The Twitter #weirdscifacts from April 11 – April 24 are below the fold!
Back when I first started my blog, I spent a lot more time dealing with crazy people who are convinced that Einstein’s theories of relativity are wrong (see here, here and here). More recently, I haven’t spent a lot of time on the crazy train, but I have been meaning to get back to my long-neglected series of posts explaining relativity.
Enter Conservapedia, the right-wing version of Wikipedia intended to combat the liberal bias in reality! Over the past day, Twitter has been abuzz with tweets¹ on the Conservapedia page on “Counterexamples to relativity“, provides a list of 24 “points” that attempt to show the weakness of Einstein’s crazy ideas!
In my mind, perhaps the most despicable sort of denialism or crankery, however, is that which is based on some sort of political or religious ideology. This is clearly what is going on here, and the author relies on a familiar form of rhetorical trickery known as the “Gish Gallop“: throw as many claims out there as possible, regardless of their validity, with the realization that most people will be swayed by the amount of “evidence”, and not look too closely at the details.
Looking at the “evidence”, it is clear that there isn’t a single point made that isn’t misleading, incoherent, or simply dishonest. A person reading the Conservapedia post will be measurably more ignorant afterwards, and I get the distinct impression that this is what the author intended.
But never fear, dear reader! I’m here to go through the list of some of the most entertaining assertions, and explain why they’re nonsense. Why bother, you ask? For one thing, entertainment. For another, there’s always a chance that someone may come across the Conservapedia entry and look for some sort of counterbalance… someone should write one!
One caveat: I can’t guarantee that the list I present will match the list on the Conservapedia page. I saved the tweeted list, but after all the internet attention, it was reduced to four points. Soon afterwards, it reverted to the original list again. There’s no guarantee that it will remain in its current form, though…
“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.
This week’s set of editor’s selections is a “chemistry extravaganza”! The posts that jumped out at me were heavily focused on the science and techniques of chemistry. Enjoy!
Check back next week for more “miscellaneous” suggestions!
For those who are new to Skulls in the Stars, my other major topic — other than science — is “weird fiction”, often but not exclusively of the late 1800s/early 1900s. “Weird fiction” is a term that broadly describes any sort of tale that includes some aspect of the unreal: horror, science fiction, fantasy, and things that are genuinely unclassifiable.
I like to argue that there are threads that tie weird fiction and science blogging together — weird fiction has historically drawn upon the science of its time to fuel its ideas and give them a plausible feel. Weird visionary H.P. Lovecraft used the then modern theories of relativity and quantum mechanics to craft a new type of cosmic horror, and was knowledegable enough about science to write an astronomy column for his local paper. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race (1871), a science fiction utopian novel, introduces robots, ray guns, the equivalent of jetpacks — and justifies it using direct quotations of Michael Faraday!
However, I also review weird fiction on the blog because I adore the genre and blogging gives me a motivation and an excuse to delve into rare, neglected and forgotten works that are truly wonderful.
One of those truly wonderful books is the collection of stories about “John the Balladeer”, titled Who Fears the Devil? (1963), by Manly Wade Wellman. I’ve been aware of this collection for some time, but waited to read it until the release of Paizo Press’ new edition in February of this year:
This isn’t my first encounter with Wellman’s work, however; I previously reviewed Wellman’s sublimely silly and naive novella Giants From Eternity, which featured history’s greatest scientists resurrected to do battle with an alien invader! This isn’t even my first encounter with “John the Balladeer”: I also blogged about Wellman’s series of five novels featuring the character; you can read the description of those books here.
What can I say about John the Balladeer, also known as “Silver John”? He is an Appalachian mountain man and wanderer who travels the wilds of the South meeting folks, learning new songs, and performing to pay his way. The wilderness of Wellman’s imagination is a dangerous land populated with the fearsome creatures of Southern folklore, and Who Fears the Devil? is a collection of tales in which John faces off against supernatural evil using only his wits, his brawn, his goodness, and his silver-stringed guitar!
These are some of the most beautiful and I dare say inspiring stories I’ve ever read. There has never been another character quite like Silver John, and I venture to say there will never be again. Let’s take a closer look at Wellman and the stories of ‘Devil…
I put in a little extra time this evening and managed to figure out how to transfer my blog archives over to the new site here! Everything seems to be present and accounted for, though I may have to check whether the links are correct or not.
Anyway, if you’re new to my blogging and want to check out my earlier work, now you can do it all in one place!
(Update: I have a lot of LaTeX repairing to do, and a lot of link fixing to do!)
This seems like a good time to remind folks about Eric Michael Johnson’s “Primate Diaries in Exile” tour! Since leaving Scienceblogs in the wake of PepsiGate, Eric has been “touring” various blogs and providing guest posts. He’s set up a blogger site to keep track of the various stops along the way; so far, these include:
Eric’s next stop will be right here at Skulls in the Stars, probably early next week! In the meantime, you can keep track of Eric’s tour through the twitter hashtag #PDEx, or directly through his Twitter account at @ericmjohnson!
Last week, I ventured outside of my usual areas of expertise to discuss a paper I had stumbled across in a volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, dated 1790, “letter relative to the kraken”. This prompted Sarah of The Language of Bad Physics to ask,
I love the articles you find for these. It got me looking, can you find the actual sources for NfL sightings? The 1873 “attack”?
It was an awesome question, and I knew immediately what she was talking about! For those who don’t know, in 1873 a fisherman had a genuine battle with a giant squid off the coast of Newfoundland. This battle, the only one of its kind I am aware of, was also momentous in that it resulted in the first giant squid specimen studied scientifically on land!
I was immediately intrigued, and went searching. With my uber-internet search skills, I managed to find the paper within an hour! The article is a letter by M. Murray, “Capture of a gigantic squid at Newfoundland,” The American Naturalist 8 (1874), 120-124.¹
Though if I keep writing posts about ocean life, I’m going to bring down the wrath of the Southern Friend Science Network or Deep Sea News upon me, I can’t resist discussing this paper. Giant squid have been a topic of fascination for me for years, and this letter is too much fun!
I have almost been negligent in pointing out that there’s only 11 days left before the deadline of the next edition of The Giant’s Shoulders history of science blog carnival! This is a special edition, hosted by scicurious, and is known as the “fools, failures and frauds” edition, commemorating the history of those scientific discoveries that didn’t work out as intended!
Consider submitting a history of science post that describes (a) some really stupid or crazy scientific research (or researchers), (b) research that didn’t work out as intended or expected, (c) research that was completely fraudulent. All relevant history entries will be included, but please think about writing something special for this themed edition!
Entries can be submitted through blogcarnival.com or directly to the host blog, as usual!
(I’ve been doing a daily “weird science fact” on Twitter, with the goal of doing a full 365 days of facts. The problem is that Twitter doesn’t allow one to search further back than 1 week! I’m going to keep a weekly log of the weird facts of the week on the blog, but will do 2 weeks at a time until I catch up.)
The Twitter #weirdscifacts from March 28 – April 10 are below the fold!
“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.
Check back next Monday for more “miscellaneous” selections!
The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. 
Skulls in the Stars 
