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+Dragons, Brains &Energy SKEPTICISM . SCIENCE . SOCIETY Vol. 36, No 3. September 2016 Risks & Stats What Skeptics need to know +Dragons, Brains & Energy Australian Skeptics . www.skeptics.com.au Skeptic_Cover_SEP16.indd 1 30/08/2016 1:22 pm The Skeptic September 16 Skeptical Groups in Australia NSW VIC Australian Skeptics Inc – Eran Segev Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc – Chris Guest www.skeptics.com.au GPO Box 5166, Melbourne VIC 3001 PO Box 20, Beecroft, NSW 2119 Tel: 1 800 666 996 [email protected] Tel: 02 8094 1894; Mob: 0432 713 195; Fax: (02) 8088 4735 Skeptics’ Café – Third Monday of every month, with guest [email protected] speaker. La Notte, 140 Lygon St. Meal from 6pm, speaker at 8pm Sydney Skeptics in the Pub – 6pm first Thursday of each sharp. More details on our web site www.skeptics.com.au/vic month at the Crown Hotel, cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets in the city (meeting upstairs) Dinner meetings are held on a regular basis. Ballarat Skeptics Currently being re-activated. See Facebook for details Hunter Skeptics – John Turner Tel: (02) 4959 6286 [email protected] Citizens for Science - Mornington Peninsula (formerly Peninsula Skeptics, aka The Celestial Teapot) Meetings are held at the Club Macquarie, Lake Road, Argenton Contact: Graeme Hanigan 0438 359 600 on the second Thursday of each month, excepting January, http://www.meetup.com/Citizens-for-Science/ commencing 7.00pm, with a guest speaker or open discussion www.facebook.com/groups/peninsula.skeptics/ on a given topic. Visitors welcome. Further information from the secretary at: [email protected] Great Ocean Road Skeptics (Geelong) Contact: Carolyn Coulson [email protected] ACT https://www.facebook.com/groups/147741491945391/ Canberra Skeptics – Lauren Kelly PO Box 555, Civic Square ACT 2608 Meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 6pm, City http://www.canberraskeptics.org.au Tel: 0410 382 306 Quarter, Cunningham Pier East Geelong [email protected] (general inquiries), The Surfcoast Summer Skepticamp is run annually by members [email protected] (Canberra Skeptics in the Pub). A free monthly talk, open to the public - check website for details Melbourne Eastern Hills Skeptics in the Pub Skeptics in the Pub gather at 1pm on the third Sunday of each Contact: Andrew Rawlings [email protected] month at King O’Malleys Pub in Civic. For up-to-date details: http://mehsitp.codenix.org www.meetup.com/ SocialSkepticsCanberra/ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Eastern-Hills Skeptics-in-the-Pub/19241290737690?ref=ts Meets second Monday of each month at The Knox Club, Wantirna South. Melbourne Skeptics in the Pub http://www.melbourneskeptics.com.au/skeptics-in-the-pub/ Meets on the fourth Monday of every month from 6 pm at the Mt View Hotel in Richmond. Mordi Skeptics in the Pub http://www.meetup.com/Mordi-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/ Meets at 7.30pm on the first Tuesday of each month at the Mordialloc Sporting Club. ($4 to cover website costs) For details on Skeptical groups in other states and territories, see inside back cover Volume 36 • No 3 September 16 Contents REPORTS Challenge - Free energy 10 14 Ian Bryce Challenge - the Ethics 14 Ian Bryce 23 FEATURES Fear of Facts 16 Tim Harding Easing Stats Phobia 20 Cassandra Perryman Numbers Game 23 Bob Carroll 20 Can Do Better 26 16 Harriet Hall 34 ARTICLES 28 The Neverending Story 28 Anthony Garrett 39 Half a Mind 34 Brian Dunning Bad Breath 39 Brett I. Cohen The Devil’s Work 42 Shelley Stocken 42 Prison Escapades 44 Tim Mendham and Lt E.H. Jones 44 REGULARS Editorial 4 Around the Traps 5 Them! 9 Puzzles page 38 50 The logical place 41 What goes around 48 Book reviews 50 Forum 56 Letters 62 48 EDITORIAL Free energy, hard numbers, no risk here are a number of articles in prevails and the inventors are either Tthis issue that complement each chastened and shuffle off to refine their other very well. theories or they ignore the scientific They are all about how or whether evidence and shuffle off to refine their people understand the world around theories. ISSN 0726-9897 them, their appreciation of the laws of And then there is risk, which is the Quarterly Journal of physics and mathematics, and how they application of statistics into the real Australian Skeptics Inc assess the implications of what they see world, where possibilities are weighed (ABN 90 613 095 379) or think they see. against probabilities and decisions made Editor Firstly, Ian Bryce reports on a recent as to likely outcomes. Now, we can’t all Tim Mendham claim for our $100,000 challenge. This be actuaries who do this sort of thing was for the development of a so-called for a living, and many a keen person Editorial Board free energy machine. This technology may believe that the statistics they find Steve Roberts goes under a number of names, but lead to a particular point, and develop Eran Segev they all attempt to defeat some pretty their life choices from there. Then again, Martin Hadley basic notions in physics – the first and there are those who believe that the Barry Williams second laws of thermodynamics by statistics they find support an existing Design Services which energy is conserved and entropy predisposition. The latter will hear no Nova Consulting P/L increases. Inventors of free energy cavilling with their assessment of the machines think they can overcome numbers and the apparent correlations All correspondence to: these restrictions in a manner not they create – they know their beliefs are Australian Skeptics Inc previously thought of. How they think true and find (manipulate, misrepresent, PO Box 20 that way is a mystery and a fascination make up) the stats to prove it. Anti- Beecroft NSW 2119 to those who take a scientific approach. vaccinationists are the classic example of Australia An article by Antony Garrett looks this in the Skeptical world. Contact details at the nature and history of perpetual The ‘Them’ article in this issue Tel: +61 (0)2 8094 1894 motion machines, putting Ian’s looks at a website that takes these false Mob: +61 (0)432 713 195 challenge pieces in a context of a long correlations to extreme and ridiculous Fax: +61 (0)2 8088 4735 history of attempts to create machines end results. that will output more energy than you Now, you might see a common [email protected] put in. thread in all of this. And it is people. www.skeptics.com.au Then we have several articles that People are not machines and they are look at the wonderful but often arcane not calculators, and very few of them are The Skeptic is published four times world of mathematics. Specifically, actuaries. They are faulted, emotional, per year by Australian Skeptics Inc. Cassandra Perryman, Bob Carroll and impressionable, inconsistent, illogical, Views and opinions expressed in articles Harriet Hall look at the use and abuse irrational, and frustrating, and long may and letters in The Skeptic are those of of statistics. (Cassandra’s article is the they be so. Life, and particularly human the authors, and are not necessarily first of a series on that topic, by the life, would be unbearably dull if it were those of Australian Skeptics Inc. way.) Understanding the significance not for our variability and unreliability. Articles may be reprinted with of raw numbers and statistics – the But that also means they are not permission and with due acknowledge- bread and butter of science – is another the best people to appreciate that ment to The Skeptic. of those areas where amateurs can feel understanding physics is a difficult All effort is made to ensure correct they have it over the professionals. and often non-intuitive process, that acknowledgement of all contributions. And like perpetual energy machines, assessing risk is a risky business, that We are happy to update credit when so on a very first very cursory glance the correlation does not equal causation, informed. theories produced may seem intriguing and that there are lies, damned lies, and and plausible to the lay public (who are statistics. We just have to learn to cope Editorial submission deadline often as impressed by the sincerity of with these limitations. for the next issue: proponents as much as the ‘evidence’ October 30, 2016 they produce). But pretty quickly sense - Tim Mendham, editor 4 NEWS The Skeptic September 16 the 32ND AUSTRALIAN Around traps ... SKEPTICS NATIONAL Nominate an anti-hero CONVENTION November 25-27 AUSTRALIA: The Australian Medicine, School of Science and MELBOURNE Skeptics’ Bent Spoon award is one of the Health, Western Sydney University least sought-after credits in the Skeptical • One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts Tickets now available world … or any world, for that matter. • Dr Thomas Goyer and Geoff Jowett convention.skeptics.com.au It has been awarded every year since of the Advanced Medical Institute 1982* and it recognises the perpetrator which became the Medical Weightloss SPEAKERS INCLUDE of the most preposterous piece of Institute which turned into the paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle. Australian Men’s Hormone Clinic. Edzard Ernst, Lawrence Luminaries who have been past We would love to hear of any other Krauss, Harriet Hall, winners include Paleo Pete Evans, Larry noteworthy candidates. If you would like Michael Marshall, Marshall (head of CSIRO), RMIT, the to put someone forward for this non- Ken Harvey, Mel Thomson, pharmacists of Australia, and a psychic prestigious award, then go to the Bent Nicholas Johnsonww dentist. Spoon page (skeptics.com. Nominations come au/features/bent-spoon) from the public, and this for more info on how year we have received to enter, details on the to court in a SLAP suit.
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