From: wsadjw@rw7.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Crop circles: natural or human-made?
Keywords: skeptic
Date: 19 Aug 92 08:37:51 GMT
Reply-To: wsadjw@urc.tue.nl
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

In article <Bt758M.2J6@mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
#
#On the other hand, the Mandlebrot set is a "natural phenomenon", and

I would say that anything that comes out of a computation is as much
a "natural phenomenon" as a work of art. That doesn't preclude it might
match up with an actual natural thing, but the M-set is not one of these.

Moreover, the corn-circle M-set was not really the Mandelbrot set, but
a sketchy approximation, such as mathematicians might sketch on a blackboard.

#As this is my first post to this group, I'd like to add that I'm very
#much a skeptic, _especially_ when it comes to UFO stories which I've
#always dismissed, but I'm curious about this crop-circle phenomenon
#now.  The TV show mentioned above was your standard sensationalist
#TV-tabloid fare, but I'd be very interested in the opinions of some
#hardened skeptics in this newsgroup...


I've just met one of the leaders of CCCS (Michael Green).  He is 
a self professed mystic.  One of the reasons for thinking it's all
hoax is firstly that the crop circle "researchers" are a very credulous lot.
Their argument is for instance "no human could do this"; their research
tools are the dowsing rod and the pendulum.  When "changes in the DNA"
were reported, it turned out that they had used a seventeenth 
century alchemical concentration-and-crystallisation method.
So if some "mysterious" burns were reported, chances are that it's
some kind of natural phenomenon that is misinterpreted. What you see 
on TV should not be trusted.  If the "burn" doesn't show up too well
on the monitor, an unscrupulous team might just enhances it a little 
with a cigarette lighter.  
Secondly, when you think of the huge numbers of graffitti "mysteriously"
appearing everywhere, it's not so difficult imagining large numbers
of hoaxers.  The response from the corn circle people is most gratifying.
It is known that those corn circle groups are infiltrated by hoaxers:
whatever the corn circle enthousiasts think interesting, is immediately
put into effect.  The CCCS thinks that the circles are made by a
superior intelligence that is interactive with the human mind. I think
they are right on both counts.
The reason the hoaxers don't confess is simple: they would have to pay 
damages. There is one kind of hoaxer, though, who doesn't have to worry
about that, namely the farmers themselves.  They charge admission fees
to the onlookers.  Naturally they won't confess either.
If just one in 1000 people would feel like hoaxing if they would know
a partner to help out, you'd have enough people to "explain" all the
hoaxes.  So claiming that "hoaxing so much" is impossible amounts to
claiming that one knows human nature very well.


But by and large, the main reason not to take this corn circle 
business too serious is the unfathomable combination of credulousness
and sloppy research methods exhibited by the researchers themselves.
Their errors and weaknesses:
   Appeals to authority
   Unchallengeable statements
   Use of subjective techniques
   Publication through mass media
   Avoidance of usual scientific channels
   Untested assumptions of competence
   Ad hoc bandages for defective theories
   Conspiracy theories
   Ad hominem attacks on critics

(Most of the above cribbed from an article by ex-hoaxer 
 Martin Hempstead of the Wessex Skeptics)

JWN