I have been reading the September/October 2002 issue of the great Skeptical Inquirer magazine and have learned a very cool word.  The word is syncretism, defined as “Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.”  Very cool.

Less cool is yet another SI demonstration of how stupid people are.  This is one of those bang-your-head-into-concrete ones.  I mean, we all know people are stupid, but fuck, people are stupid.  I would give up my car and house and job and live in a fucking cardboard box if that could suddenly stop people from being this stupid.

Try out Clifford Pickover’s ESP Experiment and see if you come up with the same “explanations” the other visitors did after trying to fool the computer.  Many visitors are convinced the computer is psychic (one was impressed that emotional excitation “does not even seem to interfere, as would be expected if one looks at Sufi literature.”)  One is convinced the computer scans eye movement and tracks pupil dilation resulting from concentration.  Another is impressed that the English-language site can read his mind even though he thought of the card in Finnish.

Fri, 06 Sep 2002 15:01:07 +0000
Under complaints, culture
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