Defining Skeptical Moments, or Personal Baloney

[ChristineR]

As I browse through other threads, I often see references to a time when it finally sunk it that none of it worked.

When I was about twelve I read an article in a respected magazine about pyramid power. The article talked about such wonders as razor blades keeping their edge longer when stored in a pyramid and food mysteriously mummifying instead of rotting. I was amazed, because I everything I knew about physics showed this was quite impossible. At that age I was not qualified to deal with razor blades and shaving--I had no idea how one would objectively evaluate the sharpness of a razor as one shaved! No doubt it would have been obvious to an adult male, but I didn't even have leg hair to test on.

So I immediately built a little pyramid according to the instructions given in the article and placed two identical bits of baloney (the meat product...) in a hidden corner of my parent's basement. One bit of baloney was graced by my pyramid, one was exposed to the rigors of damp and mildew without the powerful energies of the little cardboard protector.

A week or two later, I observed the result. Two identical pieces of dry icky baloney. The reporter had been shown a piece of dry, icky hamburger along a fresh, soft piece. It when then that I realized that there nothing is to prevent people from writing articles that are simply stupid bunk. Perhaps it took a bit longer to realize that the reason me and my friends did not get good results with Zener cards was not our lack of ESP, but our lack of cheating, or that my round pencil did not roll because I was carefully avoiding breathing on it as I willed it to move, and probably longest of all to admit that nothing would ever happen at our seances unless I kicked the bottom of the table the way the sucessful mediums had.

I wonder if any of you have similiar stories? No doubt many will be more amusing than my humble adventure, and a few will probably be quite sad.

[Ersby]

I used to believe in the paranormal etc. and I was doing some palmistry at college (btw, this is a good way to make an impression with women: you get to stroke their hand and tell them they're shy on the inside, not always appreciated blah blah blah).

So I'm doing this reading and this other guy, watching and listening, blurts out that I just described him exactly. He found this amazing.

Clearly it didn't matter to him that it wasn't his hand, but it bothered me. Soon after that I started questioning this things in my head more thoroughly.

[kookbreaker]

I was spoon fed a lot of paranormal calp-trap in my youth and swallowed a lot of it. I was half convinced Bigfoot was going to show up in my house in downtown Philadelphia. One big theme of that time was the Von Danniken pyramid nonsense, and also the Bermuda Triangle. Some of the promoters would have us beleive that the two were related. Either way, it was 'obvious' that the Bermuda Triangle was real phenomemon and to be feared. Every non-sitcom TV show in the late 70's had a Bermuda Triangle episode, much in the same way that every non-sitcom in the late 90's had a Roswell episode.

Not long after, a copy of 'The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved' got into my hands. Here was a book that did not try to fritter away the wacky explanations or just say 'I doubt it'. Here the man researched each and every incident of the legend, only to find that the stories were nonsense, invented out of wholecloth, or took place nowhere near the B.T. It was an eye opener.

A few years later, I found a copy of Flim-Flam on my brother's shelf. I hadn't heard from Geller and others for years at that point, but that was not from any obvious debunking, it was from simply seemin to fade away. Flim-Flam shot torpedoes into the hulls of the leaky paranormal ships that I had read tales of from back in the day. The ships sank like stones. A year or two later, I caught Randi on Carson doing his 'Psychic Surgery' debunking and exposing Peter Popof. It was an odd kismet since I usually didn't watch much Carson, preferring to keep the TV until Letterman.

I still fell for a few woowoo things...JFK was the biggest example. It was not so much that I beleived in the sillier aspects of the JFK theorists, it was that so many things didn't add up from what was told to me: Oswald was a lousy shot, he antics were those of a spy, he knew all these people who wanted JFK dead, he was a sweet lovable guy, etc., etc. Then I read a copy of 'Case Closed', which while criticizable, made one thing clear: CONSPIRACY THEORISTS LIE! Those who claim to be seeking the 'Truth' are invariably the ones who make the most distortions to the record in their efforts to find what they want, not what is there. It is a habit I see over and over again, from AIDs conspiracists, to Waco nutters, to OK bomber whackjobs, and of course, 911 nutters.

[eri]

Last year, I listened to a physics prof talk about razors and pyramid power for about 5 min with no signs of skeptism. I finally said something to the effect of 'um ... that doesn't work' and was asked (by the tenured prof, no less), 'Did you try it?'

[Amapola]

I was the horrible, wretched child who questioned everything. I am certain my teachers hated me. I well remember one teacher telling us that giant spiders or ants (like in horror movies) could never exist and of course I asked "Why not?" and she had no answer. She finally stood there stumped, perhaps thinking that giant spiders could be possible after all....... Of course now I know that giant spiders are not possible, but at the time, the only thing the teacher was saying seemed to be "Giant spiders are not possible because I say so" and I had a hard time believing that - at least, without evidence.

This is not to say I have never believed some pretty goofy things in my life, but generally it was in the spirit of "trying it out to see if it is true".

I blame my father for my skeptical attitude. He was a scientist and we had a marvelous library in the house. We were always encouraged to look things up for ourselves. He always checked to see what we had learned in school that day, and more often than not we ended up trudging to school the next day toting some heavy tome with a place marked in it, to show to the teacher. When I went through a religious phase he never said a word against it, just kept patiently providing evidence.

My father provided me with a questioning attitude that has stood me in good stead throughout the years. I guess some people would see it as a cynical attitude, but I see it as very beneficial.