REALL News - Vol 04 No 02 - 1996

Magazine Overview

Title: The REALL News
Issue: Volume 4 Issue 2
Date: February 1996
Special Edition: 3rd Anniversary Issue

This issue of The REALL News features a prominent article by David Bloomberg titled "What if I Weren't a Skeptic?" and a report on a lecture by Professor Charles Schweighauser.

"What if I Weren't a Skeptic?" by David Bloomberg

David Bloomberg begins by defining a skeptic not as someone who disbelieves, but as a critical thinker, an honor he embraces. He then explores a hypothetical scenario based on a personal experience with neck pain approximately a year and a half prior. After straining his neck, he experienced intense pain and sought medical help, receiving anti-inflammatory medication and physical therapy. Despite months of therapy and over a year of medication, the pain persisted, though the medication helped manage it. When he had to stop the medication due to the flu, he was surprised that the pain did not immediately return to its previous intense level, subsiding to the level it was at even while on medication.

Bloomberg uses this experience to illustrate the difference between correlation and causation, particularly in the context of alternative therapies. He posits that if he were not a skeptic, he might have attributed the pain's subsidence to an alternative therapy he was urged to try, mistaking the timing (pain lessening after stopping medication and trying a new therapy) for a cause-and-effect relationship. He argues that this confusion is a primary reason why "alternative medicine" thrives, as symptoms often naturally improve over time, leading people to believe a worthless treatment was effective.

He uses the example of dowsing, questioning whether a stick points to water due to a correlation with likely water sources or actual detection. Bloomberg suggests this confusion between correlation and causation is a significant challenge for skeptics to address and proposes to make this a recurring series, inviting readers to share their own stories.

"The Sacrament of Confirmation" - Report on Prof. Charles Schweighauser's Lecture

The second major piece covers a REALL meeting where Professor Charles Schweighauser, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Illinois at Springfield, addressed a crowd of over 50 people. His talk, titled "The Sacrament of Confirmation," focused on lambasting astrology and alleged UFO evidence, grounding his arguments in principles of physics and astronomy.

Schweighauser identified two primary reasons for astrology's enduring appeal: a human desire to know the future and outright charlatanism motivated by money. Regarding UFOs, he highlighted the scientific improbability of alien visitations due to the vast interstellar distances, the massive fuel requirements for spacecraft to travel at near light speed, and the destructive effects of atomic friction at such velocities.

He stated, "We're not going anywhere," and "nobody's coming to visit us, given the laws of physics as we currently understand them." Schweighauser, known for his public "Star Parties" lectures, spoke about the nature of science versus non-science. He emphasized that scientific methodology is key, defining scientific perceptions as products of the methods used and stressing that "the final test of a concept is empirical." Science must be concerned with the measurable.

He clarified that science cannot prove something never existed, citing the aphorism "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," thus it cannot definitively disprove alien ships. However, he noted that science is a process of revising hypotheses based on new observations, a concept aligned with Karl Popper's ideas on making mistakes quickly to refine theories. Falsifiability, he explained, is crucial for evaluating scientific concepts, warning against concepts becoming doctrines that can detrimentally affect human activities. Repeatability of experiments is also paramount, as "Science proceeds by comparison of data and facts," echoing Voltaire's sentiment to "wait for the sacrament of confirmation."

In the second part of his talk, Schweighauser detailed the problems with astrology: vague predictions, the zodiac's lack of correspondence with natural celestial phenomena, the misalignment of constellations with the sun's location, negligible planetary influences (comparing Mars' gravitational effect on a newborn to that of the delivering doctor), and the discovery of new planets after astrology's origins. He demonstrated with a globe and gyroscope how the Earth's "wobble" has changed the sun's alignment with zodiac constellations, showing the astrological system is "out of whack."

He reiterated the challenges of interstellar travel, noting that a spacecraft traveling at 10,000 mph would take 300,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. Even traveling at the speed of light presents immense fuel and braking problems, and atoms striking a craft at such speeds would destroy it.

Schweighauser concluded by emphasizing that "scientific theories and laws are human constructs. They are not sacred, they are not doctrine; they are the products of our minds."

Recurring Themes and Editorial Stance

The REALL News, in this issue, strongly advocates for skepticism and rigorous scientific methodology. The editorial stance is clearly in favor of critical thinking, empirical evidence, and the rejection of pseudoscience such as astrology and unsubstantiated claims of UFO visitations. The publication promotes a rational, evidence-based approach to understanding the world, cautioning readers against mistaking correlation for causation and highlighting the importance of scientific inquiry over belief in unproven phenomena.