Cell phone time traveler: did they really think this through?

George Clarke from Belfast claims to have found a time traveler in the extras of a Charlie Chaplin DVD. In a shot of the premier of Circus, one of Chaplin's movies, a woman is seen walking by holding something to the side of her head. Clarke claims it is a cell phone, half a century before their invention, and suggests time travel as an explanation. I don't think Mr. Clarke has really thought this through.

The video can be seen here. I admit that the first time I saw it, the way the old woman was holding her hand to the side of her face looked remarkably like what we see all the time today with cell phones. At first Mr. Clarke seems genuinely befuddled. He can't come up with any reasonable explanation and is searching for something other than a cell phone. However, by the end his uncertainty is gone. He emphatically states that it is a cell phone.

To me, a closer look clearly shows it is not. I have no idea what she is holding. But whatever it is, she is clutching it and pressing it to her face. The item is enclosed in a fist. Her knuckles wrap around the object, and are spread out. The problem becomes apparent as Mr. Clarke tries to show how it is obviously a cell phone. He holds a cell phone to his face like the woman is holding the phone. Even his demonstration is obviously awkward. The problem is that we hold phones with the ends of our fingers. We do not wrap our knuckles around them. In his demonstration, he puts his knuckles around his phone and tries to make it seem normal, but it is not. And even his demonstration is not how the woman is holding the object. He holds his fingers together, wrapped around the phone. Her fingers are spread out, as if the object is larger than her hand. I tried to hold my cell phone with my fingers clutching it like the woman did, and I cannot do it. I use that grip on items about five times larger than my cell phone. Try it yourself.

Clarke also claims she is talking. You can briefly see her lips move (for probably a tenth of a second), but it not at all clear she is talking. Certainly it doesn't look like a conversation. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that she is holding something to her face for a toothache or something similar. In the past, dental care was much less wide spread, and chronic toothaches were common.

Clarke also has some strange idea that the old woman is actually a man in drag. He even refers to her as a him at one point. I won't even discuss this idea. It is just odd, and pointless.

However, I am not really interested in the details of what she is holding. I don't know, and we can't tell from old grainy footage. What I find interesting about Clarke's theory is how completely ridiculous it is, even granting the idea of time travel. Coming up with a theory of time travel based on two seconds of old footage is going well beyond the evidence to say the least. But let's grant the theory, just to see where it goes. I have to assume that Clarke never bothered to think beyond that.

The first obvious question is who the hell is she talking to? If she is having a conversation on her cell phone, that means there was someone else with a cell phone in 1920 as well. And if they were talking, that means there was a transmission tower sending their signals to each other. If they were more than a few miles apart, there were satellites transmitting. If they were able to dial each other, then the entire infrastructure of telephone number switching was in place. Did the time travelers really go back with all that is required to make a cell phone work? Time travel could bring a cell phone back to 1920, but it could not bring an operational cell phone.

I suppose there would be two possible replies to this. One is that they were not communicating through a cell tower but directly. This changes the claim. Then the claim is that they are talking through walkie talkies, not through cell phones. Then it is only a few decades ahead of it's time, rather than over half a century. There is no sign that she is pressing the transmit and receive buttons of a walkie talkie. The other possibility is that she it talking through time to the present. Since time travel doesn't actually happen, we can't say anything about what can and cannot happen, but it does seem absurd that cell phones signals or radio waves travel through time. Again, if this is the case she doesn't have a cell phone, she has some futuristic tricorder or something.

Even if we grant that some old woman and someone else travelled back in time with a walkie talkie to see a Chaplin movie, the story still doesn't hold up. If you travel back in time you will want to be disguised. You would need to look and dress like people of that time. The woman in the footage has done an excellent job of disguising herself. She blends in perfectly with the locals in dress and manner. Fortunately, she left her futuristic shiny Jetson's costume in the future. She then proceeded to pull out her cell phone and talk into it in the middle of a crowded street. Don't you think that would blow her cover just a little? No one in the film seems at all surprised that a woman is walking down the street talking into some block on her face. Doesn't this suggest that she was not actually doing anything surprising?

The time traveling cell phone lady is representative of a lot of pseudoscience. Find something that seems anomalous or out of place, and come to an elaborate conclusion. This is really the same thing as what Van Daniken does in Chariot's of the Gods?. Van Daniken searches artwork of ancient civilizations for things that resemble modern inventions--space ships, light bulbs, astronaut helmets, etc. He then uses these vague resemblances as evidence that alien astronauts visited our ancestors and provided them with inventions. And Van Daniken also never bothers to ask where the electricity came from to operate those light bulbs.

What's evolution got to do with it?

I've been commenting on newspaper articles or letters lately, so I might as well continue. This time the article in question is a recent opinion piece by Cal Thomas in the Jamestown Sun. Thomas is a conservative writer, often focusing on issues involving the religious right. This piece focuses on stem cell research, specifically a recent report on the use of stem cells for spinal cord injuries.

It comes as no surprise that Thomas is opposed to this research. He questions why this is necessary, with the availability of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which do not have the ethical baggage of embryonic stem cells. It is not my goal to discuss this part of his article, although I can quickly point out that iPS cells are not yet ready for prime time. They do not seem to have quite the same characteristics as embryonic cells and there is a risk that they may be more likely to lead to cancer. Research is continuing on them and hopefully they will eventually live up to their promise, but for now they are not a full replacement for embryonic stem cells. If this research on spinal cord injuries shows promise, it could easily be adapted to iPS cells once they are more fully developed.

The reason I want to discuss this article is what comes next. After three paragraphs discussing stem cells, evolution is thrown in out of the blue:

The answer to the “why? [why do this research]” question has something to do with how we view ourselves. If you are an evolutionist who does not believe in a Creator who endowed us with the right to life, you might be more liberal in your approach to manipulating human tissue for the “benefit” of others. But that still doesn’t justify using embryonic stem cells when artificial ones appear to function just as well.

If, on the other hand, you think “playing God” is not good for the human race and that other ways to relieve suffering can, should and, in fact, are being discovered, you are more likely to want to control human urges to do whatever can be done in a laboratory.

Appeals to the uniqueness of human life are likely to fall on deaf ears if you are an evolutionist. Reminders of the horrors unrestrained scientists have created in the past are likely to be viewed as an aberration.

In retrospect, great horrors are usually seen as springing up full-formed. Many people didn’t notice the small steps that led to the Nazi Holocaust or to the selling of African slaves in the public square. Senses must first be dulled; religion trivialized; and self enthroned before tolerance for the horrific is accepted.

I won't ask why he has the word benefit in scare quotes. I've read this several times, and I cannot understand the connection between evolution and stem cells. He does not make it at all clear. He just makes it as an assertion: if you are an evolutionist, you might be more liberal in your approach. Why? The strangest paragraph is the third one, where he asserts that appeals to the uniqueness of human life are likely to fall on deaf ears if you are an evolutionist. Why? What is the logic of the connection? I especially don't see why reminders of the horrors of unrestrained science would fall on deaf ears.

It is not like this type of argument surprises me. I know creationists always assert that evolution is the source of all evil, but I never have seen the logic. Why does the question of the value of human life, or the value of an embryo, or especially the ability to see past horrors, have anything to do with whether we evolved? I have heard the right to life issue debated a thousand times. People argue over what makes us human and over the consequences to the mother and over the potential of the cells. Never once have I heard an argument from either side depend on whether we are related to apes or not. There are many people who believe in evolution who are right to life. Almost all evolution believing scientists look with horror on abuses of science in the past, such as the Nazis or Tuskegee.

I believe I can identify at least a little bit of Thomas' unstated logic. As with most creationists, he makes no distinction between evolution and materialism and atheism. His real assertion is that strict materialism leads to these views. Evolution has nothing really to do with it, other than that it is a materialist explanation. Meteorology is also a materialist explanation for the weather, but he does not make the same assertion for meteorologists. Our origins or relationship to other living things is irrelevant, even to Thomas. He just uses evolutionist as a code word for atheist or materialist. He believes they are all the same thing, anyway.

So Thomas' real argument is that materialism leads to these views on stem cells (and to not seeing the horrors of the past), not evolution. But this view is also not supported. It is common for a person whose views on right or wrong comes only from one source, such as their religious conviction, to be unable to imagine that there are other possible sources. Thomas makes no effort to show that materialism leads to nihilism. His logic is simply this: my views on moral questions comes from my religious beliefs. Materialists do not share my religious beliefs, therefore there is no way they can have moral beliefs". I would think he has heard secular arguments both for and against stem cell research, or Nazi horrors, so he should understand that there are other sources for those beliefs, but he does not.

Empirical evidence fails to support Thomas. Some people who believe in evolution oppose stem cell research, some do not. Almost all of them look in horror at Nazi abuses and other abuses of science in the past. If Thomas was correct, you would expect that belief in evolution should correlate with increased likelihood of abortion. In fact, the opposite is found. Within the United States, those states with the lowest belief in evolution have the highest abortion rate. Within the developed world, those countries that have the lowest belief in evolution also have the highest abortion rate. The relationship is exactly the opposite of that predicted by Thomas.

I am not really interested in discussing stem cell research or secular versus religious ethics. I am just always a little surprised at the non sequitor of randomly inserting evolution into topics that have nothing to do with the science, and the world of hidden assumptions beneath it.

A crank for all seasons

Milo Buchholtz is a local crank who writes letters to the editor on a semi regular basis about his pet pseudoscientific theory, that all of our bad weather is due to rocketry. Don't ask exactly how. That is never made clear. He occasionally says something about breaking the sound barrier producing shock rings that lead somehow to bad weather all over the earth. I have used some of his letters in my classes. I present his theory and ask students what kind of evidence you would need to make this science. Most recognize that he has to be more specific about exactly what kind of rocket leads to what kind of weather and when and where, as well as a better mechanism. Citing random bad weather somewhere on earth several months after a rocket launch does not constitute evidence.

Buchholtz has written again. I rather enjoy his letters. They are the product of a true crank. I definitely don't want to endorse what he says, but this seems to be harmless. Many pseudosciences can produce harm, directly or indirectly. If the advocates want to get it taught in schools, or promote unhealthy remedies, or make people invest money, or if it leads to poor science, then we should stop it. As far as I can tell, Milo has been railing against the rockets for 20 years, and he has been completely ignored by everyone, and that is why he is harmless. I find the persistence of some cranks fascinating. They proclaim their gospel for 20 years, are ignored by absolutely everyone, and yet they never once question themselves. They don't wonder why no one takes them seriously or think just possibly they might be wrong. I wonder at the single minded devotion in spite of all reason, partly because I cannot relate to it myself. As long as no one takes him seriously it is fun to watch. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of equally silly ideas that are taken seriously, so we have to be vigilant. I have Buchholtz 's letter below, and I will follow with a few comments:

You people have to take the blinders off, pull your heads out of the sand, and for gosh sakes, please stop thumping the Bible. Almighty God is not causing all your diseases and health problems, and he certainly isn’t causing all this unseasonable and disastrous weather. The above mentioned is caused by man’s inhumanity to man.

We have spent billions on bandages to fix weather-related damages and are about to spend billions more because the weather is going from bad to worse.

We the people have the power but we have to elect people who are concerned about the Earth and future generations.

As a certified organic farmer our products are in more and more demand. With our weather so disgusting when most organic farmers quit their land goes to the chemical farmer. Chemical food in our bodies is like putting diesel in a gas motor.

I have been writing letters since 1993 about rocketry destroying the earth. About a month ago on the national news it was reported that 2010 has been the worse year for natural disasters than anytime in recorded history. Our media is constantly reporting about nature showing her ugly side. But I tell you that “Nature” is a lady and should be treated as such. Breaking the sound barrier to blast into space is destroying the weather patterns and ultimately will destroy all natural organic food.

If we had one drop of common sense in any city, county, state or federal government, they would want to prove rocketing disturbs the Earth’s weather. But it appears our elected are only in office serving themselves.

President Barack Obama stopped anymore money for the moon, NASA waltzes onto Capitol Hill and our flip-flop president states that our space program is very much alive and we are going to land on an asteroid and then Mars.

So people just keep your heads buried in the sand and I assure you that there will be less good organic food and more weather disasters.

One thing that strikes me when I read this is how it never occurs to him to provide evidence for his favored cause. If we grant him that this has been the worst year for weather, shouldn't he try to make the case that it has also been the biggest year for rocketry? In fact, the space shuttle was only launched once in 2010. Launches have been on the decline. We know that correlation does not mean causation, but he does not even bother to show that there is a correlation. He doesn't look at the number of rocket launches, and he makes no effort to show a specific time between rocket launches and bad weather.

Of course, we can't grant him that this has been the worst year for weather, regardless of his one reference. There have been heavy rains, but other years have bad droughts, or more hurricanes. There is not single measure for good or bad weather. I know from previous letters that Milo does not say that rockets lead to bad weather some particular distance from a rocket launch. It can be any place on earth. There is always some place that had some bad weather that year.

Like a true crank, Buchholz ties all of his passions together. Apparently he is an organic farmer, and so he must tie this in with his pet theory. I can see no reason why bad weather would pick on organic farmers more than "chemical farmers", but he declares that rockets are going to destroy organic farming specifically. He goes on to use meaningless analogies about diesel in a gas engine.

Buchholz also never once considers other possible explanations for bad weather. We have many well known phenomena that affect weather, such as El Nino and La Nina. There is also a well supported explanation for increased violent weather--global warming. Like a true crank, Buchholz makes no attempt to compare theories and see which one is better supported. In previous letters, he has dismissed global warming because the earth didn't warm when Sodom and Gomarah were burned in the Bible (seriously).

Buchholz considers himself the prophet in the wilderness telling us all to repent of our rocketry. Everyone else sees him as the crank walking around with a The End is Near! sign. There is never any sign that he has considered the evidence. The most telling line in the letter is when he declares that if we had any common sense, we would try to prove that rocketry causes bad weather. Notice that he does not say we should try to figure out what is causing bad weather. Rather he declares the conclusion we should be trying to achieve. As with most pseudoscience, he has the answer first, then seeks out confirming evidence afterward, and fails to consider alternative explanations.

Dumb-ocracy demonstrated

Recently, newspaper columnist Clarence Page wrote about the astonishing fact that nearly 1 in 7 Americans believe president Obama is a Muslim, although he clearly isn't. He discussed it in terms of the spread of "Dumb-ocracy", the tendency to believe things that you want to believe, truth be damned. I find this topic interesting. The main reason I am interested in pseudoscience is understanding how people can believe things that are obviously not true. Refusing to believe the obvious fact that Obama is not a Muslim and was born in the U.S. are striking examples of this.

John Gallagher, of Carington, ND wrote a letter to the Jamestown Sun in response to Page's article. Although he seems to believe he was arguing against Page, I cannot imagine a better demonstration of Dumb-ocracy than this letter.

Gallagher begins:

No. 1: We have been conditioned in our post-modern era to understand that all "beliefs" are equally valid--thus a thing may be "true for you but not for me." So is the belief that the president is a Muslim any less "true" than the believe that he is a Christian? Aren't people allowed to believe whatever they want?

I am not really sure what Gallagher is trying to say here. Is he endorsing the post-modern belief and actually claiming that whatever you believe is true? Is he claiming all truth claims are equal? If I believed that John Gallagher was a Muslim, or a Kenyan, would it be true? Does he realize the post-modern view undermines any claims he makes for the truth of Christianity, since it is only true for him, but not for anyone else?

However, he is unclear whether he endorses the post-modern view. He may reject the post-modern viewpoint, but uses it anyway because it gives him an answer he likes. He just says we have been conditioned to this view, and seems to imply this is some fadish new view that some hold but he does not. As far as I can tell, he is does not claim to believe it himself, but since some people believe it and since it gives the answer that he wants, he is willing to accept it. In other words, he is doing exactly what Page was referring to--believing something simply because he wants to believe it, even if it means accepting world views he would otherwise reject.

The last line, that people are allowed to believe whatever they want is a common fallacy. It confuses the right to hold a belief with the veracity of a belief. Of course people have the right to believe Obama is a Muslim, and that unicorns exist. That right does not make it true.

Gallagher continues:

No.2 C.S. Lewis, in the preface to his book, Mere Christianity, says this about the word itself: "The word Christian was first given at Antioch...to those who accepted the teachings of the apostles." Such teaching was unequivocal, as Paul later says, "I am on trial for the hope and researection of the dead". If this is what the president believes--in Jesus' physical death and bodily resurrection and all that this imples throughout the entire historey of redemtpion...--then we have no alternative but to call him a Christian. ... A consice statement from the president regarding his belief on the atoning sacrifice would clear a lot of confusion....

There is a long history of one group of Christians saying another group is not a "True Christian." Some people say Catholics are not Christians, or Mormons are not, or Episcopalians, others say they are. Some people will claim that anyone who doesn't believe the exact same things as him is not a true Christian. Page was not discussing whether Obama's flavor of Christianity is the same as someone else's. Whether Obama fits your particular definition of Christianity or not, the point is irrelevant. Even if he is not a Christian at all, that does not make him a Muslim.

Gallagher probably never bothered to find out what Obama has said regarding his beliefs, again because he simply does not want to. Obama has discussed religious beliefs in considerable detail in an interview with Rick Warren prior to the election. He clearly believes many tenants of Christianity, and is clearly not a Muslim.

Gallagher makes a point number three which I won't discuss in detail. He disagrees with Page that the least informed often decide elections, which is ironic, because he clearly demonstrates that reality has no influence on his beliefs.

There is no evidence at all that Obama is a Muslim, and even though Gallagher seems to be arguing for that position, he does not bother to present any. Gallagher’s letter nicely confirms Clarence Page’s claim that politics are dominated by Dumb-ocracy. Gallagher seems to be arguing that he will believe whatever he wants to believe; actual evidence and reality are irrelevant.