The world is ending! and other conspiracy theories discussed by high school freshmen

The other day my freshmen students were talking about weird coincidences and secret government plans to take over the world.  They folded a $20 bill to show that it illustrated how the planes would fly into the Twin Towers and demonstrated how you could link the buildings in the Pentagon to form a star worshipping the devil.  I had heard about the lewd Disney cartoon drawings in undersea castles or whispered underneath spoken words, but I hadn’t heard that President Obama apparently, like his House, thanked the devil during his presidential acceptance speech.  Some of the conspiracies are so ludicrous that you can’t help but laugh, but some of them seem a little more plausible.  See for yourself. Here are the CONSPIRACIES OF THE UNITED STATES as told by high school freshmen:

Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy’s assassinations were a little too similar for comfort!

I’d heard this one before, but I didn’t know all the details.  They really are a little eerie. Here are a few:

--Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846; JFK, 1946.                                                  

--Lincoln was elected President in 1860; JFK, 1960.

--Both Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s wives held their heads in their laps after the men were shot.

-- Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran to a warehouse; JFK’s assassin shot him in a warehouse and ran to a theater.

The Denver Airport is really the headquarters for the Illuminati so they can take over the whole world!

This conspiracy theory posits that the Illuminati (which I still don’t really understand) is using the Airport as its headquarters to kick off the global genocide that will begin the New World Order.  The Denver Airport was built in 1995, but it has fewer runways than the perfectly good airport it replaced, Stapleton International. The conspiracy theorists say that five buildings for the airport were completed and then buried underground. No one knows why. Barbed wire around the airport is pointed in, to keep people in, rather than out like at other airports. In addition, the runways are revealed to be laid out like a Nazi swastika. Also, the Queen of England (a member of the Illuminati) is buying up land around it anonymously.  I don’t know about this; it definitely sounds kind of creepy. On a practical note, I always get nauseous flying into this airport because the air currents around it are so choppy. Why would they put it there and make everybody sick during every flight? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I still hate flying into this airport.

Rihanna’s “Umbrella” song contains occult messages!

I’m not too up on the popular songs of high schoolers, but I guess this one (and only this one) isn’t about sex.  Instead, it is allegedly about being possessed by the devil. Conspiracy theorists say the “umbrella” means that the person is under protection or possession or something.  In other words, they are equating protection and possession, which seems wrong and not necessarily true.  The theorists say that Rihanna plays the devil trying to take over Rihanna in the first part of the song and then Rihanna trying not to get possessed in the second part. Look at the video’s clothes or something--she's wearing black and then white. This one is just dumb.  Maybe she just wants to look like Madonna.

Obama’s “Yes, we can!” slogan contains a message thanking the devil for Obama’s presidency and eventual world takeover!

This conspiracy theory seems more sinister than the others because it is saying that if you don’t like the president, you can just pretend that he is a devil-worshipper rather than say you don’t like the amendment he just passed.  It makes these conspiracy theorists seem like uniformed idiots with no legitimate case against the president.  But, the idea of this conspiracy theory is that if you play Obama’s presidential acceptance speech backwards, his “Yes, we can!” slogan actually says “Thank you, Satan.”  Other hidden messages played backwards include, “The Lord said the new Arab sins are with him” and “So birth the mark that’s now sooner.”  Most of these alleged hidden messages don’t make any sense logically or structurally. It seems strange that the man entrusted with creating the devil’s new world on earth wouldn't be as well-spoken thanking the devil as he is "pretending" to be the president.

 

After we discussed these conspiracies, I asked the freshmen how they could know if something was real or made-up.  They said you could never know for sure.  Leave it to freshmen to say some crazy stuff, but you have to recognize that some of the time, they have a lot of sense. 

Sources and further reading:

http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfkcoincidences.shtml

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4194

http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/occult-and-prophetic-messages-in-rihannas-umbrella/

Is Jon Stewart Reading My Mind?

Understanding "Regression to the Mean"

We all have an innate understanding of the concept that is technically described as "regression to the mean."

It was once wonderfully illustrated in an episode of King of the Hill. In an early scene, Khan, Boomhauer, and Bill are standing side by side in the alley on a blustery day. Khan is wearing a big cowboy hat. A gust of wind comes along, plucks the cowboy hat from Khan's head, gives it a single twirl over Boomhauer's head, and drops it square atop Bill's head.

The men are amazed! They decide that they have to videotape it for YouTube so that they can become internet stars. What follows is a long series of attempts to recreate the event, to no avail.

It's funny because we all know that the hat blowing off Khan's head and onto Bill's is just a fluke. It will never happen again. And that is exactly what "regression to the mean" means. It means, to coin a phrase, that "sh*t happens." But most of it never happens twice.

The "mean" is what we think of as "normal." And "regression" means "returning to." So the phrase literally means, returning to normal. Weird stuff happens, but then everything returns to normal.

This is part of life in a chaotic system, which our reality most certainly is. In fact, our reality is a lot "noisier" than we might think. There are flukes happening all around us, constantly, never to be reproduced. We don't notice many of them. Some are so astounding that we can't help but notice. And this is where we often get into trouble.

It is a huge mistake to confuse a fluke with a real phenomenon. Hats do not blow off one person's head and onto another's, except once in a million billion times. This is what we mean by "it's just coincidence," but it's easy to ascribe more meaning to "coincidence" than it really deserves.

Each of us can rattle off a list of bizarre coincidences. Just last month I woke up with a particularly odd phrase running through my mind ("You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here"). I shook it off, went downstairs, fixed my morning coffee, and turned on the TV to watch a rerun of last night's episode of The Daily Show. The first words out of Jon Stewart's mouth were "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

This doesn't mean that Jon Stewart has a line directly to my subconscious. Nor does it mean that we are paired together in some strange Fate. Or that it was confirmation of coded instructions being beamed into my mind. It was just a fluke. It will never happen again - which is to say, it will regress to the mean.

But it's easy to see how someone else might not dismiss the experience so quickly.

The lesson here being to remember that life is chaotic, and weird stuff happens. Sometimes it's a fluke, and sometimes it isn't, and it's important to understand the difference.

Photo credit: Flickr/elkit

Did Mary Magdalene Fall In Love With Judas (Baby)?

If you have watched the music video released today for Lady Gaga's hit "Judas," you - like me - may find yourself with some questions.

Did Mary Magdalene have a relationship with Judas? Did Judas ride a badass motorcycle? Did Jesus wear cornrows? What is a lipstick gun, and where can I buy one?

I can't answer the last one, except to state the obvious: it is a gun which produces lipstick. (Duh!)

In the video, Lady Gaga is clearly presenting herself in the role of Mary Magdalene. She dresses in red (the color associated with Mary M) and at the end of the officially leaked clip, she washes Jesus' feet (as did Mary M).

Mary Magdalene is considered the most important disciple of Jesus because she was the first person to see Jesus after he rose from the dead. She was one of his most devoted followers, being one of the few people to stick with him after he was crucified.

She is also an important figure to feminists, because there is ample historical proof that Mary Magdalene suffered from "slut shaming." She was not a prostitute, as is frequently asserted. Jesus is said to have cleansed her of "seven demons." Some biblical scholars took this to mean that she was full of the Seven Deadly Sins (and from there I guess it was an easy leap to "prostitute"). But contemporary scholars interpret it as seven illnesses. Certainly the use of "demons" implies at the very least that Mary Magdalene was not a willing sinner, but had sin thrust upon her.

Mary Magdalene's close relationship with Jesus has led to her lofty position within the Gnostic tradition. Mary Magdalene is believed to have understood Jesus' teachings in a way that his other followers did not - just as the Gnostic tradition itself does. (Or claims to.)

Some traditions even believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. This theory was espoused by the classic conspiracy text Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and later by The Da Vinci Code. Among other circumstantial evidence, these texts often cite Mary Magdalene's faithful attendance at Jesus' crucifixion and rebirth, which they believe is more indicative of the behavior of a grieving widow than a mere disciple.

Whether they were married, sleeping with each other, or just best friends, it is clear that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were very close. They were often found at each other's side, and Jesus frequently kissed her in public.

In this context, it is obvious that Mary Magdalene would not have been a fan of Judas. I was not able to find any traditions in which Mary Magdalene and Judas had a relationship apart from their mutual connection with Jesus. Although some scholars have held them up as polar opposites, to illustrate many of the key concepts of early Christianity.

It is only in Lady Gaga's prodigious imagination (fueled by thirteen years of Catholic school) that Mary Magdalene harbored a secret crush on Judas. (Although having watched the video, I can kind of understand the appeal. Who knew Judas was so hot?)

Osama Bin Laden Conspiracy Theories

Just as laika.yaz predicted, a whole host of conspiracies has sprung up around the announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death. It's a pity they are all of such poor quality compared to the conspiracies that grew up around other major events like 9/11, the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, and so forth.

Conspiracy Theory 1: Birther Distraction

Many people have noted the close timing between the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate and the timing of the assault on Bin Laden's compound. They feel that Bin Laden's death is just meant to distract us from the birth certificate question.

To quote Rachel Maddow on The Daily Show, "The idea that the birth certificate is the real story, and that Osama Bin Laden is the distraction from it, tells you everything you need to know about the people who are really invested in the birth certificate story."

The timing wasn't that close. There's clearly nothing that could distract the birthers anyway. And the birth certificate thing is only an issue to birthers, who clearly don't realize exactly how marginalized they are by society at large. The idea that Obama would do anything to distract the birthers - much less deploy a trump card as colossal as the capture and death of America's #1 enemy and one of the world's most wanted men - is ridiculous.

Eight years ago, a man named Steven Pieczenik claimed that Bin Laden was dead and on ice, and that the administration was hanging onto the body to use it as a trump card. For one thing, in order for this to work, you have to believe that Bush passed Bin Laden's dead body over to Obama after the last election instead of using it himself. (I find this… unlikely.) For another thing, you have to believe that the birther situation is worthy of using the ultimate trump card. Which it just plain isn't.

One interesting quirk of this particular conspiracy theory is that it performs the neat trick of bridging the vast chasm between left-wing conspiracists (who believed that Bush engineered 9/11) and right-wing conspiracists (who believe that Obama was born in Kenya). Bin Laden's body becomes the hockey puck being swapped between teams.

Conspiracy Theory 2: Where's the Body?

When I heard that Bin Laden's body had been dumped in the ocean, I groaned. "The conspiracy theorists are going to make hay out of that one," I thought.

But here's the thing: it doesn't really matter. You could ensconce Bin Laden's body (minus the top half of his face) in a climate controlled public viewing area like Lenin's body, and some people would claim it was a wax dummy. You could parade it across the country letting everyone give it a poke with a stick, and some people would claim it was just a dead body double.

There is a certain sub-set of people who are never going to believe something, despite all the facts. They are acting on faith, and it's as useless to try and shake that faith as it would be to argue someone out of being Catholic.

Photo credit: Flickr/TalkMediaNews

Here Come the Conspirators: Osama and Adolf Share a Deathday

May 1st a loaded date to die on

Because of course Obama can’t enjoy any kind of success as a leader without the nutjobs coming out of the woodwork to decry it, people are already writing up their theories about Bin Laden’s death. They dumped him in the ocean! There’s no body! Clearly the government faked the whole thing.

I mean, there are still folks who believe that 9-11 was done at the hands of the Bush administration, so it’s not like the madness is restricted to the right wing. But now that the “birther” issue has been resolved, a lot of people seem to be turning into “deathers” and denying that Bin Laden was ever found dead last night. Sorry, kids, but even if they kept the body, you probably weren’t going to see it face to face anyway. There's just no pleasing you.

But there are a few funky coincidences with the date of the news. On May 1st, 1945, Adolf Hitler was also declared dead by Germany. Apparently, folks in the US were suspicious of this newsflash as well. Not much changes in half a century; people love to be suspicious of the press. Still, the synching of the dates is weird stuff. Looks like springtime’s not so great for Hitler or his like-minded fellows. 

May 1st is also International Worker’s Day—a socialist holiday!—and more interestingly, the day on which the Illuminati was founded almost three hundred years ago in Ingolstadt, Bavaria. Coincidence? Yes, probably. But don’t take off your tinfoil hat just cause I’m telling you to.

Although you could mine pretty much any date for significance, and there have been plenty of coincidences like this throughout history (the Lincoln/Kennedy assassination comparison is a good one), I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of far-right folks up in arms about the whole thing. After all, if you don’t like the news, it’s easy to call “liar” on everyone reporting it. And it’s even more fun to construct your own theories on how you’d like the world to work.

Not by Fire, Nor by Ice, but by Fungus

Ants zombified by mushrooms - and not in the fun way

It seems the zombies that end our world will evolve not from bacteria or viruses, but from fungi. Four newly discovered species of fungus in the Brazillian rainforest reproduce by infecting ants and taking over their brains. They force their victims to travel to an ideal location for spreading spores, then kill them and grow out of their dead bodies. 

This is it. This is how it ends.

Scientists discovered these new species when they noticed fungus growing from the heads of apparently still-living ants. It was previously believed there was only one species of zombie fungus, but scientists later discovered that four different species reproduce similarly. Apparently, each species has adapted to better invade a particular species of ant. Other insects, like flies and crickets, can also be infected by the fungi. 

This is the kind of stuff that just baffles me about nature. Evolution is supposed to work on a trial-and-error basis, and yet you have strands of fungus "learning" how an ant's nervous system works well enough to take full control of it. I could understand it if the bugs just died upon infection, but instead they are being steered by an organism in a completely different kingdom. How on earth does that happen? 

I suppose vastly different organisms have evolved side-by-side before. After all, we've got pounds of bacteria hanging out inside of our bodies. But they've evolved to help us out, and they take up residence in our bowels, which are much simpler than brains. The digestive system is the unifying biological component of animal life, so it makes sense that something like bacteria would figure it out eventually. There's something so oddly specific about zombie fungus, something so unlikely. It's unsettling. 

Luckily, human brains are a shade more complicated than those of insects. And just because something is newly discovered doesn't mean it's a new phenomenon. Insects and fungus have been around for quite a while. They've had plenty of time to get to know each other very intimately. I just find it troubling that nature when nature comes up with sick stuff like this. Also troubling is the speculation that there may be thousands of species of zombie fungus all over the planet--and the excitement to study them all that scientists have expressed.  "We need to ramp up sampling—especially given the perilous state of the environment," said entomologist David Hughes, who is leading the study on the fungi. All I can say is if the rainforest is destroyed by the corporate world, the zombie ants won't be the first thing I'll miss. 

(via National Geographic)

Tiny Personal Aircraft

 

People have dreamed about flying for thousands of years. There is the Greek Legend where Daedalus, the genius inventor of Crete, created wings of feathers and wax so he and his son, Icarus, could fly like birds. According to the legend, Icarus flew too near the sun, melted the wax on his wings, and plunged to his death.

There havebeen repeated attempts to design some sort of flying system that would let individual humans enjoy the freedom of the skies. Balloons, wings, gliders, jet packs, wing suits, etc. I just visited a website for an amazing personal airplane called the Flynano.

These planes are amazing. They only weigh around 150 pounds because they are built from light strong carbon fiber composites. There are three models, one with an electric motor and the other two with internal combustion engines. They can carry around 400 pounds with a range of about 20 miles and a top speed of about 70 miles an hour. They need to take off and land on water. (That would NOT be a problem around here!) The cost of these planes is in the neighborhood of $30,000. Considering the weight and size of these planes, they will probably fall in the same category as ultra-lights and will not require a regular pilots license.

These things just look like they would be fun! Maybe people could use them for commuting across all the lakes, rivers and bays around Seattle. I can’t wait to actually see someone flying one of these things.

Thumbs Up: Destination Truth

In honor of the super-exciting season finale tonight (Ghosts of Antarctica!) I wanted to give props to one of my favorite shows, Destination Truth. If you are unfamiliar with the show, it is basically a combination of an armchair travel show and a ghost hunting/cryptozoology show. I describe it as "Ghost Hunters meets Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations."

What distinguishes this show from so many other offerings on television is the roles it allows for women. Each investigation is led by the show's host, Josh Gates, along with five or six other investigators - which always includes either one or two women.

Better still, these are strong, capable women - and the show, miraculously enough, lets them be strong, capable women. Anywhere else, they would be relegated to the role of "cheesecake," chosen for the show based on their looks, forced to wear revealing clothing, and encouraged to giggle demurely.

(Just consider this: out of all the female investigators who have worked on the show, not one of them has breast implants. Do you realize how amazing that is? A television show which gives a prominent role to women who have normal breasts?)

But the awesome doesn't stop there. These are strong, athletic women with major skillz.

Two women have served as the show's Tech Specialist (Vanessa Joy Smith and Sharra Jenkins). The Tech Specialist is responsible for setting up, configuring, and maintaining the show's vast array of electronic devices, from remote-control trap cameras to parabolic microphones. The Tech Specialist is the Head Nerd, and it makes my heart sing to see a television show hire women for this role. (And they aren't acting - this is a reality show. These are real people, with real skills.)

For the fourth season, Destination Truth picked up a female Audio Engineer (Allie Boettger). This is remarkable not just because it's another example of a woman being hired for a technical position. But also because it happens to be a very physically demanding technical position. The Audio Engineer has to walk around with a giant pack of recording equipment that must weigh 50 pounds, and they have to do it through challenging terrain.

Finally, the second-in-command position has traditionally been female. Starting with Jael De Pardo, to Erin Ryder, who now alternates with Ali Zubic. All three of these women are beautiful (if not traditionally so), smart, athletic, brave, and adventurous. In a lesser show, the female Field Investigators would be relegated to the role of eye candy or romantic interest, but these women are out there hunting ghosts and running after monsters in the dark, just like the boys.

Women are all too often portrayed in passive roles, with passive terms. Just look at the difference between the language in ads for toys aimed at boys versus those aimed at girls. From an early age we are taught that boys are active doers, and girls are passive watchers.

This is decidedly not the case on Destination Truth, where the women are in every way equal to the men.

Toxoplasmosis: The Disease That Makes You Like Cats

What can cause schizophrenia, depression, and skin lesions, and makes you like cats? Believe it or not, a parasite carried by cats can actually turn you into a cat person!

You may be familiar with toxoplasmosis as the reason why pregnant women and HIV-positive people ar exempted from litter box scooping duty.

Toxoplasmosis is also why most cities have banned flushable clumping cat litter, because it is a serious danger to marine mammals like seals and otters. Toxoplasmosis is caused by a protozoan named Toxoplasma gondii, a microscopic parasite which has wide-ranging effects on its host body.

The symptoms of a toxoplasmosis infection are, for most of us, extremely subtle. The acute phase typically presents like a low-grade cold or flu (including fatigue and swollen glands) which lasts about a month. After that, the infection goes into the latent phase, when no normal symptoms are observed.

Up to a third of all people in the world carry the T. gondii parasite. You can get it from contact with infected raw meat, or with infected cat feces. Cats themselves usually pick it up either from their mothers, or by eating infected meat.

The list of other effects of toxoplasmosis is a long and strange list indeed. It includes:

1. Male births.

There is a strong correlation between toxoplasmosis and the probability of having a male baby. This effect is significant: mothers with toxoplasmosis give birth to 260 boys for every 100 girls. Why T. gondii should prefer boys is a complete mystery.

2. Cat love.

Mice and rats which are infected with toxoplasmosis not only lose their fear of cats - they are driven to seek out the smell of cat urine. The benefit to the parasite is obvious: if you have to move from a mouse into a cat as a new host, what better way to accomplish the move than by making the mouse a cat-lover?

But weirdly, this effect has also been observed in people. In one long-range study, people who disliked or were neutral on the topic of cats were surveyed years later. Those who had been infected with toxoplasmosis in the intervening years showed a marked increase in their love for cats, compared to those who didn't have toxoplasmosis.

3. Mental changes.

People infected with toxoplasmosis show a decrease in "novelty seeking behavior," and slower reaction times.

Even weirder? The changes are different for men versus women. Men become more jealous, and pay less heed to rules. Whereas women become more moral, conscientious, and maternal.

It makes sense that a cat would want to infect women with something that makes them more maternal (and therefore more likely to pamper a cat in the manner to which it has become accustomed). But why would cats want men to be more jealous?

4. Car accidents.

People infected with toxoplasmosis are 2.5 times more likely to have a car accident, compared to uninfected people. Could the risky behavior account for this? Perhaps as a side effect of the mechanism that makes mice less wary of cats, people become more likely to run red lights and not wear a seatbelt. It could also be due to the decreased reaction time observed in people with toxoplasmosis.

Photo credit: Flickr/buildscharacter

Mandelbrot Set

 The Mandelbrot Set is a set of complex numbers generated by a simple equation. It is named after Benoit Mandelbrot who specialized in the study of fractals. While the Set is just a bunch of numbers, the visualization of it can be incredibly beautiful. Here is a video of a voyage into the Mandelbrot Set.

 

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