Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Wasabi the J posted:

Yeah Koko is a better case study on a lot of biases in human reasoning, more than a demonstration of cross-species communication.

Koko did nothing wrong. She's a gorilla -- her handlers were charlatans though and somehow convinced A LOT of academics somehow ignore the glaringly obvious bullshit tactics used.

I mean I was a kid, I was convinced it was real science. Looking back through even a brief history would reveal all the cracks, like the fact that NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND KOKO BUT HER HANDLERS.

Same situation with Washoe the chimp's learning sign language. There's definitely some weirdness with the academics into this line of study. I think it was on the application for either a dolphin or chimpanzee language study where applicants were asked about their sexual attitudes and being nude at work.

AngryRobotsInc posted:

Facilitated communication has infested parts of the autism communities. Like, I get it. Severe autism is a bitch, and it seems like the magic method to achieve communication with their kids. But it's pretty much proven bullshit, and relies on believing autism is solely a motor control and emotional disorder, when it's widely accepted as a neurological condition often comorbid with intellectual disabilities.

I was about to post about this. It's purely preying on the desperation of families when they have a loved one incapable of communication. Frontline did an episode about it which completely debunked it but there's still true believers who cling to it. The big case was this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/magazine/the-strange-case-of-anna-stubblefield.html.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



OutOfPrint posted:


A driving force behind a lot of the hardcore skeptics and debunkers is that they really want this stuff to be real. Back in the Bullshit! days, Penn Jillette did a bit where he ranted about how much he wished aliens and magic were genuinely real, but what pissed him off were the charlatans and hucksters trying to make a quick buck off of other peoples' belief. It's one of the few truly good takes he's ever had.

That's kinda how I feel. Ever since I was a kid, I'd read/watch anything on UFOs, ghosts, cryptids, folklore, you name it. It's annoying to come across something that's obviously been faked or is nothing and is getting played up as proof, like the insistence photographed orbs are anything other than dust/asbestos particles, or the Warrens bullshit.

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Croatoan posted:

I like this take. I mean really, it was because of the internet. Now we can google weird poo poo and find out it's fake. Back then we couldn't so it seemed cooler. Also Art Bell was great when you were high and/or playing Ultima Online.

I'd say the Internet was a major factor in true believers finding others to talk to and start heavy theorycrafting. Before the Internet it was limited to what small press magazines mailing lists and whatever gatherings they could pull together.

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Captain Hygiene posted:

Seconded on this one in particular :tinfoil:

Count me for wanting to see the Area 51 stuff too.

Since I moved out to New Mexico from Chicago, I can definitely understand why people can believe they've seen weird poo poo in the skies and the like. Nothing's really built as high as some other cities like New York or Chicago so you definitely see much more of the sky, especially with the streetlights not being the high bright ones. Aircraft lights do look different high up without the usual environmental interference you see elsewhere. I've seen plenty of weird lights which are usually night training from the nearby airforce base. Sound also travels differently with not so much to bounce off of. For the longest time at my apartment complex, we'd hear this weird machine sound at odd hours when we'd have the windows open, turned out it was the boilers which are in an attached building just off the parking lot so the sound carried with not much interference.

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Groke posted:

Africa is diverse as hell in just about every way, so I have absolutely no problem believing that there could be multiple independent centers of ancient civilization.

Possibly the nature of geography might mean that such cultures were less interconnected with each other than the fertile crescent civilizations, thus operating on a smaller scale, being more vulnerable to collapse for whatever reason and more likely to be lost and forgotten.

I wish I could remember what the empire's name was, but one of my history professors had mentioned that there was one in Africa that was able to intimidate the Roman Empire enough to keep its interests about as far as Egypt rather than extending deeper into Africa. One of my archaeology professors said finding proof of African civilizations beyond the main known ones was difficult due to the perishability of what materials they had along with what erasure the Afrikaaners have been doing for generations.

To touch on the Chariots of the Gods stuff from earlier, even when I read that stuff back in the day it was just so ridiculous. I loved when my various history, anthropology, archaeology professors would go on a debunking lecture since that'd be when you'd hear the real stuff which was more fascinating than ancient aliens such as Native Americans did have the rudiments of hot air balloon technology which was enough to aid in designing their monuments and didn't see much of an application past that or Greeks and Romans had steam technology but only saw it as something for entertainment/toys.

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Snowglobe of Doom posted:

There's actual real world examples of "shrinkwrapped" versions of modern animals being confused for weird monsters, like the infamous Montauk Monster:


My archaeology professors said people seeing the bones of a bear paw could've been a contributing factor to the stories of giants because they're similar enough to human handbones. I also remember that picture that was going around a few years ago of what turned out to be a bear with severe mange but had people wondering if it was a cryptid.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



nonathlon posted:

There's a great essay out there called "why I am no longer a sceptic" which calls out a lot of this behaviour and how self-described sceptics so often carry water for racism and misogyny.

Is that the one by Stephen Bond?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply