Photo credit: Wm Jas from Flickr

This is not to say we’re more clueless than in the past. The truth is that people in today’s world possess generalized knowledge about a far wider range of topics than at any other time in history. We are blanketed with data, with knowledge of what’s out there.

People who would in the past have remained completely illiterate can now whip out their cell phones and fling at least semi-coherent text messages across the world in milliseconds. The problem is that knowledge is not comprehension. In other words you might have heard that scientists are saying alcohol is good for you (or bad; it varies, so check the latest news) yet might not understand what led them to that conclusion. And that’s what makes today’s world so great: you can get online and get informed about pretty much anything you want, IF you want to.

In times past, the average Joe (let’s call him Joe Carpenter, for a neat combination of Republican and Christian symbolism) would have thought nothing strange of buying medical remedies in unmarked brown bottles from the local snake oil salesman. Our average Joe Carpenter’s only fact reference was word of mouth and communal wisdom. He’d trust the grapevine if, for example, his wife (let’s call her Mary) heard from all the other women in town that benzene made a great aftershave. Or that cod liver oil would help their children grow up healthy and stay that way.

In the latter case, she’d be entirely correct but wouldn’t have had any knowledge of why — Omega 3 hadn’t been discovered yet. In the former – and yes, benzene was used as an aftershave until its carcinogenic properties became evident – she would have been dangerously wrong. There was simply no way to find out the facts.

But that’s exactly the difference between now and then. We have the Internet, Wikipedia, WebMD, online databases covering every area of expertise known to man. Literally. We have all the information we could possibly ever want right there at our fingertips, all the real facts and plenty of fake ones. Somehow the enlightened, informed Internet world is host to a phenomenal number of falsehoods, bad facts, and scams whether criminal or just dumb (Is the $10 I’ll get for forwarding Bill Gates’ email any more real than your rich, dying uncle in Nigeria who’s going to leave me money if I simply call to claim it?).

Hearsay and superstition still rule the day, except now our misinformation comes from so many more sources than before. Fortunately we also have an expanded ability to check our facts before falling for any of it.

But you tell me: Do we?

This is a guest post by Daniel Greenberg. Daniel likes to ride small horses around big ponds on medium-sized estates, of which he may or may not have several.

Image courtesy of WM Jas on Flickr.

This was an awesome experiment in an already awesome convention. Don’t forget to check out the JREF website for the DVDs and extras from TAM6. Richard Saunders’ many projects can be checked out through the Australian Skeptics website and the Tank Podcast.

What’s Going On?

When you convert a 3-dimensional object (a face, for example) into a 2-dimentional surface (a page, for example), your end result is stretched and distorted. The reason lies in the curvature of the 3-d object you are trying to copy: The curvatures that give your face the shape it has (your nose, your mouth, your ears), will appear longer when stretched to a flat surface.

What is the Shroud of Turin?

The shroud of Turin is a piece of linen that seems to bear an image of a man lying with his hands in his lap. Some religious groups claim that the image is, in fact, the image of Jesus after his crucifixion.

Whether or not this shroud is real (Scientific examination of the fabric and impressions on it show it is dated much after it is supposed to exist to be authentic), the image that is transcribed on it is interesting. Missing the impression of the face on it is quite hard, and explaining it away with ‘simple’ paraedolia doesn’t seem to do it justice.

But if we take our experiment to mind, this image seems to get a different perspective – literally. Take a look at the above drawing, for example, (by Giulio Clovio), depicting Jesus being wrapped in a shroud after his crucifixion. If, truly, this cloth covered the face and body of a man (any man, for that matter), then the impression should not have appeared as a face at all, it should have appeared distorted. A relatively simple test – print out the image, then fold it in half along the nose line – casts some doubt by itself on the existence of a human model for this image.

How are flat maps made?

The creation of a flat map is similar, but not exactly the same as what you have seen in the video. Since distorted maps are quite useless, the drawing of a flat map uses a technique called “Map Projection”. Essentially, the glove is divided into equal squares which are also drawn on a flat surface map. Each square is copied in exact details to the corresponding square in the flat map.

There are several types of such projections, depending on the type of map you need.

An “Equidistant” projection creates a map that has equal distances from the center (equator). A “Zenithal” projection is one that maintains accurate directions.

In general, a flat map is not the accurate depiction of the way our planet looks. It can’t be, because our planet is spherical. But a map projection, at least, makes the conversion slightly more accurate, and easier for our brain to calculate distances and shapes.

More information about the creation of flat maps out of the curvature of our planet can be found in this website (also on the ‘extra resources’ section at the bottom of this page).

Thanks (Original Idea Credit)

Thanks to Edtharan from ScienceForums.net for this idea!

Extra Resources

• JREF Website (James Randi Educational Foundation): http://www.randi.org/
• Australian Skeptics: http://www.skeptics.com.au/
• The Tank Vodcast: http://tankvodcast.wordpress.com/
• The Shroud of Turin: http://www.shroud.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin
• How maps are formed (3D to 2D): http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/mapping/a_projections.html

Just before another experiment comes out for this week, I must share one piece of news that is extremely exciting: The TANK Vodcast, a great skeptical podcast with Richard Saunders and Stefan Sojka as hosts, has featured SmarterThanThat with an interview with me, in its last episode for the season!

The episode is online here, or in the “Media Mentions” page. Also, they’re worth a subscription. Really!