Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have a nagging conscience so that I could make millions selling crap at a 6000% profit just by claiming that it does something it doesn’t. Unfortunately, I’d be embarrassed by the first skeptic to challenge me. Oh, and then there’s that pesky fact that I’d be scamming people and promoting pseudoscience.

Anyway, there seems to be no end to the things you can convince people that some token item embedded in $.08 worth of rubber can do.

Last week I stumbled over Sharkbanz.

Screenshot of the Sharkbanz website. The band can be worn on the wrist or ankle.

Sharkbanz are rubber jewelry similar to a Fitbit Flex. Instead of a motion sensor, however, Sharkbanz contain magnets. The company’s founders claim that these magnets repel sharks.

Yes, you read that right. Magnets in a rubber bracelet repel sharks.

How does it work? Well, let’s look at what they claim.

Screenshot of the Sharkbanz website, explaining the technology.

Summary:

• Uses magnets
• No batteries, no electricity, no moving parts
• Rated for 200 meters. What happens when you dive below that? Does the magnet implode or the rubber erode?
• For ages 5 and up. So if you’re 4, you’re some Shark’s dinner I guess, because for some reason it is just not safe for those under 5. By the way, choking hazard warnings are usually for children under 3, so this arbitrary value makes little sense.

The idea is that sharks are annoyed or frightened by the electromagnetic field emitted by the magnet because of their keen electroreception capabilities.

Okay, so I’m not a shark expert, nor am I a physicist or an engineer. For this reason, I’m going to tread a little lightly on the examination of whether the idea is plausible and focus on whether they have demonstrated that the things work. But I will admit to a bit of skepticism given the knowledge I do have. Some of my thoughts:

• I don’t know that the differences between magnetic fields, electrical impulses, and electromagnetic fields matter, but the owners of Sharkbanz imply that any electromagnetic energy is disturbing to sharks. If that were true, then light would bother them. Clearly, just as the human eye only senses electromagnetic energy within a range of wavelengths, sharks’ electroreceptors are limited in range. Yet the website says very little about what research and testing they have done to determine whether sharks even sense their magnets. The most that I can find is a link to a list of tested species on the website of a group called SharkDefense. There is zero detail provided in this list and no citations to peer-reviewed literature about these tests. The site does cite some literature in a section which explains the theory (which, again, I am unqualified to adequately challenge, but it looks mostly correct), but provides no reason to believe that the idea because sharks have electroreception, they will be repelled by this specific small magnet wrapped in a rubber bracelet. In fact, take a look at the size of the magnet the claim to have tested (again, no citation for this): Click here
• Sharkbanz presents no reason that a man-eating shark would have for avoiding the electromagnetic field emitted by their magnets. Just because sharks have electroreceptors doesn’t mean that some random magnet is going to affect their behavior. Perhaps if they made an effort to produce some magnet that emitted a field that mimicked the energy put out by a predator it might make sense, but do bull sharks even have predators? I don’t know, but I’m skeptical.
• Then there’s the fact that the magnet is encased in rubber.

So if you’re an expert on sharks or the physics that apply here, please feel free to comment with your 2 cents, but I’m going to focus on their “scientific testing”.

Sharkbanz are a fun, easy way to add peace of mind to the everyday ocean swim, surf, or snorkel, but make no mistake: the science is real.

Bull*cough*.

This technology has been tested extensively on over ten of the most common predatory shark species…

On the website, there are several references to videos that supposedly show this “extensive testing”. However, most of the videos I’ve found when I click those links are media interviews in which the owners say very little. There are certainly no published articles from peer-reviewed journals, not even some about electroreceptors in sharks that don’t really support their claims. They don’t even try to fake it. What I did find are a few unconvincing videos which show a couple of guys dropping a buoy into the water and watching a fish or two swim away from it.

In this video, the only one that claims to show testing, the voiceover claims that they tied a bracelet to a buoy “in order to be scientific” as well as safe before throwing it into the water with reef sharks. Then, he put two shark bands on his ankles and got into the water which, he claims, induced “obvious repellent reactions when the sharks approached the bands on my feet”. Finally, they “decided to get more of the controlled type of testing” by tying the bracelets around lead weights, which he claims produced “really astonishing repellent behavior”.

Well, I’m sorry guys, but scientists everywhere are laughing at you. They are giving you the virtual equivalent of “there, there” pats on the head and “aren’t you cute? Do you want to be a scientist when you grow up?” Except that given the voice on this video belongs to Dr. Patrick Rice, Senior Marine Biologist at SharkDefense, you’ll have a hard time convincing me that you don’t know quite well that you’re not scientifically testing anything. This is a marketing video and nothing more.

A very short, far-from-exhaustive list of plausible alternative explanations for what the video shows:

• fish in the shots are not darting away from the bracelet, but rather toward food that was just dropped in the water
• cherry-picking shots in which fish are swimming away
• fish examined the item (or the person) and immediately recognized that it wasn’t food (or preferred food)
• fish avoid things hanging from buoys or anything that looks like the item (rather than being repelled by the magnet)

Can you guess what a good, scientific test of this product might entail? A double-blind, placebo controlled study. In other words, you’d want to simulate the movement of a human being as much as possible. You’d want to stop chumming the water after you’ve introduced the treatment (the bracelet). Most of all, you would need to compare the fishes’ behavior toward a Sharkbanz bracelet to their behavior toward a placebo–a bracelet without the magnet. Also, you would need the people recording and judging the behavior to be blind to the condition (they cannot know whether the fish are reacting to an “active” bracelet or a placebo). Without that comparison all of these tests are worthless.

In sum, these guys are charging $60 for heavy rubber bracelet that people will buy because it claims to protect from shark attacks–an extremely rare event with a high fear factor.

In the U.S., it takes a lot of time and money to get a group like this to stop making ridiculous claims, but I have to wonder how this company is allowed to market and sell in Australia, given what happened with Power Balance.

Just the color of the room can play a huge role in how we feel and act. Paint the walls blue, and studies show you may be more creative. Paint them red, and you may be more vigilant or more sexy. Change to green to calm yourself down. But if you really want something off the wall, paint those walls a certain shade of pink.

I call Bullshit.

This is a quote from a CBS News segment posted online last year.

They are hardly the first to make such claims. My husband, who is an art director by trade, was taught many of these myths as fact in his color theory course at Savannah College of Art and Design. You can find claims like these in books, magazines (including self-described science-based magazines), and all over the internet. They are so ubiquitous that I made the effects of color on emotion my first research project as a psychology undergrad, then continued the work for more than a decade, including a Master’s thesis on the topic.

But 95% of them are bullshit.

What you’ll find when you look up the sources cited (if there are any) for most of these claims is usually a book written by a man named Faber Birren, which includes a list of citations of journal articles, most of which were written by him. And what you’ll find when you read these articles is that his research methods are seriously, seriously flawed. In fact, most research on color is seriously flawed, usually because the researcher(s) failed to consider the anatomy of the eye and the very meaning of “color”–what it is and how it is produced. One need not earn PhDs in physics and physiology, but some basic knowledge of the visible light spectrum is needed, as is an understanding of the way cells in the retina are structured.

I won’t go into those things here, of course, but I will warn you that once you’re armed with that knowledge, a lot of these claims don’t make much sense.

When I set out to study this problem all those years ago, I noted three fundamental challenges that most researchers failed to meet:

1. Defining colors: Much of the older research uses simple terms like “blue” and “red”, which ignores properties of color such as saturation and brightness. There is no way for another researcher to replicate a study without very specific information about the colors used, how they were produced, and how they were displayed. It is also rare in the literature to find control of ambient lighting.



2. Defining emotions: Emotion is not as simple as most of us tend to think. For example, think about what “grief” means to you. Is it a quiet, calm feeling? Is it the urge to curl up in a ball? Or is it a loud, angry feeling–the urge to hit something?
3. Eliminating alternative hypotheses for outcomes: This is perhaps the most important and most challenging issue for any research, but it is especially challenging in the social sciences. Much of the research on color fails miserably when it comes to eliminating other, more plausible explanations for outcomes. For example, in some studies, people were simply asked, “How does this color make you feel?” The participant then provides a cognitive appraisal that includes learned associations of the color with emotions. They think about what that color means to them and make a decision about it. That’s not an emotional reaction to color. It’s an emotional reaction to associations they have with the color.

Once I addressed these issues in my own research, my findings were fairly consistent across experiments and over time, even when I addressed them in different ways. If you are interested, you can find an explanation of some of my experiments here.

What’s more, what I found certainly does not support the vast majority of claims about how color affects emotion and it does not support most of what was stated in this CBS piece. Let’s look at each claim and compare them to what I found in repeated experiments.

Just the color of the room can play a huge role in how we feel and act.

Well, that’s just a presumptuous and vague statement and, in my opinion, it is simply not true.

Paint the walls blue, and studies show you may be more creative.

Uh, no. I’m not even sure where this one came from. I’ve never seen a study with that outcome and I’d be very surprised if there was one that couldn’t be ripped to shreds by a mild critique. Many of these myths seem to have sprung from cultural associations.

While I was studying the effects of color on emotion as a psychology undergrad, I studied cultural associations with color as part of a minor in anthropology. It’s a fascinating topic. Data from the original World Color Survey in the 1970s suggested that the more complex a society, the more colors distinct colors they recognized with different names. I suspected that their associations with color (e.g., red with anger) would follow a similar pattern. I used a wonderful tool called the Human Relations Area Files [HRAF] to search ethnographies for references to color associations.

My hypothesis was supported, but what I also found interesting was that associations for a few basic colors were very similar. Red was almost always associated with vitality of some sort, black with danger or evil, and white with goodness and purity. This would make sense, given that darkness can be dangerous and blood, which is essential for life, is red. However, as the colors moved away from these basic colors, the associations were more and more diverse. In some cultures blue was associated with calm, in some with energy.

Paint them red, and you may be more vigilant or more sexy.

This is perhaps the only claim that even comes close to reality. The findings of my studies have not always shown effects, but when they do, red is always the most arousing. It usually produces more arousal than yellow and blue. But “arousing” does not mean “sexy”. Sexual arousal is only one type, one context, of arousal. All arousal means is that your heart is beating a little faster than when you are not aroused (and there other physical, measurable responses).

Change to green to calm yourself down.

And this is where they totally blow it. Another consistent finding in my research is that green is often more arousing than yellow and blue. It sometimes not statistically different from red, in fact. It does differ from red in that it is usually rated as more pleasant (participants don’t know that they are rating a color).

When you understand the opponent properties of retinal ganglion cells, this makes sense. The idea that red is arousing while green is calming does not.

But if you really want something off the wall, paint those walls a certain shade of pink.

And this is where I have to laugh. As the piece notes, there are entire books written about “Baker-Miller Pink”, the shade of pink used to paint a set of prison cells because the warden was certain that the color was responsible for a calmer inmate population. The problem? No well-designed and replicated research supports this claim. Furthermore, given that pink is simply a light shade of red, this effect would contradict all of my findings.

But what you really want to know is how color affects emotions, right? You want to know what color to paint your bedroom walls?

Paint them any color you like.

You see, while I have found reliable differences in emotions due to hue (and sometimes brightness), the effects are fleeting. The human visual system adapts so quickly that once you’ve spent a few minutes, or even a few seconds, in a room, any effects the color had on your body are pretty much gone. In fact, when you’re paying attention to another person, a television, a computer screen, a task, or anything else, you’re no longer even processing the color of the walls.

Dragon*Con is now just over three weeks away and the schedule is as solid as these things get, so I’m giving you the highlights as promised. I will be one BUSY Skeptic! [Edit: By the way, Dragon*Con will take place over Labor Day weekend, September 3rd through 6th.]

For those who have not heard of it, Dragon*Con an enormous SciFi/Fantasy convention held in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. Skeptrack, the skeptic fan track, is the brainchild of Derek Colonduno and Robynn McCarthy (A.K.A., “Swoopy”), hosts of Skepticality. As usual, they work their butts off and many skepticism activists do their best to make that work count by participating in talks and panels designed to spread the critical thinking bug to geeks everywhere.

Dragon*Con is very different from conventions like The Amaz!ng Meeting, and not just the costumes. TAM is, at heart, a Dog-and-Pony-Show for skepticism. At Dragon*Con activists do the work of activism and education. There are a number of fan tracks, including a Podcasting Track directed by Swoopy, and Space & Science Tracks, who work closely with Derek and Swoopy. In addition to the obvious Star Wars Track, Trek Track, and Whedonverse Track, there are literature, costuming, and writing tracks. There are also two tracks related to Skeptrack: Paranormal Track and X Track.

The former is self-explanatory, I hope, and this year I will be attending a workshop on that track by Ben Radford on investigating the paranormal (details below). I am very interested in the methods used for this kind of thing as they differ a great deal from the kind of work that I do.

Last year most of Skeptrack was streamed live, but there were some problems. I believe they will try this again this year with, hopefully, fewer headaches. If so, I will provide a link on Facebook and Twitter as soon as it is available, which might be as late as the first day.

If you are attending or planning to stream it live, here is where and when you can find me:

Skepticism, Scams, & Consumerism: Ranging from psychology behind sales to consumer rights, we discuss how as skeptics we identify and challenge dodgy products and pseudosciences.
Time: Friday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
I will be moderating this panel and talking about the psychology of purchasing behavior. Panelists include Matt Lowry, Rachael Dunlop, Richard Saunders, & Tom Merritt.

The Calculus Diaries – Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, Survive a Zombie Apocalypse: Fun examples of math applications in the real world and why it’s important to understand even just the basic concepts.
Time: Friday 5:30pm – 6:30pm
Location: Hilton 202
This panel is on the Science Track and will mostly be the work of Jennifer Ouellette, whose book with that title will be released August 1st, just in time for me to read it on the plane. As a statistician, I hope I can contribute something worthwhile to the discussion.

How Your Brain Works, and How to Fool It: Our perception of reality is driven more by expectation, belief, and desire than by sensory input. An examination of how we fool ourselves.
Time: Friday 8:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Hilton 202
NOTE: This is not the original title and I think it is a little misleading. The original title was “What You See Is [not always] What You Get (or WYSInaWYG)”. The topic is not about how to fool your brain, but how your brain fools you. I believe Jason Schneiderman plans to join me and would be a welcome addition.

Skepticism and Sexuality: When do we get skeptical about sex, the media? When alien cults want to save African clitorises, this panel is here to discuss the facts.
Time: Friday 10:00pm – 11:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
I will bring with me some of the most interesting myths about the psychology of sex, courtesy of my friend a colleague who teaches the best course on the topic evah. My fellow panelists include Heidi Anderson, Ben Radford, Kylie Sturgess, & Ginger Campbell. Desiree Schell will moderate.

Naturally Skeptical? The Psychology Behind Being a Skeptic: A round table discussion on the factors that do (and don’t!) contribute to becoming a questioner of the paranormal and pseudoscientific.
Time: Saturday 10:00am – 11:00am
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
I will once again take the reigns as moderator and lead a discussion of the psychology of critical thinking and open-mindedness. I am very pleased that Scott Lilienfeld has decided to join us. He has written quite a bit about pseudoscience in our field, including his latest collaboration, 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior. Other panelists, who are not exactly chopped liver themselves, include D.J. Grothe, Matt Lowry, Kylie Sturgess, & Pamela Gay.

Mathematical Modeling Pitfalls: Model don’t always accurately reflect messy reality, particularly where human behavior is concerned. Algorithms can only mimic human behavior, and there is a lot of room for bias and error as a result.
Time: Sunday 11:30am – 12:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
I am not actually on the schedule for this, but Jennifer Ouellete invited me to contribute when I mentioned my love-hate relationship with modeling and my frustrations in teaching that models are not what they model. If I get it together in time, I will present what I think is a cool visual of what you can do with a simple model that shows how they can be effective science. Well, I think it’s cool, anyway!

Raising Skeptical Geeks: A few known skeptical parents talk about issues and how they a raising their kids to be better rational thinkers.
Time: Sunday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Location: Hilton Crystal Ballroom
This is sure to be the highlight of my Dragon*Con experiences as I love to talk about my kids. I am collecting stories and funny quotes to share. I am also thrilled that fellow panelists will be three good friends and one of the geekiest dads (by all appearances) around: Daniel Loxton, Heidi Anderson, Desiree Schell, & Adam Savage.

Skepticism and Education: JREF now has a Director of Educational Programs – what else is being done out there and how can skeptics help educate the next generation?
Time: Sunday 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Of course this is on my list of favorites as well as one of the most important of the panels on which I will serve. Other panelists include D.J. Grothe, Michael Blanford, Daniel Loxton, Pamela Gay, & Matt Lowry. Kylie Sturgess will moderate.

Women: Myths, Feminism And Skepticism: Puzzled by feminine mystique? Searching for your ‘Inner Velma’? Join investigators on gender, pop-culture and what science REALLY tells us!
Time: Monday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Oh, so many myths, so little time! This topic is rich and Heidi Anderson, Desiree Schell, Pamela Gay, Kylie Sturgess, and myself are looking forward to a fact-packed dicussion.

Skeptrack Sign-Off Wrap Up and Feedback: Join the skeptrack guests and speakers for a discussion about how things went, last minute news, and how we can make things better next year!
Time: Monday 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Unfortunately, I will not make this discussion and also make my flight home. I am sure, though, that there will be much greatness in the room.

That wraps up my obligations. Here are just a few the events I am looking forward to attending as an audience member (if possible – the * indicates an event I cannot attend due to a scheduling conflict, but recommend):

CSI: Paranormal
Time: Friday 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Joe Nickell

*Skeptically Speaking Live!
Time: Friday 8:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Desiree Schell

Skeptical Coffee Talk
Time: Saturday 8:30am – 9:30am
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: James Randi, D.J. Grothe, & Joe Nickell

Paranormal Investigation Workshop
Time: Saturday 1:00pm – 3:30pm
Location: Sheraton
Presenters/Panel Members: Ben Radford

*I Very Much Doubt That!
Time: Saturday 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Location: Hilton Crystal Ballroom
Presenters/Panel Members: James Randi

*Mystery Investigators Children’s Show
Time: Saturday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Richard Saunders & Rachael Dunlop

Monster Talk Podcast Live
Time: Saturday 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Blake Smith & Ben Radford

Skeptic Zone Live!
Time: Sunday 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Richard Saunders, Rachael Dunlop, Kylie Sturgess, & Brian Brushwood

Skepticism 2.0: Blogging
Time: Monday 11:30am – 12:30pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: Daniel Loxton, Rebecca Watson, Brian Dunning, Rachael Dunlop, & Kylie Sturgess

Martial Arts Mysticism
Time: Monday 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Location: Hilton 205/206/207
Presenters/Panel Members: John Clements

You can find the full schedules as they become available on the track websites. I hope to see you there!

Confession: I adore George Takei. This post isn’t about George Takei. It’s about a gig of his.

George Takei is the newest spokesperson for Sharp, selling a product called “Quattron Quad Pixel Technology”. The product claims that the addition of a yellow filter enables the television to display “never-before-seen colors”.

Absurd. There are no “never-before-seen colors” because color, by definition, must be seen to exist. It is not a property of objects or even light, but the perception of light and its properties.

So, let’s assume that they meant what George says in the commercial: that it displays color you can’t see with your TV’s 3-color technology.

Still very difficult to believe. The current RGB system produces more than 16 million colors, many of which are indistinguishable from one another already, so this seems a bit dubious.

I looked around to see what others are saying about it and found very little. A discussion on gagetynews.com caught my eye, though.

In it the author quotes a neuroscientist named Jack Lewis (who is apparently a UK version of Dr. Oz for the brain) as saying,

A key mechanism of perceiving colour involves comparing levels of red versus green light and blue versus yellow light, which all happens in a special layer of neurons within the retina. The addition of the yellow sub-pixel (to the standard red, green and blue) in this product creates so many new colour tones that the new technology Sharp is using to create images is mimicking critical features of the brain’s visual system. This could ultimately make us feel more involved in things we watch on TV, whether it’s playing a video game with your mates, cheering on your team or watching the latest action thriller.

Well, the first sentence is correct. The rest is hogwash.

First, the retina is in the eye not the brain. One would think that would be covered in neuroscientist school.

Second, what evidence is there to support the statement that mimicking features of the brain, or even seeing an image more clearly, makes us feel “more involved in things we watch”?

Let me answer that: none. Absolutely none. What does that even mean, anyway?

http://www.sharpusa.com/ForHome/HomeEntertainment/LCDTVs/WhatIsQuattron.aspx

How it works

The color of each pixel in an LCD monitor is produced by varying the amount of light shined through each of three sub-pixels each with a red, green, or blue filter. The amount of each determines the color the pixel will ultimately display.

The Quattron monitor involves four sub-pixels: red, green, blue, and yellow. Sharp claims that the addition of a yellow sub-pixel allows the production of more colors than the standard RGB system.

Why I think this claim is just silly

Well, let’s start with the initial statement:

At Sharp, our goal is to reproduce every color in the world on TV.

Color is in the mind, not the world.

Color is a perception, not a property of objects or anything else in the environment. “Reproducing colors” really means reproducing combinations of wavelengths and intensities of light, which our brain interprets as differences in color. An explanation of this is below.

Color is not discrete.

There are certainly limits to our ability to detect differences among colors, but color itself is not a discrete variable. Wavelength can be measured by nanometer, but there is a difference between 451 and 451.1 of these nanometers. There is a difference between 451.1 and 451.11 as well. This variable is continuous and our perception of each does not follow an algorithm. The firing of neurons is only somewhat predictable; it is a matter of probabilities, not certainties.

It is also much more complicated than “see color, perceive color”.

For example, we can distinguish among light samples which differ in wavelength by 2 to 6 nm, depending on placement in the spectrum. This difference is called the “Just Noticeable Difference” (JND). However, the JND differs among individuals. In fact, the distribution of hue perception across wavelengths differs among individuals somewhat.

The point here is that there is not a definitive number of colors in the world or even in the mind.

The human visual system will not know the difference

What follows is a very watered-down version of human color vision, but I would be happy to recommend some excellent texts on the topic if you leave a comment here or email me.

Electromagnetic energy spans a spectrum from gamma rays to radio waves and includes a range we humans sense with our eyes. We call that range the visible light spectrum.

When electromagnetic energy with a wavelength in the visual light spectrum enters the human eye, photons are “caught” by sensors at the back of the retina called rods and cones. These receptors are specialized neurons which fire (when photon absorption is sufficient) and send signals to other neurons.

The number of these receptors that fire allow us to determine the intensity of light (how much light there is). Three of the four kinds of receptors allow us to distinguish among wavelengths of light. The probability of firing for each cone depends on wavelength, with one cone most likely to fire if the wavelength is approximately 420nm, another at approximately 530nm, and the third at approximately 565nm. This is, of course, on average.

These cones are sometimes referred to as blue, green, and red cones, respectively, due to the perception each produces, but since the perceptions are not exactly blue, green, and red, most researchers prefer “s” for short wavelength, “m” for medium, and “l” for long. The responses of these three cones result in all of the colors we perceive by mixing in different amounts, much like the three primaries of pigment (red, yellow, and blue) are combined.

So, what about 4-color separation as a printing process? The CYMK printing process mixes ink primaries of cyan, yellow, and magenta in different amounts to produce millions of colors. The “K” in the process refers to black. Instead of mixing the three ink colors, black ink is used. One advantage of this practice is cost efficiency. Thus, the fact that CYMK is considered a 4-color process does not make it comparable to this “Quattron” process.

Why do we see four unique hues?

Layers of neurons in the retina converge to form a set of opponencies. Red and green oppose one another, then the combination of red and green cones converge to produce a yellow opponent for blue. In color matching experiments, participants are given a circle of light at a wavelength perceived as yellow. Then they are given another circle in which wavelengths perceived as red and green may be mixed. When they are mixed in equal parts, the circles appear to match although they are quite different in physical properties.

So, the human visual system cannot distinguish between yellow light and a mixture of green and red light. How, then, are we to tell the difference between a pixel produced by a yellow filter and one produced by a mixture of red and green filters?

Even if we could tell the difference between yellow light and a red/green mixture, the Quattron system mixes the color at the sub-pixel level. The color of the pixel is the same in either case.

So what can the Quattron system do?

Much like the K in CYMK, the Quattron system may be more energy efficient by allowing the use of yellow in the place of equal parts red and green light. Sharp claims:

When combined with Sharp’s 1080p X-Gen LCD panel, which incorporates UV2A Technology, the displays offer dramatic reduction in energy consumption compared with conventional fluorescent-backlight LCD TVs.

With four sub-pixels to mix, more variations in wavelength/intensity mixtures may be produced which, technically, means that more shades are produced. However, if this is the case, the ability of the human visual system to differentiate among them is questionable at best. So, it may be able to display more colors, but does it matter? I think not.

In the weeks since I stopped posting regularly and while I was reconstructing last year’s posts, a lot of interesting things have happened.

• Two of my posts will be included in the 2009 Young Australian Skeptics Blog Anthology. This will be available in both eBook and printed form, similar to Open Laboratory. The list is impressive and I am looking forward to what will clearly be a great sample of skepticism and critical thinking.
• I am now on the official Guest list for Dragon*Con 2010! As such, I will participate in at least as many panels and/or talks as last year, maybe more. I hope I am able to participate in both Skeptrack and the Science Track as both offer great opportunities for fun and outreach in addition to the opportunity to work with some amazing people.
• The biggest news is that The Lancet finally fully retracted the article that Andrew Wakefield used to start a panic over the safety of vaccines in 1998. It took several years and many examples of clear ethics violations, but the anti-vaccination movement is in a tailspin over it and the catalyst, a ruling made by the General Medical Council after a fitness to practise hearing that Wakefield acted “irresponsibly and unethically”. In the wake of this:
  • Wakefield was forced to resign from his position at Thoughtful House, a group he co-founded in 2005. Another founder, Arthur Krigsman, was not far behind.
  • A paper scheduled for publication in the journal Neurotoxicology with Wakefield as its author has been withdrawn after the editor took a closer look.
  • Of course, none of this stopped Jenny McCarthy and her sidekick from proposing a ridiculous explanation which would allow them to maintain their delusional stance on the relationship between vaccines and autism.
• Meryl Dorey announced that she will probably step down as head of the Australian Vaccination Network, a particularly vile anti-vax propaganda mill that she founded. The group is likely to close its doors as well, citing a lack of funding. I have had confrontations with her online myself and find this less than surprising. It does not help that the AVN is currently under investigation for their particularly disgusting practices.
• Rachael Dunlop beat out CAM artist Joe Mercola for a Shorty Award in Health after a campaign launched by woo peddler Mike Adams hit the skids when he was disqualified for cheating (well, somebody cheated on his behalf at least).
• Podblack Cat Kylie Sturgess is now a columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer website and created a new podcast, Token Skeptic.
• Heidi Anderson has created “a place to discuss, promote, encourage, and celebrate women in science, skepticism, and critical thinking.” She Thought will launch on Pi Day and I hope to contribute on a regular basis. I wonder how Heidi will feel about that…?

Coming soon: the CTEG website is about to experience a major overhaul and I will soon announce a new organization to be feared by all who choose to peddle woo.

I cannot resist a blog post titled “I get email”. It is hard to find email funnier than the stuff PZ Myers posts at Phyrangula this is my personal favorite), but I think that my first email of the year is worth one or two giant belly laughs.

The email I received was from Stephen Takowsky, who introduced himself as the publisher of Beverly Hills Times Magazine. It arrived at 12:22 am on January 1, 2010.

The Beverly Hills Times has come across a book we are considering running an article on. The book presents a theory on the emotional balance of people with focus on culture, relationships, and evolution. We are trying to get some background information on the topics in the book to see if any or all of the information the book provides is accurate.

My BS detector went off immediately.

Most people would probably delete an email like this, but there is a reason I started writing a blog called “ICBS Everywhere”.

He included a link to the book’s website, so I followed it. What I found was a page with some text below a rather sketch of a blindfolded muscular man wearing a frilly set of armor and standing in a Spiderman pose with trophies one either side and in front of him. I am sure that the author can point to numerous symbols in the image, but it looked pretty silly to me – a bit like a teenage boy’s rendition of his fantasy life.

BTW, all typos and other errors are theirs, not mine.

The content on the book information page can dramatically alter your life.

I invite you to Google “dramatically alter your life” and see what surfaces. I found ancient techniques to manifest money, messages from angels, a “new sound technology” called “binaural beats”, and of course, weight loss products.

There is only infomation on the book information page. There are no downloads, attachments, practical jokes, advertisements or malicious software…

The statement that there are no practical jokes is questionable.

The information contained in the digital book is of a very sensitive nature and should be approached with caution.

…am being recruited by the CIA?

Clearly, the author takes his/her ideas far too seriously.

It has not been easy getting this information to you so take advantage of the information you are about to read because there is no saying how long you will have access to it .

I began to wonder if the Martians might to jam the signal, the government might discover that someone knows the dangerous secret and take down the site, or the author was afraid that he/she was going to lose their website host due to nonpayment.

Pressing on, the “information page” is actually a web-based flip book. Page 2 provides what appear to be the title, author, and publisher:

A World Governed by the Law of Emotional Balance

By aaabcddeegllllmmpppppsuuuuvvvvyyzzz

Published by Of Grandeur LLC @Http://www.OfGrandeur.com

Now, I live and teach in the greater LA area, which is very diverse. I have seen a great many names with what appear to average Joes like me to have an overabundance of vowels or consonants. My teaching assistant for two years had a last name so long (16 letters) that it did not fit into the “last name” field on most forms.

I have never seen a name like the one above.

It seems the author decided to make a riddle of his/her identity instead of own up to what he/she wrote. This cryptic message appears in several places and makes little sense in any of them.

The introduction was just silly.

The first thing I noticed was the terrible writing style. Perhaps I noticed this because I spend so much of my life reading, grading, and providing feedback on written work, but something tells me that anyone would notice this quickly.

The next thing I noticed was the utterly ridiculous confidence the author has in its accuracy and the condescending manner in which he/she suggests that they are smarter than “the general population”. In the first two paragraphs, he/she writes:

This book was written to make it easier for the general population to understand. This book limits the scientific terms used and renames other so the general population can understand what is being discussed with limited research is complex fields being required…The goal of analyzing the world through the lens of the Law of Emotional Balance is to provide perspectives on problems facing humanity.

Apparently, the author believes that the general population is too stupid to understand the serious science of this “law”, so it must be dumbed down because it tells us so much about our biggest problems that we must learn it. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who has published a “book” full of sentence fragments, dangling participles, and missing words. I might overlook the myriad of typos found throughout, but the grammar is simply atrocious.

The author goes on to ask the reader to simply accept the premises as true without question:

Readers are asked to accept the premise of the book and approach the book as if the premise is true. We are only accepting the premise of the book for the sake of following the soundness of the claims made in the book. Your focus should be on following the tangents explored in each topic. Readers should approach the soundness of the claims made as if the premise is true. Readers should avoid focusing on proving the premise false, just like viewers should avoid trying to prove that Superman can’t actually fly.

So, this is starting to look like a piece of fiction. Of course, it is pure fiction, but – and I apologize for the spoiler here – there is no story in the book. The closest you will come to seeing a story is at the end of the introduction where you will find a silly attempt to describe experiments which are supposedly going to occur in the future. It is clearly a book filled with nonsense meant to elaborate on the author’s crackpot theory, but disguised as a speculative work of fiction. The author seems to think he/she has stumbled on an important concept with deep meaning.

Then came the cop-out. Um, uh, I mean caveat:

Scientific experimentation is required before any theory or assumption can be regarded as fact. This is a book of ideas compiled to indirectly teach a lesson and should not be regarded as a book of proven theories. This book is an exercise in accepting variables, like an ability to fly like Superman, and staying true to the context presented.

Ugh.

I really wanted to send the author a good dictionary and tell him/her to look up “assumption”, “variable”, “theory”, and “context”. Why would someone write a “book of ideas”, admit that none of it is supported by evidence, yet claim it teaches some sort of lesson?

So, what is this “lesson”? In a nutshell (pun intended), the book says that we must experience the same amount of “happy emotional energy” as we do “sad emotional energy” in our lives.

If we do not, we can never die.

Yep. That’s what it says.

The Law of Emotional Balance maintains an emotional balance in all beings that experience emotions. All beings that experience emotions are emotional beings. People are emotional beings and can only die when they are emotionally balanced.

This is absurd and for many, many reasons.

I sensed this as an opportunity to educate Mr. Takowsky, whom I assumed had done little more than glance at the book himself, and possibly to give him the tools to publish a review which would educate a reader. Following is my response to him:

Oh, my. I would be happy to review this and would appreciate the opportunity to contribute to an unbiased review, but I should warn you that after only a few pages I can easily tell that I will have nothing good to say about it. The grammar and language use are poor, the first thing the author does is ask the reader to accept the premises as true without question, and the quote on page 11 (which clearly shows that the author has little understand of emotion – its definition, source, or measurement) is dated “December 20, 2012″.

This is a piece of fiction and there is no validity to the basic concept of “emotional balance”.

If you would like me to go into details, I will be happy to read further and make some notes over the weekend, but my initial assessment is, if I may be blunt, that this “book” is not worth the electricity which maintains it – not even as entertainment.

A bit harsh, maybe, but he asked for a scientific analysis and there is nothing scientific about this crap. He replied:

Thank you for your time and happy new year. Thank you for your prompt response. The next issue of our publication will be out in 6 days and we are looking for a review of the premise more than a review of the book itself. We are trying to see if there is any concrete evidence that proves the premise false. We are also looking for an analysis of the various topics explored. Once again we appreciate your time and effort.

Hmmm. It seems that Mr. Takowsky has done more than simply glance at this book and is actually taking it seriously. So, time to get a little more serious myself. I took a few minutes to jot down some of the more serious problems with the “theory” and sent the following to Mr. Takowsky:

Well, my first response is that it is the responsibility of those making claims to support them with evidence, but setting that aside for a moment, this is a lot like asking for concrete proof to refute the claim that my dog is the head of a secret organization whose goal is world domination. To accept the claim requires unreasonable assumptions (e.g., my dog can communicate in ways unknown to man).

This “theory of emotional imbalance” is not a scientific theory at all. Scientific theories are plausible explanations for events and processes which do not require unreasonable assumptions (such as the existence of things supernatural). The introduction clearly states that a supernatural assumption is required. On page 22, it states that “physical disabilities and natural disasters are factored into a person’s emotional balance before either occurs”. That alone makes this “theory” completely unscientific.

Even if that were not included, the “theory” is completely implausible because it rests on a number of assumptions which are clearly false:

Assumption: There is such a thing as “emotional energy”.
Problem: Although it is popular in alternative and eastern “medicine” to define everything about humans as “energy”, these descriptions rely on a faulty definition of “energy”. Emotion is not energy, nor is it related to energy.

Assumption: Emotion can be described on a single dimension ranging from “sad” to “happy”.
Problem: This definition of emotion does not fit accepted views or definitions of emotion. In a diagram, the positive and negative values are described as “emotions that make you feel sad” and “emotions that make you feel happy”. Emotions don’t make you feel anything; emotions ARE feelings and among those emotions are “happy” and “sad”. Also among them are emotions which do not accompany values of happy or sad such as “anticipation”.

Assumption: Emotion is measured in a way which could be “in balance”.
Problem: Relies on a faulty definition of emotion as discussed above.

Assumption: That there is some biological mechanism which keeps track of “sad” values and “happy” values in a way which could affect life processes.
Problem: People are not characters in video games. We don’t have “counters” which record the emotions we experience. We don’t even record events. Memories don’t work like cameras.
Problem: Although emotion itself does not affect general health, stress and other states related to emotion do. However, not in a linear way – stress, which would clearly fall into the author’s “emotions which cause sadness” category, has both negative and positive effects on health. Biological systems like human beings are much more complex than this “theory” allows.

Problem: People who are sick and in pain usually recover, THEN feel better, not the other way around. This refutes the existence of a biological mechanism which could accomplish the task of leading one closer to or away from death.

The “big” premise: It is not possible to die in a state of “emotional imbalance” as the theory defines it.
Problems:

• If it were true, no young child would ever die after a long illness or a life of abuse.
• If it were true, only men with happy childhoods would be killed in action during war.
• If it were true, it would be impossible to kill someone that one has tortured unless that person had an unusually high store of happiness prior to torture.
• If it were true, suicides would only be successful if one had an unusually high store of happiness prior to experiencing the events which eventually led to suicide.
• Decades of research on longevity have revealed only one unifying factor among those who live more than 100 years: an exceptional ability to cope with grief. According to this “theory”, these people are ripe for death. They manage to feel strong emotions of all kinds, yet those emotions do not persist for long periods which, according to the theory, should translate to maintaining a relatively balanced emotional state.

I hope that is enough for you to work with because, frankly, I find the whole thing ridiculous. It certainly is not based on anything we know about emotion, biology, physics, or anything else in the natural world and I have no interest in pursuing questions of the supernatural.

And this was his response:

Thank you for your time and happy new year. There is a general consensus among scholars that the book in question has several problems. Expert analysis on this kind of topic is appealing to our readers and informative in a way they can properly digest.We are very interested in concrete studies/facts that can disprove the premise or studies/facts that can support the premise in any way. We understand this can be a very difficult task and will require expert analysis. We have already recieved over 15 responses that support the premise in some way, but no responses that provide concrete proof against the premise.

Here are some examples of support we have recieved.

[examples omitted]

The man was obviously not listening.

I thought about all of those arguments for avoiding debates with creationists. I thought about how often I have told my son not to feed the trolls at school (kids who tease him) because it seems to frustrate him so much. I thought about the probability of actually getting through to him. I thought about leaving it alone.

Then I thought about the fact that he was about to publish an article on this dung pile and I gave it one last try:

I’m sorry that you seem to have misunderstood my response and I hope that you will pardon my all-caps and bolds in this email. They are an attempt to draw your attention to my meaning, which I hope is clear this time.

First, please read my message again. I gave you evidence from common knowledge which CLEARLY refutes this ridiculous hypothesis. You won’t find studies testing it because it cannot be tested. Science does not address the supernatural and the parts of the theory which involve the natural world are simply incorrect.

This is NOT a difficult task and it does not require “expert” analysis as there are no “experts” on things which are made up. There are only people who make claims to “knowledge” that has no basis in reality…

…Again, this is a wholly Unscientific “theory” which is completely implausible because it rests on assumptions which are clearly FALSE. To even entertain the hypothesis requires that we assume that supernatural (not real) forces are at work and set aside much of what we know about emotion and biology from decades of scientific study.

IT IS VERY, VERY SIMPLE: this “theory” is utterly ridiculous.

I can’t put it any plainer than that.

Other than to convert this to a post for my blog (note the name: ICBS Everywhere), I’m done here.

Of course I have not received a reply and I put off this blog post hoping to have the opportunity to read his final review. The Beverly Hills Times website, though, was not updated with a new edition of the “magazine” until very recently and it appears that they skipped the edition which was to include this review. Judging from the “news” sections, it may be some time before additional updates occur.

In the past two months I have put more thought into this exchange and I almost feel bad about my last message.

Almost.

I wondered if the author of the drivel and the publisher who requested my input were friends, relatives, or perhaps the same person. If so, I felt a little guilty for my harshness. On the other hand, whether the author himself takes this theory seriously or not is hardly relevant. It is being peddled as the answer to life, the universe, and everything – the kind of woo I spend a good deal of time and energy combating.

After taking a look at the “magazine” it became clear to me that the Beverly Hills Times is nothing more than a book of advertisements disguised as articles. The “articles” promote local businesses such as plastic surgeons and personal trainers. I think the “article” to which I was asked to contribute is merely an advertisement for this goofy book.

Since then, I have read more of the “book”.

It gets worse. Much worse. It is page after page after page of incredibly bad grammar, incorrect word use, poor spelling of common words, and silly fabricated jargon. Paragraph breaks are virtually non-existent. The content is sexist, racist, elitist, arrogant, and presumpuous in addition to ridiculous. It reads very much like the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic.

It is difficult to describe just how silly it is, so I will just leave you with a couple of passages chosen almost at random. The spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and bolding are the author’s, not mine.

In “Preying”:

The words said while preying are not heard by the Queue System, but the Emotions experienced while preying can cause the Queue System to choose an Act that results in a person getting what they prayed for…The Queue System can’t grant a prier if it results in an Emotional Law or universal law violation…Preying for a person can assist or hurt the person. If you have a high enough Emotional Stake in a person experiencing a surplus of happiness they will experience a surplus of happiness in the way you desired as long as your Emotional stake in them experiencing happiness is higher than other peoples’ Emotional Stakes in the person not experiencing sadness, plus there can’t be Emotional Law Violations.

In “Difference between Men and Women:”

A traditional house wife and a traditional 9 – 5 husband go out on the town for a night of excitement. The surplus of happiness experienced by the night of excitement is Emotionally Balanced by the wife and husband differently. the wife emotionally Balances the night by getting her hair waxed, eyebrows plucked, spending ours putting on makeup, getting her hair done and taking care of the house and kids. The husband Emotionally Balances the night of excitement by dealing with the stress of his job, paying the bills, and worrying about his health. If the wife doesn’t put on makeup she will probably not feel as comfortable as she normally does during a night of excitement. If the husband does not deal with the stress of his job he will probably be stressed out about something else during the night of excitement. Some people may think certain customs and habits are strange, but they fail to see the customs or habits are required to maintain Emotional Balance in people. If a woman is not strong enough to lift a box and she experience a surplus of sadness that will Emotionally Balance a surplus of happiness. If a woman is not strong enough to life a box and she doesn’t care then she will not experience a surplus of sadness. Some people believe they are entitled to receive something just because they are a certain gender, ethnicity, or class, but in reality only people that experience the necessary Emotions deserve certain things and will receive certain things.

ugh.