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Post #1 All About Pseudoscience - Assignment 1  

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Post #1 All About Pseudoscience - Assignment 1  

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Made by Jillian Powers, working individually.

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Post #2 Red Flag - Appeal to Authority (image)

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Post #2 Red Flag - Appeal to Authority (image)

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Definition:
The red flag Appeal to Authority entails celebrity endorsement. Celebrities are paid to advertise for things they dont' actually use or believe in.

Connection:
The photo below demonstrates the Appeal to Authority complex by using the celebrities status to promote a supplement that makes healthy hair through a gummy bear. Kylie Jenner influences her fans by promoting sugar as a healthy vitamin supplement with no scientific proof that it makes your hair grow any faster or thicker.

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Post # 3 Red Flag - Ancient Wisdom (video)

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Post # 3 Red Flag - Ancient Wisdom (video)

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Definition:
The red flag Ancient Wisdom connects with ancient beings, knowledge and practices to better one self or some thing.

Connection:
The video below demonstrates Ancient Wisdom the act of a leech face lift. It is considered an ancient medical treatment used to brighten and tighten loose skin. Leeches have been used for centuries to cure migraines, ailments and infertility.

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The Leech Face-Lift: Hollywood’s Creepy Cosmetic Craze

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Get up-close and personal with the bloody beauty treatment that's sucking in America's biggest stars.

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Post #4 Red Flag - Suppression by Authorities (video)

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Post #4 Red Flag - Suppression by Authorities (video)

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Defintion:
The red flag Suppression by Authorities claims the government, politics, large companies, etc withhold information for their own personal gain.

Connection:
The video below is about how the government of Cameroon is threatening its journalists to conform to pro-government narratives or to face prosecution. This is an example of Suppression by Authorities because the government is threatening the journalists and the news outlets for their own personal gain.

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Cameroon's Journalists Face Suppression by Authorities

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Post #5 Red Flag - Ideological Support (article)

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Post #5 Red Flag - Ideological Support (article)

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Definition:
The red flag Ideological Support is strongly based around religious views and beliefs. It often can involve politics, ideas and personal opinions.

Connection:
The website below is about how Ideology impacts donor support. Donors that hold a conservative ideology are more traditional in giving while donors with a liberal ideology are much more diverse with the causes they support.

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According to the 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report, a donor's ideology has more impact upon which causes and types of nonprofits they support than gender or age. Donors with a conservative ideology are more traditional in their giving while donors with a liberal ideology are more diverse in the types of causes they support. Giving to children and youth, however, is a cause that unites all donors regardless of ideology.

Based upon the survey results of 2,485 self-identified liberal donors, 985 moderate donors, and 542 conservative donors - when asked the question: "To which cause do you donate money to the most often? Please select one or two causes:" - the 4,012 donors responded as listed below.

Donors with a liberal ideology support:

Donors with a moderate ideology support:

Donors with a conservative ideology support:

Based upon the survey results of 4,084 donors worldwide, the 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report explores the impact of gender, generation, and ideology upon giving and volunteerism.

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How Ideology Impacts Which Causes Donors Support

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According to the 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report, a donor's ideology has more impact upon which causes and types of nonprofits they support than gender or age. Donors with a conservative ideology are more traditional in their giving while donors with a liberal ideology are more diverse in the types of causes they support.

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Post #6 Red Flag - Confirmation Bias (article)

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Post #6 Red Flag - Confirmation Bias (article)

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Definition:
The red flag Confirmation Bias is a term used for people who only resort to confirming evidence for their benefit. They choose to ignore all of the true and sustainable evidence.

Connection:
The article below talks about how psychics often use Confirmation Bias to defraud clients. During the reading the psychic will make a large number of ambiguous statements which gives the clients more opportunities to find a match to their own experience or personality. The clients will selectively and yet unconsciously remember those statements made by the psychic that apply to their lives and simply ignore those that don’t apply.

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There are many times when one wishes for the ability to look beyond the here and now, whether into the future or delve into the distant past. Since this is an unlikely feat for most humans, psychics who claim to be able to do this are in great demand. And more often not the fraudulent ones among them use a series of devices of psychological manipulation to impress clients. One such method employed by psychics is confirmation bias and here is how they use it to defraud clients.

What is confirmation bias in the first place?

On January 5, 1860 Henry David Thoreau wrote in his Journals, "Man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically, or intellectually or morally... We hear and apprehend only what we already half know". The tendency to accept evidence that confirms our beliefs and to reject evidence that contradicts them is known as confirmation bias. This phenomenon is a consequence of the way perception works. Beliefs entrenched in human beings shape their expectations, which in turn shape perceptions. These perceptions for their part influence conclusions. Thus people see what they expect to see and conclude what they expect to conclude.

In modern times of logical reasoning and rational thinking, it may seem incredible that human beings are susceptible to confirmation bias. But the potent effect of expectations on perception was demonstrated in an experiment recounted in a book Evidence-Based Technical Analysis written by David R. Aronson ¹. According to the experiment, when subjects were given a drink that they thought contained alcohol, but in fact did not, they experienced reduced social anxiety. However, other subjects who were told they were being given nonalcoholic beverages when they were, in fact, alcoholic did not experience reduced anxiety in social situations.

Evidence of large-scale confirmation bias is quite frequent in popular culture. The common notion that Women are bad drivers or that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because are all examples of confirmation bias. In these cases, people see and recall only evidence that supports your beliefs, thus they can recount examples of women driving 40mph in the fast lane but ignore those women drivers who are sticking to the appropriate speed limit. In the second instance, American invasion of Iraq is justified by the latter supposedly stocking up WMD though no such evidence is forthcoming even after seven years of U.S. forces crawling all over Iraq. Instances of confirmation bias thus exist in all parts of society and the phenomenon colors all aspects of human life, public, personal and social.

How do psychics use confirmation bias?

Psychics are one of the groups to have taken the human tendency for confirmation bias and make it part of their professional arsenal. Before a reading, the psychic already knows that driven by this bias, his/her subjects will fit the psychic's statements to their own lives. Thus during the reading the psychic proceeds to make a large number of ambiguous statements with the help of which he/she gives the clients more opportunities to find a match to their own experience or personality. In other words the clients will selectively though unconsciously remember those statements made by the psychic that apply to their lives rather than those which don't apply. In an experiment Canadian-American magician and skeptic James Randi set out to prove this working of confirmation bias during psychic readings - he thus compared the transcript of a reading to the client's report of what the psychic had said, and found that the client showed a strong selective recall of the "hits" rather than the misses. For instance during a reading a psychic who claims to know about the client's deceased relative will give very general descriptions about the relative and their relationship with the client. He/she may say something like "why do I sense this distance" and the client may willingly respond by admitting that her father was the kind of man who didn't like to show love for the family. The client thus not only mistakenly believes that the psychic actually has "psychic" powers but has in fact volunteered valuable information to the psychic who will later use this very piece of family history to come up with other 'revelations'. Thus Confirmation bias is one reason why a so-called psychic may only average one accurate hit for every fourteen guesses, yet will be described as "totally accurate" by the client after the reading: it is due to the fact that people place a lot more importance on confirmatory evidence than on contradictory evidence. In this sense confirmation bias is one of the many cold reading techniques used by psychics to glean information about their clients, rephrase this information and feed it back to them as a proof of the authenticity of their psychic abilities.

Psychics also know that people interpret information about themselves in two main ways - first is self-verification and the second is self-enhancement. The former is the drive to reinforce the existing self-image while the latter is the drive to seek positive feedback but in the end both are served by confirmation biases. Thus experiments have found that where people are given feedback that conflicts with their self-image, they are less likely to believe it or remember it than when given self-verifying feedback. One way to lessen the impact of such information is to label it as unreliable. Likewise researchers studying processes of self-enhancement have found a similar preference for positive feedback, and the people who give it, over negative feedback. Psychics are well aware of such workings of confirmation bias which is why they are careful to tell their clients mostly what the latter wish to hear. During a reading, a psychic may throw in a few cautionary sentences or warnings to stay away from such and such people but on the whole they will make sure to pander to the client's real desires and expectations as then he/she will make a more positive impression on the client.

Reference:

1. David R. Aronson, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis, Wiley, 2007

2. Randi, James (1991), James Randi: psychic investigator, Boxtree

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How Fraudulent Psychics Use 'Confirmation Bias' to Defraud Clients

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There are many times when one wishes for the ability to look beyond the here and now, whether into the future or delve into the distant past. Since this is an unlikely feat for most humans, psychics who claim to be able to do this are in great demand.

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Post #7 Reason for Belief - Patternicity (image)

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Post #7 Reason for Belief - Patternicity (image)

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Definition:
The reason for belief Patternicity involves seeing patterns, images, shapes with no meaning and unconciously turning them into a meaning.

Connection:
The image below describes the Patternicity between a triangle and the illuminati symbol. Humans often distort triangles for the illuminati pyramid eye symbol as the person being heavily involved with a secret government cult.

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Post #8 Reason for Belief - Agenicity (image)

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Post #8 Reason for Belief - Agenicity (image)

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Definition:
The reason for belief Agenicity is when people add meaning to invisible targets. This can be explained as aliens, martians, ghosts.

Connection:
The image below is of a crop circle in a farmers field. These are thought to be a way of extraterrestrial life or Agents making communication with earth. The often involve geometrical shapes and patterns that mystically appear in crop fields.

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Post #9 Reason for Belief - Unexplained (article)

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Post #9 Reason for Belief - Unexplained (article)

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Definition:
The Unexplained relates to the unknown. There is no understanding or evidence so in that matter it is Unexplained.

Connection:
The article below is about Area 51. Area 51 is a top secret military base located in the middle of the Nevada desert. Area 51 is known as being Unexplained because no one knows what goes on there apart from it having very high security. There have been talks about aliens, scientists and nuclear bombs but it is still Unexplained.

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For decades, Nevada's Area 51 Air Force facility has represented the eye of a conspiratorial hurricane that swirls around "evidence" that aliens (and their technology) exist and are hiding behind its walls. Books, TV shows, and even massive online "raids" have tried to glimpse beyond its stark signs warning against trespassers. While aliens aren't taking up residence in the compound, what is going on there is just as interesting.
In the middle of the barren Nevada desert, there's a dusty unmarked road that leads to the front gate of Area 51. It's protected by little more than a chain link fence, a and intimidating trespassing signs. One would think that America's much mythicized top secret military base would be under closer guard, but make no mistake. They are watching.

Beyond the gate, cameras see every angle. On the distant hilltop, there's a white pickup truck with a tinted windshield peering down on everything below. Locals says the base knows every desert tortoise and jackrabbit that hops the fence. Others claim there are embedded sensors in the approaching road.

What exactly goes on inside of Area 51 has led to decades of wild speculation. There are, of course, the alien conspiracies that galactic visitors are tucked away somewhere inside. One of the more colorful rumors insists the infamous 1947 Roswell crash was actually a Soviet aircraft piloted by mutated midgets and the wreckage remains on the grounds of Area 51. Some even believe that the U.S. government filmed the 1969 moon landing in one of the base's hangars.

For all the myths and legends, what's true is that Area 51 is real and still very active. There may not be aliens or a moon landing movie set inside those fences, but something is going on and only a select few are privy to what's happening further down that closely-monitored wind-swept Nevada road. "The forbidden aspect of Area 51 is what makes people want to know what's there," says aerospace historian and author Peter Merlin who's been researching Area 51 for more than three decades.

"And there sure is still a lot going on there."

The Origins of a Mystery

The beginning of Area 51 is directly related to the development of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. After World War II, the Soviet Union lowered the Iron Curtain around themselves and the rest of the Eastern bloc, creating a near intelligence blackout to the rest of the world. When the Soviets backed North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950, it became increasingly clear that the Kremlin would aggressively expand its influence. America worried about the USSR's technology, intentions, and ability to launch a surprise attack-only a decade removed from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the early 1950s, U.S. Navy and Air Force sent low-flying aircraft on reconnaissance missions over the USSR, but they were at constant risk of being shot down. In November 1954, President Eisenhower approved the secret development of a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft called the U-2 program. One of the first orders of business was to track down a remote, covert location for training and testing. They found it in the southern Nevada desert near a salt flat known as Groom Lake, which had once been a World War II aerial gunnery range for Army Air Corps pilots.

Known by its map designation as Area 51, this middle-of-nowhere site became a new top-secret military base. To convince workers to come, Kelly Johnson, one of the leading engineers of the U-2 project, gave it a more enticing name: Paradise Ranch.

Making a Myth

U-2 testing began in July 1955, and immediately reports came flooding in about unidentified flying object sightings. If you read the details in a 1992 CIA report that was declassified with redactions in 1998 (and subsequently released nearly in full in 2013), it's easy to see why.

Many of these sightings were observed by commercial airline pilots who had never seen an aircraft fly at such high altitudes as the U-2. Whereas today's airliners can soar as high as , in the mid-1950s airlines flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet. Known military aircraft could get to 40,000 feet, and some believed manned flight couldn't go any higher than that. The U-2, flying at altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet, would've looked completely alien.

Naturally, Air Force officials knew the majority of these unexplained sightings were U-2 tests, but they were not allowed to reveal these details to the public. So, "natural phenomena" or "high-altitude weather research" became go-to explanations for UFO sightings, including in 1960 when Gary Powers' U-2 was shot down over Russia.

What's also interesting about the most recent 2013 report is that it confirms Area 51's existence. While the 1998 version does have significant redactions when referencing the name and location of the U-2 test site, the nearly un-redacted version from 2013 reveals much more, including multiple references to Area 51, Groom Lake, and even a map of the area.

"This Is Earth Technology"

U-2 operations halted in the late 1950s, but other top secret military aircrafts continued tests at Area 51. Over the years, the and numerous stealth aircrafts like Bird of Prey, F-117A, and TACIT BLUE have all been developed and tested in the Nevada desert. More declassified documents reveal Area 51's role in "Project Have Doughnut," a 1970s attempt to study covertly obtained Soviet MiGs.

"This is Earth technology. You got folks claiming it's extraterrestrial when it's really good old American know-how."

"They flew them [over Area 51]..and pitted our own fighters against them to develop tactics," says Merlin, "They learned that you can't out-turn it, but you can outrun it. And it's still going on today.... Now, instead of seeing MiG-17s and 21s, there's MiG-29s and SU-27 s."

The flights are ongoing. In September 2017, an Air Force Lt. Col. was killed under mysterious circumstances when his plane crashed in Nevada and the Pentagon would not immediately ID the aircraft. It seems he was most likely flying a foreign jet obtained by the United States.

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Even so, the alien conspiracies gained ground in 1989 when claimed in an interview on Las Vegas local news that he'd seen aliens and had helped to reverse-engineer alien spacecrafts while working at the base. Many have disregarded this as fiction and are even offended at the notion, including Merlin, who has spent years talking with former Area 51 engineers and employees angered by all the fuss about E.T.

"Some are even mad because they worked on these things and built these amazing planes," Merlin says. "This is Earth technology. You got folks claiming it's extraterrestrial when it's really good old American know-how."

The Truth Is Out There

Today, Area 51 is still very much in use. According to Google Earth, new construction and expansions are continuously happening. On most early mornings, eagle-eyed visitors can spot strange lights in the sky moving up and down. No, it's not a UFO. It's actually the semi-secret contract commuter airline using the call-sign "Janet" that transports workers from Las Vegas's McCarran Airport to the base.

As for what's happening these days in America's most secretive military base, few know for sure. Merlin has some educated guesses, including improved stealth technology, advanced weapons, electronic warfare systems and, in particular, unmanned aerial vehicles. Chris Pocock, noted U-2 historian and author of several books about the matter, told Popular Mechanics he thinks classified aircraft, more exotic forms of radio communication, directed energy weapons, and lasers are currently under development at the base.

While the lore around Area 51 may be nothing more than imaginative fiction, that won't stop people from gawking just beyond those chain link fences. "At the most basic level, anytime you have something secret or forbidden, it's human nature," says Merlin. "You want to find out what it is."

How to Explore Area 51

Fact or fiction, aliens are a big tourism draw. In 1996, the state of Nevada renamed Route 375 as the "Extraterrestrial Highway," and destinations such as the Alien Research Center and the Little A'Le'Inn (in the town of Rachel with a population around 54) dot the road.

To Area 51's west, there's the Alien Cathouse which is advertised as the only alien-themed brothel in the world. Geocaching also attracts visitors here since the highway is considered a "mega-trial" with over 2,000 geocaches hidden in the area.

Then there's the actual base. While getting inside is not in the cards for most, curious civilians can actually drive up to front and back gates. Locals will direct you, and the website Dreamland Resort is a great resource full of maps, driving directions, and first-hand accounts.

However, one should be careful when planning a trek to Area 51. It's the desert, after all, so bring plenty of water, snacks, and have proper weather gear-for the hot days and the cold nights. Phone service and GPS probably won't work, so have printouts and actual maps. Gas stations are few and far in between, so carry spare fuel and tires.

Also, remember the government doesn't really want you peering into Area 51. Both Merlin and Pocock confirmed that they have been closely observed or even intimidated by guards and security (including an F-16 fly-by). Do not trespass under any circumstances or arrests and heavy fines await you.
This story was originally published on September 14, 2017.

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The Real Story Behind the Myth of Area 51

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For decades, Nevada's Area 51 Air Force facility has represented the eye of a conspiratorial hurricane that swirls around "evidence" that aliens (and their technology) exist and are hiding behind its walls. Books, TV shows, and even massive online "raids" have tried to glimpse beyond its stark signs warning against trespassers.

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Post #10 - Critical Thinking Process Question Responses (word document)

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Post #10 - Critical Thinking Process Question Responses (word document)

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Critical Thinking Step by Step - Jillian Powers