Damon Young: Waging War on BS Down Under

Phrost · 11/03/2011 5:10pm

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Bullshido member and philosophy professor, Damon Young, is a champion of reason, especially when it comes to subjects where Martial Arts intersect or clash with society.

He's got a new blog post out on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website. Young uses the platform to point the case of of Sally Morgan, yet another self-described psychic who refused to take James Randi's test to prove her abilities and win a cool $1M; and to lament why the average person would turn to nonsense for comfort in difficult times.

Excerpt:

Originally Posted by Damon Young

This Halloween, Sally Morgan was invited to demonstrate her powers by science writer Simon Singh. Morgan, who describes herself as "Britain's best-loved psychic", recently made headlines when she was accused of faking her psychic readings. According to The Guardian, two audience members independently reported hearing voices – not "hereafter" voices, but "talking into a microphone to Sally's earpiece" voices. The claims are unsubstantiated, but it triggered Singh's challenge, which Randi backed: this Halloween, "when the spirits are particularly active", Morgan could have taken her first step to a million dollars.

Sally Morgan has rejected the invitation. Had she accepted and succeeded, it would not prove the truth of all paranormal claims, but it would have vindicate Britain's best-loved psychic - at least until another scientist tries to replicate the results. This is the beauty of good science: the conclusions are unknown until experiment, and then provisional afterwards.

Bonus: a certain someone makes an "amazing" appearance in the comments section.

You can read his blog entry here.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 11/03/2011 5:20pm

Wow some of the comments are longer than Damon's article...good thing I'm going to ignore them completely.

Damon's commentary on the other hand is dead on balls accurate.

After seeing how many millions the recent Harold Camping End O' The World fiasco sucked up..all those seniors and not-so-seniors emptying their savings into a church that got them to suspend belief so deeply it seemed rational to them that random numbers pulled out of Camping's ass meant the world was about to end. $80M later it's "oops, he was wrong" and "oh, he's gone crazy now don't bother him anymore".

From just a cursory glance at the comments section it was clear Sally has quite a congregation of her own and they all have internet connections. **** me, why does it have to be that way?

I remember when only smart people like Damon could find out where the internet even was...

**DAYoung** · Posted On: 11/03/2011 5:43pm

"Balls accurate." Why, thank you, Rabbit.

I should've taken bets to see how long it'd take before quantum physics were cited in defence of the paranormal...

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 11/03/2011 5:49pm

My head hurts.

WTF does identity fraud have to do with your article? Good article and I stopped reading the comments after that post.

**DAYoung** · Posted On: 11/03/2011 8:36pm

It's an ad hominem, I think.

You really ought to read the quantum physics comments. Everything - religion, psychic power, etc - can be explained by wave/particle duality and uncertainty.

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 11/03/2011 10:57pm

I can't. I'm in a graduate program and I need the few braincells I have left to finish.

**Wing-Kwan-Fu** · Posted On: 11/04/2011 12:45am

Originally Posted by DAYoung

"Balls accurate."

Please don't abbreviate the industry term.

**bobyclumsyninja** · Posted On: 11/04/2011 12:57am

I skipped straight to the comments, and was immediately sorry I'd done so.

Short of attempting to deliver a free training here in 500 words, let me just say that I have observed and indeed conducted numerous events that are best described as exploring the supernatural. Working with energy fields, using the pendulum, dowsing, etc. are only foreign to people who haven't developed a genuine interest in exploring such.