Comments on: It’s Crop Circle Season

By: Cay

Cay — Sun, 30 May 2010 15:51:24 +0000

caoimh – Thank you for the Waiting for Guffman clip. It is a perfect send up of all those armchair pseudo-scientists.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 28 May 2010 23:25:14 +0000

Lucy Pringle of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies believes that 93.8% of crop circles are made on chalky soil.

In order to even make that estimate she has to have soil test results for 500 circles. To make it statistically useful to add that “.8″ onto the end, several thousand.

By: caoimh

caoimh — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:35:59 +0000

Lucy Pringle of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies believes that 93.8% of crop circles are made on chalky soil.

I can picture these guys walking around the circle with handfuls of litmus paper

It reminded me of this scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzOFTYIHHPc

By: Norwegian Shooter

Norwegian Shooter — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:34:07 +0000

Where did you get the picture – or where is this crop circle? I’m more interested in the rich-ass “farmer” estate than the circle. He has a replica wind-mill?

By: SquirrelElite

SquirrelElite — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:39:17 +0000

Also, I noticed that Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe episode on crop circles is available in three parts on YouTube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BrfAABTp9js&feature=related

By: SquirrelElite

SquirrelElite — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:33:32 +0000

You overlooked the Real Reason For Crop Circles:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/05/25/funny-pictures-of-crop-circles/

By: ccbowers

ccbowers — Wed, 26 May 2010 22:31:16 +0000

But how do the aliens get the people to make the crop circles for them?

By: chaos4zap

chaos4zap — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:42:36 +0000

I agree that Lipitor is a bad example. Many drugs that treat symptoms are amazing, but the quacks focus on drugs like this for their so called criticisms because people need to keep coming back and feeding the big, bad, evil corporate pharmaceutical companies. The drugs that turn out to be hazardous after they are approved and hit the market are worse. Quacks take those examples and make another ridiculous accusation that the FDA is on the take and is in no way concerned with safety and/or efficacy. For my money, vaccines are the single best example. Maybe it’s not accurate to say we “cured” small pox, but we did eradicate it from the face of the plant (except sample sin a few labs, of course).

locutusbrg, to the rest of your points, anyone with half a brain is well aware that cancer, infections, etc.. are broad categories that contain many, many complex forms and degrees within each. Lumping them all into one category is always the red flag of a quack that doesn’t really have any idea of what they are talking about. Something we might expect from a child with a grade school level understanding of biology and health, but these are grown adults. When you try and point this out, they will sometimes throw out nonsense like “but all different forms of cancer are caused by [insert whatever nonsense you want here: Diet, unbalanced energy, etc] and if you address that root cause, then you eliminate all cancers before they even become cancer!” Wow, sounds great! Except it’s total non-sense. Quacks will be quacks as long as it is legal and/or there is demand. Trying to point out the flawed logic to the quack himself is a futile endeavor indeed. One additional thing that really bothers me is that more and more M.D.s are sending people to Chiroquactors and Acupuncturist and that only helps further drape the garbage in a false veil of legitimacy.

By: astrotool

astrotool — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:37:19 +0000

Great post, most people forget to appreciate the art form of the crop circle. Although, I do agree with Calli Arcale on the point that it is vandalism, like graffiti, I still think both can be amazing forms of art. I have seen an interview on my local news channel a few years back that had this farmer who was “vandalized” and he actually thought it was pretty cool. He got some local press and I guess it helped out his small farm business get some recognition.

Could these circles be just as powerful in a field of weeds or some other medium? I don’t know what the alternatives are, but I know of a couple of my neighbors yards that would probably work

Maybe sand circles, like that artist Andy Goldsworthy who made art that was purposefully temporary (Rivers and Tides 2001 DVD).

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:13:25 +0000

Crop circles can be quite lovely, but I find it difficult to appreciate most of them. The beauty and craftsmanship is paired, after all, with vandalism — the medium is somebody else’s property, which they are counting on to make enough money for the season. Each line is a bit less yield come harvest time.

I used to appreciate them better before I married into a family with a lot of farmers in it. If some farmers believe they are made by UFOs, that’s very lucky for the real circle makers; I’ve met people who would do physical violence to a circle maker if they ever caught one in the act. Bad enough to lose crops to pests or weather, but to artists? If you’re going to do art, at least get permission to use the medium first.