“My goal today is to be better than yesterday so wait until you see what I do "tomorrow."” - Alien Ness

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The Reality Check Episode 12

Persinger's God Helmet and Halloween Dangers


Part 1:
"The God Helmet"
Dr. Persinger claims that he has created a device call "The God Helmet". It applies low level magnetic fields and the person with the helmet on will feel a strange presence of something around you. Dr. Persinger says that this kind of thing happens a lot, that's why in some poorly wired old houses, people thought they sensed ghosts in there. Problem is that no one can replicate the helmet. No one really knows if they are really sending the magnetic fields or not. Might be just the power of suggestion from the doctor. Some people who went to try to experience this religious feeling don't feel it at all. Dr. Persinger said that some people just don't fit the to feel and experience it. 
A lot of the times scientists can't let go of the theory they come up with, if it slowly unravels that it doesn't work, it's really hard for them to accept that. We have to be skeptical with our beliefs, we should not stick to it too much. 
Dr. Persinger came up with this idea because one of his friends experienced ghosts in her bedroom and someone sitting on her shoulder at night. Persinger said that he found out her radio was emitting some of these magnetic waves and once they got rid of the radio, all the things went disappeared. 
The skeptics think that we can't say it's true because no one else can set up this experiment and test it. Some people can feel it and some people cant. Sometimes the person hasn't had the helmet long enough. Lastly, the friend also had some brain damage when she was younger, and only she felt it and no other records are heard of. 

Part 2:
Are the halloween candy safe?
Stories have been heard that there are razor blades and some other dangerous objects in candies and apples. Truth is...there are! But we shouldn't worry too much, because the incident rate is very very low. There's this professor of sociology and criminal justice named Joe "something", he has been investigating these cases for about 3 decades. He has found most of hoaxes, but there are a few death cases because of other reasons, not the candy itself. 
Only around 30 cases in the past 4 decades, and most of them aren't true. 

Logical Fallacy of the Week: Appeal to Fear
It's someone calming something is scary and bad, and then saying the opposite or alternative is true. It's just one way to connivence someone to believe something even though it might have nothing to do with the other thing. 

Science Myth of the Week: Does a full moon caused weird behavior?
The Lunar Effect. There are no reliable evidence that this is true. When people believe it, it does come true for them. 

No comments:

Post a Comment