Joseph Thomas Arendt
Joseph Thomas ArendtSSS Member since: 1996
Occupation: Graduate student working on his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.
Education & Background: B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
M.S. in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in optics. Worked as an
electrical engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1986-1991, then in 1992
started graduate school
Email: bl030@cleveland.freenet.edu
I attended a meeting of the South Shore Skeptics where the UFO autopsy
on FOX-TV was discussed by a pathologist and another meeting where therapeutic
Touch was discussed. I'll admit what motivated me to come was a desire to
be entertained. However, I was highly impressed by the quality of the lectures--so
impressed that I promptly joined the group.
For about the past fifteen years, I have been involved with straight-forward
engineering and science. There was nothing pseudo-science or fringe science
about it. With subjects such as UFOs, magic, psychics, the paranormal, and
the rest, I simply ignored them as having no bearing on what I was doing.
However, if I go farther back than those fifteen years, back to high
school, in fact, then my interests were different even if my beliefs weren't.
Erich von Danikan and his theories of ancient alien astronauts were the
rage. I read Chariots of the Gods and found it interesting, but
I didn't believe his conclusions. Later, there was a PBS TV show which showed
how much was blatantly wrong in that book.
Some of my high school friends fanatically believed, though. It seemed
to fill some deep emotional and religious need which I didn't and still
don't truly understand. I also voraciously read science fictions novels,
which were filled with references to telepathy, telekinesis, UFOs, alternate
realities, psychically viewing the future, and so on. Several science fiction
stories used magic, calling it science by invoking Clarke's Law that any
sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. I treated
it as fiction since, after all, it was labeled science fiction.
When I started college, I gave up this type of reading up as a form of
putting away childish things. I took science courses and my view of the
world and the universe crystalized. I learned about value testing, repeatability,
peer-reviews, and the scientific method.
During my junior year of college, I decided to take a weekend off and
attend a science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. So far in college,
I had hardly read any science fiction novels, even though I went through
a novel every week or two back during in high school. Wandering around the
convention talking to the participants, I found it was filled with fringe
and pseudo-science. Although I had always regarded this type of thing as
amusing fiction, I found many people who truly believed. Looking at the
selection of books, movies, and so forth, I found very little I considered
science in the science fiction. In fact, it seemed fantasy was taking over.
Once the weekend was over, I got back to course work and thought little
more about it. In a course called Atomic and Nuclear Physics, I found some
of the principles of quantum mechanics violated my common sense, but testing,
done in a lab which was part of the course, proved that it was my common
sense which was wrong. Whether I liked it or not was immaterial. Quantum
mechanics has, so far, passed the tests of the scientific method no matter
how much some of its effects violate my common sense.
I fleetingly wondered about what it would be like to apply careful scientific
tests and principles to what I had been interested in back in high school.
Quantum mechanics had shown me that as much as I was loathe to admit it,
common sense was not adequate. However, an education in electrical engineering
is very time consuming so I kept busy with that.
As time passed, I have met more people who believe many things I classify
as fringe or pseudo-science. I have had people try to convince me of "creationism
science," evolution as a fraud, the healing powers of crystals, telepathy,
astrology, psychic experiences, government conspiracies hiding UFOs, and
so on. I did not believe and had neither the time nor interest for seriously
evaluating or investigating.
I found the South Shore Skeptics were doing the investigating and, from
the meetings and newsletters I have read, doing it well. I feel this is
worthy of support.
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