Undefined Value

It's amazing what people will believe. At least once a week, I'm forwarded a piece of information from a seemingly intelligent person that seems fishy. Obama is not a US citizen! Obama is a Muslim who hates Christians! The Department of Homeland Security is setting up death camps! Eat whatever you want and still lose weight! Cancer cured by prayer! Etc., etc., etc.

It is usually very easy to debunk these claims:

• Is this story being reported by any reputable news sources? If not, you should be skeptical.
• Try Googling the first sentence or two of the story. This often brings up pages that demonstrate the story to be a hoax.
• Try searching websites like http://snopes.com/, http://www.factcheck.org/, or http://skeptoid.com/, that have smart people who investigate suspicious claims.

For some stories, a tiny bit of research and critical thinking quickly leads to the conclusion that they are bogus. But it amazes me that people accept these stories without even considering that they may be untrue. Their "bullshit detectors" just don't work. They accept any negative story about people they don't like, and any positive story about people they do like. They reject mainstream media and other reputable sources in favor of quacks, cranks, and conspiracy theorists.

It is very easy to accept stories without question if they fit your existing beliefs, but we must always be on guard against such acceptance.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
— Richard Feynman

Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon-Haunted World, presented what he called his "Baloney Detection Kit". It's a simple set of guidelines for testing the believability of assertions and arguments. If you haven't read it, please do, and apply it both to new stories and to your existing beliefs.

And, please, stop sending me this crap.

The media has been reporting that a Belgian man who has been in a coma for 23 years is now able to communicate thanks to "assistance" from an aide who holds his hand while he types on a keyboard (or actually, while they type on a keyboard).

Here are a couple of good articles about what seems fishy about these claims, and why "facilitated communication" is not taken seriously by most of the scientific community:

• Wired.com: Reborn Coma Man's Words May Be Bogus
• Science-based Medicine: Man in Coma 23 Years – Is He Really Conscious?

And, finally, there is video of Houben and his "assistant" typing while Houben's eyes are closed. It's amazing that a man so disabled is able to type with one finger with his eyes closed. I can't do it. I wonder how well he would do if the assistant's eyes were closed.