I’ve been getting a few odd, cryptic messages on twitter from someone calling himself @spiritualgenome. I looked him up to figure out what the heck he was babbling about, and found his web page. Turns out he’s a crop circle nut, and you might find a few minutes amusement in his delusions.
Fascinating new discoveries by Russian molecular biologists have revealed that DNA has a mysterious resonance that has been termed the Phantom-DNA Effect. In addition these Russian researchers have found that DNA reacts to voice activated laser light when it is set at the specific frequency of the DNA itself. Using these methods it is possible not only to change the information patterns in the DNA, but it is also possible to communicate with the DNA.
This “phantom DNA” effect is all over the web, surprisingly: people claim that if you shine a laser through a solution of DNA, it scatters or resonates in some particular pattern that persists even after you remove the DNA. Guess what? While it’s a very popular subject on fringe websites hosted on cheap servers with crappy web design, it seems to be completely absent from the scientific literature.
Huh. Who would have guessed?
You might be wondering what it has to to do with crop circles. All will be explained in the following paragraph.
It seems that there is a divine intelligence in the DNA that is capable of resonating with the natural frequency of the earth in order to create crop circles. This divine intelligence is what the Hindus refer to as the Inner Self, and there are indications that the increase in crop circle activity in recent decades is set to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar, at which point this divine intelligence in the DNA will become generally known to the world, thus ushering in a new era in 2012.
Ooooo-OOoOO-ooooh. Magic DNA, lasers, quantum physics, psychic powers, vibrations, crop circles, mystical Mayan calendars, and 2012 — it’s got everything. Total lunatic meltdown.
I just thought somebody who would throw together something this insane deserved a brief flurry of attention to his wacky webpage before I blocked him.
Maybe we could convince him to seek Enlightenment by staring into that wonderful source of light, the laser. And if it doesn’t work, try staring again with the remaining eye.
Oh, how tasty.
Of course, the mysterious resonance of DNA with the Earth is known colloquially as, “guys with rope and boards”. the human psyche is a marvel to behold.
My brain hurts.
Thanks, I needed a laugh right now.
Amusing interview on the podcast Righteous Indignation with a sometime maker of crop circles.
Too much craziness! I am not dealing with this! No. No no no no no no no no no! No! No no no no no no no no no no no no no! No!
How many others realized that was a reference to spooky movies of the 50s, representing the sound a theremin makes?
Magic DNA, crop circles and bears, oh my! Another message of nonsense brought to you by the same people who made religions so popular.
What really scares me is that these people actually have the right to vote. I think I’m going to have to make one of those signs “The End Is Near!”
Blessed Atheist Bible Study @ http://blessedatheist.com
Somehow, the fact that my whole career lies within quantum computation research makes me especially annoyed with quantum woo. Just because it’s subtle doesn’t mean it’s magic or that it means whatever you want it to mean. Quantum mechanics is as rigorous as anything else in physics, if not even more so due to its being axiomatic. Oh, well. I guess this is how biologists feel all the time, eh?
Protect yourself from the resonances: protection instructions
would not the resonances from the rna cancel out the resonances from the dna?
Corn Circles:
pixies, witches, hoaxers: take your pick
…which is why cats go crazy when they see those laser pointers– they’re the ancient keepers of the Secret of the Magic DNA, passed down among Egyptian pharoahs, inscribed upon their very temple walls– even the very word “temple” has a dual meaning: not only a center for worship, but also the midpoint between your third eye and the right/left head chakras! That’s why the military-industrial-medical complex pushes us to wear eyeglasses– they prevent the third eye from being awakened. The Lions are in on it too, collecting old eyeglass, getting people “contacts,” which is code for alien abduction. Whitley Striber didn’t name the book “Contact” for nothing! And note that it wasn’t plural– that’s the third eye being referenced again!!! THAT’S WHY THERE ARE NO EYEGLASSES IN EGYPTIAN TOMB WRITING!
LOL
This stuff practically writes itself! Now where’s my Molly? Hahahahaha
I love the evolution of lunacy. It’s unfortunate, but it is entertaining.
I always wish for the lunatics to fight each other to the death, but that always runs afoul of the fact that they have more animosity against sober science than they have against each other. True, they’d probably slash the throats of all their woo-competition once science was destroyed, yet, until then, they know who really has the big guns aimed at their woo.
Hence the big tents, and woo magnetism.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
shit shit shit sit shit shit shit! I’d love to be a creative writer but these wackaloons always jump in first and steal the best ideas. And while its tempting to spam his email address it’d be like whacking a tadpole with a bus, and I s’pose it would be juvenile (shuffle feet)
The divine intelligence(s) which create the crop circles are known as “pranksters” or “hoaxers”. Bored people with a sense of humor and some artistic talent. All these superstitions lack is an official organization to be in charge of what’s true, and then they’re indistinguishable from any another religion.
At least this guy is literate and somewhat articulate.
This new learning amazes me. Explain again how sheeps bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
You know, I don’t understand how this happens. How do they go from
to
I mean, how does that even work? There isn’t even handwaving or anything, it’s just a bald-faced assertion. Why is it the Hindu Inner Self, and not the Pastafarian Micro-Spaghetti Monster?
The quality of insane ranting has gone down now that everyone’s on the Internet. It used to be that you could find interestingly self-consistent paranoia, but nowadays it’s just one argument from authority after another.
This guy has apparently missed the latest revelation, that meditating with one’s head in a microwave produces instant enlightenment…
#18, who are you, who is so wise in the ways of science?
Magic DNA with its own resonant frequency, huh PeeZ?
Fucked up as a soup sandwich.
That is all.
We now return to our regularly scheduled nap.
Surprise surprise.
There is a Buy now tab.
Nothing like peddling some woo to bolster the old bank balance, eh mate?
Yes.. those series of words make perfect sense.
ah SuckPoppet, is that you I’ve seen on the birdbrain’s blog of ‘total self no-one else gets a look in you’d better agree or I’ll cuss you out who needs your comments when I’ve got plenty of my own to spew forth….’?
had a bit of fun there myself but we seem to have drained him as his posts are less frequent and mumbling rather than outrageous. But I will be watching.
wear him down, wear him down, wear him down…..
Clearly, @spiritualgenome is Deepak Chopra. PZ, you’re being Twitter-stalked by a celebrity! Awesome!
And now I’m gonna need a new monitor as this one is covered in fizzy sugary drink.
That’s almost as funny as Mojoey’s latest entry about being attacked by a crow while eating a salad in his vehicle. Almost. :)
When the term “quantum” appears in the same paragraph as “DNA”, it’s time to move it to the spam folder.
Almost as bad as what I heard about “morphogenetic fields” and “informed water”.
But ONLY if the lasers are affixed to the heads of sharks, Austin Powers-style.
Why has the History Channel not picked up such an obviously important connection to 2012?!
Holy shit! DNA has a divine intelligence and all it does is tell plants to squash themselves in circles in order to warn Mayans that their calenders are about to expire?
The divine sure is getting cheap these days… but hey, at least it has the good sense to keep up with the times and use things like DNA and lasers. If the divine were to manifest itself through outdated things like philosophers stones or orgone radiation that could be downright embarrassing.
At least the font size is consistent. That reminds of this piece of woo: COPPER MAGNETIC THERAPY JESUS BRACELET
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/04/behold_jesus_the_triple_threat_healer.php
http://www.dreamproductscatalog.com/details.cfm?item=12489
I’m sure there is a way to pharyngulate it.
Shadowrun is fiction.
FrankT | April 12, 2010 2:11 AM:
Easy for you to say now. When 2021 rolls around and Goblinization turns your daughter into an Ork, you may find yourself feeling differently.
Why is it always the Russians? Is it that these people still think we don’t talk (much) with them, and there is therefore no way we could find out that they made it all up?
JC
*sigh* I have to deal with the close cousins of this man at work – the Chemtrailers of Doom. Actual scientific fact invokes a “Na-na-na-na I’m not listening” response from them. I suspect that our little spiritualgenome will react the same…
Of course! The truth is being suppressed! Repressed! Denied! “You can’t handle the truth!!!1?!eleventeen!”
Oh, I love crop circles! Such gorgeous mathematical patterns, created with such simple techniques. I have a crop circle pendant sold by one of those hippie places that I like to think of as my skeptic pendant.
This circle: http://www.circlemakers.org/crop7.html
I was amazed when I googled it to find that people still believed in the whole alien landings crap
Oh, for crying out loud. His phone number indicates he’s in Australia.
I may move to … I don’t know … wherever the crazies aren’t.
Hm… couple this guy’s crazy with Time Cube and it might cause a hyper-mass of stupid.
Hank Fox @7 : indeed, imitation of the Theramin is where the term woo-woo comes from.
#16 MadScientist
You have missed the point entirely, MadScientist, along with all the other skeptical scientists ’round here.
Yes, of course the crop circles were made by people.
BUT WHY?
Why do they do it? They are driven by forces beyond their knowledge or control. Do we not have DNA laced throughour our bodies? These bored people have opened themselves up unwittingly to the Intelligent Design that IS DNA. This is the strongest evidence to date of the intelligent driving force that is in DNA!!!!
[Ed. Don’t worry folks. I’ve told Alan B to lie down in a darkened room in the nice comfortable white jacket with long sleeves.]
Someone I know, who is into all forms of woo, was telling me that a famous English dowser wrote a book about how DNA works like some kind of antenna to pick up vibrations, just like radio waves. This apparently is how dowsing works, with the DNA antennae picking up the vibrations and some other part boosting the signal.
Oh, and this is also how all the EM waves like wireless etc. affect people. The electro-sensitives would make good dowsers apparently.
I couldn’t work out if you scientists are supposed to have invented all these new wireless techs specifically as an attack on these electro-sensitive people or not, or if it was just accidental. You know, the way you are always ‘playing God’ and interfering with things you don’t fully understand.
Apparently the jury is out on this.
Oh yes, I have also been brainwashed for not seeing that this is so patently obvious.
I don’t know if the EM waves were used to brainwash me or not.
His web design isn’t that bad. At least there’s no flashing text. Though maybe he’s just a better class of kook.
Bloody hell:
Well I did, but then I’d already figured this was the origin of the word “woo” too. Can’t think what else it’s supposed to indicate. I was a bit surprised PZ didn’t write as
“WOoooo-OOoOO-ooooh” actually. But maybe I’m wrong and its etymology is quite different.
@45: Well, Twitter is a plague on humanity. What’d you expect?
Depends how you utilize it. I’ve actually gotten a not insignificant amount of business from using twitter.
My time cube meter registers 0.95 Time Cube Units. A very high reading indeed!
Glen Davidson @ 14;
Set to the Star Trek fight music (original series, naturally). Complete the effect with an environment of poorly painted polystyrene ‘rocks’, a few creationist redshirts who are the first to go down, and artistically torn uniforms in the style of one James T. Kirk on the primary protgonists. Over-endowed, green skinned, bikini-clad alien women are optional, but highly recommeded.
I know what you mean. With all due respect to Rev. BigDumbChimp’s business connections, most of the time Twitter could quite readily be renamed ‘Blather’ or ‘Inane Babble’.
It is almost as if celebrity magazines and reality TV had an unholy child that slithered its way into teh interwebs and there festered into this abomination of non-communication.
Do I care about the latest celebrity fashion craze? Or which starlet/himbo has exposed her/himself or been caught doing drugs/driving while under the influence/having sex with X,Y or Z (or all the above at the same time) this week. No, no I do not. While those who fixate on these things are, of course, free to pursue their… ‘interest’, I am equally free to mock them.
It was sad, sad day in UK politics when the craze of politicians ‘tweeting’ about all in sundry (up to and including actual policy) hit the corridors of power. Still, after the expenses debacle I guess it as, as our transatlantic cousins might say, small potatoes.
Twitter is a plague on humanity? I second that motion.
What the bloody hell is ‘voice activated laser light’?
What, no Bigfoot in the mix?
What kind of half assed insanity is that?
Crazy is just no fun without a sasquatch or two thrown in.
And Im not talking about one of those imitation ones, you know, like an undocumented yeti, Anne Coulter or some unemployed alcoholic circus midget wearing an old muppet and running around in the woods, babbling about how he could have been a baker who lived in a tree (poor little bastard, gotta watch those damn squirrels), no Im talking about a genuine N. America Sasquatch.
BIg and fury, with huge teeth and nipple rings… the wild ones with blue hair and a bad attitude, who make crop circles and steal left shoes.
Urmensch #43 wrote”
Pseudoscience like this is always “patently obvious” — meaning, it is always superficially analogous to common experience. People who are not at all technical, and have little to no understanding of the mechanisms involved in scientific explanations, can consider phrases like “intelligence in DNA” and “resonating frequency of the earth” and kinda, sorta get what they mean by comparing those phrases to things they already understand (or think they understand), like vibrating strings — or the way your thoughts exist in a different place than your body. Then, you draw connections to discover (or create) similarities. Ahh, I see. Insight.
Pseudoscientific explanations appeal to “folk physics” and “folk psychology,” and, because they are intuitive, they’re supposed to be both obvious, and deep.
I can almost always follow along with woo explanations, because I don’t have so much background in the real explanations, that the superficial ones no longer make any sense at all. I can think them. Without detail, they do manage to make a strange sort of intuitive sense: they’re just wrong. And, the more you know, the wronger they are …. until, they’re not even wrong, anymore. They become unthinkable gibberish.
But you have to know enough to see that.
My favourite bit on his site is where he seems to be claiming that the the Tunguska event is a giant crop circle, too.
They must have has some mighty big boards and rope.
Hank Fox:
The Theremin is the perfect instrument for playing soundtracks for this kind of lunacy, given that you play it by waving your hands.
I think they call in Russian scientists because most of us can’t read Russian to check the sources; and because Russian names are easier to mess up.
In fact, when I searched for the four Russian scientists mentioned on the page Crop Circles Explained, second paragraph, I found only four hits, some of them referring to the page I started from. However, when I corrected “Grajajev” to “Garjajev” there were a lot more hits. Unfortunately, they were all still pseudoscience.
I think this is my favorite sentence just for sheer impenetrable semi-meaning:
All and sundry.
DLC, I didn’t know that was the origin of “Woo” [if it’s not a folk eytmology]. It bothered me because surely there are many fine doctors, scientists, and rationalists named Woo, but it makes sense, as in a “Cue the spooky music.”
Theremins are fun to play and easy to build and operate off your own personal inductance. More parallels to “woo-woo” nonsense.
One of the more amusing aspects is that the kook refers to a large, complex Mayan-calendar crop circle that “appeared over two nights.” You’d think that if crop circles are generated by cosmic forces of the universe, they’d appear overnight. However, if they were being tramped out in someone’s young crops by mischievous students from a nearby college, it might well take two nights.
Does it have to be a voice activated laser light or will any other types of laser light work?…..
*headdesk*
Well, I’m off to find my interocitor. Got some testing to do.
Huh. I’d never made the connection between the theremin and the term “woo” or “woo-woo.” Cool bit of trivia.
@ #40:
“I may move to … I don’t know … wherever the crazies aren’t.”
When Alice declared that she didn’t want to go among mad people, the Cheshire Cat pointed out she had no choice.
… there is a divine intelligence in the DNA …
At last the record has been set straight: for all these years, we’ve been misspelling the full name of divinoribonucleintelligence acid.
Cath @ 39– that is an amazing website. I want a necklace too now.
This circle amazing
The theremin being the origin of the term woo-woo is a hugely popular hypothesis, but as far as I know (and a bit of Generalissimo Googling backs this up), that’s not certain and there are other plausible hypothesises.
Someone should ask the woo-wooer being laughed at; I’m curious to see if it could connect the term to crop circles, 2012, DNA, quantum anything, yadda yadda. Well, actually, I’m sure it could connect the term, I’m perhaps more curious what the connection would be…
Re the origin of “woo-woo”, I always assumed (on no evidence, sorry, I’ll surrender my card now), that it had to do with the gesture and accompanying sound effects that we would use — waaay back in the day — to indicate a nutter. One would point at one’s ear and rotate the index finger while saying “woo-woo-woo”. We used this in several ways: to tell the person we were talking to that their opinion was nuts; to communicate (sometimes without the sound effects) to a third party that the person we were talking to was nuts; to do the same to a speaker on radio, TV, or live-on-soapbox, to indicate to our fellow watchers that said individual was nuts.
The theremin idea is new to me, but I have doubts about it. In most of the cheesy SF videos of the time it was used to signal either something dangerous (to the characters) or creepy. Not something crazy.
Re crop circles. I will have to be stern here and point out an imagination deficit on this thread. Obviously the first crop circles were made by interstellar tagger punks out joyriding in Dad’s warpship (or coming through the wormhole the Tunguska meteorite made), trying out their new pressor beam projectors from orbit. All they could make was circles, but that was good enough… — until other kids’ gangs came along and made bigger ones, or multiples, even rudimentary patterns. Then the game was on, with rival gangs competing to see who could make the coolest graffiti.
It soon became obvious that the pressor beams had limitations, and to make really cool patterns you’d have to land, dismount the projector, and walk the thing around. Risky, and a few times they almost got caught.
What to do? Then somebody noticed that the locals had started making crop circles of their own, and had a flash of brilliance. Kidnap some locals, hypno-probe them (anally, of course) and program them with the urge to create ever more elaborate and cool crop circles, and turn them loose. Visit from time to time to see what new designs they’d come up with.
There. Crop circles, UFOs, Tunguska and alien abduction all explained in one simple contortion of fact. (The Mayan thing? That’s pure fantasy. It’s astonishing to me that anyone could buy that.)
dumoustier@67, nope, don’t buy it. You forgot BigFoot and the Quantum Fart (which, contrary to popular rumour, is not the name of a band—at least three bands use it).
This explains why RNA uses Uracil instead of Thymine – resonance protection (possibly even quantum resonance protection)
A while back I wrote an article on Denialists, or more accurately, on my new plan to deny the existence of denialists. http://www.meddlingkids.org/2010/02/denialism-denialist/
I think my new plan is to come up with a conspiracy theory that all conspiracy theorists are really a team of dedicated government disinformationists whose job it is to cover up the REAL threat to the world… Denialist denialists.
And Thymine and Theramin are eerily close together dictionarily…can’t be a coincidence.
If only there was someone that could explain the intersection between such different and yet similar things…goatsonfire
David Marjanović @ 58;
You are right on this one. Thanks for the correction.