Pseudoscience Activities at the Night Museum

I'm following up on the marbles of pseudoscience in our last episode.

I emailed the museum to point out that there are great ways to use the pseudoscience marbles in their after school programs. They could avoid looking like rubes for selling pseudoscience in a science museum by actually teaching pseudoscience. Sort of evens it out, right? Can't sell pseudoscience without teaching pseudoscience, right?

Think about it like J. Crew (JCG) or the Gap (GPS). They sell clothes. They don't sell dinosaur toys too. They are about putting cloth on people, not teaching science, so they have no dinosaurs. You have to pair up people and clothes to make the sale. Throw in rocks and old dino bones and people don't get it and shop at that French Target store.

Look at Republicans and the healthcare debate and healthcare reform. Republicans are totally against the healthcare bill. This seems illogical because the Democrats put a bunch of Republican ideas and took out stuff that the Republicans really hatted. The bill even ensures that insurance companies make more money by mandating insurance - making it pro big business! In other words, it is exactly what Republicans wanted. Like pseudoscience in a science museum store, the Republicans can't vote for something that the president or most Democrats appear to like (even though they really don't as you can tell because Michael Moore hates it too).

One more hint... Why haven't the Republicans submitted their own healthcare reform bill? It is obvious, it would look like the Democrat bill and the whole charade would be blown. So you see, like tutus in a Banana Republic, suddenly we have two things that are not like one another (i.e. the creator's signatures on identical bills).

So.... sigh, we were in the museum's store, right? Back to my letter from the museum. Sadly the woman that replied to me could do nothing to remove the cognitive dissonance of shoppers/patrons. That is sad. Poor powerless museum employee, forced to sell pseudoscience marbles in a science museum.... sigh.

But I had an idea. The power block in the museum is its wealthy patrons. They give the money that pays the salaries of powerless museum employees. Not sure where museum store sales go. Perhaps to the 3rd party that runs the store for the museum. Anyway, donors, that's the solution. We could approach them with ideas to teach pseudoscience in the science museum so they can sell their marbles without shame.

Maybe we can go to the museum's board meeting with the plan? Most of the board are donors. Submit a new after school pseudoscience program. All I need now is the program! Any ideas from my young pseudo-scientists?

No More Dinosaurs in the Bible

One of the best places for family fun and pseudoscience has been closed. Dinosaur Adventure Land in Florida has not only closed its doors, but its creator is doing prison time.

What 'was' Dinosaur Adventure Land? Simply a creationist wonderland. It mixes dinosaurs with the very best in pseudoscience to get little kids to believe that man lived hand in hand with T-Rex and other cool dinosaurs. Basically any ten year old worth his snuff is going to say 'cool beans' to the cool dinos and then suck in the wonderful hokum that is creationism and intelligent design.

In my mind, I felt a pain in the passing of this park. Imagine the loss to university students studying cognitive dissonance, persuasion, or even fraud. It was perfect proof that you can make defenseless children and many adults believe anything if you cover it in enough sugar.

But there are a few lessons to learn in the park's passing. Apparently believing Intelligent Design does not make you smart enough to understand tax law (he has a whole list of crimes before going down for tax evasion). Thinking that dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible also does not make you a moral and upstanding citizen. In fact, perpetrating fraud on little children seems to just increase your criminal tendencies. It is a slippery slope from religious zealot to ten years in a maximum security prison.

I have no problem with you if you can't understand evolution. It took us thousands of years to believe the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way round. It is just plain hard to give up something your religion says you must believe or go to Hell and burn for eternity.

The sugar of a park probably seemed kinder and gentler than scare tactics of Hell and damnation. But their religion gives them wonderful excuses to take any measure as they must 'save' these little children from the sins of science. We are wired to believe in some very weird ideas and often the can get out of control.

People are not stupid, just easily persuaded to believe in stupid things. No less surprising, once you have a belief, it takes a lot to undo. With creationism, it isn't easy to believe that dinosaurs ruled the Earth far before man. It is so so easy to come up with what sounds like reasonable explanations.

If you learn it at an amusement park, it must be true! It is just a shame we can't teach pseudoscience in the best laboratory in Florida.