Lack of miracles at Lourdes?

Since pilgrims have been going to Lourdes it is claimed that 65 people have been miraculously cured out of an estimated 100 million visitors. Three of these were patients suffering from cancer.

Compare this with the estimates for spontaneous remission of cases of cancer. 1 person in 10,000 to 100,000 will just get better for no known reason.  (Maybe someone prayed extra hard for them?  Or maybe they just got better.)

Even with the most conservative assumptions about the proportion of Lourdes pilgrims who would be suffering from cancer, it seems that the number of remissions is far below the rate of spontaneous remission.

Lunar Lunacy

Full moon again.  Two more to go before Easter, which I am sure you know is the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox.  Remember that for the next time someone asks you when Easter is this year!  It usually gets a laugh.

There is a popular urban myth that around the time of full moon hospital emergency departments are inundated with additional cases and that the outcome of major surgery is much less likely to be successful. Indeed, the term 'lunacy' is derived from this belief.

Presumably such an effect would arise from the same mechanism as the other known effects of the moon on Earth which are entirely tidal. The range of the tides is higher at full and new moon, when the Sun, Moon and Earth all line up, and this is observed as and called 'spring tides'. Spring tides have nothing to do with the season, as they happen twice every month, but the highest and lowest spring tides of the year are around the vernal (spring) and autumnal equinoxes.

The strange thing is that the alleged effects on people only occur at full moon and not at new moon.

So is it true? Or are people's observations of strange events just a case of 'confirmation bias' where they happen to notice that the moon is full when some other notable event happens. On other occasions the moon is less obvious in the sky and they don't make a link to a moon that is slightly more or less gibbous than yesterday. The subject has been extensively studied and no correlation has been found.

Of course this is not a great surprise as the gravitational (tidal) forces from the moon are incredibly small. A mother holding her baby has a gravitational effect on the baby 10 million times greater than that of the moon on the baby.

The soul

The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints was set up by Joseph Smith who found some indecipherable inscribed gold plates in up-state New York, and then discovered some magical spectacles which allowed him to transcribe the plates into the "Book of Mormon".

The book bears a striking resemblance to the Judeo/Christian Bible but allows and forbids a few different things. Until 1975 the Mormon Church still taught that black people don't have souls. (God thoughtfully revealed to them that it was wrong only the day before the US law changed on this matter.)

Of course the irony of it is that perhaps they were right and that none of us have souls. Studies of consciousness suggest that the concept of 'the soul' is perhaps only a pious hope.

British biology exam??

Jerry Coyne's Evolution is True blog gives the disturbing news that a British biology exam for 16 year-olds appears to give/allow a politically correct but scientifically incorrect answer.  (Screams!!)

Enoch

Cindy was quite right in her comment on my last post.  Thank you Cindy.  Enoch, father of the much more famous Methuselah, also apparently didn't die.  (Genesis 5:21-24).  At the age of 365 years he was 'taken away' by God.

All I can say in my own defence is that we don't know whether Enoch was bald or not.

Methuselah lived to the grand old age of 969. 

Elishah and baldness!

It is said** that only one person in the Old Testament did not die. Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind without the usual inconvenience and discomfort. (II Kings 2:11.) His acolyte, Elishah made a special request that he should receive a double portion of Elijah's spirit, and was granted it having seen his teacher taken away.

Presumably self-effacement and tolerance were not two of Elijah's good qualities then, because a very short time later when Elishah visited Bethel (II Kings 2:22) he found himself being mocked by children because he was bald. Being a broad-shouldered prophet one might have expected that he would be used to worse than that, but his reaction suggests not.

Personally I find it not too difficult to cope with being teased for the same characteristic, but he cursed the children and two 'she bears' came out of the woods and killed 42 of them.

God does indeed work in mysterious ways.



** p.s As Cindy correctly pointed out in her comment Enoch was the other person in the OT who did not die.

Fusion funding

The UK (nearly public-owned) bank RBS announced magnanimously last week that it would restrict the payment of staff bonuses to just £950m this year.

Is there any sanity in this world?  They're the bastards who got us into this mess and the government is just going to let them get away with this while gradually penalising the honest hard working million people who work in 'proper' jobs on behalf of the public. 

And £1 billion per year is about equivalent to a tax saving of 1 p in the pound for the other 60 million people in the UK who are now suffering the consequences, due to the recklessness of these bankers.

Or to look at it another way - why is it that big technical projects like ITER are said to be 'expensive'?  At least its aim is to provide a technique to ensure a secure energy supply for future generations.

Quotations from Mark Twain

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years." - Mark Twain

My 18 year old son at least understood this. That's promising.

"Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon." - Mark Twain

My father-in-law could have learned something from this.

"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." - Mark Twain

My 16 year old daughter probably wouldn't agree with this.

Darwin's Birthday

Isn't it interesting that discussions about the truth of Evolution so often reach the ridiculous argument that Evolution does not explain the creation of life.  Of course it doesn't actually attempt to do that.  The start of life is called Abiogenesis, not Evolution.

It is Charles Darwin's two hundred and second birthday today.  Why not celebrate it with a visit to Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne's blog.

I find it amazing how I have become so interested in Darwin's work during the course of my recovery from Christianity, and one of the best and clearest books that I have read on the subject is Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth". 

Just a birthday message!

Not Darwin's birthday.  That is tomorrow.
Published at 11 minutes to 11 on 11/2/11.

The Rapture Index

When Christ comes back to Earth at the end of time (which of course we all know is going to happen soon) Christians will be gathered up to meet him in The Rapture.  So when will it happen?

The Rapture Index  does not exactly answer this question.  However apparently it gathers together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting. 

As of 31st January the Rapture Index was at 174.  You might ask yourself what this means, but the site kindly explains that if the index is over 160 you should fasten your seat belts. 


It all falls down when you ask how they know this?  Well apparently the answer lies in 1 Thessalonians, if you choose to interpret chapter 4 verses 15-17.  (My father-in-law seemed keen that the first word spoken by each of his grandchildren would be Thessalonians but as far as I know he failed to influence them enough.)  


How do they know that the bible is true?  Easy - the bible tells you so.

Creation myths for all

It is tempting to assume that all Creationists believe in similar origin stories, but no. The two creationists I know are both rational and lovely people, but I just don't agree with their points of view and they both seem surprisingly patient with mine (touch wood).  I long ago realised that my demand for extraordinary evidence to back up extraordinary claims is not shared by all intelligent people.

The Talk Origins Archive has a great page summarising the similarities and differences between opposing views on the subject.  The What is Creationism page contains a surprising range of options.

Sticking to the Jewish/Christian creation myth in Genesis (as it is the one that I know best) it is interesting to note that it is not even logically self-consistent from a scientific point of view. 

Day 1:  Day and night were created (but not the Sun and the Moon). 

[So how is day defined?]

Day 4:  The Sun and Moon are created, one to govern the day, [obviously the sun], and the other to govern the night [obviously not the Moon as that can be seen just as often in the day as in the night].


But the idea of Day Age Creationism leads us to a further doubt.  You may have heard of it even if you have not bothered to find out about the details.  Each literal 'day' happened in the order described in Genesis, but took thousands or even millions of years.  It illustrates that there was something that is - at best - unscientific at work.

Day 3:  All the plants were created, and it seems that since they were created before the sun they did not need its light and warmth to prosper - unlike today's plants.

At least in the literal 6 day creation story these plants might have survived for a day without light . . . but in the Day Age version?  Not very likely!  Ask a gardener.

Neither of my friendly creationists are of the Day Age kind.  I suspect both will have more sympathy with Day Age than with my own skeptical views though.

Ghosts or publicity?

In a remarkable story from the Thorpe Park theme park, (South West London), it seems that (those notoriously sensitive) 'construction workers' are being spooked by ghostly events and a major new ride called "Storm Surge" is being moved to a different location.

"Someone was looking over my shoulder" says a worker.  Was it the foreman?

Of course all the newspapers have a different sensational spin on the story.  Just to choose one, here is a link to The Independent.  I haven't yet seen an article from The Guardian which tends to have a slightly more skeptical viewpoint.

Isn't it amazing how the theme park is taking great care not to deny it.  The power of publicity is to set a story running and then know when to start to deny it.  The time is not right!  That helps prolong the publicity if timed right.

"Staff reports of eerie goings-on shot up and the only physical change in the park, at that time, was the beginning of ground preparation work for the new ride. " says a director.  "Director" is often a term for someone who was once good at their job but has lost touch with reality and if you believe the newspapers (which I don't - ever) that would be an appropriate description!  Anyway, perhaps they should have been on the lookout for 'non-physical changes', in these unusual circumstances!)

Under the international quality standard of ISO 9001 I suppose these eerie goings on would be recorded in . . . erm . . . a 'register of eerie-goings-on'?  I have noticed these in several companies so far.  (Believe that if you will.)  Presumably at some anticipated threshhold of eeriness they have planned to start changing their business plan, and instructed their civil engineers accordingly. 

I probably won't be going on Storm Surge, but its not because of the ghosts!  A headless monk illusion might tempt me though.

National Sick Day

It was reported on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme this morning that in UK the first Monday in February is the day when the largest number of workers take a day off 'sick'.  Various reasons were suggested  (without a shred of evidence).

Anecdote or statistics, true or false, I couldn't help smiling when one of my staff e-mailed to say that he would not be at work today.

Not feeling too bad myself!

Homeopathy - the Randi way

The Amazing James Randi of the JREF says it like it is about Homeopathy and offers an amazing million dollars to anyone who can prove that it works! 

Its 10:23 Challenge weekend 2011!  The challenge will culminate on February 6th at the QED conference in Manchester, where 300 protesters will participate the largest ever single demonstration against homeopathy.

Wish someone had told me about this a few years ago!

Of course 10:23 comes from Avagadro's number.

A clash of names!

Just discovered to my (slight) horror that :
a/  Google still doesn't find me here and
b/  It now does find someone else's blog with the same name

I'm sure I checked for that before settling on the name, but the other Something Surprising is at a different address and I think it will be fairly obvious to my loyal readers that it isn't me.

Hopefully the two of us can live with each other.  After all it seems that we are quits. It seems that I have the address and she was here first, and whichever way it happened we can both feel reassured that imitation is the best form of flattery.

i before e except after c

The difficulty of spelling English words containing i and e is clarified by this simple rule. Isn't it?

In fact is has been estimated that there are 923 exceptions to this rule and have i before e after a c. About 21 times more words break the rule than obey it.

Another version of the rule seems to be much more reliable, and rarely seems to fail. Try "i before e except after c, but only if it rhymes with key".

Dreadful National stereotypes

The following is sometimes attributed to John Cleese, but reading between the lines I would say that the author is more likely to be American.  (Of course this is only based on my own thoughts about national stereotypes.)  Whatever the source, I found it hilarious and the anonymous author deserves a pat on the back.  Thanks to Liz for sending it to me.

Working on a site that has security guards I am often amused to observe the sign at the gate which declares our 'security state'.  The lowest possible state is "Heightened".  "Heightened from what?" I ask myself.

Response to terrorism threats

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated," or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since "The Blitz" in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."   The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

Ask a hard question!

Richard Feynman once said "Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt."

And we like it that way don't we?  Ask me a hard question and I will learn something about what I thought I knew already.

Feynman also warned  "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool".

After all - most of us know people who see ghosts (or fairies, or Jesus).  I certainly do, and I like those people very much.  We all get fooled by magic tricks (and usually enjoy it). 

Feynman also counselled that "Science is what we have learned to keep from fooling ourselves.

That is where it gets a bit more difficult.  After all, I delude myself that someone might want to read what I am blogging about.  :)

Sock juice

"Now there's lovely", one of my Welsh colleagues said to himself with feeling, as he walked away with a nice hot cup of tea.

I wish I could find such delight in something so . . . unexciting.

Meanwhile, at least I managed not to tell him what a friend in France told me.  English tea is known by some people as "jus de chaussette".  Sock juice!