As 2024 came to a close, the skies over New Jersey seemed to be cluttered with unexplained drones. Stories of these UFO drones filled social and mainstream media for a few weeks. News Nation hit the story hard, but other 24-hour news networks covered the story at length, too.
What's stunning about most of the footage is the "blobsquatch" nature of it: digitally zoomed, out of focus. This is nearly always the case: it's always easier to attach mystery to blurry images; in-focus images are easily identified as non-mysterious things.
Some of the flying lights might well have been ... drones. Drones are not new; flying them at night is allowed. But some of the "drone panic" footage was clearly video of commercial aircraft taking off or landing at night. If I were trying to claim these lights were absolutely not airplanes, I wouldn't just say, "those are definitely not planes" (as they do in the News Nation special report). I would shoot nighttime take-offs and landings of commercial aircraft from a distance and document how my UAP footage was so vastly different.
But there's more going on here, and in the attention economy that the media exists in now, the New Jersey drones represented a potential ratings bonanza. The incentive structure3 demands fanning the flames and strictly prohibits debunking the phenomenon.
Crooked Media's podcast, "What A Day" ran an occasional series called "How We Got Here." That series has been discontinued, but its final episode was devoted to the 2024 New Jersey drone panic: "The New Jersey Drones Mass Delusion, Explained."
The well-researched episode includes references War of the Worlds, Havana Syndrome, evil clowns, and the Salem witch trials. Hosts Max Fisher and Erin Ryan have answers. And I have questions.
It's 2025, and podcasts are a thing. A big thing, and getting bigger. I've done many question sets for film and video presentations. This is my first question set for a podcast. I don't think it will be my last.
[The "What a Day" podcast series is given an "Explicit" rating. This episode merits a TV-14 rating at worst. It is safe for school.]
I added the "never forget" tag to the title because the typical pattern with these phenomena is that they fade quickly from public memory once something newer/shinier comes along. Those who absorb the lessons of the New Jersey Drone Panic of 2024 will find themselves less panicked when the next mass delusion arises.
I hope News Nation leaves their purely speculative conspiracy specials up for us to review for years to come. They're great examples of what it looks like when a media outlet manufactures a panic out of nothing. Military bases, check. Alien intelligence at work, check. "They" don't wasn't us to know, an absolute must! The "shoot 'em down" ethos is straight out of science fiction/American militarism Hollywood storyboards. Given that many of the "UFO drones" are commercial aircraft, do we want to imagine how that instinct would play out?
"Posters" has been a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live. It originally featured guest Emma Stone and cast member Pete Davidson, with additional cast members Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson, and Kate McKinnon. It seems to be resurrected whenever Stone hosts.
Last night, "Posters" was staged again, this time with Marcello Hernández and Ego Nwodom alongside Stone, Day, and Thompson. The talking posters assured Hernández that physics was—in fact—relevant.
The punchline stinger at the end of the skit is always a graphic showing the subsequent failed exam.
I posted the skit to Twitter/X (@phyzman) for the benefit of my #ITeachPhysics colleagues. Dan Burns (@kilroy22) quickly noticed that Marcello actually got the correct answer on the most difficult question of the three shown, Question 3.
The recoil height depends on the ball's recoil speed. Conservation of momentum for a perfectly elastic head-on collision with a twice-as-massive body is 1/3 of the impact speed. With 1/3 the impact speed, conservation of energy reveals the ball will rise 1/9 the launch height: 1/9 h. Marcello's answer is correct.
That made me take a look at Question 2. The road must exert a forward force to match the force of air resistance while also exerting a centripetal force equal to mv²/r. Taken together, the forward force and radially inward force result in F(B). Marcello's answer is correct on that one, too.
Dan and I dismissed Question 1 as "not even wrong" since it's not even a physics question. It's a pure math question involving unit conversions. Invoking Avogadro's number in a physics exam is distasteful.
If we allow this faux pas, 1/12 of Avogadro's number is 5 × 10²². Convert that from seconds to hours by dividing it by 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour). Convert that to days by dividing by 24. Convert that to the never-used-in-a-physics-class unit of weeks by dividing by 7. That's 8.26 × 10¹⁶ weeks. Not an option. So divide that by 52 to convert it to years. 1.59 × 10¹⁵. Once again, Marcello's answer is correct.
It's picking nits to complain that the formatting of Question 1's answer options don't match those of Questions 2 and 3. Or that X was used instead of the correct symbol, ×.
Marcello aced this exam. Kudos to the talking posters. And who is Marcello's physics instructor?
When I came across a credulous local TV affiliate news item in 2006, I immediately turned it into a blog post. But the Internet is ephemeral, and sometimes I like to solidify a lesson idea.
The original videoclip has long since disappeared from the web. And I fleshed out my lesson architecture to maximize efficacy.
The bit that aired on Chicago’s CBS affiliate, and it was … disappointing. My lesson amplifies the weaknesses credulously glossed over in the puff piece.
I found it to be a worthwhile Halloween-adjacent classroom activity. Watch the segment and see if it doesn't raise your skeptical spider senses. The classroom discussion was always great fun. Many high school students have pretty good BS detectors, and the written assignment gives them permission to tear this segment apart.
The student document can be found here: Word | PDF
Amusing notes:
• What is the licensure process required to claim the title of "psychic detective"? Extensive coursework? Rigorous field training? Grueling examination? No. Just calling yourself a psychic detective.
• What would it look like it you took a flash photograph at night when snow flurries were about?
• Where do stagehands smoke if they work in a non-smoking theater? What would it look like if you took a flash photo near those smokers there at night?
Actor, Ken Melvoin-Berg, operated "Weird Chicago" tours at the time of this segment's airing. Would he have any reason whatsoever to be less than honest about sensing ghosts on location?
I visited that alley years after this aired. I'd hoped to exorcise the ghost in the bricks with a wire brush and a bit of soap and water. Somebody had beaten me to it.
Among the accepted truths of Watergate is that the Nixon campaign didn't need to do it. He was going to win the 1972 Presidential. There was no need to break into the Democratic National Committee offices; there was no intelligence that a Nixon campaign really needed. Nevertheless, break in they did. And Nixon eventually resigned as a consequence.
At the September 2021 Apple Event (California Streaming), the reality distortion field (RDF) was energized for a slew of new tech offerings. Among them, Apple Watch Series 7. The face of the watch was enlarged by a few pixels. But marketing is marketing. So to illustrate the significance of a few added pixels, Apple presented this image to demonstrate how much more text could be displayed.
The exercise is to show the image to students and have them tell you how Apple fudged this. Clearly, six or so more words appear on the newer model. The watch's screen only went from 44mm to 45mm (diagonal). Why so many more words?
What sorcery is at work here? With any luck, tech-savvy, skeptical teens will be able to knock a few holes in Apple's marketing RDF. Better still if they ever had to write a paper with a minimum page count requirement.
Should Apple have worried that without this dubious marketing exaggeration, Apple Watch sales would plummet, casting doubt on the future profitability of the tech giant?
Given the facts in evidence, motivations and human nature, the Nixon camp still broke into those DNC offices in The Watergate.
Humans are so good at finding patterns, we often find patterns where none exist. This phenomenon is referred to as pareidolia.
Add to this the power of suggestion, and things get even more interesting. The back masking panic was fueled by audio pareidolia. As was EVP: electronic voice phenomena, a means by which ghost hunters fool themselves and others.
I made a presentation on the audio version of this phenomenon and deployed it during our unit on waves and sound.
It was all good, wholesome, laughable fun. And then it showed up in the trial of Derek Chauvin. I have updated the presentation to reflect this latest incident. I placed it at the vary end so that by the time you get there, you'll recognize exactly what's going on.
...from emails sent to district-managed student accounts. Here's the story:
In COVID-era Distance Learning, I have found Socrative to be a useful platform for administering student assessments. Among its useful features is the ability to send students their own individual scored test, showing which questions they answered correctly and which ones they answered incorrectly. The results can be sent to student email accounts with the push of a button. [You are correct to assume the instructor had to enter those email addresses into Socrative. But it's a one-time investment.]
This is a great feature for when we do Test Correction Journals.
But in my very first attempt to leverage this feature, it failed. I had, of course, tested the feature before using it with students. And it worked. But when I sent my students their test results, students insisted they did not receive them. I tried it using Chrome, I tried it using Firefox. Nothing worked. I had to create a privacy-respecting, individualized way to tell students which specific test items they missed. I created one breakout room per student, joined each one—one at a time, and announced which items they missed. While class time was burning.
I quickly came up with a functional workaround for the next period, but it fell short of what I needed it to do. And why didn't the student email solution work?
Students suggested that the district blocks third party emails from student accounts. The vendor, Socrative, meets all legal privacy standards. District tech services said they do not block third parties. Further investigation indicated the emails were blocked because they contained objectionable content. That offensive content appeared in the following question. TW: "Objectionable Content."
[Secrets of the Psychics] Psychologist and former palm-reader Ray Hyman found that he had the greatest success with clients when he
A. gave a straight-up reading in accordance with palm-reading guidelines
B. told clients the opposite of what he saw in their palms
C. imagined that he lived in an earlier era
D. assumed his clients were skeptical of palm-reading and his abilities
There it is: the objectionable content, clear as day. What's that? You didn't see it? Look again. "hymen" is right in there. Prurient anatomical terminology titillation that would offend any community's standards of propriety. High school students must be protected from such filth.
Okay, not "hymen" exactly, but "hyman," a simple misspelling of a highly salacious, practically pornographic word. Okay, not "hymen" or "hyman" exactly, but "Hyman," a not uncommon Jewish surname. I presume my college hall mate's name, Steve Hayman would trigger that comprehensive filter, too, lest bad actors use simple misspellings to skirt content filters.
Some might judge the content filtering of Jewish surnames (that are not anatomical terms) as anti-semitic. I'm confident the San Juan Unified School District doesn't intend it that way, but here we are. "Ray Hyman" triggered a full and immediate IP ban due to the district's sweeping content blocking protocols.
I was given no reason to hope that this filter would be removed by my district's tech services, now that they are aware of the embarrassing error. It seemed as if the onus was on me not to include terms that would trigger bans, and I should just know what all those terms are.
The filtering is clearly far too aggressive and highly impractical. Blocking my instructional program (without notification) for the "crime" of including a Jewish scholar's name? That's beyond a bad look.
It's indefensibly paranoid and ignorant, in my assessment.
Some critters are totally adorable when they're babies. Conspiracy theories do not. Maybe you came of age in science, reasoning, skepticism, and critical thinking after the "truthers" of 9/11 ran their course.
But given the magnitude of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, the ground was fertile for new brand new conspiracy theories. Nonsense was sure to arise. And arise it did.
Plandemic
A 26-minute "trailer" for a promised documentary has exploded on YouTube. The video violates YouTube's Terms of Service, so they take it down. But it pops up with a different video address soon enough.
Watched in a vacuum of ignorance, it might seem appealing. A plucky scientist, hounded by the omnipotent "they" tells her story of oppression and betrayal. You might know "they" from such hits as "they don't want you to know" and "they have been keeping X secret from the public" and so on. There is nothing worse than "they". Nuh Thing!
The video is in a perpetual out of control spin which continues into the manifesto that is the video description. But again, it's an appealing narrative for the uninitiated. Such unfairness; such corruption.
When it bubbled up to a YouTube doctor (ZDogg), he was dumbfounded by the pure dumbosity of the video's production and claims.
A Doctor Reacts to Plandemic
I know he seems brief in his dismissal. And annoyed.
If you need something a bit more concise, try Big Think's "The anti-vaxx agenda of The Plandemic". There's even an audio version with the print article.
Since Plandemic, itself, violates YouTube's terms of service, I must leave it to you to use your Google skills to find it. Any link I provide will likely go dark before you get to click on it.
I am not a fan of censorship, and YouTube knocking this video down plays into the hands of the conspiracists who claim oppression. On the other hand, it's YouTube's platform: of you don't want to play by their rules, host your video on your own platform. It's not rocket science. The promulgators enjoy the censorship, so they won't host it, themselves.
If you are predisposed to accept conspiracy theories, you are probably already a Plandemist, admonishing the sheeple to wake up!
In any case, the baby conspiracy theory of Plandemic has been born. Where it goes from here depends on all of us.
Why is this disingenuous hot mess dangerous? Because it's attempting to plant the shopworn anti-vcxx message relative to the hoped-for coronavirus vaccine. The Plandemists will claim (without evidence) that a COVID-19 cure will be the product of the shadowy "they" in a money-grubbing, power-hungry. another evil-hyphenation-goes-here cabal set to control the world population. A population made docile by, of course, the vaccine.
I'd say the best response is "Cool story, bro, but eh ... hard pass." But the story really isn't all that cool.
So...this video is now circulating widely on social media. This woman is titled as a Molecular Biologist/Medical Researcher. The guy interviewing her claims to be a 'Father/Filmaker'. The last I looked 'Filmmaker' has two 'M's in it. Anyway...this video's defenders seem so drawn into it...I took some time to evaluate, and fact check this.
00-3:00 - nothing corroborated that 'they wrecked her life'
2:07 - footage of police raid is file footage, and not her supposed 'raid'
4:10 - Fauci directed cover up. Proof? No proof given, no contrary voices to her
5:45 - paper she wrote contradicting Fauci. Where is this paper? That should be easy to show, and physically have excerpts of paper for the video
7:35 - Fauci and CDC director Redfield own patents. Proof? A look at the patent office should be indication. They don't do this easy check. So, no proof
8:15 - Who is this 'expert'? No graphic I.D., so we can check his credentials
9:26 - Bill Gates accusations...Proof? None offered
10:23 - she says 'I can't say it was man made, but'...what exactly is she saying? This is intentionally vague
10:34 in - Quick length of time proves virus was manipulated. Proof that this is always the case?
10:54 in - she says 'Virus didn't occur at a market'. Proof?
11:26 in - article is from Dailymail.co.uk, which is a British conservative tabloid...hardly objective
11:31 in - footage from CGTN, which is China State-Run TV, and who is the 'reporter'? Could be anyone speaking over the footage. Could be friend of the 'filmmaker' or 'fimmaker'...we don't know
11:38 in - article from NationalFile.com, rated as an 'Extreme Right-Wing conspiracy site
13:55 in - Bakersfield doctors, that have been widely discredited. They get a lot of time in this video
14:50 in - Host says that he 'talked to many doctors' that incentivize Covid-19. Where is the footage of ANY of them being talked to? That would be what a 'filmmaker' or ummm 'Filmmaker' does.
15:08 in - Doctor on clip says that hospitals are paid '$13,000 for Covid diagnosis, and $39,000 for a Covid ventilator'. Snopes link below widely weakens that claim
15:29 in - person in clip has medical scrubs on, but who is he? could be an average person with a medical shirt on. We never see his name or title.
15:40 in - proof of Italy vaccine?
16:40 in - from 'WashingtonTimes' - a conservative daily newspaper...and who is 'reporter' narrating? Could be anyone
17:12 in - Mikovits says 'thousands of documents on hydroxychloroquine'...well, where are ANY of these documents? None offered
18:55 in - She says flu vaccine makes a person more susceptible to Coronavirus. That is disproven in link below
21:02 in - host says 'You're not the first person to tell me that we are doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing'...well, 'filmmaker'...show us ANY of these other people
22:55 in - who is this doctor? No I.D. to check his credentials
24:55 in - she says 'every medical person who has learned about this has turned their opinion around'. Show us ONE person that has changed their views? None offered.
Below, and in the comments, I will post a bunch of links that debunk some of the claims made in this video, and I will also cut and paste them here.
For those of you looking at this post, and saying 'geez'...I spent about an hour and a half on this. It doesn't take much time to scrutinize/fact check a 26 minute video, especially this one.
She is selling a book on this...so this literally drums up interest in her book. Who is the host? A family member? A good friend? We don't know...do we...
Actual journalism always backs up statements. This does nothing to back up claims. This has no one on to debunk her, and it also has no one on to back her claims. Yet, somehow, many people have attached themselves to a doctor, whom they know only from a YouTube video, who has questionable credentials, and is questioned about her repeated attempts to create conspiracy theories...maybe to sell more books. If you click to watch the video...enjoy the marketing attempt.
Here are some notes and links relevant to PTSOS Workshop #2. If you're new to teaching physics in Northern California, check out PTSOS.org. Momentum and Energy
I prefer momentum before energy, but I've run into teachers who consider those to be fightin' words.
One highlight here is our Grass Omelette (Egg Toss Competition). In 2013, I had five sections of Physics, so I was able to compile an adequate set of images and video to make a tidy video: Egg Toss 2013
I've been developing "skepticism in the classroom" resources for quite a while. I've posted a bunch of them to The Lessons off Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers. I drop them into my curriculum throughput the year, when the moment is right. Sometimes they are assigned as "YouTube Homework".
YouTube Skepticism: Baloney Detection Kit
This activity engages students as they watch a 14-minute video on a so-called "Baloney Detection Kit". It's a structured implementation of Carl Sagan's quote, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and acts as a filter when students are confronted with claims.
YouTube Skepticism: The First Moon Office
This activity compares the science of meteors and apparent weightlessness with how those phenomena are represented in a Federal Express television advertisement.
YouTube Skepticism: Power Balance
Power Balance bracelets burst onto the scene a few years ago and enjoyed explosive success. There were "knock-offs," fakes, and the company gathered so much cash it bough the naming rights to sports and entertainment complex in Sacramento: what had been ARCO Arena became Power Balance Pavilion. The activity brings students through the claims and the tests of those claims. Power Balance has since declared bankruptcy, but similar products (targeted toward baseball players) persist. There will always be such products, I hope my students do not buy them.
YouTube Skepticism: Magnet Boys
This activity allows students to consider several cases of so-called "magnet boys" that swarmed the Internet a few years ago. The cases pose interesting questions, and magician and skeptic, James Randi, has an idea of what might be going on.
YouTube Skepticism: Cell Phone Popcorn
This activity has students observe and investigate a set of viral videos that took YouTube by storm a few years ago: ordinary people were using their cell phones to pop popcorn. The videos leas students into a revealing investigation.
The Secrets of the Psychics
Nova's Secrets of the Psychics. Magician and skeptic, James "The Amazing" Randi, exposes so-called psychics at home and abroad. It's a serious topic, but there are a great many laughs to be had.
Merchants of Doubt
Question set and answer key to accompany Merchants of Doubt (Sony Classic Pictures). This documentary exposes the parallels of the tactics used by the tobacco industry and climate change deniers, among others.
Dan Burns recently directed my attention to a dust-up regarding a Goop-endorsed product. Goop is Gwyneth Paltrow's high-priced personal product brand/store and Body Vibes was an endorsed product available at Goop. Body Vibes' body stickers could work all manner of miracles
According to a Washington Post article, Body Vibes originally claimed to use materials engineered by NASA. After NASA refuted the claim, Body Vibes reworded their sales pitch to delete the NASA reference. Read the WaPo take-down for all the details.
If you thought Power Balance style scams were a thing of the past, think again. Body Vibes gets their "technology" from AlphaBio Centrix in Las Vegas. Watch this "disturbing" AlphaBio video. It was posted in 2015 and already had nearly 800 views when I came across it. (We can't all be Dan Burns.)
They had me at "We use sub-harmonic frequency to power our Bio Energy Patches". For such statements, we must deploy the most incendiary burn in the arsenal of physics: "Not even wrong". (For the uninitiated, that means it's so very wrong that it cannot even be considered as worthy of argument.) The genius of the product design and marketing is that you could get stickers for every need, from anxiety, to low-testosterone, to gluten free(?).
Bottom line: there will always be products like this and the products will always have a credulous customer base. Do what you can to make sure your students aren't taken in by these things.
Update: I almost forgot to include Stephen Colbert's Late Night take-down of Body Vibes.
TANGENT: In the course of writing this post, I wandered over to what's left of the Power Balance company page. Not surprisingly, they're still selling bracelets. Waiting for that 2010 nostalgia craze to kick in, I suppose. Amusingly, the post-lawsuit "technology" behind the bracelet is described as "Power Balance holograms are created using a proprietary process featuring cutting edge three-dimensional imaging, which makes the hologram truly unique. The hologram is designed based on Eastern philosophies. Many Eastern philosophies contain ideas related to energy. These are commonly referenced as Chi or Chakras. There are a number of well known practices like acupuncture, meditation and Feng Shu, which are believed to affect these energies. The hologram is based on some of these same ideologies." A legal work of art!
Bree Barnett Dreyfuss recently pointed out this amusing feat of daring-do to me. Take a look at this breathless tale of magnetically-braked cordless bungee jumping.
As a veteran of bungee jumping, I was thrown off by the use of the term "wire" in this context. "Rope" or "cord" are common terms used to reference the bungee, but not "wire". The term is obscured a bit via use of a second language (translation issues?). But by the end, the need for the use of that specific word is clear.
In any case, it seems not everybody picked up on the clues that the whole spot was a spoof. That's what Snopes is for: Bungee Leap of Faith.
But magnetic braking is far from unheard-of. Engineered use of eddy currents/Lenz's law has been deployed on a large scale for the benefit of thrill-seekers at amusement parks for years.
It seems the Ikea production team took some cues from this classic Mercedes Benz barrel roll fake. A team of nervous scientists working furiously toward a singular moment. An accomplished daredevil willing to risk life and limb for the sake of science and adventure. This one really goes over the top (!) in terms of cinematography and soundtrack. I like this version, which includes a wink at the end.
Our friend, Paul Doherty, was literally in his element, and that comes across nicely. Eugenie Scott is noted for her work with the National Center for Science Education, a friend to any teacher hoping to teach the science of evolution or climate change in challenging environments.
The scientific debate about the reality of anthropogenic climate change has resolved itself in the past 10-15 years. Much like natural selection and heliocentrism before it, the once-contentious scientific finding is no longer argued among serious scientists.
Climate science deniers find solace in the handful of legitimate scientists who argue against the position of the vast majority of climate scientists. Their heroes on this melting ideological ice floe are—almost to a person—old white male physicists. The 2015 documentary, Merchants of Doubt, identifies a common thread among this small fraternity. Most are aging Cold Warriors who see environmentalists as "watermelons": (ecology) green on the outside but (Communist) red on the inside.
Fred Singer, Freeman Dyson,William Happer, and Ivar Giaever are leading representatives of this group. A math teacher at my school maintains a very active conservative political blog. He is a public school teacher in California whose contract is the product of collective bargaining. He opposes unionism, advocates for charter schools, and frequently derides California as the worst state of them all.
And he is an aging Cold Warrior who denies the well-established findings of climate science. When he came across an old speech by Nobel laureate physicist, Ivar Giaever, he shared it in a post.
I found it inspirational. I was inspired to write a corresponding video question set.
The video runs for 33 minutes, but it feels like an hour because it's a disjointed series of tangents masquerading as an argument. The TL;DR synopsis is that a Nobel physicist is upset that society hasn't enthusiastically embraced nuclear power, the physicist also doesn't understand climate science (and thus dismisses its findings), but finds it laudable that China adopted a one-child policy to mitigate climate change. He doesn't accept historical temperature data, but uses that very data to propagate the old "climate has always changed" chestnut.
Some viewers complain about Giaever's tones of condescension and arrogance. The title of Giaever's 2016 book, I am the Smartest Man I Know, does little to blunt such criticism. Like most elite scientists, he is an atheist, and he does reject the legislative agenda of creationists. His Nobel-winning work involved modeling superconductivity. He now serves as a science advisor for the Heartland Institute.
Still though, my climate science dismissive colleague found Giaever's tangential meanderings to be compelling. I will be delighted to show the talk to my students. But when I assign a video, I virtually always have a corresponding question set. Within the constraints of a presentation's contents, I like to mix multiple choice, fill in the blank, multi-select, matching, and short answer formats. I can't always include all formats, but I do my best.
In the wake of the March for Science, I am reminded of what I was told by a speaker at The Amazing Meeting 2 in 2004. In essence, it was "The cavalry isn't coming. If you see a problem where you live or work, you will have to be the person to solve it."
If you find yourself at the end of the year with awkward bell schedules that need to be filled despite students slipping below optimal attentiveness, here's a candidate that speaks to big-picture science issues.
When murmurs of The March for Science began circulating, I raised my antennae. When the date was announced, I booked a hotel room in DC and burned a bushel of frequent flyer miles to reserve round trip flights on Southwest.
I harbored a strongly-held personal opinion that I needed to be part of it. In the early days of planning, it wasn't obvious that there would be satellite marches. The groundswell of support made satellites a reasonable speculation. Still though, I wanted to be at ground zero.
As the days and weeks passed, others have been eloquent about why this march needed to be held. Why a fist needed to be raised. Why voices needed to be heard.
There were also the predictable backlashes to this backlash. Every call to action--real or virtual--is guaranteed to produce axe-grinding finger-waggers. "You need to not do that thing you intend to do; instead, you need to take up arms for my cause. If my cause wins, the world will be free of all problems—this one included!" This is the internet-generation's version of "Follow me; I'll make your crops grow!" I cast those aside and pressed on.
Another flavor of marginalization that often arises among the complacent comes in the form of the innocently dismissive question, "What do you hope to accomplish?" No matter how insightful the answer, the follow-up will be to suggest that you could accomplish those goals without a high-profile march/protest. Valid responses to the question vary, and bear a modicum of uncertainty. The question is intended to put participants on the defensive. The hoped-for change will not materialize immediately at the conclusion of the march, so the march was pointless.
As a seasoned debater, I never take such obvious bait. Instead, I prefer to turn the question around. I know—with absolute certainty—exactly what would be accomplished by not marching. Acceptance of an Administration that has made an enemy of science. Sweeping budget cuts for research. Denial of settled science. Ceding leadership in science and technology to China and India. Tacit approval for going full bore in the destruction of the environment in the US and around the world.
Others have covered this phenomenon extensively; such is the bright and microscopic nature of Olympics reportage. There are segues and human interest stories to be filed for the interstices of the wall-to-wall coverage.
What are those mysterious circles visible on athlete's bodies? The answer is: cupping hickies/bruises.
Like most "alternative"/homeopathic practices, cupping offers anecdotal tales and theories for medicinal//performance value. Many are the stories; none are the clinical studies.
Not only will Phelps continue to cup, but look for the cupping hickies on other athletes. All events; many nations. Trust that the practice will filter through to college and eventually high school athletes. Without the benefit of evidence, the practice offers a mystical advantage that promises adherents a competitive advantage. Who will dare put him herself at a "disadvantage" by not jumping on the band wagon?
The takeaway is that there will always be something. Some untested, evidence-free "edge" that athletes will flock to. Copper bracelets, magnet bracelets, hologram bracelets, aqueous metal-infused necklaces. This month: cupping. An objective observer might hope for some placebo effect. But that's all anyone can hope for.
There are many more links to be perused at one's leisure. If you see a nice one, let me know.
But the courageous bloggers at SourceFed are all a-tremble, overcome with the enormity of their Pulitzer-worthy discovery of Google's diabolical, democracy-crushing conspiracy. The SourceFed brain trust is no doubt pondering whom will be the best actors to portray them in the inevitable film adaptation of their triumphant exposé.
Their claim: "SourceFed has discovered that Google has been actively altering search results in favor of Hillary Clinton's campaign." [I added the emphasis because the video spins away from search results into Autocomplete search recommendations: rather different things. But I'm nitpicking.]
Watch the video that "They Don't Want You To See™," but make sure you're sitting down.
Wow! Once again, They are up to no good, manipulating us as They always do. How do I know? Movies.
Need more evidence? Google responded! Why would they respond if it weren't true???
"Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works. Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person’s name. More generally, our autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms."
Okay, okay. Yes, SourceFed's claim is utter nonsense. And not just because they use the whip sound effect way too much. [Honestly, though: give it a rest.]
No. they're wrong because they don't understand Autocomplete and have fashioned their misunderstanding into a boogeyman in the same way people who don't understand magnets fashion them into perpetual motion machines or performance-enhancing bracelets.
It's also worth noting the evolution of SourceFed's conspiracy theory. It started with unexpected Autocomplete ... completions. But it quickly spun itself into Eric Schmidt is directing Google to manipulate search results in favor of Hillary to throw the 2016 Presidential election.
This is akin to people seeing lights in the sky that they can't understand then drawing conclusions about super-intelligent, intergalactic space aliens sent to abduct and probe Earthlings. Klaatu barada nicto, indeed!
In any case, A Medium Corporation jumped out with this debunk of the alleged manipulation.
If this were a scientific proposal, it would score our equivalent of a "pants on fire," Wolfgang Pauli's "Not even wrong."
The whole episode reminds us of the importance of including skepticism and critical thinking in our science instruction. If our students can use KE = 1/2 mv^2 but then base personal decisions on what the day's horoscope, we as science teacher have failed in an important way.
In late May, 2008, a set of videos were uploaded to YouTube that were soon to go viral. Each one appeared to be a handheld video capture of a group of enthusiastic twenty-somethings conducting a home-made experiment to see if cell phones could be used to pop popcorn.
The cell phones are arranged to focus their energy at the few kernels of popcorn. The phones are then simultaneously called, apparently by a second set of cell phones these casual friends happened to have on hand. After the phones begin to rattle and ring—but before they go silently to voicemail—pop go the kernels! Take a look.
My award for the greatest display of enthusiasm goes to the Japanese video. The notion of popping popcorn with cell phone radiation swept the Internet's imagination, and people tried to repeat the experiment around the world.
They all failed. Without exception. But it had to be real, it was a video on the Internet! (Ah, the innocence of 2008.) Speculation arose that specific cell phone brands had to be used. Some thought there was a hidden heating element at work. Others correctly deduced video editing shenanigans.
The complete worldwide failure among those who tried to reproduce the demonstration speaks nicely to a key principle in science: reproducibility.
It was later revealed that the videos were a stealth marketing campaign produced by a manufacturer of Bluetooth headsets. The president of that company denied that the intent was to suggest that it might be smart to use a headset and keep the microwave cooker of a cell phone away from your brain. (Medical evidence suggesting cell phones cook brains is not compelling.)
Eventually, the Internet moved on to the next viral video. Was it Microsoft's Megawhoosh featuring even more bad physics? Mythbusters didn't even bother with cell phone popcorn, but Brainiac Science Abuse did.
It's worth remembering such hoaxes. Looking back, there are easy-to-spot tell-tale signs of hoaxterism. So of course, I wrote a quick YouTube Skepticism lesson to probe this set of videos and its raison d'être.
YouTube Skepticism: Pop Corn with Cell Phones @ Teachers Pay Teachers The larger point isn't that this particular hoax needs to be debunked but rather that there will always be a next one. If students can recognize fakery in classic hoaxes, they'll be prepared to cast doubt on new ones.
Hoaxers are nothing if not consummate recyclers. Copper bracelets become magnetic bracelets become hologram bracelets become aqueous titanium-infused necklaces and so on and so on.
Let me just say at the outset that this post is Reason I'm a Terrible Person #417.
I was scoping out the YouTubes in search of a nice video lesson on the photoelectric effect. Demonstrating the effect can be troublesome and finicky. So why not enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor?
I watched through Adam Micolich's lesson (below) and... found it wanting. Wanting to be used as a lesson in skepticism and critical thinking!
The story/script is nicely straightforward:
1. A negatively charged electroscope is discharged via exposure to ultraviolet light.
2. The UV light is causing the discharge: a glass plate blocks the UV and prevents the discharge.
3. The UV liberates electrons: a positively charged electroscope is not discharged by UV light.
Let's see how it goes. (The actual photoelectric demo begins at about 2:50.)
Each segment seemed to go according to plan and proved the aspect being investigated. The content as spoken is spot-on correct.
And I have no reason to suspect shenanigans. But in my judgment, the demonstration is flawed to the point it would be fraudulent if done intentionally.
Consider it a PhyzMaster Challenge: Can you find the flaws I found?
I offer this challenge in good faith as an exercise in physics-based critical thinking. These principles are ostensibly valued by Common Core, NGSS, and the reimagined AP Physics courses. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Micolich. He was good enough to produce the video lesson; I—someone who didn't bother to create a video lesson of the photoelectric effect—spent a Saturday night finding fault with it. So who is more deserving of harsh judgment? (That was rhetorical.)
Hints and specific allegations in the comments. I might remove these later if I assign a skeptical critique to my students.
So over the break, I fired up the 2008 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard, and rectified the situation.
The original was done before I came across ESPN's Outside The Lines exposé. And Power Balance has collapsed is meteorically as they rose, so I added a section on the still-in-business-for-now Phiten Company.
The assignment works nicely for flipped classrooms. It can be an in-class assignment if laptops and headphones (and splitters) are deployed.
The lesson draws upon multiple videoclips. My favorite is a follow-up to a puff piece, wherein skeptic Richard Saunders has a Power Balance promoter do the debunking work on his behalf.
Here's an earlier version featuring James Randi similarly using a believer to debunk the charade. Make a note to yourself that promoter-administered strength/balance tests (applied kinesiology) are the calling card of many modern-day snake-oil salespeople. Fellow physics teacher and skeptic, Matt Lowry, and I encountered such a salesman at the National Science Teachers' Association national meeting in Chicago last year. We tried to be civil to the poor guy, but he really picked the wrong two conferees to prey on. The guy didn't appreciate it when I turned the tables and ran his own tests on him. My buddy, Matt, was so bent over with laughter, I thought he was going to lose continence.
Anyway, back to Classic Randi.
Did you see it? The instructive moment? It's actually a standard moment in nearly every public debunking storyboard:
1. Challenger makes extraordinary claim.
2. Challenger and skeptic agree on a testing protocol. This is a very important step. Very important.
3. Challenger fails test. Utterly and completely.
4. Challenger insists the extraordinary claim is valid, but the testing protocol was somehow "rigged".
How could Randi have preemptively robbed the claimant of her post-failure excuse?
