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Reasons for Belief #9 Perception / Observation

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Reasons for Belief #9 Perception / Observation

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Definition:
Memories are created from personal experiences, our brain stores those observations however they are often corrupted during the process.
Connection:
This experiment is called the McGurk effect. Essentially the subject is saying the same sounds over and over again however when he changes the motion of is lip the brain begins to perceive the sounds differently. In reality the subject is still producing the same sounds but the brain is manipulating the noise because of a clear visual change.

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Try this bizarre audio illusion! 👁️👂😮 - BBC

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Description:
The phenomenon of seeing patterns within a irrelevant picture or sight.
Connection:
This is a simple picture of a faucet and overflow drain however the mind sees a primitive face.

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Definition:
The unknown cannot be explained until it is known.
Connection:
While there are historic accounts of the city of Atlantis, there is no real facts to prove so. Until there is substantial evidence proving or disproving the statements about Atlantis it will remain unexplained.

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The mystery of the lost city of Atlantis still captures the imagination of millions. Was it real or just myth. Here are the basic facts.

Solon (638 BC-558 BC) was a famous Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and Lyric poet who allegedly heard the story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests that he was visiting that claimed that the Athenians had forgotten their true history because from time-to-time their civilization had been largely destroyed by catastrophes.

Atlantis was first described by the Greek philosopher Plato more than 2,000 years ago.

While many believe the story is a myth created by Plato to illustrate his theories about politics, others insist it is based on a real historical disaster.

According to Plato's account, written around 360BC, Atlantis was a major sea power located in the Atlantic.

It was larger than ancient Libya and Asia Minor (modern Turkey) put together, and was 'the way to the other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent'.

His account included detailed descriptions of the island - with mountains in the north and along the coast, and a plain in the south.

Its kings were descended from Poseidon - the god of sea - but their divine lineage became diluted as they mixed with mortals.

By around 9600BC the island had conquered much of Western Europe and Africa and enslaved its enemies.

This date would make the city nearly as old as the end of the last ice age and pre-dates the earliest recorded city states, found in what is now Iraq, so seems rather unlikely.

After a failed attempt to invade Athens, the entire island sank into the sea 'in a single day and night of misfortune'.

Over the centuries, scholars have attempted to locate the real Atlantis - believing the account was based on a real ancient superpower.

One of the most plausible theories is that Plato was describing the Minoan civilisation on Crete and the neighbouring island of Santorini which was devastated by a massive volcanic eruption around 1600BC.

Some believe the Atlantis myth was inspired by the Black Sea floods of around 5000BC - an event that may have also generated the flood stories which appeared in the Old Testament.

The Facts!

The Egyptian priests referred to the "Declamation of Heavenly Bodies", meaning meteorites, which cause devastation on the planet. --The Egyptian priests understood that from time-to-time there were serious natural catastrophes that involved fire and water (from which they had been largely immune). They attributed these to the actions of the Gods

A war once took place between the Athenians and the Atlanteans The Athenians apparently came from Athens.

The Atlanteans apparently came from an island beyond the pillars of Hercules (Straights of Gibraltar)

The war took place 9,000 years before the time of writing which was approximately 2,500 years before today - so in effect 11,500 years ago.

Atlantis was allegedly an island greater in size than Libya and Asia combined.

Atlantis was eventually destroyed by an earthquake.

The Athenian Gods were at peace with each other.

The story had been forgotten by the Athenians because of a great deluge whereby only the illiterate people of the mountains had survived.

Solon inferred that the event took place before the time of Theseus.

At the time the Athenians ruled a land from the Isthmus (of Corinth) to the heights of the Cithaeron (a mountain range in what is today central Greece) and Parnes. Oropus was the boundary on the right and the river Asopus the boundary on the left.

The Athenian land was fertile and able to support a great army.

Many floods had taken place during the 9,000 years prior to the recording of the story.

Many of the cliffs surrounding this (Athenian) land had been eroded and fallen into the sea. Many of the woods that once existed have disappeared. The land was less eroded and less rainfall was swept into the sea.

The climate was more temperate.

The Acropolis was larger and surrounded by soil and not the outcrop of rock it is now.

They had Gymnasia.

There were once more springs that disappeared after an earthquake.

The Athenians were healthy, beautiful people that were well prepared for war.

Poseidon was patron and God of Atlantis. (God of the sea and earthquakes)

Atlantis was an Island with a small mountain at its centre with fertile plains surrounding it.

The central mountain had rings of water surrounding it.

Water flowed from underground - some hot, some cold.

Crops flourished in the fertile soil.

Poseidon's first child (born on Atlantis) was named Atlas and the ocean around the Island was named Atlantic.

From beyond the Pillars of Hercules the lost city of Atlantis controlled islands and lands as far as Egypt.

They had extensive trade with other countries.

Orichalcum (an unknown red coloured metal or alloy possible a mixture of copper and gold) was common on the Island.

The Island was well forested.

There were a great number of elephants on the Island.

The Island had chestnut trees.

The City / island existed long enough for many rulers / kings to develop it.

The lost city of Atlantis had a canal from the sea to an inner lagoon.

Three kinds of stone, one red, one black and one white were quarried on the Island of Atlantis.

They used brass to cover their dwellings and brass, tin and orichalcum to cover the outer walls of their cities.

Poseidon's temple at the centre had a barbaric appearance and the roof (interior) was made of Ivory.

In the temple there was a statue of the god in a chariot.

The lost city of Atlantis made use of private and public baths and then saved the water for use on their fields.

The later docks had Triremes and many naval supplies.

The Island had cliffs on most sides but was otherwise a plateau with a small mountain at its centre and mountains to the North.

The North of the Island had high and beautiful mountains.

The plain featured a circular ditch (canyon) of such size (a 100 ft in depth) that it could not have been manmade.

The military had war chariots.

They benefited from winter rains.

Their shields were small.

The land was divided into ten kingdoms each with its own city.

No King was to ever make war on another Atlantean King.

This rule lasted for a great time but in the end the Kings became victim to mortal desires and sins

Over 11,000 years ago there existed an island nation located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean populated by a noble and powerful race. The people of this land possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources found throughout their island. The island was a center for trade and commerce. The rulers of this land held sway over the people and land of their own island and well into Europe and Africa.

This was the island of Atlantis.

Atlantis was the domain of Poseidon, god of the sea. When Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito, he created a dwelling at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her.

Cleito gave birth to five sets of twin boys who became the first rulers of Atlantis. The island was divided among the brothers with the eldest, Atlas, first King of Atlantis, being given control over the central hill and surrounding areas.

At the top of the central hill, a temple was built to honor Poseidon which housed a giant gold statue of Poseidon riding a chariot pulled by winged horses. It was here that the rulers of Atlantis would come to discuss laws, pass judgments, and pay tribute to Poseidon..

To facilitate travel and trade, a water canal was cut through of the rings of land and water running south for 5.5 miles (~9 km) to the sea.

The city of Atlantis sat just outside the outer ring of water and spread across the plain covering a circle of 11 miles (1.7 km). This was a densely populated area where the majority of the population lived.

Beyond the city lay a fertile plain 330 miles (530 km) long and 110 miles (190 km) wide surrounded by another canal used to collect water from the rivers and streams of the mountains. The climate was such that two harvests were possible each year. One in the winter fed by the rains and one in the summer fed by irrigation from the canal.

Surrounding the plain to the north were mountains which soared to the skies. Villages, lakes, rivers, and meadows dotted the mountains.

Besides the harvests, the island provided all kinds of herbs, fruits, and nuts. An abundance of animals, including elephants, roamed the island.

For generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them. When Zeus saw the immorality of the Atlanteans he gathered the other gods to determine a suitable punishment.

Soon, in one violent surge it was gone. The island of Atlantis, its people, and its memory were swallowed by the sea.

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Solon (638 BC-558 BC) was a famous Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and Lyric poet who allegedly heard the story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests that he was visiting that claimed that the Athenians had forgotten their true history because from time-to-time their civilization had been largely destroyed by catastrophes.

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Red Flag - Mystical Energy

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Description:
Appeal to authority is when someone in power leads you to believe something however it may not be correct. You choose to believe what you are being told because you also choose to believe that those in authority would give you the full truth.

Connection:
Quite often the power of authority comes from advertisement and you are led to believe false information because of it. The advertisement below is leading you to smoke without informing you of the risks involved. This is an old ad when smoking was encouraged but there are definitely risks that were known and not disclosed.

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Definition:
Mystical energy is when energy is obtained from an unknown higher power, you can feel it but cannot see it or understand where is comes from.

Connection:
This Power Balance wrist band is a perfect example of people falling victim to products that boast the ability to improve your internal energy. Power Balance was quite popular with celebrities until a cease and desist order required them to make a public statement that their bands in-fact DO NOT have the ability to improve Chakras and the customer's Chi.

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I don't think this would surprise anyone, but PowerBalance-manufacturers of plastic wristbands with hologram stickers on it-have admitted that there's "no credible scientific evidence that supports [their] claims and therefore [they] engaged in misleading conduct." Here's their statement:

In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.

They had to publish that in Australian media. The company has been under attack by consumer associations all over Europe because of their bogus claims and pseudo-scientific mumbojumbo, but this seems to be the first time in which a regulatory authority has made them admit that their claims are a simply a fraud.

The whole PowerBalance and similar magic wristbands swindle reminds me of the old magnetic wristbands my grandma used to wear in the 80s. Those were able to cure anything, from rheumatism to diabetes and, like this modern powertrickery, they made people feel better because the metal vibrated in the same frequency as the planet does, whatever that means.

Of course, these pseudo-scientific amulets have been made and distributed since the beginning of civilization. From magic stones to sanctified pendants made of holy chicken bones, charlatans have been devising miraculous devices to take advantage of often desperate people. These are just fancier versions of those, used by a new generation of gullible people. But that doesn't mean the governments should stay still and not do anything. Like in Australia, the US and the European Union should smash all these companies and prohibit their misleading commercials.

In the meantime, I will keep using my vacuum-injected Monster Cable necklace to keep my strength, balance and flexibility at optimally enhanced crappy levels. Really, it works! [ PowerBalance]

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PowerBalance Admits Their Wristbands Are a Scam

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I don't think this would surprise anyone, but PowerBalance-manufacturers of plastic wristbands with hologram stickers on it-have admitted that there's "no credible scientific evidence that supports [their] claims and therefore [they] engaged in misleading conduct." Here's their statement: In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.

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Red Flag #3 - Confusion of Correlation with Causation

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Red Flag #3 - Confusion of Correlation with Causation

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Definition:
Correlation means that one things relates to another and causation is that one thing causes another. However because one thing is related to another does not mean that one causes another.

Connection:
This article has a few different examples, one of them being people who drowned falling into a pool. People fall into pools quite often however not everyone who falls into a pool drowns. Therefore there is a correlation between the two however the causation of people falling into the pool and drowning is not knowing how to swim.

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When I first started blogging about correlation and causation (literally my third and fourth post ever), I asserted that there were three possibilities whenever two variables were correlated. Now that I'm older and wiser, I've expanded my list to six:

1. Thing A caused Thing B (causality)

2. Thing B caused Thing A (reversed causality)

3. Thing A causes Thing B which then makes Thing A worse (bidirectional causality)

4. Thing A causes Thing X causes Thing Y which ends up causing Thing B (indirect causality)

5. Some other Thing C is causing both A and B (common cause)

6. It's due to chance (spurious or coincidental)

The obvious conclusion is that years spent blogging about statistics directly correlates to the number of possible ways of confusing correlation and causation you recognize.

Anyway, I've talked about this a lot over the years, and this lesson is pretty fundamental in any statistics class...though options #3 and #4 up there aren't often covered at all. It's easily forgotten, so I wanted to use this post to pull together an interesting example of each type.

1. Smoking cigarettes cause lung cancer (Thing A causes Thing B): This is an example I use in my Intro to Internet Science talk I give to high school students. Despite my continued pleading to be skeptical of various claims, I like to point out that sometimes disbelieving a true claim also has consequences. For years tobacco companies tried to cast doubt on the link between smoking and lung cancer, often using "correlation is not causation!" type propaganda.

2. Weight gain in pregnancy and pre-eclampsia (Thing B causes Thing A): This is an interesting case of reversed causation that I blogged about a few years ago. Back in the 1930s or so, doctors had noticed that women who got pre-eclampsia (a potentially life threatening condition) also had rapid weight gain. They assumed the weight gain was causing the pre-eclampsia, and thus told women to severely restrict their weight gain. Unfortunately it was actually the pre-eclampsia causing the weight gain, and it is pretty likely the weight restrictions did more harm than good.

3. Dating and desperation (Thing A causes Thing B which makes Thing A worse): We've all had that friend. The one who strikes out with everyone they try to date, and then promptly doubles down on their WORST behaviors. This is the guy who stops showering before he takes girls out because "what's the point". Or the girl who gets dumped after bringing up marriage on the third date, so she brings it up on the first date instead. This is known as "bidirectional causality" and is less formally known as "a vicious cycle". In nature this can cause some really amusing graph behavior, as in the case of predators and prey. An increase in prey can cause an increase in predators, but an increase in predators will cause a decrease in prey. Thus, predator and prey populations can be both positively AND negatively correlated, depending on where you are in the cycle.

4. Vending machines in Schools and obesity (Thing A causes Thing X causes Thing Y which then causes Thing B): One obvious cause of obesity is eating extra junk food. One obvious source of extra junk food is vending machines. One obvious place to find vending machines is in many schools. So remove vending machines from schools and reduce obesity, right? No, sadly, not that easy. In a longitudinal study that surprised even the authors, it was found that kids who moved from schools without vending machines to those with vending machines don't gain weight. What's interesting is that you can find a correlation between kids who were overweight and eating food from vending machines, but it turns out the causal relationship is convoluted enough that removing the vending machines doesn't actually fix the original end point.

5. Vitamins and better health (Some other Thing C is causing Thing A and Thing B):This one is similar to #4, but I consider it more applicable when it turns out Thing A and Thing B weren't even really connected at all. Eating a bag of chips out of a vending machine every day CAN cause you to gain weight, even if removing the vending machine doesn't help you lose it again. With many vitamin supplements on the other hand, initial correlations are often completely misleading. Many people who get high levels of certain vitamins (Thing A) are actually just those who pay attention to their health (Thing C), and those people tend to have better health outcomes (Thing B). Not all vitamins should be tarred with the same brush though, this awesome visualization shows where the evidence stands for 100 different supplements.

6. Spurious Correlations (spurious or due to chance): There's a whole website of these, but my favorite is this one:

Causal inference, not for the faint of heart.

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6 Examples of Correlation/Causation Confusion

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When I first started blogging about correlation and causation (literally my third and fourth post ever), I asserted that there were three possibilities whenever two variables were correlated. Now that I'm older and wiser, I've expanded my list to six: Thing A caused Thing B (causality) Thing B caused Thing A (reversed causality) Thing A causes...

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Definition:
All natural is a when all natural things are used for a certain purpose that they should not be and are not entirely safe, maybe even harmful.

Connection:
The connection between this and all natural is that there are many home remedies used in certain cultures, the Chinese culture in this case, that are not safe. Sometimes people are unaware of the affects of certain home remedies which is the purpose of this article. For example people use butter on burns however doing so could possibly cause a bacterial infection.

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Dangerous home remedies to avoid - Parenting safety

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While there are many useful home remedies, not all of them are safe. Here are 7 dangerous home remedies which you should avoid.

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Definition:
A red herring is a piece of information that is misleading and is intended to be. It is a distraction from the original point of conversation.

Connection:
This image depicts a red herring as the conversation started was about stealing and how it is wrong to do so. The conversation is then changed to distract by talking about baseball and how you steal bases in baseball so it must be okay. The information is misleading because yes you steal bases in baseball but that does not make it okay to steal in a store.

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By: Dominique Welling , Andrew Stevens & Mike Davies