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Category Archives for Myths & poor logic

You can’t polish a turd; polygamy, abuse and pedophilia.

{I know you are reading this in your hundreds, why not comment? It is anonymous.}

I have not thought a great deal about the recent polygamy thing in Texas which has been in the news a fair bit recently (this is where 52 girls were removed from a ranch in Texas and put into care and foster-homes following allegations of abuse) because this kind of thing goes on over in wacky old America, right?

I have not thought a great deal about it until….. until last night….. last night the number of children went up by one when one of the girls, a 16 year old, gave birth. Apparently she is not the only pregnant child.

I don’t like religion at the best of times but when it is when it is used as an excuse for the in inexcusable it really gets to me; bombings, terrorism, war, murder repression, oppression….. child abuse.

In the UK we have an expression (I don’t know if it is used in the US) which says that “you can’t polish a turd” and it means “shit is shit no matter how you try to hide what it is”.

Well, for a moment I think these polygamist folks almost managed it with me, they have gone on a big PR offensive and, to tell you the truth, I was not paying that much attention in the first place.

They have tried to take polygamy and dress it up as “religion” and “freedom” when what it really is about is a few older men surrounding themselves with small armies of poorly educated, brainwashed, compliant women; don’t be fooled by their weasel-words, it is not “religion” or “freedom”, it is abuse.

And in this particular case, and numerous others, “religion” and “freedom” is really about being allowed to “marry” and have sex with young girls. It is a cynical attempt at dressing up paedophilia as something virtuous and somehow acceptable.

But you cant polish a turd.

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http://the-discourses.blogspot.com/2008/05/texas-surpreme-court-endorses.html

Written on 30 April 2008 by Jon under Miscellaneous, Myths & poor logic with No Comments

Badger Cull

People go to prison in the UK for disturbing Badgers, but the British Government is allowed to kill them in order to control bovine TB, even when there is no evidence to suggest it will do any good and some to suggest it will be counterproductive.

This makes no sense whatsoever, but it in nevertheless true.

The Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, suggests a cull of badgers in England should be undertaken in order to control bovine TB in cattle.

This advice goes against the conclusions of the Government appointed Independent Scientific Group on cattle TB, published in June, after a ten-year study. Apparently, when they culled badgers in Irish Republic bovine TB went up and in Northern Ireland, where there was no cull, bovine TB went down.

As I said before, the Government’s appointed independent scientists took ten years to conclude that there is no scientific evidence to support a cull. And yet the Welsh Assembly has decided to carry out a cull, click the link below and sign the petition to stop them coming to the same ludicrous conclusion in England.

http://www.backoffbadgers.org.uk/

And there is a ton of additional information, on the RSPCA site no less.

Written on 11 April 2008 by Jon under Bad Science, Myths & poor logic with No Comments

Run your car on water; nonsence!

Loads of websites offer to teach you the secret of how to run your engine on water, mostly for a fee. For example Water4Gas.com say, on there enormously long and infomercial-like web page, you can halve your mileage and boost your performance by running your car on water. Sound like bullshit to you?

This “technology” is not to be confused with hydrogen powered cars or hydrogen fuel cells, this is a form of the water-powered-car myth; see the links at bottom of this article.

The theory

The theory goes something like this; electricity from the engine’s battery is used to separate the water into its components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are then burnt in your engine, sometimes along with the fuel it was running on in the first place but also displacing some of it, so you use less fuel and get better mileage.

Thermodynamics

Even if it did work, and it does not, the thing is it takes a lot more energy to separate the oxygen and hydrogen than there is energy available in it, and the energy is coming from your engine which means it is coming from your fuel, so you use more energy creating your miracle fuel than there is available to gain from it.

To put it another way, if the device operated as claimed the combustion cycle would start and end in the same state (starting with water and ending with water) while extracting usable energy, thereby violating the first law of thermodynamics, a perpetual motion machine.

Stanley Meyer

It all comes from a guy called Stanley Meyer who’s invention in the 1990s was claimed to use high frequency pulses of electricity to separate the water into its component parts. His claims about his Water Fuel Cell and the car that it powered were found to be fraudulent by an Ohio court in 1996, there is no evidence that any of these devices operate as claimed, and he was forced to refund his investors.

Here is another example of this nonsense, www.waterforfuel.com (this guy even has an eBay shop selling this rubbish).

If you still want to try it:

If you still want to try it then don’t pay for the information, it is all freely available on line here: waterpoweredcar.com/stan.html.

Firther reading:

Although all Wikipedia entries, and therefore of dubious reliability, these happen to all be of excellent quality and well cited:

Water fuelled car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuelled_car

Hydrogen powered vehicles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_car

Written on 01 April 2008 by Jon under Bad Science, Biofuels, Eco Nonsence, Myths & poor logic with 10 Comments

Magnetic nonsense

[this page is getting a lot of hit at the moment, must be somthing to do with fuel prices, I'd apprecate your opinion and feedback, comment at the bottom of this page]

Too good to be true
You instinctively know what something is too good to be true, don’t you? And things which seem that way almost always turn out to be just that, too good too be true. I am constantly coming across products for sale on the internet which are such obvious bullshit, and yet someone must be buying them.

MagnoFuel
Recently, while researching for my book on bio-fuels, I am coming across loads of magnetic miricles. These things simply attach around your engine’s fuel lines, attached with zip-ties, and enhance the fuel magnetically; reducing pollution, increasing performance, reducing consumption, increasing range.

Sound too good to be true? Well obviously! If these things worked they would be fitted as standard to all new cars, in fact it would probably be compulsory.

The “science” behind them
The makers offer very pseudo-scientific language to explain what they do and how they work and then fail to back any of it up with any proof, beyond the dubious and anecdotal, that they have any effect whatsoever.

For example, ecozone.co.uk say here that:

“Magno-Fuel has been tested to give fuel savings of up to 15%, provides better combustion and more power from your engine while reducing pollution.”

Tested by who? When? Where? Or am I meant to just take your word for it?

“Only after a short time will oxygen molecules be embedded between the fuel molecules, ensuring a better combustion.”

What does thins even mean?

And they go on to say:

“Bloch and Purcell were awarded the Nobel prize for their work on magnetic fields on solid, liquid and gas substances.”

Sure they were, Physics prize in 1952 “for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith”, what does thins have to do what the MagnoFuel? Nothing whatsoever, that is what!

Other magnetic bullshit
One can also buy magnetic toilet descalers, magnetic washing machine descalers, an amazing array of magnetic jewelery and loads of other miracle magnetic gizmos avalabel to the gullible, from water treatment and fuel treatment to health (for you or your dog or cat or horse); there is tones of it and all of it complete bullshit!

And even more nonsense
EcoFlow and MagnoFlow and BioFlow, BioGuard pendants to protect you from your computer, BioPhone to protect you from your cell phone, Vitaflow for your water, Motoflow for your fuel, Thermoflow for your boiler/furnace and (my favorite) Vinaflow to protect you from your wine!

How can this be legal?
Well how can this be legal? I have no idea, I guess it isn’t. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, this is blatant modern day snake oil, a scam, a con……. it is complete bullshit!!

Written on 20 March 2008 by Jon under Bad Science, Eco Nonsence, Miscellaneous, Myths & poor logic with 1 Comment

Eco Balls are no better than nothing, they are just another eco-scam.

I have been running a little, admittedly unscientific, experiment; I don’t use any laundry liquid, or other detergent, when washing my clothes and I have not noticed if they come out of the wash any dirtier than if i did use detergent. They don’t come out of the machine smelling of detergent and fabric softener, but they don’t come out smelling dirty either, they just smell of nothing much and appear clean.

There are exceptions, heavily soiled clothes do not come up clean, but how much of ones washing is heavily soiled and I can always use some detergent if I need to, the point it that about 95% of the time I don’t.

There is a product on the market called Eco Balls, it has been about for years, it claims to use “ionized oxygen” to get your clothes clean, no need for any nasty washing machine detergents. All you have to do is pop them into the machine along with your clothes and, as-if-by-magic, they come out clean. There are exceptions, apparently, heavily soiled clothes need some detergent, as well as the Eco Balls, to get them clean.

According to the literature they “produce ionized oxygen that activates the water molecules naturally and allows them to penetrate deep into clothing fibers to lift dirt away” but they fail to provide any evidence to support this claim, let alone explain what this pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo means. I have emailed then several times to ask, but they choose not to answer.

Somehow Eco Balls simultaneously reduce your need for detergent by 85% and cost you only £0.03 per wash. Eco Balls, it seems, don’t last forever, they have to be refilled every once and a while, not that there ire any chemicals getting into the wash, of course, so I guess they must just vanish. They cost £35 and last 1000 washes, that is £0.035 per wash not £0.03, a 20% inaccuracy in their maths. Additionally, they “reduce the cost of detergent by 85%”, so you are still using 15% as much detergent as you were? I cant make any sense of it, can you?

Apparently they also kill all sorts of nasty dangerous organisms which I did not know where in my clothes; frankly after reading the list of nasties in my wash-basket it is amazing that I am alive at all, for not using either detergent or Eco Balls, just forty-degree water.

One can also now buy Dryer Balls which apparently do way with the need for softening dryer sheets and fabric softeners. Again, no evidence or mechanism to explain how they work or how they differ in performance from, for example, tennis balls, or indeed, not using them at all. If you are looking for a green way to dry your clothes I recommend a washing line.

According to ecoballsdirect.co.uk Eco Balls are made by ecozone.co.uk - neither company has responded to my requests for explanation of how their product (or indeed, any of their other miracle products such as their magnetic toilet descaler or magnetic washing machine descaler) work, or any scientific data on them, or any peer reviewed studies carried out on them.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof these are blatant modern day snake oil, an eco-scam designed to part well meaning consumers from their cash, if they are not then feel free to sue me. I dont understand how this can be legal.

Written on 19 March 2008 by Jon under Bad Science, Eco Nonsence, Myths & poor logic with No Comments

Bicycle helmets

Recently I rediscovered cycling, I have been off my bike too long but I am back in the saddle (and motorised-vehicle-less) now trying to do an hour a day on the streets of San Francisco.

The law here in California with regard to cycle helmets is similar to the law elsewhere, if you are a child then you have to wear a helmet but if you are an adult you can choose for yourself. In countries where compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists has been introduced (Australia for example) cycling reduced, people became less likely to use bikes at all.

I don’t wear a helmet because I hate them, I hate wearing them and I hate having this extra thing to worry about when i am not on the bike. The chances are if I had to worry about a helmet i’d probably not take my bike. It is my choice and, like everything else in life, it is a calculated (well, estimated) risk.

Here in the US it is other cyclists that tell me I should be wearing a helmet, in the UK it is almost always non-cycling car drivers. There is no one way of looking at the figures, you can fudge them both ways by looking at injuries-per-hour-traveled or per-mile-traveled, or count hospitalisations or whatever, there is a statistic to suit your cause. The truth is that car drivers and walkers suffer fatal head injuries too, lots of them, and people dies in airplane crashes and skiing accidents and from just being alive in the first palce (after all, we all die sooner or later).

Hidden in all the cycling deaths and injuries is what I presume to be the majority of the data, the dangerous cyclist. This video shows one type in NYC and I see these guys in SF every day (and I am in truth kind of envious of them).

And what about all the people who live here in San Francisco? there is a 60% chance of there being a massive earthquake in the next 30 years; check out todays probability here.

I have never ridden a bike in place where drivers, with exceptions, are more cautious than here in SF. I am a relatively cautious cyclist, but i am trying to get some excercise in too so I am not so slow either.

Which brings me to my final point, just how likely am I to die from NOT cycling?

Do the health benefits of cycling out weigh the risks? Obesity, heart desiease and the like are far more likely to finishg me off before my time than an hour a day on my bike; in fact an hour a day on my bike, in all probiblity, is likey to save me.

Now I am off out for today’s hour, if i write no more you will know what killed me.

Great articles and more (better?) info here and here and here .

Written on 09 March 2008 by Jon under Myths & poor logic with No Comments

Eat fish twice a week

The Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) is launching a new theme for Seafood Week 2006 to encourage people to eat seafood ‘Twice a Week’.

Meanwhile, results from meaningless fish oil “trials” on GCSE students in Durham are being touted about in the press as a miraculous cure for underachieving children.

According to Greenpeace “More and more people are competing for less and less fish and exacerbating the existing oceans crisis, as today’s industrialised fishing practices exceed nature’s ability to replenish the ocean’s fish stocks. According to the United Nations, 71-78 per cent of the world’s fisheries are ‘fully exploited’, ‘over exploited’ or significantly depleted’. Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction. More are on the verge of extinction.Regulation of fishing vessels is universally inadequate.”

With no sense of irony whatsoever, fish is about to be marketed as “gone in a flash”

In short there is no evidence to support the idea that fish is particularity good for you, meanwhile we are pillaging the sea and driving species like the cod into extinction and European money is going into suggestion that we eat more of the stuff; it makes no sense.

Written on 08 October 2007 by Jon under Bad Science, Myths & poor logic with 1 Comment

Zeitgeist the movie, a review.

A friend recently suggested i watch yet another conspiracy theory movie, Zeitgeist.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331

In the first quarter of the movie tries to point parallels between the Egyptian god Horus (and other ancient deitys) and Jesus; at best it stinks of over simplification and at worst bullshit. It would be very exciting if it were true. Find me one peer reviewed academic paper about this, the fact that the movie does not site one speaks volumes to me.

It then goes on the rehash all the same old stuff about how the official explanation of 9/11 just does not entirely make a lot of sense and, like every other conspiracy movie on the subject, proceeds to jump to some very wild conclusions…….. yawn!!

I agree that one hell of a lot of the official report does not add up but I am not very interested in wild theories, guesses and assumptions, I am interested in evidence and what is true.

You don’t need to invent implausible theories to show that 9/11 gave the green light to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the official explanation is plenty. Here is a PBS Special on it.

This is all a pity because Zeitgeist has some useful and interesting things to say, it just muddles them with a load of bullshit and references and sites none of it.

I recently go into an on line discussion about Zeitgeist, I was asked to show what in the movie was untrue, I responded:

“The point is that it is not up to me to prove the “facts” it the movie are wrong, this is not critical thinking, it is the job of the movie maker to prove what he is saying is true.

Is what you are saying is that you will blindly believe any old nonsense you are told? I doubt it. This is what religious people do, they believe with no proof and pretend it is a virtue, they call it faith.

Lets take Part 1 of the movie; Jesus = The Sun God. I too was very intrigued by this idea so I spent a bit of time Googling it and found that it is not a new idea and that there are a lot of “experts” arguing about it, have been for decades. Everything in the movie on the subject is presented as fact when, as far as i could see, all of it was a matter of opinion, still being argued about.

As for Part 2, I actually find a lot of a lot easer to swallow! However it pushes interesting theories way too far into the land of ludicrous for any of it to be taken seriously and this makes a mockery of all of the entire thing.

I am surprised that, in Part 2, they did not go on to talk about David Icke’s lizards. If they had, would have still believed it? And if not, at what point would you have said they went too far?

As for the book you site as proof, I have not seen it but a self published, self promoted book by the film maker (?) is not going to prove anything to me, any old idiot can publish a book with any old shit in it, I need peer reviewed evidence which has been verified by experts on the subject.

Science is about having ideas and setting out to prove them, it is about weighing up the evidence and coming to a conclusion based on it; this movie presents me with only theory, no evidence, so on balance i dismiss it.”

Written on 26 September 2007 by Jon under Myths & poor logic with No Comments

TV Licensing - Official Warning

Amanda and I got another letter from the TVLA today entitled “OFFICIAL WARNING” (I have no idea why they are shouting) and goes on to say; “Our Law Enforcement Division has identified that there is no record of a TV License at your address and that you may therefore be watching or recording television without a license. If this is the case, you are breaking the law”…. which I guess is at least true, if rather rude and accusatory and threatening.

It then goes on about their “Enforcement Officers” being authorised to visit my address in my street (not that I live in a street, and an odd choice of words?) to interview me “under caution”. If they find a TV here they will prosecute me and fine me up to £1000, like they do to nearly 80,000 people a year.

All I have t do avoid this nastiness all I have to do is buy a TV License!

Is there not a third way, why am i either a TV License Holder or a TV License Evader, why can’t I be a Non-TV-Watcher? I visited their web site but I cannot find any answer to the question “What if i don’t have a TV?”.

I really hate bullies! It is the assumption that I am guilty that gets my goat. I have no TV, no DVD player, no VCR, no set-top-box, no “computer capable of receiving a TV signal” (why would I want any of these things?) and because of this the TVLA/BBC have no business whatsoever with me.

Written on 31 May 2007 by Jon under Miscellaneous, Myths & poor logic with 4 Comments

Why home wind won’t work

I have every intention of writing something of my own here one day, but until i get around to it, here are some links…….

Home wind turbines are significantly under performing and in the worst cases generating less than the electricity needed to power a single light bulb, according to the biggest study of its kind carried out in Britain: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/06/windpower.alternativeenergy

Nice page from CAT’s Info Department:
http://www.cat.org.uk/information/info_content.tmpl?sku=info_faq_roofwind&subdir=information

Two very good “rants” on Windsave:
http://scruss.com/blog/index.php?p=31
http://scruss.com/blog/?p=236

Short clip from a Panorama documentary detailing that the average U.K households have only a six meters per second wind speed, B&Q are selling us something that will save us £10 annually for a £1500 outlay. In it a Windsave man does a terrible job of trying to tell us why they are still good, despite the company’s enormous backpedaling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVo0WvuX7K0