Our book club meeting this month is in the usual place and time, on the lawn just north of Harvard Yard, between Memorial Hall and the Science Center. If it rains, the meeting will be indoors in the cafeteria of the Northwest building a little way up Oxford Street.

Our book this month is The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. It appears to be a fairly quick and fun read, so it’s not to late to start it! Even if you haven’t, we always value uninformed opinions :-)

Bring a snack to share or at very least, bring your appetite! No coffee this month (sorry), unless someone else steps up to the plate.

Place: Harvard Yard
Time: 3:00 PM Saturday July 9, 2011

It doesn't get much more dissonant than this.

This weekend, the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club met up to discuss Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, a book about Cognitive Dissonance Theory and self-justification. As skeptics, we try to be objective and judge based only on facts and reason, but we can’t avoid the effects of cognitive dissonance.

The authors write, “We justify behavior we know is wrong so that we still see ourselves as honest people.” In other not-really-much-simpler words, cognitive dissonance is the constant that balances out our moral equation. When encountering a dissonance, one must either change one’s original belief or refute/reinterpret the data to turn it to consonance. Both sides of the equation balance in our heads and our world is restored to normal. A good phrase the authors use is believing is seeing, which means that if you hold a certain belief, you have already pre-judged anything related to that belief, good or bad. If evidence agrees with us, we think it’s reliable. If not, it’s biased or foolish. Or, as George Carlin would put it, “ Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

If you don’t have time to read the book, here are some of the points:

• “Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression”: If you say something mean to someone, they must have done something to deserve it, and therefore you need to continue to treat them badly. Admitting that you were wrong and an aggressor may be to dissonant to admit.
• Once we make a decision, we find reasons to justify why that decision was better than others.
• Asking others to do favors for you makes them like you more. (In their mind, if they did a favor for you, you must’ve been worth helping, and therefore you’re a trustworthy person.)
• Each side of a rift uses self-justification to blame the other. The only real way to end conflict is if both sides apologize, forgive, and are committed to moving on.
• “Pain felt is more intense than pain inflicted.”
• Police are under the impression that they do not interrogate innocent people, so if you find yourself in an interrogation situation, repeat this phrase: I want a lawyer. Now.
• Also, if you are ever wrongfully convicted, the prosecutor will likely not care if they find out that you’re innocent, so long as your case is closed. Put your faith in good friends and lawyers who will fight for you.

Interestingly, even though we are loath to admit mistakes (because we think people will judge us as stupid), people admire those who own up to their wrongs. In fact, patients are less likely to sue doctors that admit fault and promise to try better in the future. Making mistakes in your life is important to your learning process. It is important to think of mistakes as learning experiences instead of failures, because the former is not dissonant with the view we have of ourselves and we will work harder instead of trying to be perfect.

Of course, this book confirms my previously held beliefs about cognition, and therefore it is unbiased and reliable.

However, a few people at Book Club brought up the point that while the book has many examples of how cognitive dissonance affects us, it doesn’t examine how to deal with overcoming cognitive dissonance. There are a few examples here and there but mostly the book just illustrates our lack of free will. Personally, I don’t think there is any one way of dealing with dissonance in others, except by just planting a seed of doubt. It’s very important that when you are expressing a skeptical view point to someone who has been drinking the holistic homeopathic water, you aren’t too forceful about it. Self-justification can be a gradual process, so just by explaining your view calmly, you might have an eventual lasting impression. If you express your view in a not-so-friendly manner, it will be too much and your arguments will be explained away. People are more receptive to change if they think it’s come as a personal revelation, not just because someone told them so.

The next book club meeting is on Saturday, June 11th from 3-5pm and we are discussing The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Location is TBD, depending on the weather, but we should be meeting either in Harvard Yard or in our usual indoor spot in the cafeteria of the Northwest Building on Harvard Campus in Cambridge.

It's always sunny in Tatooine

Since the weather is going to be in the 60s today (plus the fact that our normal meeting spot is being taken over by about 600 people), we’re meeting outside in our old spot in Harvard Yard, today at 3pm. More details on the location here.

Come and join us to discuss cognitive dissonance and Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), and don’t forget to bring a snack! See you there!

Gallium Spoons: Only for hardcore fans of heavy metal (poisoning)

Last time, at the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club: Discovery. Mayhem. Profiteering. Arrogance. Science! All of these points and more were involved in the discovery and use of elements on the Periodic Table.

The Disappearing Spoon is divided up into five parts:

1. “Orientation: Column by Column, Row by Row.” This section discusses the basics of the table and how the geography is the key to decoding the properties of the elements. We take a trip to the town of Ytterby in Sweden, the proverbial Galapagos of the Periodic Table because of the ample supply of distinct minerals and Lanthanides. Also, we learn that antimony used to be used as a laxative pill, and it was so robust it was actually retrieved afterwards and passed down through family generations. Yum!
2. “Making Atoms, Breaking Atoms.” This chapter starts off with a discussion that can be summed up by Carl Sagan: “We are all star stuff contemplating star stuff.” Then it transitions into how science and the elements were used as weapons of war. One particularly ruthless scientist, Fritz Haber (a man who converted from Judaism to Lutheranism to benefit his career), developed chemical warfare and bombs for the Nazis in WWII, including the infamous Zyklon B (used in gas chambers during the Holocaust). Finally it concludes with the rabidly anti-science (among other things) John Birch Society and how American scientists envied the allegedly more scientific Russian Marxists. But there’s a twist! The Marxists actually did not believe in genetic theory and in fact shipped dissenting scientists off to work as mining slaves.
3. “Periodic Confusion: The Emergence of Complexity.” The theme of this section was the impact that the elements can have on our human physiology. The cadmium sludge disaster at the Kamioka Mines killed many rice farmers because cadmium can replace many minerals in one’s body and cause broken bones and kidney failure. Silver and copper are antimicrobial because they disrupt the metabolism of microbes. Also: How tastebuds work!
4. “The Elements of Human Character.” Did you know that Marie Curie named the element polonium as a political statement to show her controversial (?) support of her home country Poland? Neither did most people alive at the time she named it. And so, the theme of this section is how the elements have been viewed and used in popular culture. One fun story involves Nazis looking for illegal gold and Neils Bohr dissolving some gold Nobel Prize medals (given to him for safekeeping) so that he wouldn’t get caught. (After the war, his lab precipitated the gold out and had it recast.) Other stories include: A possible theory behind the “Midas Touch” legend; Robert Lowell, the famous manic-depressive poet, and lithium; and how the man who discovered x-rays thought he had gone insane once he saw the bones in his hand. Fortunately, in the last story, he uses his wife to confirm that she can see bones too, so he knows he’s not crazy. However, she thinks she’s just seen a death omen. But hey, all for science, right?
5. “Element Science: Today and Tomorrow.” This section explores how modern scientists endeavor to discover new elements in the table by applying extreme or different forces to current elements. For example, subjecting some elements to extreme cold can cause them to form a new atomic layout (as one unfortunate South Pole expedition found out when their tin-soldered oil cans broke apart at the seams and leaked all over their food). There’s a bit of discussion on the people who work for the Bureau of Standards and Measurements (who are the gold standard of anal-retentiveness)., and the mystery of scientific constants, which may not always be as constant as we once thought.

If you’re looking for some science, history, and tales of adventure, this book is definitely worth a read. The biggest complaint about this book at our discussion table was that it (like most of the science books we’ve been reading) jumps around a little too much chapter by chapter, although that probably is to be expected in a book that covers the diverse history of every single element in the Periodic Table. I enjoyed the historical tidbits and tales of nefarious scientists moreso than the actual science.

Our next book is Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. We are meeting up on Saturday, April 30 at 3pm in our normal meeting spot in the Harvard University Northwest Building (check previous posts for pictures and address). If, however, the weather is going to be beautiful (none of this sunny-with-a-cold-breeze shit we’ve been getting), I’ll post an announcement and we’ll meet up on Harvaaahhd Yaahhd, where we met in the summer. Bring yourself, bring a snack, and of course bring a book suggestion to add to our list!

Video evidence of a ghost? Alien hand syndrome? Clear and poorly acted fraud? Clearly all equal possibilities!

Last Book Club meeting, we discussed Joe Nickell’s Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. (Spoiler alert: All alleged paranormal activity was discovered to be fake or misjudged.) This book is actually a collection of his articles from the magazine Skeptical Inquirer and so it didn’t have the normal flow of a book. Each chapter was written decently, but it was full of Skeptic 101 material (The legend of the Crystal Skulls, Peter Popoff’s Ministry of Fraud, dowsing, crop circles, etc.), so it wasn’t a book that I enjoyed reading  but it is an excellent primer for anyone new to the movement who previously believed in these things.

Even though the title of the book mentions Adventures and Investigation, the book lacked both. A few chapters were written in a way to include the actual investigation process (“Abraham Lincoln’s Spirit Writing”), and the author did do a little traveling, but too many chapters were just frank discussions of beliefs that people have. There is a chapter about the castle that may have inspired the naming of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and there is another chapter about people who celebrate The Day of the Dead, no investigations involved (not that any were necessary).

I’m not completely down on this book though. Clearly the author takes many of these claims seriously because he doesn’t want to think of himself as someone who solely debunks, which has the (unintentional?) effect of making a few of the chapters very humorous. For example, in “The Case of the Alien Hand,” a green, hand-like artifact was found in some hay and presented to the author for investigation. He notes that the skin is stretchy, green, and smells like latex, and he has very detailed photos showing manufacturing defects from the latex-coating process. He concludes that the hand probably belonged to a plastic ghoul and was caught up in a piece of farm equipment before ending up in the hay. I think it took me longer to read this chapter than it would have to find a green hand and proclaim its artificial origin.

Our next meeting is Saturday, March 26th at 3pm in our normal meeting spot in Harvard. We’ll be discussing The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean.

And for all you who like to read the following book the month before, I have a surprise for you: Here is the official Book Club list, take a look and let me know what book we should read next! Or suggest a new one if it’s not listed! Even if you have never made a meeting before, make a suggestion! (OK, I’ve reached my exclamation point quota for the week. Maybe!)

While you’re out this weekend enjoying the first signs of New England Mud Season, come stop by Harvard and chat with the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club! We are meeting at the Northwest Building at Harvard (as usual) at 3pm on Saturday, February 19th (tomorrow!) to discuss Adventures in Paranormal Investigation by Joe Nickell. And if you’re so inclined, bring a snack!

Don’t be shy if you haven’t been able to come before or if you haven’t finished (or read) the book. You can often fake your way through a meeting as long as you can come up with a tertiarily-related Star Trek reference! All new members are welcome.

Note: There is a surprising dearth of pictures involving math and Star Trek.

At our last gathering, we met up to discuss The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette (who blogs at Cocktail Party Physics). This book is aimed at people who don’t necessarily understand real-world applications of calculus, which is an interesting premise because you would think that those people would also not pick up a book with “calculus” in the title, but I suppose this could be a good book for math teachers to give realistic examples of how to use calculus. However, I already liked math before reading this book and I already understood calculus well enough (thanks to a few awesome high school math teachers), so I didn’t really enjoy the book.

My favorite parts of the book were actually the parts where it discussed the history of math and mathematicians, although according to one of our book-clubians, Ouellette got a few of her math history facts wrong. I noticed that in the chapter where math is supposed to help you lose weight (summary: eat fewer calories than you use), she has an incorrect anecdote about the history of dieting and the Romans’ usage of vomitoria. The way the story goes is that Romans used to have a special room called a Vomitorium where they would then regurgitate their meals. In fact, a vomitorium is a passageway in a theater or stadium that allows people to quickly fill up the seats. Also, the cover of the book says it can help you “survive a zombie apocalypse,” but in fact the only way to survive is to team up with vampires. I mean, if you’re being farmed by vampires, does that really count as surviving? It sounds like the only thing I could use this book for is to beat away the hordes of monsters trying to eat me.

Overall I wasn’t too impressed with the book, but then again I could be the wrong audience since I didn’t really need examples of derivatives and integrals to understand the concepts behind them. This book is more for someone who needs an “Aha!” moment about math.

Our next meeting is February 19th at 3pm in the same location as the past few times (Harvard University, Northwest Building, 52 Oxford St in Cambridge). There is a picture posted of the front door of the building back a couple posts ago if you haven’t been yet. We’ll be discussing Adventures in Paranormal Investigation by Joe Nickell. And if you can, please bring a munchie to share with the rest of us. See you then!

Edited to add: The book we’ll be reading for March (for all you people who manage to do stuff ahead of time) is The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.

Free* Pi Cat to the first five people! (*Note: Pi Cat not included.)

I know the weather has been crazy lately, but Saturday is supposed to be mostly sunny, according to various weather sources. Of course, in weatherspeak, that means that we’ll get three inches of dead apocalypse birds with a snow chaser. (I think that’s actually what the festive-sounding Wintry Mix is.)

We’ll be discussing Jennifer Ouellette’s The Calculus Diaries. Come on down to Harvard from 3-5 pm, in the Northwest building where we met up last time. Even if you don’t know anything about math or this book, come for a lively discussion and get more information than you ever wanted to know about how to use math to be prepared for a zombie outbreak. And if you’re feeling extra warm-hearted, bring a snack (thanks to everyone who does, it’s always very much appreciated).

See you on Saturday, nerds!

"Everything tastes like a PIG!"

Last time at the BSBC, we gathered around sweets and various holiday savories to discuss Mary’s Roach’s latest book Packing for Mars, a humorous and scientific look at the history of space travel and the lengths people will go to in preparation of a possible trip to Mars, the great red planet of dirt that looks sort of like the outskirts of Las Vegas.

When Jim Lovell looked into space and remarked on the beauty of it, he was probably referring to the crystallized urine that had just been ejected from the space shuttle. On a different occasion, however, he was the owner of a urine bag that had exploded in the shuttle, turning the capsule into a latrine. In fact, the bathroom situation in space is one of the trickier obstacles to overcome because of the lack of privacy (there was a curtain, but nothing could hide the clear bag full of shit that you then had to mush antibacterial gel through lest it explode in space), the smell, and the problem with “escapees”. The bathroom problem was such an issue that on shorter missions, the astronauts would just refuse to eat (which was made easier because the food was dehydrated and came in cube form).

A small note about the food: the cubes weren’t so popular with the astronauts, so the nutritionists at NASA pureed everything and put it into tubes to reduce zero-gravity induced messiness. However, when you eat pureed food, not only can you not see or smell it (which messes up how it may taste), but also your brain is confused that something that tastes like a hot dog has the consistency of baby food. Which is why the only food that astronauts liked in tube was applesauce (hence the “Gaz, Taster of Pork” reference picture from Invader Zim).

If you think you can get past the bathroom issues (really? exploding shit bags didn’t scare you off?), there’s also the smell issue since it is nigh impossible to bathe properly and wash your clothes with current technology. I know, we’ve all had that one college roommate, but at least you were allowed to leave the room or crack open a window. In space, no one can hear you scream, but in the capsule, everyone can smell your BO.

Honestly, for me, the book killed any dream I once had of going into space. I’ve heard more than one astronaut expound about the wonders of zero-gravity and the privilege of working with NASA, but Mary Roach really explores the nitty-gritty aspects of space preparation. Since our bodies have adjusted to live on Earth, removing gravity can do very bad things to you. In fact, most astronauts get motion sickness for the first week of space travel because the inner-ear is adjusting itself (and then when they land, there is more motion sickness as the inner ear readjusts). And there is also bone loss to worry about, because the pull of gravity on your bones helps your osteoblasts to keep your bones nice and strong. Otherwise, you lose bone density and that can cause you to break a bone more easily. If you can get past that (and the previously-mentioned grossness), Mission Control is the ultimate nosy parent/micromanaging boss. You are asked about things like your sweat and dandruff levels, and literally every minute of your day is scheduled except for two hours of “pre-sleep” time.

If you want all the glamor of space travel without actually being cool enough to go into space, you can always try an isolation chamber experiment. You will be privileged enough to be locked up in a room with complete strangers and get along. And deal with silly things like cockroaches, fistfights, and possibly horny/drunk cosmonauts. If that doesn’t do it for you. you can volunteer for three months as a bed-rest patient. Basically, you spend the entire day in a bed that leans back slightly at a 6 degree angle (so blood pools in the upper half of your body) and that’s it. It’s basically like a hospital (even with food and all the bedpans you can use) except without the pleasure of being able to get out of bed.

Are you still interested in space? Seriously? (By this point, NASA should exclude anyone who wants to be an astronaut from becoming one because obviously you’d have to be crazy, and I’m pretty sure sending crazy people into space is against their psych test. It’s Space Catch 22!)

If any of you do get into space, let me know how that desalinated urine is, and update me on the status of Project: Shitburgers and Mouse Stew while you’re at it.

Our next meeting is on January 22nd at 3pm on the Harvard Campus (same location as last time, in the Northwest Building). We will be bringing snacks again to compensate for the lack of having it in an actual coffee shop (but our new venue is totally nice, I promise). And, drumroll please, our next book is: The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette, who also posts on the blog Cocktail Party Physics.

Psst, if you’ve already read our January book or you just want to go ahead and see what we’re reading in February, click here.

"Oh, you're dealing with someone far worse than the FBI. You've just crossed...mall security."

Come and join the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club tomorrow, November 6^th, at 3pm for a rousing discussion about zombies and World War Z by Max Brooks.

Since the weather is a bit cooler, we’ll be meeting inside the Northwest Building at Harvard University.

Here are some Google Maps directions to a spot in front of the building from the Harvard Square T Station.

Here is a photo of the building (it’s a big file, sorry anyone who has slow internet). The entrance is on the right and we’re meeting in a spot that is near the windows on the left side of the picture.

Please don’t come too late, because the door is not open to the public so we have to let people in ourselves. If you come late, you can try going to the windows on the left side of the picture above, and you should be able to see our group.

If you haven’t read the book, but you’re a fan of zombiefic, come on over! We’ll be discussing all sorts of zombie (and skeptic) related things tomorrow. Also, we will be continuing the snack-bringing tradition, so bring some goodies to share with the rest of the class (and it doesn’t have to be zombie related–you just need to bring the brains in your heads, not cooked or otherwise prepared).