The Psychopathic Test

Tonight I've been to a Skeptics in the Pub meeting, listening to Jon Ronson (the guy who wrote The Men who stare at Goats), talking about his latest book, The Psychopath Test.

An investigative journalist, author, and very funny speaker, he was very entertaining - and he made sitting in the Showroom bar on the hottest day of the year with about 150 other bodies bearable. He talked about how his interested in psychopathy started whilst flicking through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders whilst at a friends house, and marveling at the sheer number of them. What used to be the size of a pamphlet is now 886 pages of known mental disorders. His interest led him to talk to Scientologists who famously don't believe in mental disorders and Psychiatry, and they introduced him to "Tony, an inmate of Broadmoor.   Basically Tony had been arested for GBH, and had faked mental illness in order to avoid prison, assuming he'd be sent to some cushy hospital and soon released. Unfortunately he faked it rather too well, and was sent to Broadmoor. Obviously on arriving there he realised his mistake, and had tried to convince the authorities that he was sane - which is a lot harder than convincing people you're insane!

Jon then discovered that the authorities knew he'd faked the mental illness, but had diagnosed him as psychopathic.  His interest in psychopathy now sparked, Jon did a psychopath spotting course with the man who invented the checklist used to diagnose the condition.  Apparently 1 in a 100 of us are psychopaths, and about 4% of CEOs!

As well as reading excerpts about Tony, and telling us how to spot a Psychopath, Jon also recounted some interesting interviews with prominent psychopaths - very entertaining. I'm about to order the book, but there's an extremely good excerpt from it here, including much more of Tony's story.

Voodoo Histories

Good night last night at the Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub - or in the cinema bar, as its now held in the Showroom. Another full house, this time to hear David Aaronovitch talk about Conspiracy Theories, or why clever people believe stupid things. Based on his book, Voodoo Histories, it was an extremely interesting talk about his views of conspiracy theories, and why they are so popular. Topical subject, in the week that Times Square hosts anti-vaccination adverts, the antivaccination movement believing in one of the biggest health related conspiracy theories of recent times  - that Big Pharma, Public Health Authorities and health professionals are somehow in league with each other.

His definition of conspiracy theory is simple - the decision to believe a less probable theory. His interest started when a work colleague told him he believed that the moon landings were a hoax - David believing that it was probably harder to organise a hoax moon landing than a real one.

His story took us from the Protocols of the  Elders of Zion - a story which I'm ashamed to say I had never heard of - and one of the oldest conspiracy theories about a document purporting to reveal a Jewish plot to basically take over the world. Although discredited as a hoax, it continued to be widely believed after the First World War, especially in Germany.

The death of Princess Diana, the murder of JFK and the existence of a bloodline from Christ (best illustrated by the Chronicles series in the mid 80s and the Book Holy Blood, Holy Grail), were all examined by him to illustrate the reasons why people prefer to believe a less probable explanation. Often it is to make order out of chaos, the belief in a plan, that someone must have known what was going to happen. The thought that there is no plan is psychologically more difficult to accept. To complete a story  - particularly important in the Diana case.

Fascinating talk, and I managed to order his book from Amazon during the talk, which should arrive tomorrow, so will enjoy some holiday reading. I've always been fascinated by consipracy theories, and have believed in some of them - at least for a while.  Anyone old enough to remember Eric Von Daniken??

Investigating the Impossible

When I started this blog, I put at the top that you could expect to see, amongst other things, science and skepticism. Not been much of either so far - much more of a what I did on my holidays sort of blog! Will try and rectify.

Tonight I went to a Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub meeting - I try and go whenever I can, and every one I've been to so far has been entertaining. It was packed - 30 mins before the start it was standing room only - everyone coming to see Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Herfordshire. I've been reading his blog, and following him on Twitter for some time, and a few weeks ago was lucky to see him in the Godless show in London. But, it was great seeing him here in Sheffield, and sitting almost on the front row.

Richard's talk was entitled Investigating the Impossible, and as used to be a magician, started with some magic tricks. He then moved on to visual illusions - all designed to show how our brains make sense of things, sometimes making quite incorrect assumptions. As well as visual perceptions, there's some good audio ones as well - I challenge anyone to listen to Carmina Burana and hear the right lyrics again after listening to this.


Ytmnd -- Carmina Burana, alternate lyrics
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He took us through a lot of his research, on the psychology of luck, on perception, on why people believe in the paranormal and how it can be explained. His latest book, Paranormality, starts with the assumption that the paranormal doesn't exist, and then looks at what's interesting about it.

My favourite bit was his story about a Tomorrow's World episode, on firewalking. Richard believes that firewalking can be explained by the poor conductivity of wood, and over the 10 to 15 feet of most firewalks the heat does not get transfered to the feet. Firewalkers believe that they can harness their inner energy to protect their feet. So, Tomorrow's World constructed a 60 foot long firewalk, and as Richard says, the firewalkers will either burn their feet, or disprove the laws of physics. You can see what happened here.