Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest 5-7-99
SkeptInq@aol.com
Fri, 7 May 1999 12:44:02 EDT
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER ELECTRONIC DIGEST
May 7, 1999
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In this week's SIDIGEST:
--Web Sites Skeptical of Astrology
--Speilberg Unleashes Sci Fi Channel Mini-Series on Alien Abductions
--Blackmore's "Meme Machine" Reviewed in NY Times
--New Mexicans for Science and Reason 1999 April Fool's Hoax
--Notice of the 1999 European Skeptical Conference
WEBSITES SKEPTICAL OF ASTROLOGY
CSICOP Fellow and astronomer Andrew Fraknoi writes in with news of the
following web resources. Fraknoi, former Executive Director of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and Chair of Astronomy Program, Foothill
College can be reached at fraknoi@admin.fhda.edu.
_____________________
CSICOP Fellows David Morrison and Andrew Fraknoi are putting the finishing
touches on the second edition of the well-received introductory astronomy
textbook, _Voyages through the Universe_. They have included a box on CSICOP
and information about its web site, both in the book and its accompanying web
site.
Andrew Fraknoi's website can be found at:
www.foothill.fhda.edu/ast/afraknoi.html
As part of its expanded web pages on astronomy education, the non-profit
Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) now offers a resource guide for
examining topics at the fringes of astronomy with a skeptical eye. Subjects
covered include astrology, UFO's, the so-called "Face on Mars", ancient
astronauts, disasters from planetary alignments, and more. The site offers
annotated lists of books, articles, and web links for those who would like
the rational perspective on these controversial issues.
The location is:
http://www.aspsky.org/html/astro/pseudobib.html
Also on the ASP site is an article called "Your Astrology Defense Kit",
which includes ten embarrassing questions to ask astrology believers, and
reviews some of the scientific tests that have failed to bear out the
predictive power of horoscope analysis. There are also a series of classroom
activities that teachers can use to show students how they can test
astrological claims for themselves.
This part of the site can be found at:
http://www.aspsky.org/html/astro/act3/astrology.html
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific site has articles on the Face on
Mars, and astrology is covered among the issues in our teachers' newsletter.
Their non-profit catalog has sold skeptical books, and our resource guides
(such as the Universe at Your Fingertips) always have skeptical activities
for teachers.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific site is:
http://www.aspsky.org
SPEILBERG UNLEASHES NEW MINI-SERIES ON ALIEN ABDUCTIONS
Say it isn't so. Just when the The X-Files nears its final season,
entertainment industry mega-mogul Steven Spielberg, the director of ``ET''
and ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' is planning a 20-hour miniseries
focusing on alien abductions.
The series will air on cable's Sci-Fi Channel in the third quarter of 2000.
According to Hollywood trade newspaper Daily Variety and the Associated
Press, the series will trace UFO lore from the crash at Roswell in 1947 to
present-day Y2K fears. ``Steven has always had an interest in this subject,''
Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of Sci-Fi's USA Networks parent, told Variety.
Diller also told Variety that Spielberg's treatment starts from the premise
``that there are abductions, that they're real and not made up. This will be
a big story with multiple characters, protagonists and antagonists, and it'll
span lots of decades.''
``Taken,'' which will cost upward of $40 million, will begin production
this summer. The director and cast are still to be named. The Sci-Fi Channel
plans to run it for two hours a night over 10 consecutive nights.
Not to be left out the act, Francis Ford Coppola plans a sixty-six episode
series on the Sci Fi Channel called "First Wave" that somehow melds
Nostradamus with alien invaders!
BLACKMORE'S "MEME MACHINE" REVIEWED IN NY TIMES
CSICOP Fellow Susan Blackmore's new release "The Meme Machine" was reviewed
by Robert Wright, the author of ''The Moral Animal: Evolutionary
Psychology and Everyday Life" in the Sunday, April 25 New York Times Review
of Books. Here's the close to that review. Read it in full at
http://nytimes.com.
"Still, the idea of the meme can be useful, as Blackmore shows by offering
some fresh angles on modern life. Back when culture evolved slowly,
memes traveled largely from parent to child -- vertically.'' Blackmore
notes that today, with memes leaping ''horizontally'' from brain to brain --
through television, radio, Internet -- their fertility depends less and
less on
whether they add to the long-term welfare of the brains in question. On
the Internet you can tell thousands of people about the joys of smoking
crack or watching the Jerry Springer show in the brief period between
adopting these memes and being ruined by them. (An analogy with viral
genes is illuminating. The more easily viruses are transmitted from body to
body, the less their fertility depends on their hosts' survival. So highly
lethal viruses tend to evolve in urban areas.)
High technology has been a godsend for the ''meme'' meme. The Internet
is a laboratory for memeticists, a self-organizing database. (''Memetic''
has appeared at least 5,042 times on the World Wide Web, Dawkins
reports proudly in the book's foreword.) Perhaps more important, as
people feel increasingly bombarded by electronic messages, the notion
that these messages are active, even aggressive, acquires resonance.
I don't mean this as a post-modern dismissal of memetics -- as if
scientific judgment were just being warped by technological milieu
(though any good memeticist will agree that truth is hardly the only
criterion by which memes can spread). As Blackmore notes, in a digital
world memes can replicate with high fidelity, maintaining their exact form
through many life cycles, rather like genes. Maybe, then, as information
technology evolves, the concept of the meme will grow not just in
popular resonance but in analytical aptness, in scientific validity. Maybe
the electronics revolution is giving us a glimmer of a coming world in
which, for better or worse, memes will make total sense."
NEW MEXICAN'S FOR SCIENCE AND REASON 1999 APRIL FOOL'S HOAX
Last year, it was Alabama Pi.
This year's April Fool's party, sponsored by members of NMSR (New Mexicans
for Science and Reason), can be seen on-line at
http://www.darwindisproved.com/
The explanation will be posted shortly. If you surf over there, and see a
button entitled "Authorized Users Only," consider yourself hereby so
Authorized.
All best,
Dave Thomas
NOTICE OF THE 1999 EUROPEAN SKEPTICAL CONGRESS
The TENTH EUROPEAN SKEPTICAL CONGRESS will be held from Friday September
17 to and including Sunday September 19, in the beautiful city of
MAASTRICHT, a crossing of cultures, the oldest town of the Netherlands,
nicely situated at the shores of the river Meuse.
More information on this event can be read on internet:
http://www.skepsis.org. This site is mainly in Dutch language, but
information on the European congress is in English. It includes the list of
speakers and a call for papers.
Please, note the dates, inform your friends and colleagues and ask for more
information at the email address: R.NANNINGA@WXS.NL
Hoping to meet you in Maastricht next September!
Cornelis de Jager, chairman ECSO
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