History of Scientific Skepticism through Pictures

Friend of the blog, Robert Sheaffer has been gracious enough to begin the tiring process of scanning old photos taken back when the world was only in Black and White  (At least this is what I thought when I was a kid)  and uploading them to Wikimedia Commons.  Robert has been a active member of the scientific skepticism world since the beginning and he has the photos to prove it.  Those of us trying to preserve our history really appreciate that.

When James Randi and Ray Hyman met up at a Alice Cooper concert, they discussed forming a club to combat Uri Geller.  They didn't realize then that we would be interested in knowing the history of that time.  They wanted to get things done, not record the moment.  So now 30+ years later we have to find all these old documents and photos and get them in places where we can show our history.  And I can't think of a better place than Wikipedia. 

For your viewing pleasure, enjoy these never before seen images...

James W. Moseley

CSICOP

Paul Kurtz

Banachek 

James Randi

Ray Hyman

Daryl Bem 

Philip Klass

Robert uploaded a lot more, we just don't have the Wikipedia pages written yet to put the photos on.  We stll have a lot of work to do.  Please consider helping out with the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project.   We train and mentor.  Contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com or friend me on Facebook or Twitter as Susan Gerbic

Video Interviews and Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia

I hear from people all the time they love this project, but they are looking for a non-editing way to help out. 

So, this blog is for you.

Editors of Wikipedia can not add in content that does not exist.  Most of us do not have the ability to create articles and publish them in noteworthy places, we badly need more content.  Editors can quote from podcast interviews (better if the podcast is noteworthy, but not necessary) but then again very few of us have the ability to create a podcast.

Blogs generally are a good way to stay informed and create community.  But Wikipedia editors are not supposed to cite blogs.

What most of us do have, is the ability to create video interviews of noteworthy people (not forgetting those who will soon become noteworthy).

I'm finding the use of video interviews increasingly valuable for the We Got Your Wiki Back! project.  You can't write a whole Wikipedia page based on YouTube video interviews, but it can work to supplement an article, shore up vagueness, and bring lots of personality back to a Wikipedia page that may otherwise seem dry.

The YouTube video just needs to be dated and location is also a good idea.  Any extra information you can add on the video is also helpful.

I am currently re-writing the Wikipedia pages for several of the founders of the skeptical movement.  As well as creating from scratch the Skeptic Toolbox page.  I've been having trouble finding citations about the formation of the Toolbox as well as the motivation for creating it.  So I sat down with the creator Ray Hyman on Father's day and on video asked him about the history and motivation.  Uploaded it to YouTube, quoted him and cited the video.  DONE!

While I was at it I managed to get 4 more videos about his history in science and skepticism.  His comments not only shore up citation holes on his page, but they work to confirm other citations on other people's pages.  When he mentions that the first workshop was with Jim Alcock and Steve Shaw (now Banachek) that strengthens citations on Alcock and Shaw's pages.  We have to constantly remember that back in the 70's and 80's people didn't carry around video cameras in their pockets, and no one realized how important those first meetings would be, the media surely wasn't paying attention.  We need to document our history moving forward, as well as recapture what we can of our past.

Some other examples of using videos for citations on Wikipedia.

I've met James Randi many times, and with my good friend Kitty Mervine we tag-team taping just about every story he tells.  You never know if it will be a magic trick or a personal story, or something about the history of skepticism, but it is always something worth capturing.

When I began editing in 2010 I went through my videos for some reason and came across this one.  Randi discusses Claiborne Pell.   (I was on a rocking cruise ship and missed the beginning of the story) and I had to ask Facebook friends who Randi was talking about because I had never heard the name before.  Here is the Pell page before I added a Paranormal belief section.  And now here is the page with the Randi interview. 

Another great example of using videos to support a page.  When the Reason Rally happened at the beginning of the year the WP page was heavily edited by religious editors trying to diminish the rally.  They quoted all the news sources they could find, which were noteworthy sources but they were all religious.

I didn't attend the rally, but a woman whom knew of this project but had never thought she would ever have a need for help, wrote to me.  The page was a mess, skeptics had not yet come out with any media supporting the rally.  As you can see from this link, the page had become very religious friendly.  According to all the newspaper articles, there were hundreds of Christians handing out flyers and free water to the bad Atheists.  The Atheists were holding really evil signs and saying bad things about religion.

One example was this one "Other atheist activists held more controversial signs such as “So many Christians, so few lions,” in reference to the Diocletianic Persecution, in which several Christians were tortured." That's right "one example", there were thousands of people there and one person holding a sign should be mentioned?  Funny that they said only "several Christians were tortured", I guess they didn't have the room to name each one individually?  Seriously, the bias of that editor was obvious.  

The page went under many changes with two people sitting on the page.  They were arguing and reverting edits like crazy.   See the talk page for more info on how crazy it was. 

It took me some time to finally take this page seriously and go in and change it to what it looks like now.  Finally skeptics started posting videos of the speakers, and people like Brian Engler uploaded images.  Once the videos were up, I searched for the ones with the best quality, and edited out the quotes that I thought represented the speaker best.  Then cited the video.  We never want to remove all criticism, but just get down to the facts.  


The video you get does not have to be fancy, don't wait until you have the perfect setting, turn on the camera and do the best with what you got.  When you upload it, tag it with everything you can think of, and again don't fuss on it too much, its more important that it is uploaded quickly than playing with it for months until you forget about it (or worse delete it)

As in the case of the Reason Rally, we do not always have time to wait for the "official" videos to come out.  Citations must be freely available to anyone who wants to follow the link and see whatever it is you saw when you wrote the citation. (note: this does not mean that you must have a URL, the reference has to be one that without a lot of effort they can also obtain)

So pull out your smart phone,  or video camera and get these interviews recorded.  I could also use some help finding these interviews that should be on these pages.  Please contact me with whatever you got stored on your YouTube feed that might be relevant. 

I was just asked yesterday to recommend a good book talking about the modern skeptical movement's history.  Other than a few mentions in journals, there isn't one that I know of.  We are still waiting on the biographies (or auto-biographies) for our founders.  In the meantime, some of us over on Wikipedia are doing our best to get the citations, pictures and videos all in one place.  Future historians will thank us!

As usual, if you would like to help out with this project contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com

We Got Your Wiki Back! The Numbers from Nightline's Beyond Belief

You have all heard me go on and on about the need to improve the Wikipedia pages of our skeptical spokespeople.  This I call the "We Got Your Wiki Back!" project.  I've mentioned not only the reasons for doing so but whose pages desperately need help, and how you can help edit.

Today I want to talk about the numbers.  We can use our handy Wikipedia Statistics tool brought to us by Tim Farley.  http://stats.grok.se.  I want to point out that this website is not exact to the day, because of time zones ect I believe that the stats are off by a day.  (again not sure)

I'm going to work just with the ABC Primetime Nightline "Beyond Belief" show that aired August 17, 2011.

The first segment featured a reporter investigating James Van Praagh, and being unimpressed with him, pretty much saying that he thinks he is cheating when he says he talks to dead people. Van Praagh did a reading on the reporter, giving some amazing hits.  But after the fact the reporter was able to pull up an interview he gave two years ago listing all the details that Van Praagh supposedly got.  This SWIFT blog pretty much sums everything up.

James Randi was also featured on the show, lets look at his Wikipedia hit statistics.



There is a clear jump with about 550 hits over what he had been trending that week.  Because Randi is all over the media it is unclear if the July 18th jump was because of Nightline or not. 

I think that the next featured skeptical spokesperson will give us better clearer results.  Banachek was very prominent in the show, using the stats tool we can see what his hit rate looked like for months even years before the Nightline show aired.  This next graph is from July 2011.

We see that he averages about 56 hits a day.  Because of TAM9 July 15-17 this might be the reason why the jump in numbers on July 17-18th. 

Banachek July 2011

Here is August 2011.  We clearly see a major jump in numbers hitting about an 800% increase over normal. 

Banachek August 1 - 18,  2011

 

Something Van Praagh did in the media caused an upsurge of hits.  Looks like he normally gets about 200 hits a day, then suddenly in the 900's?  As I said I don't really follow his schedule (and don't watch TV) so these could be from the Nightline show.  I'm sure someone will clear this up for me.


What about other people featured on the show?  ABC reporter Josh Elliot is the one who interviewed Van Praagh.  By the way I think he did a terrific job and maybe the skeptical movement should approach him for future media coverage.


 Major jump.  Averaging 423 hits a day during August 2011, he has a 600% increase when the show aired.


Lets try one more.  The JREF was mentioned a few times on the show, did it see an increase in hits?




An increase, but not a significant amount like with Banachek.

Another person mentioned on the show (and his name appeared on the screen) was Dr. Gary Schwartz.  Lets look at his stats for August.



A small increase in hits, but nothing significant. 

Here is Allison DuBois's page stats for August.  The other psychic interviewed was Rebecca Rosen who does not have a Wikipedia page, but according to Nightline has a 2 year waiting list for readings.  Odd that if she has changed that many lives that she is not noteworthy enough to have her own page.  Remember Georgia O'Conner?  She has testimonies from thousands of people she has helped, you got it, no Wikipedia page. 



What does this all mean?

These are just the raw numbers, there are a lot of factors that could effect who gets hits and who does not.  Was the name written on the screen?  Van Praagh and Schwartz names were.

I think overall that I have made my point.  When our skeptical spokespeople are in the media, they are going to get an upswing in hits to their Wikipedia page.  People want to know who these people are.   What are we presenting to the world? 

Not only our spokespeople's pages need updating but so do the pages of people like Gary Schwartz.  Nightline went to a lot of trouble to mention that he was a Harvard Professor now working at the University of Arizona.  Major creds right?  Allison DuBois's page also needs some serious cleanup.

I'm sure the page for Psychic Kids could use some updating.  I think Banachek's powerful words would really help to spruce it up.  In fact I think Banachek's comments could be used all over these psychic's pages.  Hint Hint

What about this Nightline Show?  We need to get it up on the pages of all these people and onto the JREF page.  That's keeping things updated.

Get Editing!