Now the muslims are using dolls to get at the kids

[erlando]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435164,00.html (Fox News, I know)

People insist they can hear Fisher-Price's "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo" mumbling "Islam is the light" and "Satan is king," according to KJRH.com and MyFOXKC.com.

"There's no markings on the box to indicate there's anything Islamic about this doll," said Gary Rofkahr of Owasso, Okla., who was at work when another man brought the toy in to show his colleagues.

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Pareidolia much?

[tim]

Yeah, right. Will it never end?

[Darat]

Certainly that doll does provide evidence that Satan exists and is a product designer at Mattel.

[Cuddles]

Why would Muslims be saying "Satan is king"? Muslims don't worship Satan any more than Christians or Jews do. Stupid bigotry is one thing, but stupid bigotry without having even the slightest clue what you are talking about really is, well, stupid.

[Twiler]

I think that fundamentalist groups tend to consider outsiders to be more or less indistinguishable; If they didn't, they would be attributing them with specific characteristics, and seeing them more as actual people.

Hence, 'Annoymous have proclaimed their inspirations to be Main Kampf and the Communist Manifesto', 'Godless commie bastards', and Muslims worshipping Satan.

This isn't an absolute rule so much as a tendancy though.

[UnrepentantSinner]

{rhetorical}

Why don't they ever hear "Say your prayers" or "Go to church" in the babble of these toys?

{rhetorical}

[Hitch]

{rhetorical}

Why don't they ever hear "Say your prayers" or "Go to church" in the babble of these toys?

{rhetorical}

I'm pretty sure i heard, "Be sure to drink your ovaltine."

[Bikewer]

They had a report on this on G4's Attack Of The Show. I listened closely, and all I could hear was a mishmash of gibberish....

Maybe we could market a "skeptic" doll. "Where's the evidence, Mommy?"

[Mykeru]

It's also covered here:

UPDATED: Does doll deliver Islamic message?

(Oh great. I can't post links yet. Great. Understandable rule, and also a Catch-22 that makes it that much more difficult to get to 15 posts)

Except here the message fixated on is "Islam is the Light". It's as if, well, you can hear anything you want in vague sounds.

The reporter, Jason Grubbs, in this instance does the faux objective "you decide" routine without consulting any skeptics who could explain well-established phenomena such as pareidolia to him. I assume it's because controversy makes better news than actually informing readers.

I sent a little note to Mr Grubbs [grubbs(at)kjrh(dot)com]:

Mr Grubbs,

In your report on the Fisher-Price "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo" doll you made several statements that your viewers should decide what, if anything, the doll is saying. However, and I suppose this is simply to promote controversy and abdicate any responsibility to present information under the guise of objectivity, you failed to give your audience important information.

Namely, to explain pareidolia:

From The Skeptic's Dictionary [Link in original]:

Pareidolia is a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. For example, in the discolorations of a burnt tortilla one sees the face of Jesus Christ. Or one sees the image of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan in a cinnamon bun or a man in the moon.

Pareidolia is a well-known and demonstrable phenomena that also figures in Electronic Voice Phenomena (ghost recordings), backwards Satanic messages in songs, and the like.

The doll and this sort of gullible reporting is discussed on the James Randi Educational Forum. You might be interested to look into it:

[Link to this thread]

[ImaginalDisc]

On the off chance that that journalist is going to actually follow the link, here's Brian Dunning's Skeptoid episode on backmasking (http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4105), another example of pareidolia. The "priming" effect of being told what to listen for and then listening to an ambiguous stimulous is hard to accept until you experience the phenomenon, so there's good audio examples there.

[Mykeru]

ImaginalDisc

Excellent! I had forgotten about that. The demonstration of "priming" is key. I wonder what people would have thought if the stories on this doll had not clued them into what they were supposed to hear.

I'll email the link.

[Safe-Keeper]

Why would Muslims be saying "Satan is king"?When I read this, I became 99% sure that the whole thing was an anti-Islamic lie from some preacher who had no idea what he was talking about. Kinda like that fundamentalist mother in Jesus Camp who talked about how "Buddhists drove bamboo under fingernails of people to get them to acknowledge that Buddha is god". I've read the rest of the thread now, of course.

[krelnik]

Richard Wiseman (http://richardwiseman.com/) also did an excellent demo of priming at TAM4, but I can't find anywhere it is available online. (Probably deliberately because he uses some short music clips that would probably spark a copyright complaint from an overzealous record company).

If you have the TAM4 DVD set (http://www.randi.org/joom/jref-store/33.html), it is the first presentation on Disk 3. The backward masking part runs from around 16:00 to 21:15 elapsed time in his presentation.

Highly recommended.

[Mykeru]

When I read this, I became 99% sure that the whole thing was an anti-Islamic lie from some preacher who had no idea what he was talking about.

Setting aside the redundancy of "some preacher who had no idea what he was talking about", it's true there's a difference between "lying" and self-delusion. If only intent.

It's interesting, though, that so much of the pareidolia claims -- Jesus in a taco, satanic backwards messages and the like -- come directly from fundamentalists. Even Jerry Falwell's "Tinky-Winky is gay" train-wreck was a perverse sort of "reading between the lines". If I wanted to be perverse myself, which I can, I could have interpreted the inverted triangle on that Tele-tubby's head as some sort of allusion to abortion. Think about it.

I guess when one becomes a Biblical literalist you have to find an outlet for your imagination.

[Mykeru]

If you have the TAM4 DVD set[/URL], it is the first presentation on Disk 3. The backward masking part runs from around 16:00 to 21:15 elapsed time in his presentation.


If you can rip an .MP3 of that we can claim "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act of 1976 which allows using excerpts of works for comment, criticism and education. And despite overly-litigious record companies and the specter of Metallica joining forces with the NSA, Wiseman could make the same claim himself. It's a shame if it's not online because of some "chilling effect" from some spam-happy copyright lawyer.

I'd link to attrition(dot)org's gleefully rude "Wrath of the Impotent" page, but I've got a handful of posts before I can do links.

[patchbunny]

I'm assuming talking doll technology has advanced beyond the adult voices used in Peanuts cartoons? I could never understand what the stupid things were saying.

[Mykeru]

I'm assuming talking doll technology has advanced beyond the adult voices used in Peanuts cartoons? I could never understand what the stupid things were saying.

The key thing about this doll is that, with the exception of a clear word "momma", it was supposed to babble pre-speech gibberish.

Which, in hindsight, is a prescription for pareidolia.

Or, as my teacher used to say: "Bwah-bwah-bwah bwah bwah, bwah".

[krelnik]

If you can rip an .MP3 of that we can claim "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act of 1976 which allows using excerpts of works for comment, criticism and education. And despite overly-litigious record companies and the specter of Metallica joining forces with the NSA, Wiseman could make the same claim himself. It's a shame if it's not online because of some "chilling effect" from some spam-happy copyright lawyer.

Well, it works better as video because Wiseman does the priming by showing text on the screen, but only AFTER you've heard the backward version with no priming first.

Get the TAM4 DVDs, they are well worth the money.

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm pretty sure i heard, "Be sure to drink your ovaltine."

:D My favorite part of Christmas.

[erlando]

Bogosity has a good episode on pareidolia:
Part 1:
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Part 2:
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Part 3:
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