Science takes a bite out of vampires

WASHINGTON - It may be the season for vampires, ghosts and zombies. Just remember, they're not real, warns physicist Costas Efthimiou.

Obviously, you might say.

But Efthimiou, a professor at the University of Central Florida, points to surveys that show American gullibility for the supernatural.

Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month — turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire — after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on Jan. 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.

Take that Casper, Dracula and creepy friends.

All this may seem obvious, but to Efthimiou and other scientists, the public often isn't as skeptical as you might think. Efthimiou points to National Science Foundation' reports showing widespread belief in pseudosciences — such as vampires, astrology and ESP.

More than 1 in 3 Americans believe houses can be haunted, a 2005 Gallup poll showed. More than 20 percent of Americans believe in witches and that people can communicate with the dead. TV shows such as "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer" are popular.

University of Maryland physics professor Bob Park, author of the book "Voodoo Science," said scientists have to keep telling the public what seems all-too-obvious.

"There are things that we need to point out that are crap," Park said.
It's gotten so bad, Park has a hard time watching movies these days. Not Efthimiou, who liked the horror movie "The Ring."

"I have nothing against movies," he said. "I have nothing against people who like them, as long as they don't mix reality with fiction."

And Halloween? Both physicists will suspend disbelief when vampires, ghosts and zombies come to their doors.

"I give them candy and I feign fright," Park said. "They enjoy it, what the heck. The problem is the ones that never get over it."

I do thinks it's funny how many of our own youth group believe so many crazy things. Do you know how many chain e-mails I get so that I won't have some toothless visitor come to me at 3:00am. I wish my own students would be able to put away myth & fantasy and understand who they are positionally in God's eyes with Christ as their savior & representative.

Well I still pray for them daily, as they are our future...

"Stick to your guns if you believe in somethin no matter why cause it's better to be hated for who you are then be loved for who your not"
- Van Zandt