Introduction

PAGE CONTENTS

STOP PRESS – PERSONAL COMMUTER? – INTRODUCTION – THE REAL REASON FOR “CHEMTRAILS”? – FREEFALL & TERMINAL VELOCITY – HOW TO MAKE SNOW – VISION – CONTRAIL Q&A – STAR’s RESOURCES – A SINGLE LONG-RANGE FLIGHT AND AN OCEAN LINER! – MY YOUTUBE PRESENCE – PEAK OIL – SNAKE OIL – AMAZING PLANE TRAIL – A SKEPTIC’S BOOKSHELF

Don’t forget my other pages, links and comments are one click away at the top right of the page

ICE CRYSTALS AND HALOS

Polar ice crystal samples

The link “Atmospheric Optics and more” will help anyone to understand the reasons underlying the many discrete halo features which are both probable and possible. It also gets a mention under “Ignorance” on my page here.

STOP PRESS

14th December ’11 – Free Fall and Terminal Velocity on this page

5th December ’11 – Ice Crystals and Halos on this page

18th January ’11 – 9-11 VORTEX in “Trails Seen from Space”

14th January ’11 – THE REAL REASON FOR  “Chemtrails” on this page.

18th December ’10 – CHAFF (& RADAR) in “Careful With That Cloud”

11th December ’10 – WAKES OF WAR in “WW2 CONTRAIL STORY”

02 August ’10 – OBZELITE in “Breathtaking quotes” in “Genuine Bull”

16th July ’10 – MORONS STUMBLE INTO OFFICE in “Driving Round Town”

10th July ’10 – JONES JOINS IN in “Jet Spray”

24th June ’10 – SNAKE OIL and more on my YT presence on this page

19th June ’10 – SUPERCOMPUTING THE CLIMATE in “Penrod”

13th June ’10 – CSI FLAKES CNUTS in “Contrails”

03rd June ’10 – FUN IN THE SUN in “Established”

19th May ’10 – MAKING THE 777 in “Me Driving Round Town”

05th May ’10 – HOLE PUNCH SATELLITE CHEMTRAILS in “Here”

23rd April ’10 – VOLCANIC ASS, ER, ASH in “Trails didn’t exist back then”

13th April ’10 – “TRUTHSEEKER” SITES BANNING HYPOCRISY on this page

09th April ’10 – OUTSIDE IN in “Not Coming”

07th April ’10 – THE STORY OF STUFF in “Stratosphere”

26th March ’10 – KSLA in “Jet Spray”

25th March ’10 – MY YOUTUBE PRESENCE on this page

4th March ’10 – MORE ABOUT VORTICES in “Trails Seen From Space”

23rd February ’10 – FALLACIES in “Established”

19th February ’10 – SONIC BOOM MEETS SUNDOG in “Stratosphere”

16th February ’10 – DISCOVERY? in “Another Page from YouTube”

11th February ’10 – 91177info in “Another Page from YouTube”

3rd February ’10 – CHEMTRAILS AND FALSIFICATION in “Careful With That Cloud”

2nd February ’10 – NOMEANSNO in “Not Coming”

15th January ’10 – THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION in “6 Porkies”

10th January ’10 – STAR’s RESOURCES on this page

08th January ’10 – “Chemtrails” video in “Bamboozled”

03rd December ’09 – “JET STREAMS” in “JET SPRAY”

29th November ’09 – “EXACTLY WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?” on this page.

27th November ’09 – “YouTube 3” in YouTube SLUGS IT OUT in “YOGHURTS”

12th November ’09 – “YouTube 2” in “YOGURTS” and “PEAK OIL” on this page.

23rd October ’09 – “CHEMTRAILS” in “Careful With That Cloud”

20th October ’09 – “GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH” reworked in “GLOBAL DIMMING”

15th October ’09 – “REVEAL EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE” in “6 PORKIES”

13th October ’09 – “YouTube 1” IN “YOGURTS”

9th October ’09 – “HOW TO MAKE SNOW” on this page.

6th October ’09 – “DEFINITELY” in “D BOOTS THE DIVA”

4th October ’09 – “CREPUSCULAR SHADOWS” in “Circle of Confusion”

27th September ’09 – “BOENOID” in “BAMBOOZLED”

26th September ’09 – “CONTRAILS” on this page

22nd September ’09 – “GW ROOM 103” in “Global Dimming”

8th September ’09 – “BLUE LIGHT SCATTERING” in “BAMBOOZLED”

1st September ’09 – “RUSHFAN” in “ROBERT”

20th August ’09 – “AEROSOLS” IN “6 PORKIES” and “(THEY ARE) LEGION” in “JET SPRAY”
13th August ’09 – “A BLACK HOLE” in “BAMBOOZLED”
11th August ’09 – “FRACTALS IN NATURE” in “ESTABLISHED”
8th August ’09 – “EXPONENTIAL TIMES” in “ESTABLISHED”
4th August ’09 – “THE END OF LITTLE GREY MEN” in “THE EARTH ROTATES”
29th July ’09 – SKEWED VIEWS OF SCIENCE in “STRATOSPHERE”
26th July ’09 – BALONEY DETECTION KIT in “BAMBOOZLED”
19th July ’09 – THE CASE AGAINST CHEMTRAILS and STARS15K’s REFERENCE LIST in “Careful With That Cloud”
12th July ’09 – MEAT in “LETTER”
11th July ’09 – AGW DENIALIST FRAUD in ““GLOBAL DIMMING”
21st June ’09 – UNCINUS added to “BREATHTAKING QUOTES” in ““GENUINE BULL”
20th June ’09 – Richard Dawkins’s book reviews in A SKEPTIC’S BOOKSHELF on this page (an article on Creationist Dirty Tricks to follow)
19th June ’09 – “MINNIS AT WORK” in “Driving Around Town” and “STERN’S ‘DUMBEST CONSPIRACY EVER” in “SLEEPS”
9th June ’09 – “SOME REAL SCIENCE” in “PENROD”
6th June ’09 – “ISSUE (2)” in “ISSUE”
2nd June ’09 – “Genuine Professionals” in “Genuine Bull”
29th May ’09 – “Disproving AGW” IN “Global Dimming”
24th May ’09 – “The Skies over Britain” in “What’s It All About?”
22nd May ’09 – “WAKEUPCALLCHANNEL Control” in ““WWII Persistent Contrail Story”
21st May ’09 – “Friends” in ““Music from my Synth – Jazz/Rock”
20th May ’09 – “Big Gun FIRES” in “Global Dimming”
15th May ’09 – “A SKEPTIC’S BOOKSHELF” on this page…
10th May ’09 – “BREATHTAKING QUOTES” in “GENUINE BULL”
9th May ’09 – “AMAZING PLANE TRAILS” on this page…
8th May ’09 – “Watts up with THAT?” in “Trails didn’t exist back then”
7th May ’09 – “Global Warming Room 102” in “Global Dimming”
1st May ’09 – “TRUTH ORIGINS” in “Trails didn’t exist back then”
30th April ’09 – The Theory of Everything in “Established”
30th April ’09 – David Cenciotti’s Weblog in “D Boots the Diva”
29th April ’09 – Contrail Article by Airliners.net in “Contrails”
28th April ’09 – Website “ChemCon Alert” arrives in “Circle of Confusion”
23rd April ’09 – Contrailscience Comedy Spot in “Contrails”
22nd April ’09 – Ian Plimer is convincing in “Global Dimming”
2nd April ’09 – “Andrew Johnson” (to be cont’d.) in “Another Waste of Time”
25th March ’09 – “Will Thomas” (NOT cont’d.) in “Trails didn’t exist back then…”

I think he DID believe it, but didn’t want his “punters” to do so. He CLOSED DOWN his comments section. I took a copy…

Personal Commuter?

INTRODUCTION

This blog is a compendium of most of my activities at first on most of YouTube’s “chemtrail” video comments boxes during the latter half of 2007, continuing on into 2008, where I was banned from YouTube (following a comments campaign against all the sites promoting their fraudulent presentation of a Boeing 777LR prototype aircraft as a spraying aircraft). I then spent time at David Icke’s website forum, the Outlaw website forum, and “All Aircraft are Not Involved”. All of these promoted chemtrail speculation, without allowing contrary views.
As I write in December 2011 I am subscribed to “Opposing Digits”, “ConCen”, and “League of Reason” website forums, but have spent little time there. Forums which are open to debate don’t cover this topic. Forums which aren’t seem to be collapsing, or else have hardened their ranks against debunking – as if it were the greater sin…

The National Gas Turbine Establishment, Pyestock, Hants

This blog uses hypertext, so you can click on it and read the references revealed.

My interest arose from my perceiving that the MAIN ARGUMENT of ‘chemtrailers’  – “persistent contrails are ‘chemtrails’ because ordinary contrails fade away” – is FALSE.

I am a scientist and engineer, having begun my career way back in 1962 as a student apprentice aeroengineer working at the National Gas Turbine Establishment, Pyestock.
https://jazzroc.wordpress.com/about/
Following an exposition on the nature of contrails, this blog is alphabetically-sorted under titles which are either the correspondent or the topic under consideration. It is often angry (a characteristic of chemtrailers, who believe they hold the moral high ground) but is worth persisting with, for it uncovers many fascinating aspects of this multiple paranoia.
In spite of what you may have heard:
Contrails are the only trails regularly produced by high-flying aircraft, and have been known to be persistent on occasion since 1922.
They are produced by either the freezing temperature acting on steam (which is the combustion product of the aircraft’s engines), or also the reduction in pressure of the air flowing over its wings bringing dissolved water vapor out of solution in the atmosphere.
There have been no cases of poisoning, no samples of fuel ever found to contain poison, no aircraft found ever to contain poison tanks, and no whistleblowers (out of hundreds of thousands of aircraft and airport workers).
The real reason for the increasing persistence of contrails is the increase in air travel, which has increased FIFTYfold since the mid-fifties.
In NO CASE have any of my many “chemtrail” correspondents EVER argued the SCIENCE of the matter.
Their normal response is to immediately label my argument (normally a scientific one) as “disinformation”, which leaves me rather baffled, and forces me to go on the offensive, and pick out the logical flaws (rich pickings) with which I am left. I am reminded of a quote from the late Andrew Lobacewski’s “Political Ponerology” which follows:

.

“The psychological features of each such crisis are unique to the culture and the time, but one common denominator that exists at the beginning of all such “bad times” is an exacerbation of society’s hysterical condition. The emotionalism dominating in individual, collective, and political life, combined with the subconscious selection and substitution of data in reasoning, lead to individual and national egotism. The mania for taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking advantage of hyperirritability and hypocriticality on the part of others. It is this feature, this hystericization of society, that enables pathological plotters, snake charmers, and other primitive deviants to act as essential factors in the processes of the origination of evil on a macro-social scale.”

.

I have (mostly) deferred to American English usage and spelling since that is the majority of origin. Text by anyone else is in italics. I have on occasion added comments (I’ve been learning too!) which I have prefixed with an asterisk*.
A word about people who have helped me directly and indirectly. First and foremost is Uncinus of contrailscience, who has helped me to confront the mysteries of WordPress, as well as providing me and everyone else with good advice and courtesy in both the physics of the atmosphere and the gentle art of reason.
And my thanks to Steve Andrews, the Bard of Ely, who put me on to this subject in the first place, argued furiously with me at first, became persuaded of my reasoning, and graciously became my champion. Steve has a heart of gold.
And a word about your comments. I’ll publish them when they genuinely advance everyone’s understanding. Hatemail, or uninformed dissension from anonymous people will be removed. Here we go…

THE REAL REASON FOR “CHEMTRAILS”??

They are a MYTH constructed for the gullible by the cynical.
Advertising revenue is available to the cynically-employed. All they have to do is stimulate turnover on their site, in the manner described in “How to start a Chemtrail Scare for Fun and Profit” at my page entitled “Here”.

A recent note from a friend clarifies this:

FREEFALL & TERMINAL VELOCITY

A tribute to the pioneering of Col Joe Kittinger. You can make the distinction between the above terms here:

HOW TO MAKE SNOW

This shows a quick way to do this. Of course, the weather outside is minus twenty degrees. You’ll notice that water in its liquid and vapor forms wastes no time turning into a fine white smoke reminiscent of – a contrail.

Contrails are formed at even colder temperatures in the stratosphere, where the air pressure is two-tenths of what it is at sea level. But they too are ICE.

VISION

CONTRAIL Q&A

This I have shamelessly lifted from “Contrail Education” at:
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/faq.html
Chemtrailers will often tell you that “authorities” and “the powers that be” will never give you information about chemtrails. This is quite true, but for the same reason that it’s hard to get information about fairies. The authorities are, on the other hand, eager to give anyone who asks information about contrails…

Q: Where do contrails form?
A: Contrails are human-induced clouds that usually form at very high altitudes (usually above 8 km – about 26,000 ft) where the air is extremely cold (less than -40ºC). Because of this, contrails form not when an airplane is taking off or landing, but while it is at cruise altitude. (Exceptions occur in places like Alaska and Canada, where very cold air is sometimes found near the ground.) Thus, people who live under major air traffic routes, not people who live near major airports, are those who will see the most contrails. (However, some major airports are also under major air traffic routes, which can lead to confusion.) You can use an Appleman chart to predict contrail formation for your area. Of course, a contrail cannot form if no airplane passes through.
Q: Why are there more short-lived contrails than persistent contrails?
A: For a particular geographical location, it may seem that there are more of one type of contrail than another. Actually, the type and number seems to depend on the amount of moisture and temperature in the atmosphere where the plane is flying. If the area is fairly dry, then more short-lived contrails might be observed. If there is more moisture, such as along the east coast of the United States, there might be more persistent contrails observed. To look at observations from other areas, you might like to visit the GLOBE website and click on the Data Access button.
http://www.globe.gov/r
Q: What causes the swirling pattern in a contrail?
A: The swirling pattern in a contrail is caused by the vortices coming from the tip of the aircraft. A vortex is a swirling of air coming from underneath the tip of the plane and wrapping upward over the top of the wingtip. This is due to the difference in pressure caused by the curved shape of the wing. The process of having less pressure on the top of the wing and more pressure on the bottom of the wing provides “lift” for the aircraft.
Q: Why are we able to see contrails on some days but not on other days?
A: In order for the contrail to form, there must be enough moisture in the high levels of the atmosphere for the ice crystals to form around the airplane exhaust. If the upper atmosphere is very dry, contrails will not easily form, or will be of the short-lived type.
Q: Do contrails drastically affect weather patterns?
A: Originally scientists believed that the contrails behaved like cirrus clouds to actually make the climate warmer. However, there have been studies conducted that have scientists rethinking their earlier ideas about contrails. This is one of the major questions that has to be researched at NASA and one of the reasons we are putting so much emphasis on contrails. When air traffic over the US was halted after the 9-11 incident, scientists got a rare look at the skies with only a few military jets flying. They were able to analyze the effects of some of these contrails and realized that their earlier notions about contrails’ effects were not totally accurate.
Q: Has there ever been observation of rain from contrails?
A: Typically, rain clouds are low level clouds which are made up of water molecules. These water molecules then come together to form water drops (liquid) which eventually fall to the ground as rain drops. Since contrails are high level clouds, the moisture within them forms ice crystals which do not come together to form any form of precipitation (rain).
Q: Why are contrails white? Contrails are formed from the exhaust of an air plane. We usually think of exhaust as being black and dirty.
A: Almost all cloud droplets (and snowflakes) have a very small particle (aerosol) at their core. But the particle is MUCH smaller than the cloud/ice/snow particle. When light passes through the crystal, it is reflected or bent (refracted) by the cloud or ice particle, which makes it appear white to an observer. Therefore, what makes the contrail look white is the water (frozen into a crystal), rather than the exhaust particle. Note that sometimes the optical effects through these crystals can also produce colors, much like rainbows in water drops. You will only see these when the Sun-crystal-you geometry is aligned in certain ways.
Q: Why can we see a jet high in the sky, yet it is not making a contrail?
A: For a contrail to form there must be enough moisture in the air and the temperature must be cold enough to form ice crystals at the altitude at which the jet is flying. If the temperature is too warm or the air too dry, contrails will not form.
Q: There is a persistent contrail in the sky, and the middle portion of the contrail has disappeared. Is the disappearance caused by wind or air temperature?
A: For all or part of the contrail to disappear, there is a lack of moisture to maintain formation of the ice crystals. It may be possible for air currents to move drier air into the area of the contrail, which would cause that portion of the contrail to evaporate.
Q: Why are so many of the persistent contrails we see so narrow in width, almost a pencil line?
A: The type of contrail you are describing is a persistent contrail, and, in particular, one which is non-spreading. For a persistent contrail to spread, there must be enough extra moisture in the air for additional ice crystals to form. If there is a limited supply of moisture, a persistent contrail may form, but will not spread.
Q: In which layer of the atmosphere do we normally see contrails?
A: Contrails usually form in the upper portion of the troposphere and in the lower stratosphere where jet aircraft normally fly, generally between about 8 and 12 km altitude (~26,000 to 39,000 feet). They can also form closer to the ground when the air is very cold and has enough moisture.
Q: Is it possible to observe contrails as indicators of changing weather?
A: If a contrail is persistent or persistent spreading, then the upper atmosphere contains large amounts of moisture. If a contrail is short-lived, then the upper atmosphere is relatively dry. This was used by sailors and can be used today to somewhat predict the weather. Short-lived contrails may indicate fair weather, and persistent contrails may indicate an approaching change in the weather or precipitation. The weather signal is somewhat analogous to that of natural cirrus clouds.
Q: There were two planes in the sky. One was flying north/south and left a persistent contrail. The other plane was flying east/west and did not leave a contrail. Why did one plane leave a contrail, but the other did not?
A: The two planes were flying at different altitudes – air traffic control has rules for spacing flights in different directions – so that the north-south flight path contained more moisture or was at a lower temperature than the east-west flight-path. The amount of moisture in the stratosphere* can change considerably in a short vertical distance. It depends strongly on the origin of the particular air mass. There are also variations in the efficiency of aircraft engines, which can affect whether or not a particular plane will leave a contrail.

• The stratosphere has different properties from the troposphere, which we are familiar with, because we live in it. The stratosphere is stable, and layered, and counterintuitively is COLDEST at its base – the tropopause. The layers of which it’s comprised vary in thickness from tens to thousands of feet. “Stratum” is the Latin for “layer”.

STAR’s RESOURCES

I’m happy to include here STARS15K’s reference list – all except my own site and some spoof sites. By leafing through this material and absorbing it, you could become sufficiently science-aware to be able to continue this blog yourself, for example. 🙂
http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMASM06_778/PV2006_1414.pdf
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=85
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0450(1997)036%3C1211%3AAEMTPW%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/94176.pdf
http://www.answers.com/topic/chemtrail-conspiracy-theory
http://www.answers.com/topic/contrail
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/science.html
http://www.borderlands.com/contrails/contrail.htm
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/wxwise/class/contrail.html
http://contrail.gi.alaska.edu/misc/Stuefer_HyannisOct04.pdf
http://contrailscience.com/
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/contrails.pdf
http://facstaff.uww.edu/travisd/pdf/climatepapermar04.pdf
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_sr/?src=/climate/ipcc/aviation/038.htm
http://www.iangoddard.com/contrail.htm
http://www.iangoddard.com/contral2.htm
ftp://ftp.pa.op.dlr.de/pub/Gierens/TAC/Gierens_contrails_oral_060629.pdf
http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMASM06_778/PV2006_1414.pdf
http://profhorn.aos.wisc.edu/wxwise/AckermanKnox/chap15/contrail_applet.html (this site has a graph for you to set conditions and will fly a plane with the expected contrail formation at the top)
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/contrail_controversy.shtml
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/B/199701880.html
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/A/199900242.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040428061056.htm
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/media/news6-97.html
http://students.ou.edu/J/Thomas.A.Jones-1/contrail.html
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/science/contrail.php?wfo=fgz
http://www-angler.larc.nasa.gov/satimage/products.html
http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/sass/sass-ref.html
http://deoxy.org/meme/AviationSmog_Talk
http://www.areco.org/pdf/ParticulateEmissionsJetEngines1996.pdf
http://www.csicop.org/si/2009-02/radford.html
http://biblion.epfl.ch/EPFL/theses/2004/2975/EPFL_TH2975.pdf
http://www.knmi.nl/velthove/aircraft.html
http://www.epa.gov/oms/regs/nonroad/aviation/contrails.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14605078/Contrails-facts
http://www.pa.op.dlr.de/pa1c/GRL22_1501-1504_1995.pdf
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_sr/?src=/climate/ipcc/aviation/035.htm (this link has many chapters, be sure and drop the menu down to get the full report.)
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/13175/2007/acpd-7-13175-2007-print.pdf
http://www.skepdic.com/chemtrails.html
http://chemcon.2020oregon.net
http://www.dropletmeasurement.com/ (I just found this link on a chemtrail board. The poster claimed it showed chemspray planes. It doesn’t, it shows a company that does sampling and measurement IN SITU. I keep telling people that’s how a contrail would have to be tested, and this company can and does just that.)
http://www.contrails.nl/contrails-research/various%2001.htm
http://www.astro.ku.dk/holger/IDA/notes.html (This site is older and some links might not work. It is a good representation that contrails are studied all over the world, though)
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/resources/activities/appleman_student.html
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4027http://www.dhmo.org/
http://www.thebulletin.org/files/064002006_0.pdf A really well-done, balanced piece on geo-engineering. Not about chemtrails, but a good guide to use when considering that as a possible use/motive for chemtrail use.
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/resources/presentations/contrails_scool.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13115866/Chemtrailscc-the-Not-So-Secret-Ingredient-022009 This is a pro-CT publication, but has a diagram of the chemical process of jet fuel through an engine and a statement that any metallic aerosol will remain suspended for days. These go against what I’ve been told by CT here. The conclusions reached, I do not agree with. Other research has shown that the barium in Stadis 450 after combustion is significantly small enough it might even NOT show on certain tests, being within the expected “norm” of background.
http://profhorn.aos.wisc.edu/wxwise/AckermanKnox
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2004/04/19/leaving-a-trail/
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rayshad.htm This is the entire site address, which is very cool. It also contains past galleries I have only begun to explore.
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/contr1.htm This shows contrail shadows, aka ‘black beams’ or ‘black contrails’. There are two pages with explanations.
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz215.htm This page shows contrail shadows, but most importantly, two jets flying at the same altitude with different contrails. The reason? Something stated often, difference in the jet engines. One is more efficient than the other. So it happens, but for a known reason.

A SINGLE LONG-RANGE FLIGHT AND AN OCEAN LINER

What could they possibly have in common? (Except that they might share the same route.) Well it is this: in a saturated stratosphere, a five thousand kilometre flight of a long-range jumbo jet is able to release EIGHTY THOUSAND TONS of water ice into the air. This is the weight of a large ocean liner in water ice…
“No! Get away with you! This cannot be true!”, I hear you say. But it IS true.
From the paper “Contrails to Cirrus—Morphology, Microphysics, and Radiative Properties”:
http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/sass/pub/journals/atlas_JAMC2006.pdf
“The average ice water per meter along the length of the contrail is 16 Kg per meter.” That means a 5000 kilometer flight (THROUGH SATURATED AIR) would put down 80,000 tons of trail material… Whoa! Wait a minute! Isn’t a jumbo’s fuel load about 250 tons? So where does the rest come from? The answer is OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE! Read the paper for yourself.

“Look up” say chemtrailers, “they are spraying you!”
Well, they are NOT. The ice formed by combusting kerosine for the plane’s jet engines is SEEDING the deposition of further ice out of the saturated air. Furthermore, that ice never falls directly as rain. Instead it evaporates into lower tropospheric air, and might, a day or a week or a month later, take its part in the country’s rainfall.
Sadly, the best region for smooth and stable long-distance flight is this very cold and sensitive region of the tropopause and lower stratosphere, and its occasional huge reaction sends a visual message of change to those people who neither possess or seek understanding of the science underlying it (and consequently don’t have the right to pronounce upon it) – chemtrailers.
But that “message of change” is distorted beyond meaning. At present, scientists say, the effect upon the atmosphere of all this deposition is “within the noise”, meaning that no significant changes to the weather have taken place. Fifty years from now, if air transport continues to increase at today’s rate, then persistent contrails will significantly affect the weather.
Ah, but fifty years from now we will have run out of oil…

MY YOUTUBE PRESENCE

I am present at the YouTube channel “beachcomber2008“.

My main interest is in the development and promotion of a practical self-sufficiency in food and housing as a default state and natural right of existence.

…and contains within it such nuggets:

—-ANTARCTIC CHALLENGE—-
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=VST38YI4

—-SMALL CHANGE FOR BIG CHANGE—-
Ralph Nader has been about a bit….
Maybe his book is the other jaw of a pincer movement.

—-PERMACULTURE IS THE ONLY SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
as it is a process of healing both for the planet and the human soul
Both deeply practical and analytical, permaculture is OUR ONLY REAL HOPE

—-F-L-Y-I-N-G—S-A-U-C-E-R-S—A-N-D
—-R-E-L-A-T-E-D—M-Y-T-H-S—A-N-D
—-T-H-E—H-U-N-T—F-O-R—R-E-D
—-O-C-T-O-B-E-R—-
These began in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
They were the result of REAL SCIENCE EXPERIMENTATION in the Cold War period immediately after the Second World War.
These secrets are now in the public domain.
Unfortunately, so is the “flying saucer” myth which emanated from the US gov’t’s PUBLIC FALSE EXPLANATION
Richard Muller explains all in this marvellous lecture.

—-E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-E—-
“Emergence” is a property of Nature, which from the very simplest possible origin has developed an ever-increasing complexity.
At every point in time of this expansion and complexity increase, and triggered by the random event of the moment, Nature’s properties have exhibited, do exhibit, and will exhibit an increase in complexity by the addition of a new ecological form of existence – an additional plane of reality – an entirely new way of BEING..
The emergence of life from non-life is such a case, as is that of evolution and the emergence of plants and animals, the emergence of the human brain and language.
As Murray Gell-Mann states “You don’t need more stuff to get more stuff!”

The failure of our species to recognize this, along with its need to dominate and control itself, has caused us to commit our biggest error – RELIGION.
Only if, and not until, we to a man adopt a rational and natural approach to life, and forswear ALL religion as fiction, will we solve the Earth’s problems and travel to the stars.
——————————————

H. G. WELLS’S “WAR OF THE WORLDS” WONDERFUL QUOTES

“We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space.”

“Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.”

“By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers.
For neither do men live nor die in vain.”

SEA WATER FARMING COULD BEAT GW
Using 38 species of salt-tolerant plants along 37,000 miles of desert coastland could save the planet for human beings.

WATCH MICHAEL RUPPERT
What we have been saying will happen IS happening right now.
We’re past PEAK OIL, and nothing will ever be the same ever again.
Considering the next three decades, life decisions from now on will always have a “or death” element to them, and it will be an ever-increasing element. The sooner that you consider making such a (better-informed) life-decision, the less threatening will be your future.
Be sure to watch this video: “COLLAPSE”
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=7SJYAHD6

CREATING EDEN
At present Man is a careless parasite of the Earth. My ambition is to see Man face up to the task of becoming the gardener of the earth. There is no finer ambition for the first sapient ape in the Universe than to create “Eden”… and for the first time.

MUSICAL HISTORY
Check out my musical playlist, which is a sporadic journey backwards through time sampling the music I enjoyed.

THE THOUGHTS OF EPICTETUS:
Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
Control your passions lest they take vengeance on you.
Difficulties are things that show a person who he is.
Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.
First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.
A wise man does not grieve for things he hasn’t, but rejoices for those he has.
If evil is spoken of you and it’s true, correct yourself, if it’s a lie, laugh at it.
If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
If your brother wrongs you, remember not so much his wrongdoing, but more than ever that he is your brother.
If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible

About Me: I’m a very skeptical guy. To convince me you have to present me with incontrovertible evidence.
There are some obvious facts about life which appear to be insufficiently considered by everyone. Namely these:
i) People are in general too incompetent to be perfect bastards
ii) If you’re cold it’s better to put on a woolly than light a fire
iii) Your back garden can grow more food than you could believe, and
iv) You’re the first earth animal to have developed an intellectual capability, so respect nature, garden the earth and nurture all life.

In my opinion, if we hold the above in our forethought we stand every chance in building Eden.
We need to appreciate how much more powerful we all will be if we work WITH nature and not against it.
Religion is a great enemy of this approach (science – subjecting reality to analysis and devising strategies to improve upon it) and so I am a great enemy of it.

————————————————
WHAT TO DO WITH A CHEMTRAIL VIDEO

1. RATE it ONE STAR every time you visit.
2. FLAG comments which support the video with a RED THUMBSDOWN.
3. STATE clearly and simply in the COMMENTS exactly why you believe the video to be fraudulent or inciting hatred.
5. FLAG the video for incitement to hatred, and FLAG IT ONCE MORE for fraudulent claims if either or both is appropriate. STATE clearly and simply in the comments exactly why you believe the video to be fraudulent or inciting hatred.
6. WRITE to the channel explaining exactly why you have taken the actions you have.

—————————————————
The reason we have not been able to find any legitimate proof that chemtrails exist is because they simply do not exist. The term is an internet creation to make condensation trails aka contrails sound more sinister.
When you actually look at the facts you can see the argument in support of these chemtrails quickly reduces to nothing more than a bundle of pseudo-science, assumptions, misguided correlations and unqualified uneducated personal testimony.
I have yet to find for myself one argument for the existence of these chemtrails that does not skirt around the real results from real studies from real accredited sources. Instead, I have just found these arguments to resort to personal attacks and contradictory statements.
For example, how can one argue that the government is lying to us to cover this up and at the same time use government information taken out of context as the proof chemtrails exist? Logically, if this is the huge conspiracy, involving thousands of people, falsified studies and an extreme government cover up, wouldn’t it be the simplest thing for these conspirators to simply remove these links?
Of course, this is speculation on my part and should be taken as such. Though I have been a professional in this matter I don’t believe anyone should be convinced on my word alone just as I will never be convinced by your word alone.
What we do have, however, is science and legitimate information. Anyone can access these studies and weigh both sides of this argument and make an educated decision. For me the answer is simple; chemtrails do not exist and so this conspiracy does not exist.
Contrails DO exist. Everyday, the number of airplanes in our skies increases as does the number of contrails they leave behind.
Instead of trying to justify our paranoia with fictional conspiracies, we should be looking at what is actually going on in the world we have created for ourselves.
Our air is polluted, our water is polluted, our earth is polluted, we don’t need to create something like “chemtrails” to prove this. Instead of creating “government conspiracy” in our minds we should acknowledge the real perpetrators – ourselves.
We drive the cars, we fly in the planes, and we ignore the effect each one of us has on the environment around us. No one wants to see the blood on one’s own hands… It is easier to blame some external enemy than to acknowledge one’s own contribution to an increasingly polluted planet.
We desperately need to stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility for our own actions.
We need to ask ourselves the hard questions; “What actions or inactions am I taking that contribute to the problem and what am I doing to create a solution?”
The answer is yours, and yours alone, to reconcile with yourself.
“As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.” -Voltaire

Written by Manmanatee on August 4, 2009. (It took me almost a year to rediscover the originator. Ed – 25th July 2010.)

PEAK OIL

SNAKE OIL

A SKEPTIC’S BOOKSHELF

This is just the start of what I have discovered to be an over-ambitious project. I therefore welcome the assistance of ANYONE who has either read a book on this list for which there is an inadequate reference or description, which he or she can improve on, or knows of a book that should be on this list, and would kindly give me the info. I shall quote your entry. 🙂

The Millenium Project Bookshop – 96 books about Pseudoscience. (Courtesy of the Millennium Project.)

This is a collection of books related to the Pseudoscience category in The Millenium Project. All commissions from sales in the Health Fraud, Vaccination and Pseudoscience categories are donated to the Australian Council Against Health Fraud to help in the fight against quackery.

Pseudoscience

“200% Of Nothing: An Eye-Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy” by A. K. Dewdney.
One of the common threads through racism, medical quackery and pseudoscience is the abuse of statistics. Sometimes this is deliberate, sometimes it is just an indication of the ignorance of the speaker, but always it is a means of confusing or deceiving the listener. This guide to the absurdities of some mathematical claims helps to level the playing field.

“The Age of Wonder : How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science” by Richard Holmes

“Astrology : True or False? – A Scientific Evaluation” by Roger B. Culver and Philip A. Ianna
“Astrology: True or False?” offers a complete and extensive summary of available evidence on astrology’s basic definitions, concepts, and effectiveness. The authors’ research revealed thousands of predictions gone “bust” – from the start of World War III to claims about the existence of an “anti-Earth” orbiting on the other side of the sun. They studied the famous twenty-year cycle” of presidential death and disaster, the “moon cycles” of crime and murder in major cities, and the incidences of major personality traits in certain sun signs. Their conclusions, while disappointing to the determined believer in astrology, are nevertheless refreshingly rational.

“Astrology : What’s Really in the Stars?” by J.V. Stewart
Rather than offering a blistering critique of astrology, Stewart reveals discrepancies within horoscopic astrology’s own framework to let the reader decide whether there is any merit to this ancient scheme of things.

“Astrology Disproved” by Lawrence E. Jerome
Why do people believe in astrology? In these uncertain times many long for the comfort of having guidance in making decisions. They would like to believe in a destiny predetermined by astral forces beyond their control. However, we must all face the world, and we must realize that our futures lie in ourselves, and not in the stars.

“Bad Astronomy : Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing ‘Hoax’” by Phil Plait.

“Bad Medicine : Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distance Healing to Vitamin O” by Christopher Wanjek.

“Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre.

“The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize” by Peter Doherty.
“Bizarre Beliefs” by Simon Hoggart and Mike Hutchinson.

“The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design” by Richard Dawkins.
There’s a little story to tell about this link. As you might surmise, I have been acquiring these links by using a search engine, and normally taking the top item of the search return list as likely to provide the most succinct and accurate review – a BIG mistake when an arch-enemy of science such as Philip Johnson (a lawyer) has somehow subverted the search engine dynamics to put his “review” at the top of the returns – not just ONCE but FOUR times. The ENEMIES of science work deep into the long nights, using any and every means they can to diminish scientific progress and promote their fear-based myth culture. I know what I’m talking about here – Philip Johnson is a mightily-crafty individual who manages to conceal his LIES across hundreds of pages – if you take the trouble to analyse his weasel words you’ll eventually discover his lies and hypocrisy – his agenda. One cannot imagine ANY situation where the reverse (Dawkins “bumping” destructive “reviews” of Johnson’s books up Internet search engine lists) would EVER be true. What absolutely abysmal behaviour this is! So I now include this review instead:
Dawkins has never hidden his advocacy role in describing how evolution works and how poorly our culture understands what’s going on around us. More than simply anticipating obstructionists such as Michael Behe in Darwin’s Black Box, Dawkins aims his criticism at all who adhere to the Judeo-Christian assertion that humanity has some divine mandate to exercise “dominion over the earth”. Clearly, that belief will be the undoing of the species and perhaps life itself if it isn’t shed and a better understanding of the interaction of life attained. The best place to start attaining that understanding starts with this book. Buy it, loan it, give it to those who need to learn what life’s all about – our children. [Stephen A. Haines – Ottawa, Canada]
To Richard, my heartfelt apologies.
To You the reader, please let me know if you discover any other similar instances…

“The Borderlands of Science : Where Sense Meets Nonsense” by Michael Shermer.

“Bullshit and Philosophy” by Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch (Editors).

“Bully for Brontosaurus : Reflections in Natural History” by Stephen Jay Gould.

“Chemical Sensitivity : The Truth About Environmental Illness” by Stephen Barrett and Ronald E. Gots.
One of the unifying principles of ‘alternative medicine’ is the horror of chemicals. Not things, of course, like ricin and botulism toxin which are natural and therefore not chemicals, or cyanide which is not a chemical when it comes from apricot seeds. The only problem with the chemical-free vacuum of space is the radiation.

“Climbing Mount Improbable” by Richard Dawkins.
Endorsements
‘A beautiful, barnstorming, thunderclap of a book’ – Mail on Sunday
‘A cracking good book on evolution’ – John Gribbin in the Times Educational Supplement
‘Mount Improbable … is Dawkins’s metaphor for natural selection: its peaks standing for evolution’s most complex achievements: the human brain, the squid’s eye, and the albatross’s aeronautical prowess … exhilarating – a perfect, elegant riposte to a great deal of fuzzy thinking about natural selection and evolution’ – Robin Mackie in the Observer
‘One of the most gifted storytellers of our generation … he is a missionary who writes like an angel. He is to Darwinism what Saint Paul is to Christianity’ – Mike Maran in Scotland on Sunday
‘The parables – rivetting biological narratives, enthralling as the Arabian Nights tales – continue to ring the changes. Yet the central message – that DNA transcends the significance of the organism – remains the same … organisms are merely vehicles for genes … This is vintage Dawkins’ – John Cornwell in the New Scientist
‘An elegant series of lectures on Darwinian selection … Dawkins continues a tradition of scientific writing from Galileo to Darwin’ – Ian Thomson in the Daily Telegraph
‘Dawkins has done more than anyone else now writing to make evolutionary biology comprehensible and acceptable’ – John Maynard Smith in the Sunday Times

“Cosmos” by Carl Sagan.
The book of the television series.

“Deception & Self-Deception : Investigating Psychics” by Richard Wiseman.

“The Demon-Haunted World : Science As a Candle in the Dark” by Carl Sagan.
Science is not test tubes, atom bombs and pollution, it is a way of thinking that separates superstition from knowledge. It is a way of deciding what is real and what is fantasy. Many of the sites listed in The Millenium Project are here because this distinction is not detected or recognised.

“Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience” by Martin Gardner.

“The Dose Makes the Poison : A Plain-Language Guide to Toxicology” by Alice Ottoboni.
A common tenet of both ‘alternative medicine’ and loony environmentalism is that you can’t have too much of a good thing or too little of a bad thing. Of course, if you believe in homeopathy you would believe in anything, but in real life it is possible to have harmless concentrations of dangerous things.

“An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural” by James Randi.

“The Extended Phenotype : The Long Reach of the Gene” by Richard Dawkins.
‘One feature of life in this world which, like sex, we have taken for granted and maybe should not, is that living matter comes in discrete packages called organisms. In particular, biologists interested in functional explanation usually assume that the appropriate unit for discussion is the individual organism. To us,’conflict’ usually means conflict between organisms, each one striving to maximize its own individual ‘fitness’. We recognize smaller units such as cells and genes, and larger units such as populations, societies and ecosystems, but there is no doubt that the individual body, as a discrete unit of action, exerts a powerful hold over the minds of zoologists, especially those interested in the adaptive significance of animal behaviour. One of my aims in this book is to break that hold. I want to switch emphasis from the individual body as focal unit of functional discussion. At the very least I want to make us aware of how much we take for granted when we look at life as a collection of discrete individual organisms.’

“Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds” by Charles MacKay.
This book was first published in 1841 and told about panics and hysterias of the past. Updating the book to today would just require the addition of a chapter on the Internet stock craze, an update to the witchcraft chapter to include mention of recovered memory syndrome, satanic ritual abuse and alien abductions, and a new chapter about Y2K madness.

“Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science” by Martin Gardner.
This is an extremely depressing and sad book, because it was written more than 50 years ago and it reads like it was written yesterday. Who would have thought that idiocies like scientology, chiropractic, homeopathy, perpetual motion machines, belief in flying saucers, and the nonsense about Atlantis and the pyramids would survive into the twenty-first century? The book is subtitled ‘A study in human gullibility’. Tragic.

“Fear of Food : Environmentalist Scams, Media Mendacity, and the Law of Disparagement” by Andrea Arnold.
Half the people in the world go to sleep hungry and what food they can get is inadequate and poor, yet people keep telling us that our food is dangerous and we should not do things that could produce safe, nutritious food for people who need it.

“The Flamingo’s Smile : Reflections in Natural History” by Stephen Jay Gould.

“The Flight from Science and Reason” by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt and Martin W. Lewis.

“Flim Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions” by James Randi.
‘I am constantly amazed by the things that people will believe in. This book is a classic exposure of nonsense, much of which has somehow survived into the twenty-first century.’

“Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries : Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology” by Kenneth L. Feder.

“Full Facts Book of Cold Reading” by Ian Rowland.
This is the definitive book on cold reading. It explains everything there is to know about this limitless technique! How can you apparently tell complete strangers about names, dates and events that mean something to them? This book, the most authoritative ever written on cold reading, explains it all! Learn how to do the trick even better than John Edward does it.

“Goddess Unmasked : The Rise of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality” by Philip G. Davis.

“Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathon Swift.

“Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe” by Victor Stenger.

“Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes” by Stephen Jay Gould.

“Higher Superstition : The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science” by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt.
There is a famous painting by Goya called ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’. It is what this site is about and what Gross and Levitt’s book is about. It has taken centuries to refine science as a means of discovering and knowing the truth, yet science, reason and rationality are under attack by second-rate minds who want to put us and reason back to sleep.

“How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World” by Francis Wheen.

“How Not to Test a Psychic: Ten Years of Remarkable Experiments With Renowned Clairvoyant Pavel Stepanek” by Martin Gardner.

“How to Think about Weird Things : Critical Thinking for a New Age” by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn.

“How We Believe : The Search for God in an Age of Science” by Michael Shermer.
Shermer makes the distinction between belief, non-belief and unbelief, and describes his own transition from one state to another. Religion and Science have different roles in society, and this book looks at the boundaries and overlaps which are legitimate for each.

“Humbug!” by Jef and Theo Clark.

“In Pursuit of Satan : The Police and the Occult” by Robert D. Hicks.
“Influence” by Robert B. Cialdini.

“Investigating the Unexplained” by Melvin Harris.

“Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes.

“Making Monsters : False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria” by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters.

“The Mask of Nostradamus : The Prophecies of the World’s Most Famous Seer” by James Randi.

“Memory Distortion : How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past” by Daniel L. Schacter (Editor).
Much nonsense is talked about what goes on inside the mind and what it means to remember things and events. This book collects some essays from experts who can brush aside that nonsense and explain what it is about memories that we can trust and what we can’t.

“The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould.
Gould has been criticised for being a bit cruel and nasty (and even a bit inaccurate) in his criticisms of people who didn’t know the things we know today, but it is a useful book to show how science can change as more is learned about something. There is no doubt that science is influenced by the culture of the time, but the difference between science and non-science or pseudoscience is that the real thing can break away from culture when the facts demand it.

“A Modest Proposal and Other Satires” by Jonathan Swift.

“The Myth of Repressed Memory : False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse” by Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham.
An entire industry has grown up around the absurd idea that children can be subjected to atrocities like sexual abuse and cannibalism and not remember any of this until some ‘therapist’ reconstructs the memories for them. This book exposes this nonsense for what it is – a vicious attack on children and families by people prepared to knowingly lie to support a crazy ideology.

National Science Education Standards
A landmark effort that involved thousands of teachers, scientists, science educators, and other experts across the country, these standards echo the principle that learning science is an inquiry-based process, that science in schools should reflect the intellectual traditions of contemporary science, and that all Americans have a role in improving science education. This document is invaluable to education policy-makers, school system administrators, teacher educators, individual teachers, and concerned parents.

“The New Age : Notes of a Fringe-Watcher” by Martin Gardner.

“Nibbling on Einstein’s Brain : The Good, the Bad and the Bogus in Science” by Diane Swanson.

“Objections to Astrology” by Bart J. Bok and Lawrence E. Jerome.
A statement by 192 scientists, including 19 Nobel Prize winners, who call the “science” of astrology a deception based on “magic and superstition.”

“On the Wild Side” by Martin Gardner.

“The Panda’s Thumb : More Reflections in Natural History” by Stephen Jay Gould.

“A Physicist’s Guide to Skepticism” by Milton A. Rothman.

“Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenentes, and CommonlyPresumed Truths” by Thomas Browne.

“Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction” by Charles Wynn and Arthur Wiggins.
There is a difference between science and pseudoscience, between reality and fantasy. This book shows you how to tell the difference.

“Remembering Satan” by Lawrence Wright.

“River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life” by Richard Dawkins.

“Science : Good, Bad and Bogus” by Martin Gardner.

“Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?” by Paul Kurtz, Barry Karr and Ranjit Sandhu.
“Science Versus Religion” by Tad S. Clements.

“The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins.

“Skeptics and True Believers” by Chet Raymo.

“The Skeptic’s Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions” by Robert T. Carroll.
Featuring close to 400 definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, The Skeptic’s Dictionary is a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on all things supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. It covers such categories as alternative medicine; cryptozoology; extraterrestrials and UFOs; frauds and hoaxes; junk science; logic and perception; New Age energy; and the psychic. For the open-minded seeker, the soft or hardened skeptic, and the believing doubter, this book offers a remarkable range of information that puts to the test the best arguments of true believers.

“The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal” by Lynne Kelly.

“Smoke and Mirrors: The Devastating Effect of False Sexual Abuse Claims” by Terence W. Campbell.

“The Sorcerer of Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes” by Gordon Stein and James Randi.

“The Story of Evolution” by Joseph McCabe
Published in 1911, free from Project Gutenberg.

“The Structure of Evolutionary Theory” by Stephen Jay Gould.

“Superstition : Belief in the Age of Science” by Robert Park.

“The Theory of Evolution” by John Maynard Smith.
Evolution is one of those fundamental theories in science, like relativity, heliocentricity, gravity, blood circulation, atomic structure and quantum mechanics of which it can realistically be said that the idea introduced a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. Modern science would be primitive and crippled without it. This book provides excellent ammunition for the fight against those who would replace evolution with superstition.

“The Trouble with Science” by Robin Dunbar.
The title of this book might suggest that it is anti-science, but in fact the author posits that science is a natural part of human existence (and even that of some animals) because it is about how organisms explain and interact with the world around them. The author has produced a very good summary of the philosophical path through Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend, and there is commentary about the relationship between religion and science which mightn’t please Richard Dawkins but which provides a credible explanation for the ubiquity of religion across societies (and which allows for religion to be abandoned when better knowledge comes along).

“The Truth about Uri Geller” by James Randi.

“Unweaving the Rainbow : Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder” by Richard Dawkins.
Believers in superstition and magic often accuse scientists, atheists and other rational thinkers of denying or even destroying mystery and beauty. Dawkins points out in this book that there is so much wonder and excitement in truth and reality that it is unnecessary to make up explanations.

“The Varieties of Scientific Experience : A Personal View of the Search for God” by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.

Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and Shattered Lives” by Mark Pendergrast and Melody Gavigan.

“Voodoo Science : The Road from Foolishness to Fraud” by Robert Park.
The scientific method is the best thing we have come up with to find out about how the universe works. This book is about the misuse of science and how it differs from science done badly. Both are bad, but at least bad science can be corrected. Mad science is more difficult to overcome.

“Weird Water & Fuzzy Logic” by Martin Gardner.

“Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time” by Michael Shermer.
I am continually amazed by the sorts of things that people can believe without any evidence to support the belief, and often in spite of comprehensive evidence against the belief. Faith is a wonderful thing, but it can’t make facts disappear.

“Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene” by Niles Eldredge.

“Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History” by Stephen Jay Gould.
.