nyuuzyou/wikis huggingface dataset:
Mina Crandon

Mina Crandon (1888-1941, née Stinson) also known as "Margery" was an American spiritualist medium.
==Biography==
Crandon grew up on a farm in Canada but moved to Boston as a young woman. She married Earl Rand, a grocer. They had one son. She later met Dr. LeRoi Goddard Crandon when she entered a Dorchester, Massachusetts, hospital for an operation. Dr. Crandon was her surgeon. She later divorced Rand and married Crandon. 
Her second husband, Dr. Crandon, was a wealthy Boston physician and professor of surgery at Harvard. Both Crandon and her husband took interest in spiritualism and took part in seances. She claimed to be able to contact her deceased brother Walter by mediumship and her seances were widely reported, causing much publicity and controversy.
Crandon died an alcoholic in 1941.
==Fraud==
Crandon was a famous medium in the 1920s known for producing ectoplasm during her seance sittings. She produced a small ectoplasmic hand from her stomach which waved about in the darkness. Her career ended however when biologists examined the hand and found it to be made of a piece of carved animal liver.Ghosts, Apparitions and Poltergeists: An Exploration of the Supernatural through History The escape artist Harry Houdini had also exposed the mediumship tricks of Crandon.
Crandon also claimed to produce wax impressions of spirit fingerprints but was exposed as a fraud as she had been using moulds of fingerprints from her living dentist Dr. Kerwin and pretended in the seance room that they were spirit fingerprints from her deceased brother Walter. According to Zusne and Jones (1989), "When in 1932 it was discovered that the spirit fingerprints left behind on a piece of wax (spirit fingerprints had become a specialty of Margery's) were those of Margery's dentist, very much alive, rather than those of Walter, the Boston Society for Psychical Research published a report on it, describing Margery as the most ingenious and persistent fraud in the annals of psychical research."Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking 1989, p. 217
The Italian skeptic Massimo Polidoro has written an article that has documented the fraud of Crandon.Houdini v. The Blond Witch of Lime Street: A Historical Lesson in Skepticism
==Sexual activities==
Crandon's husband was known for displaying nude photographs of her in her mediumship sessions. Mina Crandon was described as a very beautiful lady who men found "too attractive for her own good". Psychical investigator Malcolm Bird was actively conspiring with the Crandons in stage-managing the seances in an attempt to have a sexual relationship with Mina. Reports, however, suggest that Mina found Bird repulsive. Instead she held amorous affections for the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with whom she had an affair.William Kalush, Larry Ratso Sloman The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero 2006, pp. 419-420
==See also==
*Eusapia Palladino
==References==
Category:Paranormal
Mind

Mind is one of two components of Cartesian dualism, the other being body. Mind is where the soul is supposed to reside and is the non-materialistic, eternal, undetectable ghost in the machine that controls the mindless body. Rene Descartes formulated the concept and even went so far as to label the pineal gland as the point where mind and body intersect. 
Dualism as a scientific concept suffers because it is ultimately unfalsifiable. Some proponents follow a God of the gaps style of argument where the non-materialist reality is the cause for whatever materialism can not, at that moment, explain.
==See also==
*Essay:Michael Egnor's failed attempt at dualism
*Meme
Category:Philosophy
Category:Psychology
Mind-body woo

Mind-body woo or mind-over-matter is the idea that the mind, through mere thought, exercise, meditation, or other methods, can tangibly alter the body or the universe. There are some sensible interpretations (e.g., the placebo effect) and tons more woo.
==Sane stuff==
===Adrenalin===
The most well-received explanation for the mind over body argument is the release of adrenalin into the body, which does increase strength and endurance. Basically the body's abilities are underappreciated, so that exceptional feats brought about by "mind over body" are seen as mysterious or even superhuman/supernatural.
===Hot coals===
Of interest is the fact that Mythbusters tested whether walking on hot coals is a "mind over matter" thing. The conclusion was that the ash formed a layer over the hot coals, which actually allowed you to safely walk across the fire. Host Adam Savage, however, sustained second degree burns to his foot because he panicked halfway across the path, and disturbed the ash layer.Fired Up for Fire Walking | MythBusters
===Hair standing on end===
A more moderate approach would be to say that, for example, you can consciously make your hair stand up on end. Some people can exercise an amount of conscious control over their heart rates, or "tick" muscles that are not normally used. You can even use biofeedback to learn how to do this.
==Paranormal==
The more extreme aspects of the mind-over-body concept argue that the defiance of the body's limits demonstrates an innate potential that our body is masking, similar to Scientology. While indeed the body can do impressive things, and holds secrets we do not know about, the extremes that people think of are almost certainly impossible, according to every known law of physics. For example, it is physically impossible to lift things without touching them, though it is possible to lift a 500 pound log without injury (just unlikely).
At the less realistic end of the scale is the sort of claims seen in New Age philosophies that positive thinking can override both the body and even physics itself — such as the claim in New-Age-Luvvie-Fest What the Bleep Do We Know? that "if you believe it with all your heart, you can walk on water". Or the application of the so-called law of attraction which makes the universe into a personal wish-granting genie.
==See also==
*Placebo effect
*Psychosomatic
==References==
Category:Biology
Category:New Age
Category:Psychology
Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False

Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False () is a book with a stupidly long title written by American philosopher Thomas Nagel. It was first published in September 2012.
==Overview==
Nagel proposes that the modern materialist approach to life fails to explain consciousness. Nagel's argument takes the form of a modus tollens. He claims that if neo-Darwinian materialism is true, then psychophysical reductionism must be true. Psychophysical reductionism, Nagel argues, is false. Therefore, neo-Darwinian materialism can't be correct. From this he argues that mental activity is a fundamental feature of biological systems that has developed through evolution and the materialistic "Darwinian" version of evolution through natural selection fails to explain it.Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel It is, of course, a gigantic God of the gaps argument. It's also somewhat untrue: the development of consciousness can be explained quite well by evolution through natural selection. One might postulate that linked biological systems function more effectively and are hence selected for, and that "consciousness" is the product of a very complex web of systems. Explanations like this one have yet to go through the rigors of the scientific method and be proven (or disproved) in experiments, but they show that the gap that Nagel's God of the Gaps argument tries to fill is not so big, after all.
==See also==
*Providence Lost: A Critique of Darwinism 
==References==
Category:Intelligent design creationism
Category:Books
Category:Philosophy
Mind control

Mind control involves the idea that internal thoughts, emotions, and decisions can be externally controlled against a person's will through psychological, physical, or paranormal means. The concept resembles brainwashing, and in some circumstances the two terms could be synonymous. However, brainwashing is traditionally more focused on the very real psychological induction techniques used — as in cults — to alter belief systems over time, while mind control dwells more in the realm of conspiracy theories and cranks which postulate nefarious techniques and devices that can control all forms of thought and behavior nearly instantaneously and often from remote locations.
Mind-control conjectures usually focus on plots attributed to the New World Order'sMust See! How The ILLUMINATI uses Television to Control Your Mind!Apparently TV programs are called "programs" because of this reason. attempts to control all of humanity. Mechanisms of mind control are usually claimed to be physical or chemical in operation. Some common purported mind-control devices include extreme low frequency generators such as HAARP, cell towers,It has not helped that many cell towers erected today are hidden from plain sight. or the Russian woodpecker signal; also chemical mechanisms such as water fluoridation and chemtrails are popular culprits. Some conspiracy theorists postulate more paranormal sources of mind control — such as an army of secret CIA psychics hidden in the Pentagon.
Sufferers from several psychological disorders such as schizophrenia often express the belief that they are being manipulated through mind-control mechanisms. If left untreated, these delusions can reach astounding proportions of complexity; the Internet has provided fertile ground for mass publication of voluminous treatises on personal mind-control journeys. In fact, that is pretty much what geocities.com was for. Most mind-control stories present a problem similar to Poe's Law: it gets really hard to separate a true crank from an untreated schizophrenic. 
One thing, though, everyone can agree on: tinfoil hats are your best defense, and (as Pascal's wager points out), better safe than sorry.
==See also==
* Brainwashing
* Psychic
* MKULTRA
* Silva method
* Targeted individuals
* HAARP
* Martin Luther King assassination conspiracies
* Robert F. Kennedy
* Hypnosis, which is not mind control
==Notes==
==References==
Category:conspiracy theories
Miracles for Sale

Miracles for Sale is a documentary featuring Derren Brown. It was first broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK in April 2011. Brown wants to stage a fake, live faith healing show on purpose (unlike the usual ones you see on TV, where they pretend nothing is fake) to show the dangers of this multi-million dollar scam industry. He can't do it himself, as he risks being recognized. Thus, he decides to choose someone else to act as the scammer. A British man named Nathan is given six months of training before performing live in Dallas, Texas as "Pastor James". A website is set up in the name of the fake Gifts of the Spirit Ministry.
==Moral ambiguity==
The whole idea is to stage a fake faith healing show to help show people that the "healing" is little more than a temporary placebo effect. However, Derren, the whole production team and especially Nathan have moments where they have trouble coping with the whole "trick people into deeply believing that they are healed just to show that they, in fact, were not" idea.
At one point, they want to hire a PR company to help them advertise the pretend pastor. They decided to drop the idea because, given the true nature of their endeavor, it could severely hurt the company's image. On the day before the big performance, "Pastor James" (Nathan) and Derren walk around the city, looking for people feeling pains so Nathan can "heal" them. All subjects that agree to participate report not feeling pain any more. Derren comes clean, explaining exactly what was happening to them.
At the end of Nathan's performance, he reads a text, carefully worded so that it won't conflict directly with the present people's beliefs. It is pretty much a short explanation of adrenaline as a temporary painkiller. There is also a good part about how those that charge money for healing are evil, especially when they ask the "healed" to stop taking any medications they were prescribed.
==External links==
* Gifts of the Spirit Ministry website. It's still up and unchanged since then.
* Watch it here
Category:Television programmes
Category:Texas
Mission accomplished

"Mission accomplished" is a military phrase associated with completing a mission."mission accomplished: command given to cause cessation of fire when the firing mission is completed". Military terms, abbreviations, and symbols. United States. Dept. of the Army, 1953. It was used controversially by the American military and Republican politicians in reference to the United States' at-the-time-unfinished entanglement in Iraq.
==John McCain==
The phrase was used by Senator John McCain in a June 2003 interview with Neil Cavuto.
McCain again used the phrase in December 2003, but in reference to the effect which the recent capture of Saddam Hussein would have on the Iraq War, saying "This is a mission accomplished."December 14, on ABC's This Week, quoted at McCain Source (link broken, site now blanked).
John McCain denounced the phrase on May 1, 2008, saying:
==Bush administration==
The phrase had earlier been seen on a sign displayed on the USS Abraham Lincoln (sorry, Abe) during a televised address by United States President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003, when he stated that major combat operations in Iraq had "ended."
Conservatives try to defend Bush by saying this had nothing to do with Dubya, and everything to do with the Lincoln Carrier Battle Group, which did accomplish its mission. And for months, the Bush administration denied that it was responsible for the banner, blaming the aircraft carrier crew itself for putting it up.
Since then, White House officials have acknowledged it was their idea. "We put it up. We made the sign," former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "But I think it accurately summed up where we were at the time, mission accomplished...the mission was to topple Saddam Hussein."'Mission Accomplished' Revisited by Joel Roberts (April 30, 2004, 3:19 PM) CBS.
==Mission actually accomplished (?)==
Bush signed an order to have all troops removed from Iraq by the end of 2011, which President Barack Obama dutifully carried out, much to the dismay of his detractors. Whether or not the original goals of a military intervention in Iraq were realized is still to be determined.
==References==
Category:2008 US Presidential Election
Category:Military
Category:Political strategery
Category:United States politics
Missouri House Bill 1227

Missouri House Bill 1227 is a blatantly creationist bill in the 96 General Assembly of Missouri. Thankfully, it's highly unlikely to pass - even one of its proponents, Republican Sue Allen, is prepared to admit it.Darwin vs. design — if one is taught, should the other be required? This does not make the bill itself any better.
The bill would "amend chapters 170 and 174, RSMo, by adding ... two new sections relating to standard science instruction." These sections would be 170.018 and 174.890. The bills sponsor is Republican Rick Brattin, the operator of a drywall firm and who freely admits that he has "no advanced scientific expertise or training", and that people who do are attacking his bill left right and centre.
==170.018==
The first amendment wishes to call itself the "Missouri Standard Science Act". It begins by listing a large number of definitions for use in the bill, including "Biological evolution"; "Biological intelligent design"; "Destiny"; "Scientific theory"; and "Standard science". The definitions are stereotypical ID nonsense. One of the most important in the later sections is Standard science:
The next part of the bill, after the definitions, states that "[a]ll science taught in Missouri public elementary and secondary schools...shall be standard science." It goes on to list the criteria that said science should meet, including such provisions as:
In other words: teach creationism, and don't influence students' belief in their imaginary friend.
The amendment goes on to comment on how textbook material should be made available, before finishing up with the demand that exams also give equal time to evolution and ID also.This is because of the 'teaching to the test' problem: if it's not going to be on the test, teachers are much less likely to teach it.
==174.890==
The second section has no fancy name, and simply reiterates that "[a]ll standard science course materials and instruction shall meet" the criteria which is repeated from earlier.
==External links==
*Two articles from the NCSE on the subject.
*Missouri House Bill No. 1227: The Invisible Hand of The Discovery Institute
==References==
category:Intelligent design creationism
Mitosis

Mitosis is the process of cell division similar to that of Meiosis but produces a clone of the original cell (known as daughter cells). The process is found in all organisms and is a way to make sure life continues.
==DNA in mitosis==
During mitosis, DNA will split into its two constituent strands and replicate. Two copies of the genome are then pulled to the sides of the cell while it completes the telophase and the cell undergoes cytokinesis.
==See also==
*Cell theory
Category:Biology
Moab Man

The term Moab Man, often referred to as Malachite Man by creationists, relates to two human skeletons found near Moab, Utah in 1971. (Sometimes Moab Man refers to a 1971 finding and Malachite Man to a 1990 finding.) Lin Ottinger, a rock collector, first found the remains. After archaeologists had completed an excavation of the skeletons, Ottinger sold one of them to Carl Baugh, who put it on display at a creationist museum in Glen Rose, Texas.
A second excavation of about eight more skeletons took place in 1990. Because of the Cretaceous sandstone at the site, young Earth creationists touted the skeletons as "proof" that men and dinosaurs co-existed. However, the skeletons were not fossilized, making them a recent burial. Carbon dating puts the first set of skeletons at around 140-280 years old and the latter set at between 1,360 and 1,540 years. The skeletons occurred in loose sand not associated with any rock formation, according to the archaeologists who performed the excavation. This means they resulted either from an intentional (i.e., grave) or from an unintentional burial. The best evidence points to Puebloan miners who were either buried at the site or trapped in a mine collapse of some sort.
Some Old-Earth Creationists have criticized the use of Moab Man to support creationist arguments.
Moab Man, Answers in Creation
==External links==
*Moab Man/Malachite Man, Glen J. Kuban
*CreationWiki attempts to use this find as proof.
==References==
Category:Pseudoarchaeology
Modus ponens

Modus ponens ("mode of affirming") is a logical rule of inference based on conditional propositions. Also called affirming the antecedent, modus ponens involves affirming the sufficient condition of the conditional proposition in order to prove the necessary condition. Modus ponens is closely related to modus tollens ("mode of taking").
A modus ponens argument has the following form:
For example:
Confusing the directionality of the if-then statement in a modus ponens argument results in the fallacy of affirming the consequent, represented by the following invalid syllogism: 
As a rule of inference, modus ponens is represented by the following in propositional logic:
\left\{X\rightarrow Y, X\right\} \models Y
== Nicod’s postulate and modus ponens==
Jean Nicod demonstrated that all of propositional logic can be deduced from a single schema—Nicod’s postulate: 
((p | (q | r)) | ((s | (s | s)) | ((u | u) | ((p | q) | (p | q)))))
by applying one inference rule—Nicod’s modus ponens:
# p
# (p | (q | r))
# ∴ r
==See also==
*Affirming the consequent
*Modus tollens
Category:Arguments
Category:Latin phrases
Modus tollens

Modus tollens ("mode of taking") is a logical argument, or rule of inference. (Compare with modus ponens, or "mode of putting.") It is also known as indirect proof or proof by contrapositive, and is a valid form of argument in formal logic.Modus Tollens, Jordan Bell, Wolfram Mathworld
==As an argument==
A modus tollens argument has the following form:
For example:
The contrapositive of "if X then Y" is "if not Y then not X"; if a proposition is true, then so is its contrapositive.Converse and Contrapositive, CS381 Discrete Structures/Discrete Mathematics Web Course Material, Old Dominion University
==As a rule of inference==
In propositional logic:
\left\{X\rightarrow Y,\neg Y\right\} \models \neg X
In first-order logic:
\models_{\mathfrak{A}}\forall x.\left(X(x)\rightarrow Y(x)\right) \wedge \models_{\mathfrak{A}}\exists x.\left(\neg Y(x)\right) \implies \models_{\mathfrak{A}}\exists x.\left(\neg X(x)\right)
==Denying the antecedent==
It can be contrasted with the fallacy of denying the antecedent, for instance (using the above example) "it is not raining, therefore the ground is not wet" (obviously untrue if you're standing in a lake). Denying the antecedent asserts not-X rather than not-Y.
==See also==
*Modus ponens
==References==
Category:Arguments
Category:Latin phrases
Category:Logic