Slashdot Mirror
snopes.com's David Mikkelson Interviewed
pipingguy writes "Online Journalism Review interviews David Mikkelson of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. While the Internet has taken its share of knocks for helping scammers perpetrate e-mail and Web hoaxes (the Bambi hunt reportedly was staged to sell videos on the proprietor's Web site), not enough credit is given to the folks who are using the Internet to debunk them. Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."
There's a matter of trust I'm wary about, when it comes to sites like snopes.com. How easy would it be for them to be 'infiltrated' somehow by a hack attempt or by bribery and the like, and pass off something that is a hoax or scam as being 'real'. or perhaps pass off something that's a real and present danger as being just another net hoax?.
I know about half the mindless net followers will believe everything they read in email. Most of those who follow up to check if something is valid or not turn to snopes. That's a big responsibility.
from the interview:
MG: "What about the role of the Internet in hoaxes?"
DM: "I think in general, nothing's changed but the technology. There's a lot on the Internet that you can't trust. But frankly, there's a lot on your bookshelf and the library shelves that you can't trust either. There are books on UFOs and alien encounters that require some examination. There's never been a medium that you could inherently trust. You still have to look at who's telling you this and why are they telling you this. Is there anything else they should be telling you? That concept hasn't changed. The Internet has made it easier to debunk hoaxes while at the same time making it easier to perpetrate them. Nothing's really changed but the technology."
The only other thing he could have mentioned is that people trust TV news and newspapers way too much also. 'nuff said.
Suicide Booth: You are now dead! Thank you for using Stop and Drop, America's favorite since 2008.
Very true. I've seen half a dozen casses where Snopes makes an assumtion that someone with real expertise about the given subject could tell you is just plain wrong.
I've also seen a few too many cases where they take the most far fetched claims of a story and after disproving those claims state that the whole thing is false. Even most true stories get mangled somewhat after only a few retellings.
That said, they are doing a good job at a herculean task. They just need to talk to the experts in the given field more often.
"Online Journalism Review", links to that periodical's site, which is logical enough -- but why would "David Mikkelson" link to anything but a page about Mr. Mikkelson? "Interview" should be the link to the interview.
Am I a crank? Or do I make sense? (Or both?)
I would hate to interrupt this self-congratulatory pat on the back, but "Hunting for Bambi" wasn't much of a hoax. A publicity stunt, yes. An hoax, not really. Assuming you have the money and assuming you have the desire, shooting paintballs at naked girls isn't something an *unlicensed* escort service would shy away from. Afterall, fullfilling sexual and/or sadistic fantasies is their business.
If we call "Hunting for Bambi" a hoax, we might as well call the Nike publicity stunts hoaxes as well. For example, the incident where they blocked traffic by setting up an impromptu tennis court. The news may be shocking to you, but that was staged -- even the outburst of the bus driver was carefully choreographed.
I give up. There's no reaching stupid people.
The problem is that according to my wife, a podiatric (foot) surgeon, the recovery period following a phalangectomy (ampution of a toe (or finger)) is almost nil. The big toe, let alone a vestigial "pinky toe", is not crucial for balance or stability.
While this may be true, one would think that the actual act of having an operation would cause that foot to be a bit tender/sore for a while, which would cause someone to walk awkwardly. After such a surgery, I would be very surprised that she could walk "normally" without a bit of gimpiness just from pain of having the operation. Of course, if you believe those who say that she was a drug addict, then it could be that she just never felt the pain anyway.
Athiests are on the sturdiest ground. They say there's no verifiable evidence for the existance of god. Without such evidence, they take the reasonable action of not believing in a god.
You think it's unreasonable to dismiss a view like this, but really it's the only thing to do. What if I tell you that the world doesn't actually exist anywhere you're not looking or sensing? Do you take my word for it? What if I offer poorly documented third-party claims, and first-person claims from people who "just know" it's true, but are unwilling to try to prove it?
The only reasonable action to take is to act as if a claim like this isn't true unless you can get proof. This is how athiests view the claim of the existance of god.
Athiests are on the sturdiest ground. They say there's no verifiable evidence for the existance of god. Without such evidence, they take the reasonable action of not believing in a god.
See, this is where we disagree. While there is no verifiable scientific evidence of any sort of divinity, there is naturally no verifiable scientific evidence of a lack of any sort of divinity.
To reduce this to the ever popular "invisible pink unicorn" debate, I can't prove there are invisible pink unicorns. I also can't prove there aren't. Therefore, it is most reasonable to be unsure of their existance. I feel it'd be silly to actively disbelieve something exists solely because there is no evidence it exists, for the same reason I feel it'd be silly to actively believe something exists solely because there is no evidence it doesn't exist.
You think it's unreasonable to dismiss a view like this, but really it's the only thing to do. What if I tell you that the world doesn't actually exist anywhere you're not looking or sensing? Do you take my word for it? What if I offer poorly documented third-party claims, and first-person claims from people who "just know" it's true, but are unwilling to try to prove it?
I don't believe you. However, if whatever revelation happened to those people suddenly happened to me, I'd believe it too. I wouldn't expect you to believe it unless you'd seen or felt the same things I had seen or felt. Personally, faith is a bit of a misnomer for me - I know what I've felt. Sure, I'd be willing to prove it to you, but I'm not entirely sure it's possible.
The only reasonable action to take is to act as if a claim like this isn't true unless you can get proof.
I agree. However, Atheists make a counterclaim - "There is no form of divinity whatsoever." This claim should be treated as untrue unless you can get proof.
Some claim that they merely disbelieve in God, and are not claiming that God does not exist. I'm not entirely sure how you can "not believe" in something without recognizing a possibility that it exists. This link has an interesting view about it. Don't worry - it's short, and has absolutely nothing to do with 'survival science'.
As for Randi himself, what bothers me is that he merely examines one religion to prove to himself that no divinity exists. While I also rejected Christianity for offending my sense of logic, I went from being an Agnostic to embracing a religion which is accused of being nutty by a lot of people, including Christians. My point is that his arguments against faith are just as flawed as Pascal's arguments for faith, in that they both consider solely Christianity.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
You are either wrong or under a misapprehension as to the nature of science.
if by "exists" you mean "has effects on the physical world" then you're wrong: if something has effects then you can test it. If by "exists" you mean something else, then you're making a metaphysical claim which science isn't competent to test. Randi doesn't look at purely metaphysical claims (and nor could he).
if by an effect being "random" you mean "only happens sometimes, but more often than you'd expect if there was no effect" then this is a physical claim which is statistically testable (i.e. try to guess the flip of a coin 100 times - you don't need to get it right all the time for me to admit you're psychic).
If by "random" you mean "happens no more often that it would if there were no effect" then again you're making a metaphysical claim which is untestable.
Atheists make a counterclaim - "There is no form of divinity whatsoever."
This is the misunderstanding. Athiests don't make the claim because to make a claim requires something with which to prove the claim. Athiests, at least those like me, simply say that because of the total lack of evidence for the existance of a god, there's no reason to believe in one. Of course, they're going to phrase this in the same way as they would for a IPU (the unicorn), "there is no god", because belief in anything else is provisional on actual evidence which nobody in the history of mankind has yet provided, so it's pretty safe to assume it'll be a while in coming.
As someone else said: Have you ever taken an action based on the fact there might be "invisible pink unicorns" and it can't hurt just in case?
It's one thing to keep an open mind. If and when I see something I think is a miracle (not merely something I can't explain, but something that seems like it must be a miracle) then I may re-examine this. It's another thing to provisionally believe everything, just in case. That's like leaving cookies out for Santa every year, and feeling for the unicorn horn in front of you before you go anywhere, to avoid being stabbed as you walk.
No, he doesn't examine them. He does not, however, have any qualms about out-and-out insulting those who make purely metaphysical claims.
Because such claims are unfalsifiable. The exact meaning of that is a bit philosophical in nature, but basically it boils down to this: If there is no possible way to prove something false, then it cannot be proven true, either.
If there is no possible way to test the "metaphysical claims" some people make, then there is no way to prove them false... or true. Therefore, since they cannot be proven, the claims are worthless. And the people who make worthless claims....
And perhaps I misused the word random - I meant that the persons involved have absolutely no control over them, and there is no seeming pattern to their occurance
Like what? A dowser who can only find water at certain 'random' times? Sound suspiciously like guessing to me.
Guess wrong- "Oh, well, must not be the right time".
Guess right- "see, I told you I could find water."
If a dowser could, over the long run produce better-then-randon-guessing results, then they just need to make Randi's challenge rules reflect that.
But there are ways of predicting the next pseudorandom number. People have tried to cheat casinos who used a computer to select "random" keno numbers, for instance.