The Universe Is Coming To Alignment

[joreth]

So, today I was asked by a coworker what I thought about the big events that are supposed to happen in 2012.  It took some effort to dredge up the faintest of recollections that there's some astrological predictions about the end of the world and other nifty events based on the Mayan calendar.  His claim that we should not reject it out of hand was that other natural events have always corresponded to significant dates in history and the stars often accurately predict the course of human events.

How do otherwise intelligent people continue to fall for this stuff?  I mean, I lack extensive scientific knowledge, so when I come across something over my head, I research it.  Sometimes that research includes just asking ya'll who are smarter than me and I get soundly put in my place (i.e. the burning saltwater guy).  But the point is, I still research it before I start spreading it around.

So, with very few details left in my memory, since I dismissed this particular myth years ago, I tried to explain about the differences in cultural calendars and the difficulty with matching them up, and different mythologies having nothing at all to do with our current culture, etc.  

He made some reference to major events that happened on "significant" dates on our Gregorian calendar, and I pointed out that the Asian cultures don't use the same calendar and nothing important happened to them on those dates.  I also pointed out all the "signficant" dates where nothing happened at all.  I tried to point out that our use of "significant" in numbers is fairly arbitrary, and other cultures, other calendars, etc. all use different numbers.  I also tried to reference the fact that humans are very good at seeing patterns, even when there isn't one.  The whole phenomenon of remembering a "prediction" when it came true and not remembering the hundreds of other predictions and dreams that never came true, or the events that happened that no one predicted, for instance.  The idea of the statistical liklihood of chance allows for events that look like patterns in the small scale, but when examined from farther away (or a longer range of data) show that chance makes it entirely possible to have happened in that manner, as another one.

So I'm referencing a bunch of websites that debunk this particular myth to show him tomorrow at work.  Anyone care to chime in?

Comments

[catherinew.livejournal.com]

After you conclude your critique tomorrow, you should toss off the line, "I'm so skeptical about things like this because I'm a Sagittarius."

Bonus points if you're not a Sagittarius.

[serolynne.livejournal.com]

I do know that when the predictions for 2012 come true, all you have to do is jump up and down, chant, and push your hands to the sky. That sends the invading aliens love energy so they won't eat us.. or something like that. I may have missed a few details in the class I went to.


Happy Birthday, btw :)

[joreth]

That's amusing. And no, I'm ont a sagittarius :-D

[joreth]

Ah, yes, I didn't come across that bit of info in my research, thank you. It must be a closely-guarded secret, a conspiracy of the government who doesn't want us to know about it so they can make more money off us in false vaccinations.

Thanks!

[slouchinphysics.livejournal.com]

You're coworkers is a candy-ass apocolyptically speaking. Here is a real fucker of an end of the world prophecy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument

There is some quality Doomsaying you can sink both your teeth and your spreadsheet into.

[leora.livejournal.com]

How is 2012 a particularly significant number? It's not prime. It's not even palindromic. It isn't a big, round number.

Let's see, prime factorizing it we get 2, 2, 503... nothing very interesting there.

[catherinew.livejournal.com]

Check out the "metaphysical predictions" section of the Wikipedia article on 2012. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012) It summarizes them pretty neatly.

The article on the Mayan calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar) is also informative, if exhaustive.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's not. It just works out to a nice number in a different calendar. Didn't they make a big to-do about how once the age of aquarius started things were going to change too. Alas, it dawned, and things haven't seemed all that brighter.

[joreth]

It's just too bad that wikipedia doesn't also include convenient references that counter all of those metaphysical references.

[joreth]

Yes, that was one of my points in the discussion today, that we have major "milestones" all the time and nothing out of the ordinary happens - inasmuch as shit just happens regularly and any timing of arbitrary patterns in dates is coincidental

[datan0de.livejournal.com]

MUAHAHAHA!!! You've fallen for their clever subterfuge! Everyone "in the know" realizes that they use love energy to power their cattle mutilating weapons!

[immaculatewang.livejournal.com]

Irony: The Astrological Magazine having to shut down recently due to unforeseen circumstances.

Only tangentially related, but I find it amusing nonetheless.

[joreth]

Now that's funny! Thanks for that great laugh, I love irony!

[datan0de.livejournal.com]

The problem is that humans evolved overactive pattern matching mechanisms (as you mentioned), and also that there's insufficient understanding of logical fallacies- in this case observational selection. The correlations they're trying to draw are only valid if made in an unambiguous manner before the fact.

There are several web sites and podcasts that could be of use to you. Off hand, I'd recommend Skeptoid.com (which is both a web site and a podcast!). They did two episodes on logical fallacies, in addition to covering a broad range of pseudoscientific woo woo.

[joreth]

Thanks for the reference! I found surprisingly little on the debunking side of this particular debate. It seems that most people who have websites who do not believe this bunk, when asked about it, seem to say "well, those who believe this are stupid" without really giving any scientific data to back up why these people are stupid. It's as if the reason why is so obvious they can't be bothered to reiterate it. Very frustrating when the "reason" why isn't obvious to those who lack basic scientific understanding of astronomy (like me) and who want to refer said idiot to someone who does.

I did refer him to badastronomy.com but I will keep skeptoid handy too. Thanks!

[joreth]

Oh, and I brought him How We Know What Isn't So, hoping he will buy his own copy (since mine is a loaned copy and I couldn't loan it to him). I couldn't remember the name of that particular logical fallacy, but I do remember this book addressed it.