Weird Science

Earlier today I walked downstairs to grab some dinner, after putting the barbecued chicken into the Microwave, I plopped down onto the couch and watched the tail end of Mythbusters with my mother. The episode seemed to be about the usage of pressurized air and gunpowder as a propulsion method and fuel respectively, both being obvious failures in the experiments, but entertaining enough as Mythbusters tends to be. Then another show came on, a sinister show, a show that has no place upon the Discovery channel, a channel that touts itself as a station that promotes the spread of knowledge. This show was Weird or What?

Weird or What purported to explore strange events that were unknown, unexplained by conventional science. A big fan of science, I already felt a bit of a twinge in my eye. My dinner was waiting though, and I had to send it through a second spin in the microwave already, so I got up and took my food upstairs. Though on my way up I heard them talk about the first item on this show, the idea that someone else discovered the Americas before Columbus. I thought to myself, well yeah... duh, the Vikings were there ages before Columbus, they just didn't care enough to stake out any land. But oh no, this show had a different idea... The Chinese!

What followed was silly assumptions brought on by negligible evidence. Stone Anchors being the only real showings. I was rolling my eyes already at the assertion that a Chinese boat, which a historical expert stated could never stand travel across any broad ocean, would make it across the Pacific. Then the show threw me as I realized they were in fact talking about the Chinese landing on the east coast! There was nothing to show any signs of legitimacy in any of these arguments, the theorists only providing circumstantial evidence, including a medallion the man 'found' buried somewhere in North Carolina.

And despite the fact that the evidence was lacking, and that some of these people were trying to force their preset theories to fit the available information, this show continued to put to the viewer the possibility of truth in any of this. The show continued on to examine the 'legitimacy' of organs like hearts retaining memories that are transferred to donor recipients, the idea that a man who was struck by lightning is somehow drawing the lightning strikes as opposed to being a victim of poor circumstance, and something that would give M. Night Shyamalan's schlock of a movie The Happening some credence... are plants sentient.

As I watched this show I was literally driven into a fury. I screamed at my television that the circumstances of the man's life was the most likely cause of his constant dealings with lightning, that the cluster of nerves in organs couldn't possibly store any memory and that muscle memory does not work that way, and that using a polygraph test on a plant to measure emotional stress was the most ludicrous application of equipment I have ever seen. This whole show screamed at me something I despise, something I hate, something I rally against... Bad science.

People who use science in the same way most of us would use a stick shift, incorrectly. People who use equipment in ways it wasn't intended to, like Ghost Hunters using an EMP meter. People who come to a conclusion first, and then search for the evidence that makes their preset determination work and only seem to search for evidence to disprove other theories like Creationists. People who use completely unmeasurable and untestable pseudo-scientific sounding principals to explain their extraordinary 'natural' abilities like psychics and telekinetics.

These people are con men, and charlatans in the worst way. They, unlike those in the past, aren't pointing at supernatural events and claiming magic, god, aliens, and ghosts... They aren't using words the common man can dispute. These people are using the language of science to give their half truths and outright lies credence. They are using the language of science to convince otherwise well minded people who simply do not understand how their methods are wrong. These people anger me more than anyone who simply claims 'God/Wizard/Xenu did it' because they can actually be taken seriously. These people actually become something of merit when compared to legitimate science.

The worst thing is that it can be done accidentally. They're ignorance of the actual progression of the Scientific Method allows them to feel they are being scientific, that they are actually progressing their ideas and theories. This may be more understandable, but isn't any better. A liar of accidence is no less dangerous than a liar of purpose. These people point at their half studied findings and belt out their untruth, and the problem, the huge problem, is that a lot of people will take them as bare fact. And that's dangerous.

And it's on again. Fuck.