PHYSICS 341 - Pseudoscience

PHYSICS 341 - Pseudoscience, Unique #:60550 (Fall 2004)

Coker's usual "aura"

Dr. Rory Coker
Office: RLM 10.305
Phone: (512) 471-5194 (answering machine)
Fax: (512) 471-9637
Email: coker2@physics.utexas.edu

Office Hours: Fall 2004: 9:30 - 10:30 AM, M, Tue, W and 1 - 3 PM Tue, Thur

Grader: Matt Haley, Mondays 12 - 1 PM, RLM 9.222

For links to sites providing a factual discussion of various pseudoscience topics, click here.

Mind reading websites and Video Clips!

Textbooks and references for the class:

PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL by Terence Hines, 2nd Ed. (Prometheus, NY, 2003)

THE SKEPTIC'S DICTIONARY by R. T. Carroll (John Wiley, NY, 2003)

Grades in this course are based entirely on homework, book reviews and attendance. There are no quizzes or examinations. For further details, contact the instructor at the e-mail link above.

The First Day Handout and Syllabus: Page 1, | Page 2, | Page 3, | Page 4.

Deadlines for 341, Pseudoscience:

September 3, HW #1 handed out in class

September 20, HW #1 due in class

October 8, Book Review #1 due in class

October 11, HW #2 handed out in class

October 29, HW #2 due in class

November 15, Book Review #2 due in class

There are only two homework assignments this semester, in addition to the two book reviews. Your entire course grade is based on these four assignments. Therefore, if you blow off one or more, you can expect big trouble!

The class does not meet on November 29, December 1, December 3, because as explained in class the instructor will be undergoing surgery at this time. Final course grades will be computed and turned in immediately after Book Review #2 is graded, on or about November 26. Students should make sure that I have all their grades in corrected form; for example, if you got the grader to give you more credit on homework, make sure I know of your corrected grade. The latest time to do this is just before or just after class on November 24. Graded book review #2 will be placed in a marked drawer in the tan drawer-cabinet in the hall just outside my office door, RLM 10.305, on November 25. A selection of class handouts will also be placed on a long table in the hall beside the cabinet; you can check to see if you missed any.

HERE you can see the Homework Set 2 student photos of UFOs and Aliens and Ghosts that were my favorites!

Hardhitting Psychic Predictions for 2003. How well did they do? When the page comes up, click on the name to see the predictions. Marvey! In fact with just a few days to go, 2004 is not looking like a good year for the world's top psychics! By the way, it is great that Criswell is still remembered!

Get your dowsing rods right here!

About Classroom Demonstrations: In the demonstration with two shuffled decks of 53 playing cards done on September 1, 2004, there were 8 separate, different concident pairs of playing cards. By chance, an event like this would be expected to occur 1 time in about 26. There are three obvious possibilities: (1) it did happen by chance; (2) the instructor demonstrated yet again his incredible psychic ability; (3) there was some sneaky trick. Which of these seems most plausible to you? Get two decks of cards and try it!

In a demonstration done on September 3, 2004, of the 31 students who participated, 6 heard the sentence "spoken" by the drinking cup correctly; 7 got at least one of the three words right; and 18 got not a single word correct.

Muscle reading, 9/15/04. Check here for the results.

Play with evolution! This java applet starts with a random string of characters, like s#iNe*,2dgfl4b4z5!, and makes random changes until a target sentence, "methinks it is like a weasel," is evolved! You can also use any other target sentence you desire. It may surprise you to see how few changes are required! Try the famous Weasel Applet!

You too can become a Pet Psychic!

By the way, essentially all "pet psychics" will work from a photo, fax or e-mailed image of the pet! Could this be the usual "reduction to absurdity"? Perish the thought!

If you were a pudgy blond housewife who wanted to convince people that your body was sometimes inhabited by a 35,000-year-old warrior-mystic named Ramtha, what would you do? How about putting on a "gimme" hat and sticking a pipe in your mouth? I wish I were making this up, but truth is truly strange.... By the way, if you are congratulating yourself that you are too intelligent, or too cool, to be taken in by Ramtha and his gang, let me ask if you have seen this recent film? If you have, and thought it had anything to do with reality, then, sad to say, you were indeed taken in by Ramtha: this film was made by Ramtha's "School of Enlightenment," and as a vehicle for his "teachings".

Incredible!!!! In an ancient Egyptian tomb (note how specific that is), there is a carving that clearly represents (left side) a helicopter hovering over the wreckage of the World Trade Center! In the middle is a flying saucer landing on an oil drilling platform! On the right side is Luke Skywalker's land speeder from "A New Hope," Star Wars Episode IV, below that is what is either a zepplin or a jumbo jet, and below that is either a submarine, or another jet airliner at an airport gate! Some unsung Egyptian Nostradamus is surely responsible for this incredible prophecy! Well, maybe... but click on the image itself, or here, for a little bit of insight into what is actually in the inscription!

The next big thing, CranioSacral Therapy? A really bizarre offshoot of Fundamentalist Osteopathy!

Osteopath John Upledger, current popularizer of CranioSacral Manipulation, appears to be "manipulating" at points somewhat distant from the area materialistic science thinks is "craniosacral."

The Shaver Hoax was an attempt by science fiction magazine editor Ray Palmer and a writer named Richard S. Shaver to create their own religious cult. In about 1944, Shaver sent Palmer a long novel with occult themes. Palmer asked permission to rewrite the story and present it as non-fiction. Shaver items appeared regularly in AMAZING STORIES magazine throughout the late 1940s. The teachings of the cult were a sort of update of Theosophy, with a hollow earth inhabited by two rival civilizations of robots! The bad robots were responsible for all social evils, while the good robots were on our side! The cult never really took off because both Palmer and Shaver treated it half the time as a joke or a parody on New Age cults. [Note the image in the ad--- a shot of Shaver puffing on a cig has been pasted onto artwork of a mystical cowled figure. This is typical of the mixed signals Shaver and Palmer always sent.]

Gosh, did you know there is a fancy machine which can determine when someone is lying? It's called a "polygraph," better known as a "lie detector." Lately it's been computerized; surely that makes it better, right? What does it detect? Well, certainly not lies! Click on the cartoon for more information.

October 2004
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Physics Department