If it’s Thursday, it must be UC Davis

We had a good crowd, lots of questions, and an interesting group of student skeptics at UCSB this evening. Next up is a little sleep, then a plane hop to Sacramento, and a talk at UC Davis at 6:30, in 194 Chemistry. I also think I’ll break up my next talk a bit more; this one bounced about over some fairly dense sciencey stuff, and a little more variety and more opportunities to discuss should be more fun.

Polling for truth about the afterlife

Apparently, polls are now the proper way to settle metaphysical issues. This guy claims to have evidence of life after death, based on claims about near-death experiences (NDEs), which are so convincing…not. People experiencing trauma and physiological shock, whose brains have received a nasty jar and have had the continuity of experience abruptly terminated, are not the best people to accurately describe the objective nature of the phenomenon; also, the mind is pretty darned good at filling in gaps in our experience with confabulations.

It’s an untrustworthy basis for believing in magical post-death transformations, but this guy has made it even worse. How does he test for life after death? He collects anecdotes on a web site — a kind of glorified pointless poll. So I suppose it is only natural that the article about the collection of tripe would put up a pointless poll of its own.

Do you believe in the afterlife?

82.2%
Yes.

7.7%
No.

10%
I’m not sure.

Using the methodology of these loons, I think that if we get a majority saying “No” it will mean that there is no life after death.

If it’s Wednesday, this must be Santa Barbara

Hey, I’m in sodden, stormy California! Just in case you hadn’t heard, I’ll be speaking at the University of California Santa Barbara tonight at 7, in Embarcadero Hall. It should work…I’m still a little bit skewed towards Midwestern time, but 7PST isn’t that bad. The fun will start afterwards when someone hands me a beer at an hour way past my usual bedtime, and I pass out in public. You don’t want to miss that!

Massachusetts: NON-pointless poll alert!

Today is the day of a special election in Massachusetts, and it’s important — it could weaken the Democratic majority in the senate, and derail what little hope we have for sensible health care. Get out and vote for the Democrat, Coakley, even if you think she is a little yellow dog.

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A pointless poll in a new medium

You’ll need a Twitter account to crash this poll. There are these things called Shorty Awards being given to popular twitter users in various categories, like health. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, a medium with almost no content, restricted to 140 character brief comments, is easily dominated by the shallow and the superficial, so alt med quacks are having a grand time running up the score.

Let’s see if we can do a little readjustment. A skeptic, Dr. Rachel Dunlop, is also in the running, currently at #16 (she’s being beaten by Dr House). All you have to do is get onto Twitter and enter this string: “I nominate @DrRachie for a Shorty Award in #health because…” and fill in your own brief reason.

There are also lots of other categories that you can tinker with — I notice that @pzmyers is in the lead in the awesome category of #squid right now, with one vote. The numbers in most of the categories are actually so small that we could pharyngulate just about anything, if I were a cruel and capricious leader who wanted to organize a coordinated skewing of #religion or #bacon or whatever. But I shall content myself with sending my legions marching off to #health…this time.

Another one! While you’re on twitter, also vote “I nominate @maddow for a Shorty Award in #journalist because…”.

The Leap into Insanity Tour begins today!

It’s kind of like stage diving into a mosh pit, I think. I’m leaving for Santa Barbara this afternoon, beginning a week-long tour of a big chunk of California. Zeno has cruelly pointed out that my itinerary is a bit convoluted, but I say you take the tour you’ve got, not the one you wish you had.

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The amazing thing is that I scarcely know what I’m doing. I show up in Santa Barbara tonight, and I’m hoping I’ll be caught by the locals (you know who you are: you should get in touch with Lyz at the SSA, who’ll give you my secret cell phone number), who’ll show me a couch or a bed or something, and then each day afterwards I’m just sort of expecting someone will show up or contact me and guide me to the next event in the schedule. Zeno is right that the tour leads me all over the place, but from my perspective, it’s all pretty much Brownian. I shall be buffeted by the impact of chaos, and I shall enjoy it, unless I get dropped and end up spending a night sleeping on a sidewalk in Fresno or something.

I’ll be back in Minneapolis on the 29th of January, where the Trophy Wife™ will meet me with a pile of clean underwear so I can repack for my trip to Ireland and the Affront to God tour, leaving on the 30th. I’m still juggling a few of the details on that one, so I’m not going to put up a map just yet…but I will note that when I sketched out the preliminary route there, Dublin to Galway to Cork to Belfast, my son snarkily pointed out that I’ll be making the sign of the cross over the island. I may have to rejigger something, since that would be blasphemous, and we can’t have that, no sir.

A lot of people are asking about social hours after the talks. I HAVE NO PLANS. I am but a feather in the wind. However, I’m also really easy, so if anyone wants to drag me away and ease my parched throat with local brews, I’ll be amenable.

Just stay home, scientologists

Poor Haiti. First the earthquake, and now the cult vultures are descending on them. It’s not just talking bibles: now the scientologists are coming.

Seriously, people. When a region suffers a disaster and the infrastructure is falling down in ruins and people need real help now, when the pipeline is limited and access is difficult, send in the experts (doctors and engineers, for instance) and immediately useful aid (medicine, food, drinking water), and all the peddlers of frivolous non-essentials should just stay out of the way. A box of e-meters is taking up space better spent on a box of antibiotics; a scientology auditor is displacing a doctor.