Now there's some "anti-science"...

"After all, the presence of earth bacteria or biological molecules could easily screw up the probe’s measurements looking for Martian life with false positive results, and NASA certainly wouldn’t want that to happen. "

I guess this kind of begs the question of "what is a false positive result?"

This is actually a nice argument for extraterrestrial origins. If microbes from Earth on a space probe can survive long enough to inhabit Mars, it is highly probable that any life found on Mars could easily have originated on Earth billions of year ago (or vice versa, life on Earth originating on Mars) since, in the 4 billion years of terrestrial history, objects naturally from Mars have been found on Earth already... and therefore objects from Earth have made it to Mars prior to humans making the trip. My feelings are that any observations concerning the survival of life on a space probe in open vacuum constitute a remarkable data set concerning the robust nature of life.

More than that, a false positive of the nature you're referring to would be an incredible find in and of itself: Earth life we aren't familiar with is important in its own way --you would have trouble proving it wasn't just Mars life. Otherwise, I think we'd know pretty easily if something was a contaminant. (gee, Mars life is all Staphylococcal) My feelings are that any true Mars life will be distinctly different from anything we've seen before, even if it originated from Earth two billion years ago.

Such drones will be developed in the name of "science," of course, with all the predictable ego-driven fantasies of their geek-headed inventors who, with all their superior intellect, have still failed to study human history.

Heh, Methinks Mikey has a wee inferiority complex. It is amusing that these natural-worshippers have no problem using computers to deliver their naturalistic screeds.

I do not like your article because you did not mention homeopathy even once. Please proof-read next time.

I am the inventor (patent pending) of the acclaimed "homeopathy scale", which is used in science to accurately measure the level of nonsense.
Homeopathy gets the max mark 100 (with others you did mention in your article, but I still miss the word "homeopathy") and then it goes downhill towards boring science stuff.

Wait, the mass-mercury poisoning of children is through dental amalgams, not vaccines? This can't be right.

Roundup herbicide, for example, kills crop soils and encourages the development of pesticide-resistant "superweeds."

Roundup isn't a pesticide and pesticides don't kill plants anyway....

um, hang on.

'Suicide', by definition, is self inflicted.

Death by science, which is what I think he's arguing, would be by definition not self inflicted, but at the hands of govt/big pharma/big bad wolf, therefore, not self inflicted.
If he's trying to imply that we're committing suicide by not doing anything about big bad science, he's doing a poor job of it, imo. Cause isn't it all being hushed up by those payments I keep waiting for?

Hmm, had a couple of glasses at dinner, and suspect I'm trying to apply reason to somewhere it simply doesn't exist.

He's confusing "technology" with "science".

Human technology has been increasing in power at a very rapid pace since at least 10,000 years ago. It has been critical for human social groups since at least the deliberate use ofstone tools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Age#Beginning_of_the_Stone_Age, let alone control of fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans.

Every single new level of technology has improved the lives of at least some humans, while increasing the ability of humans to harm each other and the common environment.

Which level of human technology is "natural" enough for him? Ocean-going wooden sailing ships/steel tools/muzzle-loaded weapons/highly developed horse drawn vehicles/highly developed but handmade textiles? That's still a lot of "unnatural" technology, and even the Amish don't take it that far.

Or maybe he'd prefer the pre-wheel, pre-literate neolithic, with early but intense genetic modification of agricultural species ("breeding"), highly developed stone tools, massive engineering projects, woven cloth, organized production of alcoholic beverages, etc. But wait a second, that's still a LOT of unnatural technology.

Which technological era does he want to go back to? There is no actual record of any Homo sapiens sapiens population or individual that didn't use some kind of technology. I've invited libertarians to prove their true independence from "government" social cooperation by parachuting naked into a remote wilderness and taking it from there (before you jump on me note that I'm being rhetorical, and that they have similar, apparently non-rhetorical ideas themselves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading). I offer him the same challenge. Except that the libertarians can make and use tools and fire, and still be consistent. He has to be "natural" and use his own two hands.

Still, of course, he does accurately identify a down side of technology (even though his examples are often absurd).

Human societies have had the technological ability to horrifically harm each other and their common environment for millenia, and have frequently done so. We've probably had the potential ability to mess up the entire global environment for at least 150 or more years now, but for the last 65 or 70, we've also had the ability to rapidly exterminate ourselves and much of the biosphere with nuclear weapons.

That's just the way it is. Our technology is powerful enough to do horrible things, and all of us who don't want that have to be aware of it. "Returning" to a prior "natural" state isn't possible. Who is going to return, to what state, and what are you going to do if somebody else doesn't, and uses modern technology to exploit you?

I don't see how Mike Adams can be anti-science. He is constantly trumpeting scientific journal publications about some "natural" remedy or other (like vitamins for cancer). He loves science.

True, he consistently misunderstands and exaggerates the science that seems to support his beliefs, he has a pitiful lack of knowledge of the scientific method and does not comprehend the difference between case reports and clinical trials. But he's definitely pro-science.

Especially if it promises to bring NaturalNews more advertiser bucks.

Back in the 1970's NASA generated strong scientific evidence that there was probably actively metabolizing life on Mars. I see no justification for sneering at the mere suggestion that we should avoid introducing terrestrial bacteria that could potentially have a catastrophic effect on the Martian ecosystem. Is the idea that high-status Americans should feel free to do whatever they find most profitable or convenient, not just to this planet, but to the entire universe? Or is your binary worldview simply so rigid that, if a Quack and Woomeister like Mike Adams speaks up for preserving unspoiled nature, you see that as proof that spoiling nature is righteous?

Oh, noez!Teh DNA! Save us! Apparently Adams thinks we should completely sterilize our space probes before sending them to Mars or any other planet in our solar system.

Actually, NASA does sterilize anything that heads towards Mars a lot more than anything else they send out, because Mars is a lot less hostile than other places, and we'd really like to be sure if we find life, that it is indeed Mars life.

In fact, that's why the Galileo probe to Jupiter ended its life being crashed into Jupiter. Leaving it in jovian orbit after it ran out of fuel meant it had a chance of crashing into Europa, which is another place that might have liquid water and that we don't want to contaminate. The same discussion is happening with the Cassini space probe currently orbiting Saturn, as Saturn's moon, Enceladus has water geysers at its south pole that may be fed by liquid water reservoirs.

Google 'Office of Planetary Protection'.

Of course, I'm not particularly surprised that Mike Adams doesn't know what NASA Mars policy is, since yelling about Science Is Killing Us All! is so much easier than five minutes on NASA's website.

(Also, believe it or not, Mister Adams, that probe was carrying things we'd have liked to keep intact so we could use them to learn more about Mars. Expensive things. And you can only launch things to Mars once every two years. Generally if NASA wants to crash something into the surface of the planet, they don't bother putting much in the way of scientific payload on it.)

@LW - a pesticide is a product that kills an unwanted living things. Insecticides and herbicides are subsets of pesticides. Roundup kills unwanted plants. It is a pesticide.

There are 7 friggin billion humans on this planet. Which, btw is about twice or so that can be provided for in a sustainable way. If science is to kill us all, it's so incompetent and counter-effective in its' efforts that you could make cartoon rivalling Wile E. Coyote out of it. I'll say keep up good work. Try killing me more with energy efficient HD displays, broadband wifi, space exploration and gene therapy. I'll be waiting.

With regards to possible Terran invasion of microrganisms: does anyone have a reliable cite to a non-Natural News article on the subject?

My expectation is that any biological material on a space probe would be quickly killed or destroyed by exposure to vacuum and solar/cosmic radiation.

In other words, IMO without a better cite Adams is full of it when he whinges about microorganisms contaminating Mars.

jane: In fact the paper suggesting the 1970s probes found evidence of life was published very recently and is based on a post facto reanalysis of the data. Even the authors admit it's hardly a slam-dunk and that further confirmation (by, say, a return visit with better-equipped probes) is required. So "strong scientific evidence" is a stretch.

I love how the people who are opposed to antibiotics altogether scream about MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bugs. The worst-case scenario on antibiotic resistance is that we'd be back where we were before antibiotics were discovered. Those "superbugs" aren't more destructive than other pathogens, only harder to kill. If we had never had antibiotics, MRSA would be just another staph infection.

Back before antibiotics isn't someplace I want to be: but the problem isn't that antibiotics were discovered, it's how they've been misapplied and overused, making the evolutionary arms race worse. (Take away antibiotics, and the levels of resistance in the bacteria populations drop, because antibiotic resistance has a biological cost.)

So Adams argues that because certain IBM-created technologies were put to the use of making the Holocaust more efficient, those technologies are evil? By that logic (and I use the term loosely), dihydrogen monoxide is also evil, because it is a critical component in at least one of the mass extermination methods that was used during the Holocaust.

I'd like to think that nobody can be that dumb, but Orac routinely demonstrates that that's purely wishful thinking on my part.

Further to Becca @8 comment and Composer99

Carl Sagan, Elliott Levinthal and Joshua Lederberg identified this problem in 1967 see paper (http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/BBABJH.ocr) for more detail
Of course they were scientists.

Mikey's other website- HealthRanger.com- *used* to have a bio that informed us that he was the child of pharma employees who himself had created software used in marketting via e-mail ( it also contained his personal bio-statistics, his 'projects'- read *businesses*- and medical advice such as "Avoid doctors"). Scarcely down home on the farm. However, that set-up seems to have gone missing: the NEW HealthRanger site showcases his journalism and musical efforts. For you see, Mikey is a rapper.

He now resides in Austin ( making it a two charlatan city) and raises chickens.

Because I survey rant journalism - written and spoken, health division ( NN, PRN, AoA, TMR), I seem to detect a hint of desperation- their shrieking and de-corticate meanderings seem trumped up and staged. We've heard it all before: doctors are evil, science is perverted, *everyone is in it for the money*, it's the end of the world as we know it.

He can influence many people who take his balderdash seriously- indeed, some of it may echo REAL issues altho'
exagerating their liklihood to black and white certainties-
scaring patients away from testing or taking meds cannot always be in their best interest. Promoting hatred for doctors** may cause readers to hesitate when time is an important factor. One of his so-called writers takes on mental health issues: Mike is anti-pharma especially in this area. I wonder why?

** Alison MacNeil @ TMR has an anti-physician rant today.

@composer99

Spores of "wild-type" Bacillus subtilis 168 were able to tough out radiation in space for 97 days (PMID: 22091486), I think. It wasn't really measuring CFUs but metabolic activity. Since it was the lab adapted strain 168, a true wild-type might easily perform better.

There's a handful papers in pubmed about the ability of B. subtilis to survive Martian UV and grow in fake Martian soil. I'm too lazy to really go through them, but it looks like the Martian UV intensity is a bit excessive for life that evolved on our planet.

That said, there are a few papers describing very radiation resistant Bacillus species isolated from NASA clean rooms. So perhaps they'd be better candidates.

Actually, NASA does sterilize anything that heads towards Mars a lot more than anything else they send out

Many years ago Dr. Van Allen spoke at Western Michigan University, and commented at length about the Pioneer project. After detailing the steps scientists went through to maintain the clean room where the probe was assembled, he talked about the time it was to be packed up. He and several others stood in the room, looking at their finished product. Eventually he said he realized that the others had left and he was alone. He said that, after a brief bit of thought, he took off one of his gloves, licked his thumb, and placed a thumbprint on one of the gold plaques. He then left, with the thought that if the probe were ever discovered, a little bit of him would be found too.

Robots are AI whilst Mike Adams is RI (Real Ignorance)

composer99,
There is an international treaty that calls for not transporting biological organisms to Mars. See http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/technology/insituexploration/plane… and http://marsrover.nasa.gov/technology/is_planetary_protection.html for some data on efforts NASA takes.

Feel free to all medical science. When you cut yourself shaving with your 'all natural' seashell razor, please don't wash your hands, your cut, or put a band-aid on it. 'Science' determined the need for safe water, handwashing, and sterile bandages - that pesky germ theory. Instead, put your 'natural' product gel on your unclean wound. When it gets infected and starts liquifying your face, avoid doctors with their sterile scalpels to lance it and avoid antibiotics to keep it from spreading.

Can I get my big Pharma payment too from endorsing basic common sense and basic science/health practices? Oh, wait . . .

It's pretty much true that human innovation is currently the biggest threat to life on earth-- what with overpopulation, habitat destruction, and global warming. But we're a few millenia too late to close Pandora's box or put the genie back in the bottle. It's nice we've controlled the A-bomb, but the damage was already in process when we failed to ban the atlatl.

We've reached the point where the only way out is forward-- available birth control (and careers for women) to keep the population from exploding further; more understanding of the natural world for effective conservation; and alternatives to fossil fuels. All of that requires science.

Unfortunately, the people who are belligerently anti-science are the same ones who are driving gas-guzzlers, living in McMansions--with the heat up to 80 (27 c) in the winter and the air conditioning down to 65 (18 c) in the summer. Oh, yes-- and, for their latest trick, harrassing law students who think it's good for society to have health insurance cover birth control.

You might notice, though, that their anti-science never extends to leaving their muscle cars and McMansions, and going out in the woods to live on grubs.

Regarding the hypothetical contamination of Mars or other worlds by terrestrial microbes, this is actually a real controversy which Adams has latched onto by virtue of being able to squeeze into into his anti-science rant. It's rather puzzling to be both anti-science and, apparently, pro-science, since the main objections to inadequate sterilization come from xenobiologists, who hope to find evidence of alien life and would prefer not to have to rule out terrestrial contamination first. Because that, in fact, is the main concern with inadequate sterilization. Yes, it's unlikely any serious amount of bacteria will survive the transit AND an unplanned atmospheric entry and crash, colonize Mars, and wipe out native life. But it's not impossible, and rather more likely is the possibility of screwing up future searches for non-terrestrial life by giving scientists an irritating confounder (although even that isn't *very* likely).

It's an ongoing debate in the planetary exploration community, because you have to balance the desire for sterilization with the need for the equipment to actually survive the process -- indeed, the standards for sterilization were loosened years ago because they were seeing too many failures as a direct result. (Autoclaving your computer can help kill microorganisms, but it can also seriously damage the components.)

But of course, this is not what gives Adams any interest in the topic, because he doesn't care about science. If there is some way to make science look vaguely bad, that's all he cares about. Actually understanding the problem isn't part of it. Heck, I'm surprised he didn't bring up the deliberate scuttling of Galileo; at the time, the whackos were protesting that its Pu-238-based RTG would "nuke Jupiter" and turn it into a star. Seriously. People actually said that, and were trying to organize a protest to convince NASA not to deorbit Galileo.

dean,

Pioneers 10 and 11 were not going to Mars and thus not covered by the "sterilize anything going to Mars" policy. I doubt they were sterilized at all, since they were neither landers nor orbiters. Cleanrooms in spacecraft assembly facilities have nothing to do with biological protection. It's about keeping the components free of debris that could harm them during the long mission. Even dust can become a problem. Fortunately, his smudgy thumbprint was not in a vulnerable location, and I suspect he chose that location partly for that reason.

Of course, the fact that he was *able* to apply that thumbprint shows how much NASA and others depend upon discipline in the cleanroom, and demonstrates that not everybody fully respects the rules. On *this* instance it was harmless, but a tiny paint chip getting into a fuel line could blow up the spacecraft the first time it fires its engines.

Thanks to everyone who responded with more info & context on terrestrial contamination of Mars probes.

Ironic, isn't it, that the very science that Adams castigates as the source of all human suffering produced the very technology that allows him to spread his vitriol about science to many more people than he ever could have done before the rise of the Internet.

You ever hear of "stimulated emission of radiation"? Yeah, that's right. Unnaturally made radiation. You know that's gotta be evil science right there. It's also what makes lasers work, which are what make fiber optic cables the backbone of the Internet. Internet = evil science!

If we accept his premise that science = suicide and we must abandon it to survive, what exactly does he suggest we replace it with?

It's not as though the scientific method arose in a vacuum rather than to address real world problems, after all.

At risk of saying something a little too edgy for this site, I'd suggest the following:

Find out where this guy lives.

Sneak up to his house at night. This is best done with two people, one to act as lookout. Do not carry a cellphone, its tracking bugs will prove you were there.

Find the electric utility "service entrance" panel on the outside of the house. Wear thick rubber gloves. Open the hinged door to the panel.

Inside the box there is a big switch. Pull the switch all the way DOWN. You may notice that any lights that happen to be on inside the house, will go off.

Then close the door to the box, put a padlock on it, and attach a sign to the box that says "SCIENCE IS EVIL, isn't it?"

This doesn't qualify as vandalism since nothing is destroyed or damaged to make the point.

g724:

I notice that you are suggesting someone else risk their life for this stupid prank. Adams lives in Texas, whose law protects householders who shoot suspected trespassers.

Also, are you sure nothing would be destroyed or damaged? Consider the contents of his refrigerator (even assuming that there are no perishable medications, meat, fish, and dairy products can spoil fairly quickly).

I'm afraid Vicki is right -- that would still qualify as vandalism, and would certainly qualify as trespassing. And if you were caught, it could easily be seen as interrupting a burglary in progress, since that's also a method for disabling home security systems (cut all power). The electric company might also want to prosecute for tampering with their equipment.

But yeah, it is tempting, isn't it? Just don't anyone do it. It's not right, and the point would go right over his head anyway; Adams can't catch a clue with a mile-long drift net.

Roundup is an herbicide. Products that kill insects are pesticides. And herbicide is not a pesticide, except in the extremely general sense that a weed is pestiferous.

Speaking of losing electricity, I noticed Adams goes on about "being prepared" and sells all kinds of survival equipment to allow one to live "off the grid".

What exactly is he expecting to happen? I'm being serious here: is he preparing for another "Y2K" worldwide crash, or terrorism, or natural diasater, or what? Has that ever been explained, or is it all his paranoia? (I realize the two are not mutually exclusive...)

You do realize, don't you, that Mike Adams got his scamming start online publishing Y2K survival kits back in the late 1990s.

So those evil "scientists" at IBM were really the ones responsible for the Holocaust?
A few points:
The Nazis used IBM-supplied punch-card tabulators, little different from the Hollerith machines used half a century before to tabulate the US Census. IBM's complicity with the Nazis was a business decision, taken solely in the interest of the corporate bottom line - I doubt if they asked any actual scientists whether it was a good idea. Tabulators were an aid to the Nazis, but the Romans managed to run an empire and kill endless numbers of people with IT no better than wax tablets and squid ink on papyrus sheets.
Tabulators didn't require any new or advanced science when they were developed, either, but were essentially an engineering product. We could have a lovely discussion of the bad things engineers have done, but it could take years to get through (Personally, I think the machine gun was the worst invention ever, but it was probably inevitable.).
In fact, every technology that was essential to carrying out the Holocaust was a 19th Century invention, requiring little to no science as we understand it. The main ones were the telephone, telegraph, railroad trains, automobiles, barbed wire, electric lighting, the machine gun, bolt-action rifles, and cased-cartridge ammunition. The prussic acid used in the gas chambers was a product of science, but it was not essential. The Nazis and their helpers killed many with nothing more high-tech than starvation and disease.

@ Marc Stephens Is Insane:

I believe that he has a host of theories about why the grid might be wiped out: solar storms, home-grown Fukushimas, governmental crack-down, gang take-overs ....

He, like the other idiot, says we are on the brink of total economic and societal collapse... the police state is coming...

-btw- I think that these guys' definition of fasc-sm is that they are not allowed to call themselves physicians or make medical claims un-supported by reality...

Calling your government names is unjust to those who suffer(ed) under REAL totalitarian regimes, past and present.

Orac,

I'm new to this whole world of woo and don't know much about Adams's past. He seems obsessed with this "end of the world" theory (someone else once posted that he taught himself to suture with chicken flesh, to "prepare") and I was curious what he's preparing for. It sounds like those militia activists who stockpile weapons.

By the way, your "friend" deserves a humanitarian award for what he's trying to do over at the "Danielle and Brad" thread on his other blog. I hope he gets through to them.

Didn't Adams once rant against Bayer as well, because they were part of the IG Farben conglomerate that manufactured Zyklon B? And the fact that their CEO went right back to work after serving his sentence 50 years ago shows how corrupt Bayer still is today?

Gee, I hope Adams doesn't drive an Audi.

Did we get to Poe in 35 comments?

Composer99 - Actually, the experimental data obtained in the 70s immediately met the prespecified criteria that were supposed to demonstrate the presence of life. The guys running that experiment thought at the time that it was a success, as was a second less definitive experiment. In fact, the story has it that they were preparing to set up a news conference to make the announcement when suddenly the political higher-ups yanked the rug out from under them, hanging the young and powerless researcher out to dry. It's not hard to see why they might have chosen to suppress the truth. America perhaps wasn't yet clearly entering its dark age, but it still had millions of religious fanatics who would have gotten upset had NASA used tax dollars to report that terrestrial life was not their deity's only creation.

Adams couldn't catch a clue if he paid for one to be delivered to his house.

And lets hope mr. Adams doesn't drive a Ford, considering Henry Ford was one of the financiers behind Hitler. At least that's what I learned from a National Geographic documentary.

Calli, I realized Pioneer was not Harding to Mars and so wasn't
In the same category as what was being discussed. What I tried
(and failed horribly to do) what make a humorous visual about the event.
My apologies.

jane:

Thanks for the additional clarification. The paper to which I referred to upthread is Bianciardi et al 2012.

Were there any news articles or broadcasts discussing any NASA management interference in announcements of results from the Viking experiments?

The first four cites in the Biancardi et al paper are, to my knowledge, the published literature from the original experiments.

Science is a search for consensus among a community of experts who all try to use methods which eliminate bias as much as possible. You have to be able to persuade critics who don't already agree with you. Persuading people who are already in agreement with you isn't a rigorous enough standard.

That's why conspiracy theories and conspiracy type thinking is so destructive to the scientific process. Suddenly, you don't have to worry about having evidence and argument capable of convincing your critics: your critics are evil! There is nothing that will change their minds because they have an AGENDA!!!

There goes the search for consensus on the facts of the issue. There goes the issue itself. The fight is not really about health or environment. It's about Good Guys versus Bad Guys.

You can't do science under those conditions. There's nobody who can check your work or dispute your conclusions. You're too busy trying to fit them into their Evildoer suit.

dean -- no apologies needed! I thought it was a cool story. I just wanted to clarify for those reading what the real purpose of cleanrooms is. I think folks like Adams don't really understand what's going on there, and certainly the importance/value of sterilization of probes is not what people generally think it is. (The value part especially. Some have proposed ending the sterilization program altogether on the basis that it's probably not adequate anyway.)

Science is a search for consensus among a community of experts who all try to use methods which eliminate bias as much as possible. You have to be able to persuade critics who don't already agree with you. Persuading people who are already in agreement with you isn't a rigorous enough standard.

That's why conspiracy theories and conspiracy type thinking is so destructive to the scientific process. Suddenly, you don't have to worry about having evidence and argument capable of convincing your critics: your critics are evil! There is nothing that will change their minds because they have an AGENDA!!!

There goes the search for consensus on the facts of the issue. There goes the issue itself. The fight is not really about health or environment. It's about Good Guys versus Bad Guys.

You can't do science under those conditions. There's nobody who can check your work or dispute your conclusions. You're too busy trying to fit them into their Evildoer suit.

jane -- the experiments were positive, but there was (and still is) considerable controversy within the scientific community whether or not those were the right tests to perform; i.e. whether or not the results actually were indicative of life. I was pretty young at the time, so I don't recall what was being said widely, but from following the matter since then, my understanding is that any backlash was scholarly, not political. I don't think it was ever hushed up; it just failed to overcome skepticism on the topic.

I'm surprised he decided to go out of the way and attach science with Nazis as a bad thing. You see, Hitler was particularly taken with killing off the educated Jews - which included MANY scientists. (Welcome the the US, Mr. Einstein)

Oh, and I heard a rumor once that Jews are over represented in MDs and PhD's. (And lawyers. And Speilberg films)

Re: the health ranger latest vitriol.
Yawn. Another conspiracy rant. Boring.
(but don't stop pointing how idiotic he is, someone has to)

If he was advocating for more cautious use of new techs, he could have a point, but he is mostly in a us vs them point of view.
I wonder where he is drawing the line on bad science vs good science. We could go back before we domesticated fire.
Oh, silly me, everything is bad science, unless he benefits from it, and in this case it was not found by science, but by an empirical process of trials and errors. (what?)

Re: OT cleanrooms and dust on things we put in space.
I subject to your curiosity the sci-fi webcomics Freefall. The author did some homework on engineering sciences and it shows. See here for dust in microgravity (although the microgravity topic was on-going for a dozen strips or so).
Beware, it's a 10-year running comic strip. For a summary, check its article on TVtropes (although a visit to the TVtropes website is unlikely to shorten the time spent procrastinating :-)

puppygod @10: There are 7 friggin billion humans on this planet.

Most of whom would die if we stopped using all the scientific advances Adams excoriates. Does that make him the biggest mass-murderer in history?

"You do realize, don't you, that Mike Adams got his scamming start online publishing Y2K survival kits back in the late 1990s."

Has anyone seen the National Geographic reality TV show "Doomsday Preppers"?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/doomsday-2012-preppers-prepare-worst-tur…

A bit more on this "science is out to kill us".

Because next we can count on the rise of the robot drones in the name of science -- a new race of Terminator machines (unmanned AI drones) with the capability to mindlessly unleash bombs and bullets on civilian populations.

He says this like it's a bad thing.
Where has Adams been these past 10 years? The US Army (among others) has been using drones all this time to mindlessly unleash bombs and bullets on civilians, and there were humans in command of the remote. There was another case of collateral damage just last week.
But before drones, we had centuries of human armies dropping bombs, naphta, big rocks and the occasional rotten corpse on civilian populations. I don't know if free-will robots can do worse than humans. At least they won't be pretending they have the moral high ground.

I was reading recently on the development of modern firearms during the 19th century (mostly Wikipedia articles). Apparently, Mr Gatling has said something on the line "my invention will end war by making it too horrible".
(so many weapon inventors supposedly said this, I wonder if it's just apocryphal).
It sorts of backfired, machine guns just created new ways to wage war. But on a sense, he was right. After all, gunship diplomacy is based on a show of power.

That stuck me is that a number of these new weapons were developed because there was a need - governments and armies wanted better weapons, not only in term of killing efficiency, but also in terms of safety (for the ones using them). A weapon which burns its holder face and/or explodes in its hand is not that useful.
But if these breakthroughs hadn't occurred, that wouldn't have changed much the then current political situations; war still would have happened between countries in conflict over resources or who rules who.
When modern weapons were not available, large scale bloodshed still occurred. Just in the last two decades, we have numerous examples of riots or civil wars where one or more of the sides have nothing better than knifes, clubs and stones. That never stopped them.

The issue is not science. It's the whole human species.

Heliantus@46:
The author did some homework on engineering sciences and it shows.

The author in question is also a nuclear engineer, and my recollection is that he worked at the Fermi power plant in Michigan for several years. (And commented at one point that if Scott Adams had worked at Fermi rather than Pac Bell, he would have been inspired to start Dilbert two years faster.)

A lot of the science in Freefall wasn't just homework for him.

You might wonder how websites like Natural News operate...
well, I'll tell you anyway (unfortunately, I can't include the flow chart):

they use articles and internet radio/ TV to get their audience onto the site-
1. hits mean ad revenue
2. each site has a store that sells supplements, food, juicers, filtration systems, enema supplies, gas masks, films, books, lectures, seminars, events, what-have-you
3. needless to say, your reading, watching or listening tells you how much you need what is sold at the store
4. Adams sells a premium channel- the Inner Circle- where special programming is available
5. sites get YOU to sell : Adams participates in various MLMs; Null gets followers to sell his products and media
6. they may get other outlets to show their shows ( NPR means FREE airwaves/ others' websites- they show each other's articles/ shows)
7. they encourage followers to use social media to spread the word.

If you scan Adams' or Null's articles, you might ascertain that much of it has little to do with nutrition- it's politics, economics, business, environmentalism/ ecology, conspiracy mongering- but these 'information services' work a few ways-
they portray the chief honcho as an expert in many areas, as being on the side of the "little guy", i.e. you and someone who is trustworthy *unlike* the government, corporations, medicine, the mainstream media and last and certainly not least, educational institutions. AND get you to buy stuff at the store.

These sites' owners boast of world-wide audiences and millions of followers. Perhaps they confuse *hits* with *persons*.

Oh, noez! The evil, shape-shifting Terminator... Even worse, deadly dental amalgam... The shock of bacilli... Maybe even pesticide... Y2K survival kits *shudder*... Murdoch's National Geographic... Ewww - this is almost enough for me to really enjoy my 100% certified, all-natural, chemical-free, loon-free canned tuna sandwich and a nice big glass of fluoridated tap water. Maybe I'll even go out to the store and get some tasty regular old non-organic ice cream.

This isn't really on topic, but I thought this might be of interest to people here, it's a documentary about Paediatric Oncology at Great Ormond Street Hospital. One of Burzynski's patients is featured.

The relevant sections are at 28-32.40, 39-49.12 and 52.50 minutes onwards. It's on Youtube, so hopefully it'll be available outside the UK, but people may need to get in quickly before Youtube and/or the BBC take it down:

h ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-qS5lR65ug&feature=relmfu

She comes back with horrific side effects. The Doctor's expressions throughout pretty much say it all.

Yeah, that's Luna Petagine. We've been commenting on her case here for a while. The doctors are working furiously at Great Ormond just to reverse the damage done by Burzynski.

You ever hear of "stimulated emission of radiation"? Yeah, that's right. Unnaturally made radiation.

Oh, you can hardly swing a cat without finding a maser.

Elihphile: Thanks for the link. I tried to watch it last week from the BBC site but the evil Internet copyright lords knew I wasn't in the UK and blocked the video. The YouTube link is working and I'm watching now.

BTW, you can post links here so there's no need to break up the URL. Orac allows up to two links per post before he submits you to moderation purgatory.

Oh, you can hardly swing a cat without finding a maser.

If that's your idea of a good time.

Here is the Great Ormond Street Hospital YouTube video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-qS5lR65ug&feature=relmfu

Question for Science Bloggers.
Why do you tend to be socialists/democrats. Do you have a personal explanation for this? Is this because of your interpretation of science?

Oh, you can hardly swing a cat without finding a maser.

If that's your idea of a good time.

You need a lot of sky to ferret out the interstellar TOXINZ, especially with an uncooperative device.

@JaneMD, #47:
Much of what we normally think of Nazi scientific acumen was really engineering, and engineers are no less prone to unscientific ideas than anyone else. Nazi views of science in part accounted for their failure to develop an atomic bomb - physics was a "Jewish science" and non-Jewish physicists were suspect by association. Werner Heisenberg was only cleared because his mother and Himmler's mother were distantly related. Himmler actually tried to recruit Heisenberg to take on one of his pet projects, an institute that would prove that the stars were really made out of ice.

Doing something about the abuse of patents and IP might be a nice idea. Quite a bit of this reasearch on drugs is finding ways to tweak soon-to-be out of patent molecules so that they can be re-patented. It's research that contributes nothing to society. Much of this research into genuinely new drugs is done with public funds.

There's also vile things like US corporations patenting natural compounds that have been known for years in other countries, outright stealing the rights to them via international IP treaties.

Ken @49

Most of whom would die if we stopped using all the scientific advances Adams excoriates. Does that make him the biggest mass-murderer in history?

Yup. Just switching back from high yield crops developed during green revolution to the "natural" and "ecological"* ones would starve about half of humanity within less than decade.

* - Disclaimer: I'm aware that there are crops and methods of farming that can be called ecological without use of scare quotes (minimizing impact, preserving biodiversity and improving sustainability) - and I'm totally supporting them. It's just that many products marketed as "ecological" really aren't.

The simply retort to these buffoons is to point out the very computer they are writing their screed on is science. That it is packed with rare earth elements which were extracted from the ground and refined with science. That the electricity that powers the device is science. That the vast network of computers, cables and satellites that move the bits from his computer to the server and onto the client machines where it is read are science. That the house the guy lives in is science from the panes of glass to the insulation to the plastics and composites used throughout. That the foods he eats (even natural ones) are science thanks to processing, transportation, farming and automation techniques.

So science is only bad when it suits whatever stupid point he wants to make but somehow great otherwise. Of course perhaps he lives in a mud hut subsisting on wild grasses and animals, and writes his articles on bark but somehow I doubt it.

People and their beliefs use science for evil. Saying science is evil is like saying a stone or water is evil. Science haters can't cope with revealed truth and prefer to keep deluding themselves with a make believe world fashioned to their own fantasies.

Jenora Feuer @52--

Does the Fermi power plant in Michigan have any connection to the famous Fermi Labs in Illinois?

hoary puccoon@67|:

Does the Fermi power plant in Michigan have any connection to the famous Fermi Labs in Illinois?

No, only the name. the nuclear power plant in Michigan is named after Enrico Fermi, the physicist and is owned by some energy company. Fermilab (or to give it its full name Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ) is a university research facility.
If you want any other details, then Google is very handy for that.

@Ian

I remember one of my chemistry teachers (from way back when) stating that science itself is not good or evil. It is the application (or non-application) of the science, along with the critical thinkings skills to appraise and apply the science, that makes it good or evil.

In this case, mike adams can hardly be using critical thinking skills, and really doesn't have an understanding of what science is.

I first read this article when it came out and I nearly fell out of my chair it was so funny. It was like a parody of total insanity. But that's the internets for ya. When you see something so crazy like that in print it's very hard to tell the satire of the crank from the actual crank. It's actually so perfect an example of crankery that I think we should consider reposting it in full as a satire of Mike Adams.

@Marc Stephens.

The good news is that now Chiane Cloete's parents (who are also featured in the documentary) are no longer pursuing the Burzynski option, one presumes because they saw the effect it had on Luna, in the programme.

Heliantus:

Where has Adams been these past 10 years? The US Army (among others) has been using drones all this time to mindlessly unleash bombs and bullets on civilians, and there were humans in command of the remote.

Absolutely. We definitely do have robot drones capable of unleashing death from the heavens now, but there is always a man in the loop for the actual deployment of the weapon. They do have autopilot capabilities, and there are completely autonomous low-cost drones now that can be rented by farmers to survey their crops. (You specify what area for it to search, the computer works out the path and sends that to the aircraft, you toss the aircraft in the air, it flies its route, it comes back, you download the pics to your computer and see where you've been missing when you drive out with the fertilizer or whatever.) But for shooting, the military always requires a man in the loop.

That said, there *are* weapons which really do shoot on their own. This is permitted only when the required response time is below human reaction time, and is needed for things like the Patriot missile batteries and the Phalanx CIWS. There's always a human involved, but there are modes where it doesn't ask for permission for every target, since if the target is an incoming cruise missile, you don't have time. It's important to mention that this is NOT the default state for the weapons. Default state would be passive tracking.

That stuck me is that a number of these new weapons were developed because there was a need - governments and armies wanted better weapons, not only in term of killing efficiency, but also in terms of safety (for the ones using them). A weapon which burns its holder face and/or explodes in its hand is not that useful.

Yes. And killing efficiency isn't just about quantity killed; it's also about killing the ones you intend to kill. Carpet bombing can be very effective, as can a nuclear bomb, but it blows up a lot more stuff than you really need to (unless your goal is to demoralize the enemy population so thoroughly they demand their own government surrender -- which was the point with a lot of bombing campaigns in World War II). There is a time and place for each type of weapon, but increasingly militaries are trying to minimize civilian casualties and play it as "we're not *your* enemy, we're your *government's* enemy, and we don't have to be your enemy if you don't want us to". One can argue whether that philosophy makes any sense, but it drives more and more development of smart weapons. Cruise missiles. JDAMS. Mavericks. And Hellfire missiles deployed by Predator drones that can loiter close enough to get a positive ID on the target without risking a pilot. This is not an easy thing to accomplish, but it's been the general thrust of a lot of military tech development in the past fifty years. More accuracy, more safety. When you're working with explody things, there's a huge focus on making sure it can only explode exactly when and where you want it to. A fuzing mechanism will be designed mostly to not fuze.

(Sidenote: this overall philosophy is why some experts believe the hacking attack that shut down Iranian centrifuges was in fact originated by the US military, because it took exactly that philosophy. Most of its code was dedicated to making sure it didn't run anywhere except in these specific centrifuges. Others can certainly adopt the same philosophy, but the US military is exceedingly reluctant to harm bystanders if it can avoid it. That it nevertheless does only emphasizes how difficult this avoidance is in war.)

I've commented on the article. I can guarantee that my comment will be deleted but ... I screen-saved it for posterity... and the fun value of the comment :D

@ David N. Andrews M. Ed., C.P.S.E.:

I suspect that Mr Adams- being an un-realistic, no-talent, candy@ss idiot-
highly disapproves of good, solid Anglo-Saxon expressions like *f@ck*, *f@cking* et al.
Unfortunately, both articles seem to have lost the comments sections. Pity.