about my build.  He started telling me about an accident he was involved in during his time in the military.  He said that the only reason he survived was because: "I was like you, I was pure muscle."  No other time in my life have I ever been referred to as being "pure muscle" but those were his exact words.

I guess you could say that I'm pretty surprised about all of this.  It seemed that no matter how much or how often I lifted in middle school, I never got any bigger.  Now that I'm in high school, the only lifting I have done was a few times after track practice.  I also did some pull-ups and push-ups so I could pass the PAE (physical aptitude exam) for the Academy but I didn't think I did enough to have that significant of an effect.  Now somewhere deep down, that scrawny little 7th grader is grinning like an idiot and thinking he's awesome.  That's neat I guess.

Speaking of getting into shape for the military, I stumbled across http://hoo-ah.net a few days ago.  The guy who this site is about rules.  I really admire him because he had the guts to leave his very secure, well-off, and prominent socio-economic position to follow what he really wanted.  This guy says that he was making a 6-figure income, had a beautiful fiance, and pretty much seemed to be living the "American dream."  He realized that he didn't want that and enlisted in the army to join the special forces.  I guess I like him a lot because he broke away from the "American dream" which is my greatest fear.  Above all else, I hope I never become just another working class drone.  If my life gets to the point where I live to work, I hope that I can snap out of it like this guy did.

Now I guess I will post this trainwreck of a stream of consciousness on the wonderful vastness that we lovingly refer to as the internet.

Right, I was checking out the Best of MSN Spaces and they listed this site.  WHY?!?!  Seriously, I think this woman needs to find some more significant form of validation in her life.  Who devotes their life to tv?

On a separate note, I got a call from a health survey group about an hour and a half ago.  At first I was going to just tell them to go away but I remembered my new years resolution: to make at least one person feel akward each day.  I adopted a strangely gentle and enthusiastic stoner type voice.  Within the conversation I explained that I can exercise because I'm not afraid of getting shot.  I moaned a lot.  I told her that people who use the excuse of being too busy for exercise or living in the wrong neighborhood for it are just being lazy.  I even closed the conversation by telling her about a book I'm reading and singing the reading rainbow song to her.  I had a very ejnoyable experience and I think I'll try it again.

The excuses people used for not exercising got me to thinking though.  This is one thing that really makes me mad.  People say that it isn't their fault that they're out of shape.  The truth is that yes it is.  If you are too lazy to exercise, or if you frequently eat fast-food or other unhealthy things, more power to you.  I really don't care.  I think everybody should have the right to be as fat as they want to be.  Just don't complain about it.

I admit that due to differences in metabolism, it is easier for some people to get into shape.  Take me for example.  I am fairly confident that if I stopped running and ate nothing but junk food for a month straight, I would not gain a significant amount of weight.  Other people who have slower metabolisms (and probably me when I'm older) do not have this luxury.  That just means that they have to adhere to a healthy lifestyle.

I was channel surfing one afternoon and stumbled across an episode of "Dr. Phil".  Although this guy is a hack, I had nothing better to watch because I don't have cable.  He was doing an episode of fat people and why it isn't their fault.  This pissed me off.  350 pound women were bitching about having to buy a second seat on an airplane.  I say, if you take up two seats worth of area, you should have to pay for the plane to acccomodate you. 

During this episode, they followed the fat women to a buffet.  Of course this was an all-you-can-eat buffet.  And of course each of the fat women took four plates which they proceeded to fill with the most fattening foods available.  These women literally took about 2 cups of mashed potatoes and smothered them with 3 cups of gravy and another cup of butter.  I guess one would have to give them credit because they did also get a small serving of salad.  I guess they thought it was healthy to get 4 lettuce leaves and smother them with 2 cups of dressing.

As if this wasn't bad enough, they seemed to focus all of their attention on being angry at the skinny people whenever they weren't eating.  It went something like this:
Fat woman: "MMMMMpphhh chicken mmmmpph.  HEY WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN AT YOU TWIGGY LITTLE BRAT?!?!?"
150 lb. girl: "Geee, sorry."
Fat woman: "OH I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKIN.  HEY LET'S WATCH THE FAT WOMEN EAT!!!!  AND JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION, NO IT'S NOT FAT FREE!!!!"
150 lb. girl turns to boyfriend for comfort and leave restaraunt crying

At this point, "Dr." Phil proceeded to defend the fat women in their obnoxious behavior and blatant hatred for anyone that is not life-threateningly obese.  Well I guess all I have to say is that I was convinced by that episode that "Dr." Phil is a completely stupid and worthless waste of good air.  His show is a waste of good broadcasting time.  And his advice is worse than just wasteful.  Furthermore, I say power to the fat people as long as they can be adult enough to accept the fact that their condition is a result of their own actions.  Thus ends the rant.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

I updated some moon party related info in my last entry so you might check it out if you're interested.