Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously.

Our society and our own lives are replete with examples. It can be something as innocuous as really disliking a music style but still dancing to a specific song in that genre, to something more glaring, like rejecting non-evidence based medicine but still using a home remedy for your cold.

There are two areas of society where cognitive dissonance appears to really shine, religion and politics. The ability to denounce corruption and graft in other politicians while driving a brand new BMW X5 is nothing short of spectacular.

It becomes really interesting when these two spheres of society intersect. Then the cognitive dissonance really starts oozing out of every available crevice.

It’s election season here is South Africa, so the different parties are really saying anything that comes to mind. Or so it seems.

For example:

The ancestors will be upset if the ANC loses control of Nelson Mandela Bay in the local government elections on May 18, President Jacob Zuma has told a rally in PE.

Ok. Let’s ignore the validity of this claim and backtrack to something President Zuma said a couple of months ago:

“When (Jesus) fetches us we will find (those in the beyond) wearing black, green and gold. the holy ones belong to the ANC.”

Ok. One last quote before we wrap this up to it’s nice neat conclusion:

Regard ⁶⁴³⁷ not them that have familiar spirits ¹⁷⁸, neither seek ¹²⁴⁵ after wizards ³⁰⁴⁹, to be defiled ²⁹³⁰ by them: I [am] the LORD ³⁰⁶⁸ your God ⁴³⁰.

Leviticus 19:31.

Let’s look at that little number 178 above familiar spirits and see that it says:

ghost, spirit of a dead one

And the root of this word:

ancestor

So essentially, the president is saying that voting for the ANC will allow you access to the heaven of a religion which forbids ancestor worship, but if you don’t vote ANC the ancestors will be angry!

Cognitive Dissonance: Ask your local sceptic if you suffer from it!

I was about to register for yetanotherblog when I remembered, I do have a blog. This one!

So I decided to check it out again, and lo and behold, its still here… and people are still reading it!

Strange indeed.

So… I thought… why not revive it?

So I’ve grabbed my best lightning conductors, found a ominous looking castle somewhere in Eastern Europe and I’m about to flip the switch to make this sucker live again.

Let’s see what happens…

Yep, type in “Danie Krugel” as a search term and the site Stop Danie Krugel is 8th on the first page. Yesterday I couldn’t find it in the first couple of pages and the day before it didn’t even exist.

The Google-Fu seems strong in South African Sceptics

(Fortunately 5 of the 7 linked sites higher up than Stop Danie Krugel are sceptics sites!)

Basically the idea is for me to make a claim, similar to Mr. Krugels, about being able to find the location of someone using some kind of extraordinary technique. Then with the assistance of other people (friends, other sceptics, academics) to go through the process of establishing a proper protocol that will conclusively test whether or not I in fact have this claimed ability. The final phase will then be to apply the protocol and test it for real.

The idea is not for me to prove that I have this ability or device (even though I have a cute idea for a mechanism) but to setup and test, the process of testing this kind of ability. I think it’ll be informative and educational, giving some insight into ways to make such a test watertight. It will also, hopefully, serve as an example of the kind of test that is required to prove or disprove, conclusively, the ability of the kind of device Mr Krugel claims to have.

Also I think it’ll be fun in a treasure hunting kind of way

So if anybody has any ideas on how this could work, or want to help, or even want to steal the idea and do something this yourself, please do comment.

No really there is some good news at least. Check out www.stopdaniekrugel.com

Finally a concerted effort from sceptics to debunk the claims made by this man. Please visit the site, contribute if you have something to contribute, and link to it if you can. The idea being that this site will pop up at the top of a search under the terms “Danie Krugel” so people can get the real information about him first before finding his own website.

A big thank you to all the people involved in setting up the site. Good work guys!

So what’s the awesome news? Well some people have gotten together (you might recognize the name Google) to bring cheaper and faster internet to Africa by 2010

Wow… how cool is that. Satellite really seems to be the right solution (for now) for the continent of Africa with its major telecommunications (and other) infrastructure problems. The other awesome thing about this initiative is that its commercially funded and supported. Which means that other worthwhile projects do not need to be sidelined for this.

I have to admit though it’s not just the side of me that’s interested in Development in Africa that is excited. The side of me that wants cheap internet is essentially bouncing of the walls too

Lia said the family wanted Bloemfontein academic Danie Krugel to be allowed to take his equipment to Dubai to search for Kerry. Krugel has developed a system that can allegedly track missing people anywhere in the world using their DNA.

Linky

I decided when I created this blog that I would not swear on this blog and keep the material relatively PG rated. The above quote, especially the bolded word, has had me this close to breaking that rule. That such a blatant fraud is now being graced with the term academic, has me quite livid. I believe that The Mercury (the newspaper this article is originally from) needs to be the recipient of a harsh email campaign at the least.

(In case you were confused Danie Krugel is in no way an academic in any generally accepted usage of the word.)

Of the 500 000 matriculants in South Africa each year, only about 2000 are African students with a C or higher in mathematics. In the process of searching for a source for this I happened on Stat’s SA’s website which has some very nice tools to analyse their data with. With this data I drew up the following chart:

Essentially I tried to calculate the percentage of each demographic group which has a Grade 12.

Quite shocking statistics. Even the white females with a grade 12, are less than 40% of the total white female population! For those other sceptical bloggers who have lamented and wondered why we have a lack of critical thinking and scepticism in this country, I think this graph gives a pretty good reason.

(And yes I know that being educated does not necessarily mean that one is immune to pseudoscience, superstition and all kinds of scams. And, of course, that not being educated, does not necessarily lead to belief in pseudoscience and superstitions. I just feel that having a good secondary education gives you the necessary tools (science, maths, and language) to critically examine different claims and beliefs.)

But beyond just posting this statistic, I want to issue a bit of a challenge to the readers of this blog (yes I know you’re out there, even those of you trying to get me to gamble online): What are you doing to improve these statistics? I honestly see education as the best and probably quickest way to improve South Africa in terms of Socio-Economic development. If we want South Africa to move from a Developing to Developed country we desperately need a educated middle class. What are you doing to make this happen?

So I would suggest to you, the reader, to try and make it an active part of your thinking to look for opportunities to improve education. Make a donation to a school or educational non-profit. Help a student with maths, science or language. Sparks someone’s interest in science or engineering. Do something, anything, to help those young enquiring minds learn something new and useful.

Yesterday, however, something happened that made me want to write a post about it. So here goes:

I lecture at one of the more prominent universities in South Africa, and yesterday one of my second year students said something to me that has been kind of bugging me.

The last week or so I’ve been suffering from a particularly nasty case of laryngitis (yes, it made lecturing very challenging. A challenge I’ve quite enjoyed – finding ways of getting the point across without speakingJ.)

After class yesterday one of my students came to me with a stack load of advice to cure my laryngitis. Most of it sensible and fairly standard, gargle with salt water, use Vics, etc. Then he says to me that his people never loose their voices as adults, because as children when they get laryngitis they shout some African word (I honestly can’t remember what the word was) into a clay pot. The pot then holds the disease or something and you will never get it again.

I thought he realised he was regaling me with a quaint African folk tale, and I giggled at the cute story. I think I offended him then, seems he truly believes in this, and strongly recommended that I try it. I told him honestly, that as a scientist I cannot put faith in such nonsensical practices. Then it got worse. He said that I shouldn’t scoff at ancient knowledge and simply think of it as similar to the belief in God. I should simply have faith.

I decided to end the conversation with the student there (I try to keep my personal life and beliefs private from my students). He had it right though, I do consider his African pot remedy similar to religion – they are both ridiculous and unfounded.

What bugs me about this, is that a second year student at a top university can believe in something like this. All cultures have ridiculous traditions that we teach our kids (e.g. Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, if you play with fire you will wet your bed, etc). But usually by the time we’re adults we realise that these tales are unfounded and untrue.

I wonder about the future of this country if those trying to get a proper education aren’t using it (or even just plain common sense). Oh, well, guess the future will be much like the present then.