Son taken in

[surbahar]

My son, age 14, has spent some years listening to Art Bell. I thought it harmless fun. I sometimes listen and consider it like ghost stories told around the campfire when I was a boyschout. I was wrong. He now has some pretty goofy ideas. He claims he doesn't believe 85% of what the show talks of, but still believes in Jupiter blowing up, the power of George Nori(SP?) to change the path of hurricanes, and has a beyond healthy distrust of our government and all they are hiding from us.

I have printed out some pages debunking some of his beliefs, but to him it is one scientist's word against the other.

At his age banning him from listening seems odd, but last year a teacher told us the other kids consider him pretty odd when he shares his beliefs in class. He doesn't seem to care.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Bryan
Seattle

[arcticpenguin]

Actually right now is a good time not to trust the government, but let's not get into that...

My first question would be whether he really believes that carp or is just posturing to make himself seem interesting. He's at that age where kids will dress as goths, listen to rude music, etc. as a form of rebellion.

There are some good books out there, such as Fads & Fallacies by Martin Gardner and Flim Flam by James Randi which treat various topics from a skeptical perspective. The hope is that they would go beyond the specifics of the cases treated, and instill a healthy skeptical viewpoint in the reader.

You could search the forum for threads on the specific topis you mention, e.g Jupiter blowing up, George Nori. If there are no threads, you could start some, and then steer your son to them. Quite frankly I'm not familiar with either of those examples.

[Hydrogen Cyanide]

Hi Bryan! It is me, Pat's mom (by the way your son did not call back yesterday... we did a bit of soccer driving around, so we could have dropped Pat off at your house --- I'll see you Tuesday, they are in the same math class).

We don't even listen to Art Bell around here, and we have a similar problem with Pat. He wants to believe in aliens, that Star Trek is true... etc. One saving grace is that he insists on watching NOVA every Tuesday.

All that I have been able to do is explain to him why it does not work. Dear hubby and I have spent quite a time trying to convince the 13 year old why horoscopes have no basis in reality. I figure coming back with some forms of logic is usually best.

I just returned Phil Plait's book Bad Astronomy to the library. You might try getting for your son this Christmas (or sooner). It is a great read. Here is his website:
http://www.badastronomy.com

I'll see you around

[Hydrogen Cyanide]

Originally posted by surbahar
...believes in Jupiter blowing up,...

Might check to see if Jupiter is still here:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/jupiter_galileo.html

I believe it still intact. By the way, Pat's combo birthday/Christmas present was a new telescope. We found Mars... if Jupiter has blown up, the we would definitely see it.

[Chaos]

Dear surbahar,

if you´re considering some book as a present for your son, I have two other titles to propose. They´re books by Carl Sagan (don´t know if you´ve heard of him; an astronomer, used to be in TV a lot while he was still alive).

The first, and definitely more worthwhile in this case, is "Demon-Haunted World" - I´m not so sure about the English title, I read the German translation a long time ago. It is written in a very entertaining way, and deals with science as a whole, and how to tell science from pseudo-science; it also has several chapters on politics and how a basic understanding of science can help people not be fooled by politicians.
The second book is "Billions and Billions"; yet more about science and politics, the same entertaining style. Sagan was one of the few sciencists I ever knew who could teach without being boring.

And, by the way, I agree that this might be a way of rebelling for your son - one of these "phases" teenagers tend to have. I know that. I had mine from 13 or 14 to about 20. Then "Demon-Haunted World" cured me - so you should really give this book a try.

[reprise]

First of all, your son is perfectly normal.

If you surveyed the students at the school you'd find a large number of them are currently into astrology, numerology, "natural healing", witchcraft, and "the evil gummint" conspiracy theories.

The only thing I'd do is make sure your son has available a wide range of entertaining resources which outline the skeptical viewpoint.

Look for radio stations who have regular guests presenting spots on science, religion and philosophy and health issues. We are very fortunate here in having a youth oriented publicly owned radio station (Triple J rocks) which sandwiches a great many informative and entertaining guests in between its music.

Has your son seen the documentary A Brief History of Time? The possibilities of real science are far more entertaining than anything Art Bell ever dreamed of. The British, in particularly, make extremely high quality, entertaining programmes addressing scientific issues. I often see people referring to these programmes, so I assume that they must be available on pay TV in the US.

If you can overlook Karl Kruszelnicki's (http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/aboutkk.htm) obsession with farts, his website (http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/default.htm) and messageboard (http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/) are worth a look.

[Yahweh]

Plenty of kids go through their "Psychic" phase. Hasnt everyone at one time or another entertained their fantasies by believing they can predict the future, or have telekenisis, or believed in God *evil grin*...

Your son will grow out of it, just make sure he doesnt go diluted. Hey, maybe you could get an advanced copy of Lucianarchy's "What Science Can't Explain" book...

[reprise]

I should probably warn you that the website and messageboard I linked to above is hosted on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation servers and that there are links provided to other forums hosted on the same servers - such as the Doing Drugs with Paul Dillon (http://www2b.abc.net.au/triplej/morning/drugs/default.htm) forum.

[American]

I think Art Bell is only a ringmaster; he ain't a freak, he just exhibits them.


And why not.

[surbahar]

Thanks to all for the thoughts.. and good ones they are. I will look at those books.. and more importantly.. breath deeply and count to ten.

Nice also to see that Jupiter didn't blow up. ;-)

And hi to Pat's mom.... what a small world.

Bryan

[Eos of the Eons]

Jupitor blowing up :roll: And how? WTH?

[RCNelson]

Eos of the Eons:
Jupitor blowing up And how? WTH?
The woowoos were saying that the Galileo spacecraft would cause Jupiter to explode when it plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere.

See http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/jupiter_galileo.html

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by RCNelson

The woowoos were saying that the Galileo spacecraft would cause Jupiter to explode when it plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere.

See http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/jupiter_galileo.html

Thanks

Like a meteor, it'll burn up in the dense atmosphere, and become a part of the solar system's largest planet.

Why can't people understand that? It's not like Galileo is a nuclear bomb the size of the sun for &$&#$^

However, this radiation has to be charged particles. Only charged particles are accelerated by magnetic fields. In other words, neutrons, which are neutral, need not apply. So the basis of the claim that somehow Pu 238 will go to Pu 239 is already wrong because there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for it to happen, but it's also wrong because there aren't any neutrons out there to do it. So there is no way that the RTGs onboard Galileo have Pu239 on them, and no way to explode.

Oh, one more thing before moving on. In the quote above, Goliathan calls the RTGs "reactors". They are not reactors. They are simply containers holding a radioactive material, which is slowly decaying and producing heat. Calling the RTGs reactors is like calling your fireplace a reactor. It's a word meant to push buttons. It's also sleight of hand: he says that Pu 239 can be created in reactors, so he uses that word to describe RTGs. That's more than misleading. It looks more like lying to me.

.

[Kilted_Canuck]

Yep, I went through that phase a few years ago(and still have the woowoo children's books to prove it). Show him www.csicop.org , www.skepdic.com, www.skeptic.com, or any of the other good skeptical resources on the internet.