religion

Contamination requiring ritual purification: Superstitious concepts at the heart of antivaccine beliefs

oracknows — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:00:59 +0000

Contamination requiring ritual purification: Superstitious concepts at the heart of antivaccine beliefs

Over the years, I've frequently contemplated just where many of the ideas that underlie alternative medicine in general come from. Certainly, I'm not the first to have thought of this by any stretch of the imagination, but over the last 13 years, I've become convinced that it is a fear of bodily "contamination" that harks back to ideas found in many religions. Think about it. Where does the fear of "toxins" in vaccines come from? Vaccines are portrayed as "foreign," as something "unnatural" that is "injected right into the bloodstream." Never mind that vaccines are not injected directly into the bloodstream. To the antivaxer, there is no difference between an intramuscular and intravenous injections because to them both are equally "contaminating." It's also not a coincidence that many of the treatments for "vaccine-induced autism" or any other condition falsely attributed to vaccines are represented as "detoxification." They are basically purges, to purge the "evil humors" that antivaxers believe vaccines to be packed full of. It's not for nothing that I've not infrequently described alternative medicine "detoxification" as being akin to ritual purification of the sort found in many different religions.

Sometimes, antivaxers even help to make my case for me. For instance, here's antivaxer and all-around supporter of everything quacky, John Rappoport, declaring the The Occult Archetype Called Vaccination. Here, Rappoport claims to examine the "archetypes and symbols" that surround vaccination and to him "give it occult power." My first reaction was: Projection, thy name is antivaxer. You know he's off the rails from the very beginning when he begins with a claim that vaccination was begun as a "crude version of homeopathy." Here's a hint. Variolation predated homeopathy by 75 years, and other investigators had tested vaccination with cowpox to protect against smallpox a couple of decades before Samuel Hahnemann dreamt up the sympathetic magic that is homeopathy. Even Jenner's work was roughly contemporaneous with Hahnemann's first descriptions of homeopathy in the late 1790s. Homeopaths (and quacks like Rappoport) love to claim that vaccination was somehow an imitation of homeopathy (or, these days) that homeopathic nosodes are the equivalent of vaccination because of homeopathy's "law" of "like cures like."

Then we get to the "meat" (if you can call it that) of Rappoport's comparison:

Today, as a revival of ancient symbology, vaccination is a conferred seal, a sign of moral righteousness. It’s a mark on the arm, signifying tribal inclusion. No tribe member is left out. Inclusion by vaccination protects against invisible spirits (viruses).

The notion of the tribe is enforced by dire predictions of pandemics: the spirits of other tribes (from previously unknown hot zones in jungles) are attacking the good tribe, our tribe.

Mothers, the keepers of the children, are given a way to celebrate their esteemed, symbolic, animal role as “lionesses”: confer the seal on their offspring through vaccination. Protect the future of the tribe. Speak out and defame and curse the mothers who don’t vaccinate their children. Excommunicate them from the tribe.

Or it could just be that they understand that herd immunity is important and that unvaccinated children can serve as vectors for disease outbreaks.

There's also a rather amazing extension of normal antivaccine arguments in which Rappoport claims that the child is "more than the offspring of the parents" and is now the "property of the village" You might remember how often I point out that the invocation of "parental rights" by antivaxers often assumes that children are the property of the parents. Indeed, I often quote Rand Paul, who, referring to the "right" of parents not to vaccinate their children, once said, "The state doesn’t own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom.” Now get a load of what Rappoport says:

The ceremony of vaccination is a rite of passage for the child. He/she is now more than the offspring of the parents. The child is in the village. The child is property of the village. As the years pass, periodic booster shots reconfirm this status.

See what I mean? The only difference between this remark and Rand Paul's objection to vaccination is that Rappoport substitutes the "village" for the "government" referred to by Paul.

Now here's where Rappoport really lets you know that I'm right about their viewing vaccination as contamination by the way he describes what he perceives to be the mystical aspect of vaccination:

Some ancient rituals presented dangers. The child, on his way to becoming a man, would be sent out to live alone in the forest for a brief period and survive. Vaccination symbolizes this in a passive way: the injection of disease-viruses which might be harmful are transmuted into protective spirits in the body. The injection of toxic chemicals is a passageway into immunity. If a child is damaged in the process, the parents and the tribe consider it a tragic but acceptable risk, because on the whole the tribe and the village are protected against the evil spirits (viruses).

The psychological and occult and archetypal impact of vaccination is key: modern parents are given the opportunity to feel, on a subconscious level, a return to older times, when life was more bracing and immediate and vital. That is the mythology. Modern life, for basic consumers, has fewer dimensions—but vaccination awakens sleeping memories of an age when ritual and ceremony were essential to the future of the group. No one would defect from these moments. Refusal was unthinkable. Survival was All. The mandate was powerful. On a deep level, parents today can experience that power. It is satisfying.

There is no doubt that there is a feeling of satisfaction that vaccinating one's children can bring. It is indeed the feeling of protecting one's offspring against diseases that might threaten their lives. It has little to do with the "mandate" of the "tribe" or anything else like that. What's interesting is that Rappoport tries to dismiss the societal mandate to vaccinate as though it were nothing more than some ancient tribal ritual transplanted into modern society. I think that's very telling. He can't explain vaccine mandates any other way than as ritual. He also represents vaccination as some sort of dangerous process that might damage the child, when in fact it is very, very safe, with serious adverse reactions exceedingly rare.

Then there is the religious aspect. Note the language: "Injection of the disease-virus." This is a very clear reference to the "contamination" that I was talking about. Indeed, this choice of phrasing is very common in antivaccine circles, where vaccines are often referred to as "injecting disease matter," which is technically true but phrased to make it sound as scary as possible.

And, of course, who is at the center of this "mystic ritual"? You guessed it. It's the physician, who is portrayed by Rappoport as a shaman:

The doctor giving the injections is, of course, the priest of the tribe, the medicine man, the holder of secrets. He is the spiritual source of, and connection to, “unseen realms” where opposing spirits carry out warfare and struggle for supremacy. Without the medicine man, the tribe would disintegrate.

The medicine man is permitted to say and do anything. He can tell lies if lies serve a noble purpose and effect greater strength of the tribe. He can manipulate language and truth and meaning. He can turn day into night. He can present paradox and contradiction. No one can question his pronouncements.

Loyalty to the medicine man is absolute. In this regard, a rebel is exiled or destroyed.

Methinks that Mr. Rappoport vastly overestimates the power that physicians have in society. Oddly enough, what he is describing seems to be an extreme version of medical paternalism that was common 70 years ago but hasn't been a part of medicine for decades. There is much projection here, as well. In fact, the real shaman/healer/medicine man tends to be the alternative medicine practitioners and the antivaccine doctor-"heros" like Andrew Wakefield whom antivaxers do basically idolize much like the description of medicine men above. Indeed, I've explained in depth why the appeal of this sort of unscientific medicine, part of which includes antivaccine beliefs, is the appeal of the shaman, a view that Dr. Mehmet Oz, of all people, appears to support without realizing it.

The sort of thinking that Rappoport is attributing to those advocating vaccination is in actuality much more characteristic of believers in alterntive medicine in general and the antivaccine movement and their quacks in particular.They are the unquestioned, shaman-healer so common in so many societies in pre-scientific times. Bringing us back to the religious aspect of "contamination" that I started out with, as I've pointed out time and time again, in ancient Egypt, physicians were also priests; both functions, physician and priest, were one, which made sense given how little effective medicine there was. Praying to the gods for patients to get better was in most cases as good as anything those ancient physicians could do. All of this is of a piece with the antivaccine view of vaccines as "contamination" that makes the child "unclean" such that he must be ritually purified with "detoxification."

I sometimes like to reference the über-quack and über-scammer Mike Adams, because he goes so over the top that he often illustrates my points for me, albeit in a sort of reductio ad absurdum manner. A couple of days ago, he was claiming that Facebook was "censoring" Natural News. Today he's claiming that is "declaring war on children" by "censoring him." I must admit that in this rant Adams outdoes himself in pure looniness, but inadvertently he helps make some of my points for me, again largely by projection.

For instance, to him vaccination goes beyond mere "contamination" and becomes both violation (as in rape) and contamination with something even more unspeakable than "toxins" or "disease matter":

Mark Zuckerberg isn’t accused of raping little children with his biology, but he controls the social media network that openly espouses the medical violation of childrens’ bodies with toxic injections — a form of “medical rape” that obscenely violates the American Medical Association’s medical ethics when mandated by coercive government (as has already happened in California with SB 277).

Further adding to the horrifying truth of what Zuckerberg and Facebook are really up to, many vaccines given to children in America today are made from the ground-up, homogenized, disease-inoculated organs of aborted black babies. These “human embryonic lung cell cultures” are openly listed as chicken pox vaccine ingredients by the CDC and vaccine manufacturers, all of whom also openly admit that vaccines are made from diseased animal organs such as African Green Monkey kidney cells. (MMR vaccines are also made from the tissue of aborted human babies.)

I will give Mikey credit for one thing. I've heard and debunked the claims that vaccines are made from the "tissue of aborted babies" (dude, cells isolated from a fetus in the 1960s and maintained in culture over 50 years are not the same thing as "tissue from aborted human babies") and many others, including the fear mongering about African Green Monkeys. I've also dealt with the vile simile that likens vaccination to rape. However, I've never heard the claim that vaccines are made from the "ground-up, homogenized, disease-inoculated organs of aborted black babies." I did some Googling and was unable to find the origin of that incredible (and false) claim. Seriously, Mikey. Now you're just making shit up even more than usual.

Now, as ridden with hyperbole this is, it is far too close to normal, common antivaccine claims to be Mike Adams. So, naturally, Adams has to ramp the stupid and outrage up to 11 and beyond by likening vaccination to ritualistic child sacrifice and cannibalism:

Today, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook demand the ritualistic sacrifice of children to the “vaccine gods” as a way to appease their globalist controllers. Just like in the era of the Maya, children are especially prized for their innocence which is violated by puncturing the skin and injecting the child with foreign DNA extracted from other children sacrificed at abortion centers.

Quite literally, the dead children are liquefied and “fed” to other children, many of whom are maimed or killed by the toxic intervention (yes, this is how vaccines are manufactured). This is all carried out in the name of “science,” just as the Maya high priests carried out their sacrifices in the name of “cosmic powers.”

What few people have recognized yet is that in the realm of globalist power, the sacrifice of children is always required for an ascending globalist to “prove” their commitment to the cause. Zuckerberg, you see, wants to become a “high priest” of the modern technocracy which is founded in a scientific dictatorship, medical tyranny and the power of the coercive state. The ritualistic sacrifice of children is a necessary component of those ascensions to power.

I had to read that passage three times because I couldn't believe what I had just read, Yes, Adams really wrote it. So let me get this straight. Dead children are somehow "liquified" and "fed" to other children, thus both contaminating them in such a way that "violates" their innocence, presumably both because it is (to Adams) like rape and because it also somehow "contaminates" them. Again, projection is the key here. This is how hard core antivaxers think.

Lest you think that Adams is so over-the-top, that Natural News is a wretched hive of scum and quackery so much scummier and quackier than all the other wretched hives of scum and quackery that it can be ignored, let's take a look at another article, over at Megan Heimer's wretched hive of scum and antivaccine quackery, entitled What You Didn’t Know About the Aborted Baby Parts in Your Vaccines:

You might have also heard that only two babies were used and it was a really long time ago, which justifies the continued use of shooting up live babies with dead babies. This just simply isn’t true and if you think it is, watch one of the many Planned Parenthood videos. These people are harvesting baby parts for a reason.

Aborted baby is supposedly some sort of magic that makes vaccines more effective (albeit safely untested and could contribute to conditions like autism and cancer).

No, the only people invoking "magic," "ritual," "contamination," and "purification" with respect to vaccine components are people like Mike Adams, John Rappoport, and Megan Heimer. That's because so much of the antivaccine belief system is rooted in ancient superstitious and religious concepts, the most prominent aspect of which are contamination and ritual purification. Sometimes they even throw violation (rape) in there for good measure. Basically, to many antivaxers vaccines are like fluoride in Dr. Strangelove. They sap and contaminate your precious bodily fluids, but they'll go even beyond that. They'll contaminate you so much that they corrupt your DNA. I wish I were exaggerating about these beliefs, but I'm not.

oracknows Wed, 08/09/2017 - 21:00

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The doctor giving the injections is, of course, the priest of the tribe

Uh, I dunno about you, but in my neck of the woods vaccination is done by nurses. You don't even need to see a doctor before getting childhood vaccinations done. So much for the high priest, eh?

Also, are uninjected vaccines ok? There's a lot of needle phobia in antivax land. Maybe things like the rotavirus and old-school polio immunisations are gateway vaccinations, to lure small children into trying the harder stuff, though.

Today, as a revival of ancient symbology, vaccination is a conferred seal, a sign of moral righteousness. It’s a mark on the arm, signifying tribal inclusion. No tribe member is left out. Inclusion by vaccination protects against invisible spirits (viruses).

If vaccination were some sort of tribal mark, shouldn't we still be doing smallpox vaccination, since it was a vaccine that truly left a mark on your arm? Oh, wait--smallpox was eradicated through vaccination (making members of that tribe are age 50 and older and not children anymore). And BCG vaccine (against tuberculosis) can leave a vaccination scar as well, but many countries don't give it, so this whole "mark on the arm" thing from vaccines ain't making sense (except in the echo chamber of Rappoport's largely empty cranium).

Also, it's strange how vaccines= contamination, but yet, for many AVers it's ok if mom eats her placenta--something they will almost certainly still support even though there was a recent warning of group B strep neonatal infection from a mom taking encapsulated placenta post partum (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6625a4.htm). But, hey--it's probably the baby's fault for contracting group B strep anyhow, right?

Over at the misnamed "Immunity Education Group"-- anti-vaxxers recently penned a piece claiming that last year's change in the vaccine schedule from 3 HPV vaccines to 2 shows how the ebil ones at the CDC are backtracking and trying to cover up how dangerous HPV vaccine is. You would think IEG might have expressed gratitude that--since vaccines are full of "toxins" --that one less vaccine on the schedule would equal fewer "toxins". Alas, no...you can't do anything to placate AVers because their messed up minds will just convolute whatever you do into some even more diabolical plan to kill children/sterilize society/put lizard overlords in power.

When it comes to contamination, there's not enough GoLytely in the universe to even partially flush the crap-filled brains of hardcore AVers.

Right from the beginning, opposition to vaccination has been religion and "freedom" based. From the Jenner Institute's website, "People quickly became fearful of the possible consequences of receiving material originating from cows and opposed vaccination on religious grounds, saying that they would not be treated with substances originating from God's lowlier creatures. Variolation was forbidden by Act of Parliament in 1840 and vaccination with cowpox was made compulsory in 1853. This in its turn led to protest marches and vehement opposition from those who demanded freedom of choice."

Fred Clark, on the blog Slacktivist, often writes about the love people have for stories about Satanic baby killers, and how they don't want to let those stories go. It appears that this same mentality is found among the anti-vaxxers, and probably for the same reason. It elevates them and separates them from 'the other.' They can feel righteous knowing they would never do such a terrible thing. I still want them all in an iron lung for 24 hours, with a bad case of Shingles. Then, I want them in Dara O'Briain's sack.

Oops! I misspelled my own name. Good grief. I guess I need more coffee before reading about anti-vaxxers.

The doctor giving the injections is, of course, the priest of the tribe, the medicine man, the holder of secrets.

And so on. Such a long-winded rant to claim that vaccines are ritual magic.

How do you call magic which has been shown to be working? Medicine.

They're out to pollute our bodily essences.

I think Rappoport should re-watch Dr Strangelove and realize it's not a documentary. Then again, maybe the problem is, no-one wants his bodily essences.

As George Carlin said, I will leave symbols to the simple-minded.

Adams seems to have lost whatever little bits of his mind were still in his possession. He seems to be saying that Soylent Green isvaccines are made of people.

And I'll second Ellie's remarks about the satanic baby killers schtick. People will often go to great lengths to "prove" their moral superiority, even to the point of inventing such horrors out of whole cloth.

I wonder when is the last time any of these people actually watched a child vaccinated.

I guess this is behind the language we hear that talks of unvaccinated children as "vaccine-free" or having an intact immune system, whatever that is.

And is the logic behind the demand for a vaccinated/unvaccinated study and t new movie Azeris making, designed to present unvaccinated children as better, including publicly humiliating the vaccinated children of the participating families by working to present them as less good.

Rappaport actually manages what would be a few bits of semi-respectable cultural analysis, if he didn't expect us to take it to literally, and didn't put such a pejorative twist on it. Vaccination as rite of passage, through danger, into the tribe and village, conferring a moral righteousness, presided over by a shaman, etc. It's exaggerated, but not totally wrong. The problem is, 'So what's wrong with that?!' or 'You say that like it's a bad thing!' A respectable cultural anthropologist might make similar observations, especially a Levi-Straussian structuralist, but wouldn't find anything sinister or even "religious" really in any of it. That is, these things would be seen as resonances of fundamental symbols systems human beings have employed across very different cultures over long periods of time in order to understand the world and deal with it socially in some functional way.

But even the later part where Rappaport goes full looney – "Loyalty to the medicine man is absolute... a rebel is exiled or destroyed" – looks like genius in comparison to Adams rantings. To those, I can only shake my head, in lack of comprehension at how anyone could go there, and just have no words... W. T. F. ??

Wait a minute..
he's talking about archetypes ( of the collective unconscious?) and he fails to mention the SHADOW?
You know, the Dark Side of human nature which ever lurks in the hearts of men. . which would be
US.

Seriously.

and on a more serious note...
he's talking about primitive people, tribes, medicine men, symbolic mother _lionesses_, JUNGLES...
doesn't that sound a little racist? ... black people in Africa as the appeared in old movies or ancient pulp fiction**.

Not enlightened folk like him.

** or Disney musicals

@ Chris Hickie

Since you an turn day into night, and o one can question your pronouncements, you could get those AV parents to immunize their tots if you just pulled out the shamanic powers you were inducted into in med school. I admire your restraint and respect for your patients' parents autonomy. ;-)
____________

doesn’t that sound a little racist?

Oh, you noticed that. Why, yes it does.

I should have added above that Ripapart likely cribbed the outline of those comments from a legit anthro text, and just put his negative spin on all of it. This could be just projection as Orac says, but also a more Turdblossomish mustache-twirling scheme to tar his opponents with false accusations of his own groups 'issues'. We know who the real dark side occultists are one way or the other.

Maybe a good idea to improve vaccination rates is to combine the shot with an actual tattoo. Not a big one, just a small mark that would be part of a larger pattern that would only be completed by many years of consistent vaccination. A flu shot might add a feather to the eagle. Gardasil would be a snake the eagle is carrying.

I want them in Dara O’Briain’s sack.

They can't escape the sack. The sack sees them all. The sack embraces them all.

@ Sadmar #13: Well, lets just say I prefer not using Jedi mind tricks when it comes to consenting for vaccines ;)

When med-scammers adopt the 'abortions = BABY-KILLING' language of the fetus-fetishists, there's probably an element of good old-fashioned Affinity Fraud. If you want to defraud the religious loons -- and ever since religion became a branch of right-wing politicis, that's where all the Stupid is -- then you need to spout all the fetish-fondling shibboleths, so that the suckers will trust you.

Fred Clark, on the blog Slacktivist, often writes about the love people have for stories about Satanic baby killers, and how they don’t want to let those stories go.

Norman Cohn's "Europe's Inner Demons" is my go-to source, for I am old-school. Cohn traces the tradition back to attacks on the early Christians as part of Roman Imperial persecution, which the Christians immediately adopted and redirected at their enemies (heretics) as soon as they had control of the Empire.

But when Adams combines the baby-eating stories with names like "Zuckerberg" --

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook demand the ritualistic sacrifice of children

-- we're in Blood Libel antisemitism territory. Adams can't quite bring himself to shout out "MATZOHS IZ MADE OF BABY BLOOD!!" but that is what he wants his readers to think.

Granted, I'm absent minded, but I can't ever remember having checked out anyone's arms at any time to check that they are members of my "tribe".

I have been saying for years (this is sarcasm) that we should be doing drive by vaccinations and ear tagging to know who needs what. Ears tag would mark safe people to be around and those who avoid. Without ear tags we could ostracize those people. We could have teams of doctors, nurses and cowboys riding around doing the vaccinating and ear tagging. The cowboys could rope the little critters so they can be ear tagged.

Don't you think this would be a lot more fun setting around in a doctors office giving shots? If we did the vaccinating in schools we could use squeeze chutes and vaccinate and ear tag at the same time. I don't think branding would be necessary.

"I can’t ever remember having checked out anyone’s arms at any time"

A clear indication that you are a member of the tribe of those who do not check other people's arms. Welcome!

# 2 Chris Hickie

f vaccination were some sort of tribal mark, shouldn’t we still be doing smallpox vaccination, since it was a vaccine that truly left a mark on your arm?

We have replaced the mark with tattoos which actually is better since tattoos allow for one to indicate rank. The priest, err doctor, will have the most tattoos and the most sophisticated ones.

If you meet Orac in person you will hardly see one bit of bare skin.

ExCUSE me. Tag the ears of the UNvaccinated, and leave my perfectly formed lobes alone.

Panacea, as you noticed I was being sarcastic. Although, many people pierce various body parts to dangle things from. Myself, I have no piercings but do have 3 tattoos. The tattoos were applied as aiming points for radiation treatment a few years back.

If you meet Orac in person you will hardly see one bit of bare skin.

As befits one of the Scientific People.

Rich: Heh. I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 35, and my friends practically had to drag me. First go round I went, "Nope!" and ran out of the store when a six year old ahead of me in line cried when she got hers.

Besides, the unvaccinated SHOULD wear the ear tags, since they're advertising they're willing to be diseased cows.

I'll never get a tattoo, but if I got one it would be like the kind you have.

he’s talking about primitive people, tribes, medicine men, symbolic mother _lionesses_, JUNGLES…
doesn’t that sound a little racist? … black people in Africa as the appeared in old movies or ancient pulp fiction**.

My money is on "Watched trailer for 'Black Panther', saw imagery to coopt for his cause".

HDB @18: I was wondering when someone was going to notice that. It's about as subtle as a 2x4 to the head.
So, in summary: racist *and* anti-semtic, all in one!

(OT: How the heck could anyone who has ever seen matzoh ever think there is any blood in it? It's whiter than a saltine! You want food with blood, look at black pudding. I mean, it's *actively* stupid.)

WTF Mike Adams is doing on Facebook if he believe Facebook is this evil:

https://www.facebook.com/NaturalNews

https://www.facebook.com/HealthRanger/

Incquiring mind want to know :)

Panacea,

You should see mine, on my back (4h single session).

Myself@29,

Tattoo that is.

Jrkrideau - the vision of Oracle with the full sleeve tattoos (face tattoo too?) made me laugh out loud but he's a robot.. wouldn't be a full decal? But that would hide the blinking lights...

Alain: Adams has never pretended to be consistent.

HDB and JustaTech...so it wasnt just me. Shades of Leo Frank.

@ Rich Bly -

https://xkcd.com/933/

Also

https://xkcd.com/836/

Myself, no tattoos or piercings, because I donate blood.
Say, isn't bloodletting used in certain rituals? ;)

In case you haven't caught the news (I have been away from civilization this week) Polly Tommey has been kicked out of Australia and banned from re-entry for being a danger to public health (and possibly other reasons).

She has been touring Australia with VaXXed, lying to venues about what the bookings are for and making outrageous statements about public health. She hasn't taken her banning well, but I suppose anti-vaccine liars can't help themselves.

Myself, no tattoos or piercings, because I donate blood.

Unfortunately, I can't give blood (Hashimoto disease since 2005); thus, tattoo it is.

Alain

Mine look like this one:

http://clipart-library.com/images/rTjrp58kc.jpg

The wings cover all the width of my back and the pin cover my spine down to the belt.

Alain

How ridiculous. I don't care if the medicine is mud if it works and is safe - but there is the rub. For families with genetic tendencies towards immune system and inflammatory disorders or a history of adverse reactions, these vaccines have been proven to be less than safe. Moreover, they don't seem to be that effective, either.

So it's a simple question, is questionable benefit of not contracting a disease which has a small risk of causing permanent harm to you worth the risk of intentionally assuming the risk lifelong disease or disability from a vaccine that has limited efficacy?

Answering that question must be a personal choice, not mandated by law or coerced by dogmatic doctors.

http://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-vaccinat…

See:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/05/08/a-horrendously-bad-vaxedun…

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/05/18/the-check-must-have-finall…

@Annonymous: since that study has been debunked here and other places as a horrible example of how to do a comparative study, try again.

Vaccines are safer than the disease they protect against, and are generally very effective. True, the flu vaccine isn't as good as we'd like, because the virus mutates so rapidly, and the acellular pertussis doesn't last as long. But scientists are seeking to improve all vaccines.

Nothing is 100% safe. Life isn't safe. And some of us care about others as much as we care about ourselves.

By the way, give *good* peer-reviewed studies that vaccines are "more dangerous" than the disease for For families with genetic tendencies towards immune system and inflammatory disorders or a history of adverse reactions, these vaccines have been proven to be less than safe.

Note that Mercola, Null, and oatext may get you laughed out of the room.

Rats. Beaten by the All-Knowing plexiglass box about the study. :)

It never hurts to reinforce the basics, MI Dawn ;)

Thanks Johnny.

My motto is: Living is hazardous to your health.

You are totally spot on. I remember when I was an anti-vaxxer, how I would see children who had been vaccinated as somehow defiled, with a toxic substance running through their veins.

Right after I posted the above comment, I clicked on an Onion article in my email and at the top, there was the ad "Is your body toxic". Google knows what I type.

Orac writes,

...antivaxers frequently speak in terms of contamination due to vaccines as a cause of autism and all the other conditions...

MJD says,

A few antivaxxers clearly have difficulty grasping the phrase "the dose makes the poison", but, many vaccine safety advocates are certainly worried and uncertain about the phrase "the antigen makes the allergy/autoimmunity".

Master Orac and Master Vinu continue to be the voice of reason for both phrases.

An uncomfortable question when you least expect it

oracknows — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:00:41 +0000

An uncomfortable question when you least expect it

[NOTE: Due to the windstorm last week, I was knocked out of the blogging game for a while and even had to stay in a hotel for one night. We did get our power back late Friday night, but we also didn't get Internet back until much later in the weekend, because our cable went out too. So, I thought I'd have a new post for today, but, alas, I did not. So, continuing on the them of Friday, I thought I'd repost an article of a sort that I almost never do any more. This one was posted over 11 years ago and was last reposted over 5 years ago. Tomorrow, I'll definitely be back.]

The patient list for the day had simply the words "abnormal mammogram" next to her name. That used to be the most common reason that of breast patients came to see me. They have their regular mammogram and are told by their primary care physician that it is abnormal. The next thing they know, they're sitting in one of my examining rooms. However, the patient list is quite brief. It's just meant to be a quick capsule of what patient has what basic complaint. These days, because at my current institution so many more practitioners order breast biopsies, most of the patients I see are already pre-diagnosed with breast cancer. Be that as it may, nothing on the list prepared me for the woman I greeted when I walked in the examination room.

This woman was enormous, and I do mean enormous. Morbidly obese, she told me she wasn't sure how much she weighed, but that it was at least 450 lbs. As she sat in a wheelchair massive enough to support her, rolls of fat hung over the armrests, and her breath wheezed like a mortally wounded Darth Vader near the end of Return of the Jedi, right before he took his helmet off and revealed Anakin Skywalker beneath the mask. Indeed, on the same theme, I could not help but be reminded of Jabba the Hutt. Yes, I know that physicians aren't supposed to think that way about their patients, and, honestly, I tried not to. However, we're human, just like everyone else, and even our years of professional training can't entirely suppress our baser thoughts. Of course, years of practice prevented me from doing the unprofessional and voicing such thoughts to my nurse or any of the clinic staff at all. Not all clinicians exercise such self-restraint, unfortunately, but I try very hard to.

Normally, dealing with a patient with suspicious microcalcifications on her mammogram is fairly simple. A biopsy is indicated, and there are basically two techniques to choose from. You can do an image-guided core needle biopsy, either a stereotactic biopsy (in which the image guidance is mammography) or an ultrasound-guided core biopsy (in which the image guidance is from, well, ultrasound). If neither of these are possible, then the patient will require an old-fashioned surgical biopsy, known as a wire localization or needle localization biopsy. This is a technique in which a wire is placed into the breast under local anesthesia such that the wire sits next to the abnormality that needs to be biopsied. In essence, the wire placed under either mammographic guidance or ultrasound guidance, leads the surgeon to the lesion. Given that even the surgical option is usually a same day surgery using local anaesthesia and sedation, even that isn't so hard. The surgery can sometimes be a little trickier than one might think, but even then it's usually not all that hard. Oh, sometimes you get patients with multiple abnormalities, and you have to decide if you want to go after them all or if you want to perform a triage and decide that some of them need to be biopsied and some of them don't, all the while realizing that if you miss a cancer it can be a major disaster for the patient.

Of course, a 450+ lb. patient adds a new level of challenge. For one thing, she was way too heavy for the stereotactic table; so stereotactic biopsy wasn't even an option, at least not then. (The equipment that we have available now might be able to accommodate someone that large.) Not surprisingly, her health was horrible. She was a smoker, and had severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and sleep apnea, plus hypertension, type II diabetes, and a history of congestive heart failure. Her medication list read like the Physicians' Desk Reference. I needed to examine her. However, I had a very real fear that, even if we could manage to get her up on the examination table (which, so sturdy before, now looked pathetically inadequate for the task of supporting this woman), she would have a high chance of damaging it. So I made do and did my best to examine her while she was sitting in her wheelchair. It was a suboptimal examination, but it was all I could manage. Morbidly obese patients, because of their size, frequently make it very difficult to provide optimal care to the, particularly surgical care.

By the time I was done, I felt profoundly sorry for this woman. How on earth does such a person live the way she was living, given her physical and medical problems? Despite my empathy, I maintained the professional bedside manner that we're all trained to keep up and explained what was abnormal about her mammogram, that she would need a biopsy, and how the biopsy would be done. I also explained the risks (which, for her, were much higher than the minuscule risks most patients undergoing this procedure face), and arranged for her to be seen by her pulmonologist and cardiologist in case something more than local anaesthesia were needed.

When finished, I asked if there were any more questions, gave her my card, and made my way past the family members to the door. Although it was near the end of the day, there were still a couple of more patients to see.

There was.

"Do you believe in God?" she said, looking at me expectantly.

I was still standing there, hesitating. To be honest, my first thought was: Why on earth should it matter whether I believe in God or not? Belief in God has nothing whatsoever to do with whether I'm a competent surgeon or not. Personally, if I needed surgery I'd prefer a surgeon who is a flame-throwing "militant" atheist Richard Dawkins, as long as he or she is highly competent and has a bedside manner that doesn't bother me (and, of course, doesn't push his or her beliefs on me), over an incompetent believer. In the same vein, it wouldn't matter to me if the surgeon is a Bible thumper, again as long as he or she is highly competent, easy for me to get along with, and doesn't push fundamentalist beliefs on me. To me, the question of belief in God is irrelevant to the question of whether a surgeon is skilled or not, but apparently not everyone sees it this way. Thinking back on this incident, I can't help but remember an interview I had heard with Eddie Tabash, an atheist attorney who mentioned during the interview that he sometimes defended prostitutes. During the interview, he went on to mention that it was not infrequent for prostitutes to become very uneasy about having him as their attorney when they found out about his atheism. I had never before encountered this phenomenon among my patients, however.

Worse, the question brought into sharp focus a question that I myself have been wrestling with myself for the last three years or so, a question whose answer seems to be yes one day and no on others. There's nothing like being trapped in a small examination room with a 450 lb. woman and three members of her family, with nowhere to run and no way to dodge the question. I was trapped. A believer might have said that the woman's question was God's way of making me face my fluctuation between belief and disbelief; an atheist might say that such an assertion is wishful thinking. Whichever was the truth, that didn't prevent the formation of a little bead of sweat that was slowly enlarging on my brow. I suspect the question would have still been uncomfortable for me to answer even if I were as religious as I had been when I was younger, as even then I tended to view religion as a private matter, one I didn't usually talk about much, if at all.

What if I were to tell her that I was an agnostic or an atheist, that I didn't believe in God? Would she have sought out another surgeon? For a fleeting moment, I was sorely tempted to say just that. It could have been an out, a way of not having to do the operation and deal with all the attendant risks of major complications from what is normally a pretty minor operation. On the other hand, this woman had no insurance and had to rely on charity care (this was before the Affordable Care Act, obviously), which meant that she probably didn't have the option of going to a different surgeon, at least not at a different institution. The problem was that, if she went to one of my partners, it might have been perceived as "dumping" on them. If that were the case and I said I was an agnostic/atheist/whatever, she would then be going into surgery with no confidence in her surgeon, clearly an undesirable situation. A patient needs to have confidence in her surgeon, and anything that undermines that confidence, regardless of the reason or what I think of the reason, is to be avoided if it is possible to do so within reason.

So what did I finally say?

"I'm Catholic," I said. A pause. "But, to be honest, I don't go to Mass much anymore."

This answer was true, of course, but incomplete. I had been raised Catholic but long ago drifted away from the Church and, more recently, away from belief itself. It seemed to answer her question, but in reality didn't. Not really. The truth was much more complicated, but she didn't need to know that. Fortunately, because the woman was Catholic herself, my answer seemed to satisfy her. "God will guide your hand," she said.

"I hope so," I replied. Bullet dodged.

I walked out of the examination room not looking forward to the day when this patient and I would meet again in the operating room--or to contemplating the way I had handled the situation. To this day, I still can't make up my mind whether my choice was a complete cop out or a clever and diplomatic strategy not to undermine a patient's confidence in me. It was probably a little of both. Whatever the case, in that situation on that day it worked.

Doctors have to make these decisions sometimes.

oracknows Mon, 03/13/2017 - 05:00

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Most of the time, I find that the more loudly someone proclaims his religion, the more likely his version of that religion is a hopelessly warped version of it. With people who identify themselves as Christians, I find specifically that they are more likely to behave as if the words printed in red in their bibles were mistakes, rather than the words attributed to Jesus. I don't have as much firsthand contact with Muslims, but ISIS/al Qaeda seem to be cut from the same cloth.

OTOH, a patient who is so inclined who has been referred to you has better reason than most to consider the nature of any afterlife that might exist. So yes, it's much more uncomfortable for you than for me. You can't simply blow it off like I can.

As another (atheist) physician I have encountered this question often. Part of the reason for the discomfort is the patient is asking a personal question that breaches the boundaries of the relationship. It would have been just as uncomfortable for her to ask how much money you had in you portfolio or how often you had sex with your wife. The patient's belief system leads them to consider religion part of their health care, and you correctly interpreted it that way. IMO, you gave a compassionate, healing, respectful, and honest enough answer.

Orac, To answer your final question. Yes it was a very un-machine like cop out.
Entirely understandable as you are human and subject to human frailties and foibles.
Out of curiosity, what would your answer be now? After eleven years, would you still dodge the question, or would you give a straight-forward answer?
For the entirely nothing that it is worth, to spare her feelings and in the spirit of good bedside manner, I probably would have said much the same thing. Outside of professional obligations, I would have shrugged and said I grew out of belief around the same time I realized the Easter bunny and the fey folk were just as real as God.

@2 Sarah
In-line with your reasoning that it is compassionate, healing and respectful etc to pander to their religious beliefs. Would you be inclined to prescribe placebo/ineffective cures if the patient really believed that they would help? Where is the limit on pandering to someones beliefs? I'm guessing that the state medical boards don't have guidelines on things like this, so I am genuinely curious, and not trying to be any more of an ass then is normal for me.
The thought that asking about someones religious belief is an invasive personal question honestly never occurred to me. I think of it more along the lines of what sports eam do you cheer for or what political group do you like.

@AP: I think you are being a bit hard on Sarah (and Orac) here. The boundaries are not quite so bright.

If you are just the regular attending physician, then I agree with Sarah that the question is inappropriate. The doctor does not need to know your religious preferences (other than cases where certain specific treatments should be avoided if possible, which is on a par with allergies to commonly prescribed drugs and such). What is different about Orac's work is that he is a specialist in a disease which is potentially fatal. Thus, as I pointed out in my previous comment, he is dealing with patients who have a reason to consider the afterlife. I don't fault Orac for telling the truth but not the whole truth here (i.e., that he's a lapsed Catholic). The best solution might be to refer such a patient to the hospital chaplain, but that may not be practical for people being treated on an outpatient basis.

I am aware that often in terminal cases, there is nothing the doctor can do beyond pain management. In such cases the doctor is prescribing a drug that he knows will not help the patient's underlying disease but may help alleviate one of the symptoms. There is a fine line between doing this and prescribing a placebo, and even finer between doing this and prescribing an ineffective cure. Pain management does have a definite downside as well, which is why this technique is normally only used in terminal patients: you worry less about such a patient becoming addicted to painkillers because that is the least of her worries.

Do you believe in sugar pills?
- I love sweet.

Was the name of the woman Gretchen? :-)

Your story was the best real-life example of the "Gretchenfrage" (Gretchen Question) I ever read. In the book "Faust" by Goethe (for those who don´t know this, Goethe is to German literature what Shakespeare is for the English), the girl Gretchen asked the scientist Faust what his stand on religion is, something he would rather not answer (having made a deal with the devil and so). This term is now used in Germany in general to characterize a question that is aiming at the core of a subject and that the other person would like to avoid answering.

I can understand your decision to "avoid" the question, I guess as a medical doctor you are more inclined to put your patient´s well being over your own beliefs. When I was asked similar questions in the past I state my atheism in a simple, matter-of-fact way. No problem here in Europe, but I did get some shocked responses while visiting the USA a few times. :-)

I think the hardest thing about a question like that is not merely what impact the answer will have but wondering what the motivation is. It's a minefield, and there will never be a perfectly safe answer for all situations. I think you answered appropriately, for what it's worth.

It looks like this was a case where the woman wanted to give you encouragement, as her surgeon, and first wanted to see if the way she wanted to encourage would offend you. That's about the best-case scenario in which someone asks. They're not asking to trap you, but to see whether this sort of faith-based encouragement would be welcome.

But you couldn't have known that before answering her question, and that's the tricky part. What if she was troubled by the fear of surgery gone horribly wrong, and wanted to talk about the afterlife? Awkward x1,000 at that point, and a conversation better had with a clergyperson or other religious advisor. But I could totally see someone asking.

Kudos to you for how you handled it.

@5 Eric
I don't mean to be overly harsh or hard on either of them. I understand that different people will have different boundaries as I alluded to with saying **I** saw it as no different then what sports team do you cheer for or what political group do you like. I am also honestly curious what Sarah sees as the difference between prescribing something a patient wants that is useless(placebo or quackery), and encouraging a belief that is false (The doctor shares their religious convictions)

Terminal patient management is another kettle of fish entirely. That is NOT placebo. That is making the patients last days as comfortable as possible. The patient and the doctor should both know that is the case. If the patent doesn't, then there is a major failure in communication. The physicians faith or lack there-of, in my mind, should have no bearing on the treatment provided. Here is where you get into the right-to-die, and religious beliefs interfering with a patients desires. Hence me wondering, where is the line drawn by physicians. I assumed that the state boards don't provide anything more then broad brush guidance, but I don't know and am curious.

So what happened with this patient? Sounds kind of iffy whether she'd be alive today, even if she didn't have cancer.

Outside of professional obligations, I would have shrugged and said I grew out of belief around the same time I realized the Easter bunny and the fey folk were just as real as God.

And if the patient were then to ask how you knew you were "real" or – even better – whether you though she was "real," how would you roll on with this Easter bunny patter?

. To me, the question of belief in God is irrelevant to the question of whether a surgeon is skilled or not, but apparently not everyone sees it this way.

I would see it as a handicap. To believe in something as silly as 'god' is an indication if soft-headedness. Religion is just as bad as woo,since there is absolutely no evidence to support a man the sky.

This is worse than homeopathy. I would believe in homeopathy over Christianity anyday.

@11 Narad
I'd keep it simple. If I can see, hear, touch and interact with you, then we are both real. If she wanted a philosophical debate on what is real and reality, I'd tell her I have other obligations and she can find a philosophy major to debate at the local pizzeria (Yes I am mostly kidding). In essence, anything that can be scientifically proven to exist, I'm happy to acknowledge the existence of. All else is fantasy and word games. Fantasy does have its place, but not in medicine.

Hey Orac,

I had a similar situation recently, but this involved my new dog! Not to say this has any equivalence or catharsis with your turmoil. I'm just reminded and amused.

The shelter said he was boston terrier mix. He is not. He looks very much like a pit bull. Of course that breed has a stigma associated with it. Some building and communities have bans on the breed. My province has a muzzle law. He's the sweetest dog though. Then it became time to register him with the city. Primary breed : Boston Terrier [hey, you guys said it not me] Secondary breed : ____. So should I say pit bull and fight the stigma with my pal? or should I put people at ease and keep my living arrangements open?

Out of bounds questions do not get direct answers. As a general rule, state your role and then elicit support from the questioner to try and address the concern. In short: My job here is to assess the possibility that you have breast cancer as that is what I specialize in. I will also be calling on additional help from your pulmonologist and cardiologist in order to get the best possible outcome for your problems. We will need your co-operation in order to achieve that, and if you find it helpful, we will accept your prayers with gratitude. My experience says next to no-one is aggressive enough to ask the same question again, but if they did, in this case, there is 3 members of the family, which is good, as then one can get more specific on co-operations to take care of her diabetes, hypertension, smoking etc but do not repeat the religion or god part, and I think I would leave the obesity alone, even though there is almost certain probability that the adiposity is the root cause.

Orac,

As I've stated in the past, I was over 511 pounds and had prostate cancer 31/2 years ago. I never would have worried about what religion my doc and other medical providers were or weren't. (Prostate cancer is gone or in remission and I've lost 200lbs)

This woman seemed more concerned with her religion than her health.

How long would this woman have complained if your first question to her was do you believe in god. I would imagine it would have been long and loud.

@ Rich Bly,

I was a power lifter in college and my best dead lift was 475 lbs. (once).

You must have been very strong to walk with such weight.

It’s a minefield, and there will never be a perfectly safe answer for all situations.

I agree. In a polite conversation, I've used the Tom Hanks line in Angels & Demons "Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive".

I've also been known to answer with a flat "no", which can be fun. There is often a follow-up question along the lines of 'are you spiritual?', which I answer 'define spiritual'. I've never received a coherent answer.

I don’t have as much firsthand contact with Muslims, but ISIS/al Qaeda seem to be cut from the same cloth.

In my experience, yeah. I've worked with a few Muslims over the years, even supervised two, one of which made the hadj twice while I knew him. We had several chats about the theory and culture. He gave me a copy of the Koran on his last day.

Like most people, most of them are good guys (and gals). The ones that aren't, aren't.

I think the biggest problem with the perception of Islam is that there isn't an overall leader to denounce ISIS and associated groups. Individual Muslims and Imams do, but that never makes the news.

Anonymous Pseudonym I think that the asking of someone what their religion is is one of those things that has a very variable acceptability in dfferent cultures. In the UK it has traditionally been in distinctly bad taste to discuss ones religious beliefs, although it's quite often possible to guess someones likely beliefs/denomination from various social cues one just doesnt talk about it and actually asking is really rather too intimate in most contexts.

MJD,

Back when I could leg press 1100 lbs and in my mid thirties I slant boarded 875 lbs to show off to a future first round draft choice (9th grade at the time), he played middle linebacker for 10 years.

So when I am in shape, I am fairly strong. I am working my way back, I am now 320lbs. It is a lot of work when you are in your 60's.

# 19 Jazzlet

Essentially the same here in Canada. I was talking to an America and he suggested that is was a friendly way of getting to know who you were in the USA. Weird.

“God will guide your hand,” she said.
Perhap God guided her own hand away from the cigarettes.

Funny how I view this patient's question in a totally different light . . . and her answer as well . . . than most everyone else here.

My response would have been quite different. For me, it would be a golden opportunity to elicit more information about her health care needs from a spiritual perspective.

My answer would have been something like, "What does my answer mean to you?" or "What role do you want God to play in your health care choices?" or "What do you think your diagnosis will mean for you and your relationship with God?" or even a simple, "Do you want me to pray with you?"

I would want to find out if this patient is in spiritual distress. Is she thinking she might soon be meeting her maker? Is she frightened she might die and have to account for her life? If she is, that anxiety is going to impact her decision making process, her response to a cancer diagnosis, her choices in regards to treatment, and even her response to that treatment.

It doesn't matter whether her God exists or not, or if he exists the way she envisions he does (and as a Catholic myself, even in the Catholic Church there is a spectrum of belief, liberal through conservative thinking). It's her anxiety that matters regardless of its source, and it's part of her health care needs.

What her answer to me indicates is she wanted to talk about her own mortality, and had to accept she couldn't do so with Orac. She wanted someone she could pray with, because she was afraid.

You don't have to be a believer to offer spiritual comfort to a patient who is. You don't even have to admit you're not a believer. All you have to do is offer to pray with the patient. I do this all the time with patients, and did before the gift of faith (to paraphrase Tom Hanks's character) came my way. It makes a world of difference.

If the thought of invoking God or Jesus really bothers you that much, let the patient lead the prayer. Or use the term "We call upon our Higher Power." A friend of mine who is a minister often does that when he's leading an interdenominational effort (especially when he knows some of the audience may be atheists or agnostics).

Panacea @23 I have no problem with your approach as, for you, it is a question which is in bounds. However, I would have to be a believer in order to pray with someone in that circumstance, as otherwise, one is condoning a misrepresentation, and from my point of view breaks a bond of trust. Gotta be who you say you are.

You really are not misrepresenting yourself. You are supporting a need of the patient. You can tell the patient I'm not a believer but I will pray with you if you really feel you must. I find it's the support patients really want, not belief.

I noticed the examination room chosen by Orac to begin this post contains boxes of gloves formed exclusively from polychloroprene.

Thank Orac, oh what a relief it is!

Panacea @25 Would the patient then not see that in reality a praying non believer / atheist then would not be actually praying? Does that not start one down the road to the patient thinking about what else may be compromised? Or is the answer as I interpret you, is that believers have a different mindset and are happy to get all the support they can in the world in which they live, not thinking about the implications?

Ohh. That is a big woman. Baby got back. I would have thought that the most uncomfortable and practical question would be "did you just fart?"

“She wanted to know whether she was contaminating the operating theatre she worked in by quietly farting in the sterile environment during operations...

“Our deduction is that the enteric zone in the second Petri dish was caused by the flatus itself, and the splatter ring around that was caused by the sheer velocity of the fart, which blew skin bacteria from the cheeks and blasted it onto the dish. It seems, therefore, that flatus can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if he or she is clothed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121900/

@Ross #25:

I've never met a patient who thought someone praying with them compromised their beliefs. If anything, they might think they're opening the door to faith for such a person. I don't really know what they think about the implications; that's a philosophical discussion not a spiritual one, and it's counterproductive to their needs at the moment to raise the issue.

What matters is the support system we offer. If we're seriously going to claim that we provide holistic care, we have to include the spiritual. Otherwise, we're full of shit, and it's why the quack crowd is able to get a wedge in with some folks--they don't hesitate to stroke someone's spiritual ego whether the quack themselves are believers or not.

Now I'm not suggesting stroking anyone's ego just to get them to go with the SBM program. Far from it. I'm suggesting we take the spiritual needs of our patients seriously regardless of what we ourselves believe. It really doesn't have to be that complicated. You simply have to ask the patient what they need form you on a spiritual level. Be available to the patient on a spiritual level. You don't have to claim to have all the answers or even share the faith or any faith with the patient. You don't have to lie to them or compromise your own beliefs. Just be sensitive.

Sometimes the needs are as simple as allowing a woman from some faiths to cover her head when an unrelated male is present. It only takes a second, but I've known many male physicians and nurses who are oblivious to this need and just barge into a room even when there's a sign on the door asking them to knock and wait for permission to enter first.

Really, how hard is it to hold someone's hand and pray for them?

Quite easy for me, I do believe, but not in any dogma. No books or prophets for me. I feel it quite wrong for a man to get between a man and the creator.

It really throws em

Similar to Panacea's posts, her question could have been her way of trying to do a good deed for a doctor who did an excellent job of caring for her, Orac. Patients with multiple morbidities like hers are, sadly (as you note), often either openly disrespected by health care providers or criticized harshly during office visits for their lifestyle choices; so, when a doctor doesn't do that, they are very grateful. People with strong faith can be more concerned about what happens after they die than having/keeping good health while alive on planet earth, and this could have been her reaching out to help with that (from her perspective). If you had told her you didn't believe in God, she might have told you why she feels you should (and offered to pray for you) instead of dismissing all you'd just covered with her--but I also agree there's no easy way of knowing and the safer answer was not to say no out of fear of derailing the whole visit). I've never had that question asked of me--and I agree it's a tough one to field especially at the end of a clinic visit.

Panacea @29
Thanks for taking the time to expand.
Seems we are essentially back to what Orac wrote: "To this day, I still can’t make up my mind whether my choice was a complete cop out or a clever and diplomatic strategy not to undermine a patient’s confidence in me. It was probably a little of both."

You're welcome, Ross :)

I would suggest that this post (repost) is an opportunity for those of us here who are health care providers to think about the issue, and how we would respond to a patient who asks a question like this.

Addressing the spiritual aspect of our patients is something many providers don't do well, and feel uncomfortable doing. It doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to mean compromising our own values or beliefs systems.

I tried the "I was raised Catholic" dodge once, but it didn't work.

Who ordered a mammogram for a woman with so many comorbidities? I covered the hospital one weekend and cared for an 84 year old with recently diagnosed BC and end-stage COPD. At that age, with an FEV1 of 0.27, and frequent lung-related admissions, a mammogram was not indicated. The cancer diagnosis was more cruel than helpful.

Panacea, what you have described is literally a nightmare for me. I am having a physical reaction to the idea of someone asking me to pray with them, let alone the idea that *I* would ask them to pray with me.
It's just about the most private thing I can imagine and I have never been able to understand why people want to share it outside of a designated space (eg worship).

If that's what's required of clinicians and anyone who works directly with the public then I guess I'm going to have to stay on the investigation/data side of public health.

StellaB @34: Maybe the patient found a lump herself and asked for a mammogram?

@JustaTech: it might surprise you to hear me say one of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 6:5, which pretty much tells the faithful to keep their prayers private.

In health care though, when a patient asks me to pray with them, they're typically looking for support and comfort, not to proselytize.

Naturally if a patient traps a caregiver trying to convert them, the caregiver is not obligated to stick their hand in a steel trap.

Required is a loaded term. You won't find it in any job description, and lots of people dodge the bullet.

Panacea @37: And if you can't give them comfort that way? I can fake it through grace before dinner, but I really don't think I could hide how uncomfortable I am at someone praying out loud in a language I understand.

My spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) are no one else's business, and anyone else's spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) are none of my business. And I really resent when people interrupt an unrelated situation, like a visit to the doctor's office, to ask.

A psychologist as part of determining a treatment plan? Sure. My GP? No. It would seriously damage the relationship I had with my doctor.

My spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) are no one else’s business, and anyone else’s spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) are none of my business. And I really resent when people interrupt an unrelated situation, like a visit to the doctor’s office, to ask.

Aye, and it can go both ways, so to speak. I was told by one of the staff members at the psych ward I was in this past summer that suicides go to hell. I don't know if she was aware that my dad committed suicide when I was a kid.

At the same place, another staff guy explicitly asked during group therapy who believed in the "power of prayer." I was the only one among the two staff members and numerous patients who didn't raise my hand. This was uncomfortable, to say the least. I was then later interrogated by yet another (very Catholic) staff member later on when I was reading the Bible if I "didn't believe in it." I answered that it was because it was the only piece of real literature in the library there, and it sure beat reading crappy mystery novels. Granted, when the other patients told me I was going to hell or tried to preach to me or whatever, that couldn't be blamed on the institution, but staff members?

I mean, at St. Joe's in Michigan they had Mass, and I think somebody once told me that it was available (for Catholics, I presume), but nobody ever pestered me about religion there. Not even the other patients, for whatever reason.

I'm not asking anyone to do something if they're so diametrically opposed to doing it. I'm merely suggesting spiritual care is something over looked or ignored by health care providers of all stripes, and something we should take more seriously as a profession.

Belief can be dangerous, for example it can stop people considering the truth.
Where's your report on this study?
Is it coming?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316334.php
I hope those that said vitamin c was quackery are held accountable for the deaths of the many people who were convinced not to try it.
Insolence. Beliefs are like stones, the immovable ones are deeply entrenched

Maybe you noticed the study you quoted is an in vitro study?

Perhaps Mr. Hunt thinks petri dishes are equivalent to full human body. Relevant graphic:
https://xkcd.com/1217/

Jim Hunt @ 41

Looks like you will have a long wait for a report on how it may work in humans, as the authors in the conclusion state: "Future studies will be necessary to test their potential for clinical benefit in cancer patients."
Always better to read and understand the study, rather than read a news summary. Saves on erroneous conclusions.

Panacea @40: You did say that if SBM clinicians don't talk about spirituality with patients then the patients are driven to woo. That's a pretty strong statement.

I would also suggest that there is an entire profession of people who's only job is to look out for the spiritual needs of people. Just as I wouldn't ask my priest about this funny mole (she would tell me to go see a doctor) I wouldn't ask my doctor to explain transubstantiation.
But I guess most patients don't have that kind of boundary?

My first thought was that she was trying to find out if you were saved. And if not, to share the Good News™ with you. I am not a medical professional of any kind but if asked the same question the answer you gave substituting Baptist for Catholic would be accurate.

Your reply did not answer her question. But it did defuse a potential awkward situation while maintaining professional conduct.

@ Chris #43

Ha! I wondered how long before someone linked to that.

NumberWang, I think in this case it is pretty much mandatory.

@JustaTech: uh, when did I say that? That's not what I said.

Here's what I actually said: "If we’re seriously going to claim that we provide holistic care, we have to include the spiritual. Otherwise, we’re full of shit, and it’s why the quack crowd is able to get a wedge in with some folks–they don’t hesitate to stroke someone’s spiritual ego whether the quack themselves are believers or not. "

I stand by that statement. But what I said was if SBM providers ignore the spiritual needs of their patients, that opens the DOOR for the woo meisters; it gives them an avenue to make a connection with a patient who might otherwise not be inclined to it. What I said does not mean that every patient who is spiritual will go towards the woo, whether their spiritual needs are being met or not.

We all know that the quacks are attractive to some patients because they are good at talking to their patients. We also know that some physicians, PAs, even some NPs and nurses, are lacking in the bedside manner department. Quacks work hard on building a personal connection with patients. People are inclined to trust practitioners who build a personal connection with them.

So it follows that if a practitioner cannot or will not address the spiritual needs of a patient, even acknowledge that they exist, then patients who are looking for that connection will find it elsewhere, and they may find it with a quack. Improving our approach as SBM practitioners, we can head that off and keep patients where they can get care that actually works, and is in their best term long interest.

None of that means that failing to address the spiritual literally drives patients to woo.

When the next big outbreaks happen, they'll probably happen in Texas

oracknows — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 06:00:33 +0000

When the next big outbreaks happen, they'll probably happen in Texas

Back in the day, I used to write posts with titles like When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California. I even wrote a followup, When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California, 2014 edition. The reason, of course, was that California was one of the epicenters of vaccine hesitancy as well as the home to some high profile antivaccine-sympathetic physicians, such as Dr. Bob Sears (who’s known for making Holocaust analogies about bills tightening school vaccine mandate requirements) and Dr. Jay Gordon (who’s known for continuing to claim, against all evidence, that vaccines cause autism). Of course, it was true. The outbreaks did happen in California, culminating with a large outbreak after Christmas 2014 known as the Disneyland measles outbreak.

Then a funny thing happened in 2015. California passed a bill, SB 277, eliminating non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The law took effect this school year, and antivaccine activists are, of course, not pleased, assembling a motley crew to oppose the law. Time will tell whether SB 277 has its intended effect of increasing vaccine uptake and maintaining herd immunity, but early indications are that it will.

Now, apparently, we have to turn our attention to another big, populous state where public health is potentially being endangered. Now, most people would probably assume I’m referring to another coastal state with a lot of liberal politics and crunchy New Age-y types, like California, but I’m not. I’m referring to Texas. Yesterday, I saw an article in Science by Kai Kupferschmidt entitled Why Texas is becoming a major antivaccine battlefield:

Peter Hotez used to worry mostly about vaccines for children in far-away places. An infectious diseases researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Hotez is developing shots against diseases in poorer countries such as hookworm and schistosomiasis.

But now, Hotez is anxious about children much closer to home. The number of schoolchildren not vaccinated against childhood diseases in Texas is growing rapidly, which means that the state may see its first measles outbreaks in the winter or spring of 2018, Hotez predicted in a recent article in PLOS Medicine. Disgraced antivaccine physician Andrew Wakefield has set up shop in the Texan capital, Austin, and a political action committee (PAC) is putting pressure on legislators facing a slew of vaccine-related bills.

"Texas is now the center of the antivaxxer movement,” Hotez says. “There is a big fight coming,” adds Anna Dragsbaek of The Immunization Partnership, a nonprofit organization in Houston that advocates for vaccinations.

Now, in fairness, the article notes that currently Texas still has one of the highest rates of vaccine uptake overall, but as I try to pound home time and time again, it’s not just statewide uptake rates that matter. It’s local pockets of low vaccine uptake that lead to declining herd immunity or community immunity. Whatever you want to call the phenomenon of high vaccine uptake protecting even those who can’t be vaccinated or won’t vaccinate, we’re starting to see a situation in Texas that is worrisome and possibly outright alarming: skyrocketing rates of personal belief exemptions, from 2,300 in 2003 to nearly 45,000 so far this year, more than a 19-fold increase. A graph from the PLoS Medicine article tells the tale:

Looking at that graph, I see little sign that it’s starting to plateau, and public health officials agree. The trend looks as though it will continue. If I were a public health official in Texas, I’d be alarmed, and they are. Of course, at the risk of being repetitive—but when did that ever stop me?—I have to emphasize that it’s not just raw numbers. After all, Texas is a big state. If those numbers were spread out, the trend would still be of concern, but not quite so alarming as it is. From the PLoS article by Peter Hotez:

Measles vaccination coverage in certain Texas counties is dangerously close to dropping below the 95% coverage rate necessary to ensure herd immunity and prevent measles outbreaks. For instance, in Gaines County in West Texas, the percentage of exemptions is now 4.83%, while in Briscoe County in the Texas Panhandle, the percentage is 3.55% (Table 1) [5]. In the very large Austin Independent School District (Travis County), the exemption rate is at 2.02% [5]. Especially troubling are many of the private schools, mostly in Travis County—the Austin, Texas area—where exemption rates often exceed 20%, including more than 40% of the Austin Waldorf School [6]. The rising numbers of nonmedical immunization exemptions across the state in combination with pockets of very low coverage in vulnerable populations is extremely troubling.

Now, I know what antivaccine apologists will say here. They’ll say that those rates are still high. Yes, that is true, but the trend is in the wrong direction. As noted by Hotez, in some counties MMR uptake is falling close to the range where herd immunity will start to waver. It’s not there yet, but it’s trending that way, which is why Hotez is concerned that by next winter there could be outbreaks. Then, of course, there are the private schools, such as the Waldorf Schools (schools I like to refer to as disease vectors because of the Waldorf philosophy that discourages vaccination), much like the case in California. These schools almost always have very high personal belief exemption rates and low vaccine uptake rates.

It’s not as though Texas hasn’t had outbreaks yet, either. For instance, in 2013 there was a measles outbreak centered at a Texas megachurch. The outbreak started when a person who contracted measles overseas visited Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, located about 20 miles north of Fort Worth, Texas. This particular church is part of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. (Terri Pearsons is Kenneth Copeland’s daughter.) Kenneth Copeland and Terri Pearson promote all sorts of “natural healing” woo that you could easily find at Joe Mercola’s website, and, as is so common with believers in “natural healing,” they are (or at least were) antivaccine. In the wake of the outbreak, Terri Pearsons actually encouraged those who haven't been vaccinated to do so, adding that the Old Testament is "full of precautionary measures." Sadly, this is a common theme. Antivaccine warriors remain stubbornly antivaccine until the consequences of not vaccinating hit home.

Of course, I have no idea whether this sermon represented a true change of heart. Googling “Terri Pearsons” and “vaccines” brought up scads and scads of hits about the Eagle Mountain measles outbreak, but I didn’t have time to keep searching for more recent statements by Pearsons on vaccines. I do know that, even at the time, Pearsons’ statements were contradictory in that she still expressed concerns for “very young children with a family history of autism.” In any case, fundamentalist religious communities have become a new center for vaccine resistance and disease outbreaks, and Texas has those in abundance, which is another reason for concern in the face of rising personal belief exemption rates. They represent a fertile ground for antivaccine pseudoscience to take root.

There’s another thing Texas has that contributes to measles outbreaks, unfortunately, and that’s Andrew Wakefield:

But Hotez believes the situation in the Lone Star State is more perilous. One factor is the arrival of Wakefield, widely seen as the father of the modern antivaccine movement. Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet in 1998 that alleged a link between the MMR vaccine (which combines shots against measles, mumps, and rubella) and autism. Several large studies have failed to find the link, Wakefield's paper was retracted in 2010, and he was disbarred as a physician after the U.K. General Medical Council found him guilty of dishonesty and endangering children. Wakefield has appeared at screenings of his film Vaxxed, released in April, all over Texas and has testified at many city councils, Dragsbaek says. “He is definitely a major influencer.”

I’d be somewhat cautious about this assessment, though. Andrew Wakefield has lived in Texas for well over a decade, basically having fled his home in England after having sparked an antivaccine panic there. I have no doubt that Wakefield is a major influencer. Also, in 2016 he’s been more active than ever, having released an antivaccine propaganda film, VAXXED, that peddles the conspiracy theory that is the “CDC whistleblower” and promotes pretty much every common antivaccine lie known to the antivaccine fringe. His partners in woo, Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey, have been traveling the country to show up at screenings and promote the movie. Sometimes they’re even joined by Wakefield himself, who is a rock star among antivaccine activists. Sometimes they meet with federal legislators; sometimes they meet with state legislators; sometimes they meet with Donald Trump. (OK, Wakefield and his fellow travelers only met with Trump once, but once is bad enough.)

I just want to emphasize, though, that this goes way beyond just Wakefield:

Meanwhile, a PAC named Texans for Vaccine Choice has sprung up after state Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican lawyer from Dallas, proposed scrapping nonmedical exemptions last year. (The Texas House of Representatives voted down the bill.) “While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Dragsbaek says. “They made Villalba's primary campaign very, very difficult.” Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children. (It's also helping them apply for exemptions.)

We have our own version of this PAC in Michigan, but fortunately it seems not to have anywhere near the influence. The Texas PAC is more active, including its online presence. It peddles the usual antivaccine myths, with articles resenting being called out for pseudoscientific beliefs that endanger children and instead trying to peddle the risible narrative that these parents have made a “thoughtful decision to selectively, delay, or decline vaccines in the state of Texas.” I like to call such decisions pseudo-thoughtful. They appear thoughtful to parents because the parents actually do think a lot about their decisions, but they aren’t really thoughtful in that the parents’ thought is wasted because it’s based on misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Particularly hilarious is an article that tries to make a virtue of being a crackpot—excuse me, a cracked pot. Of course, yet another of my irony meters exploded when I read a post on an antivaccine site complaining about trolls.

It’s a common misconception that antivaccine views and vaccine-hesitancy are primarily the provenance of crunchy coastal liberals. They’re not. As I point out frequently, antivaccine views are the pseudoscience that transcends political views. Unfortunately, we very well might be seeing evidence of that in Texas when the next measles outbreaks happen there.

oracknows Fri, 12/02/2016 - 01:00

Tags

Antivaccine nonsense

complementary and alternative medicine

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

complementary and alternative medicine

That's the sad thing, antivaccidiots lean to both sides of the political spectrum. It is like the episode of south park with the time migrants: aging hippie liberal douche and intolerant redneck conservative both being so dumb on this matter. The former thinks anything involving a corporation is automatically evil and thinks we can live on a commune "naturally." The latter is just mad whenever a new scientific breakthrough leaves one less thing attributable to an invisible man in the sky. Oh, and toss in the anarchist-caliber libertarians who just hate the FDA and any other government agency.

Over and over I say it, just like with that megachurch Orac mentions. This won't end until an outbreak leaves a lot of people dead. It will literally take a 1930s-style flue epidemic taking a couple dozen lives to wake some of these people up. The annoying thing is modern medicine can save far more people who catch these diseases now than fifty years ago, which the antivaccidiots try to use as evidence that vaccines aren't necessary.

Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children.

I'm not about to take Ms. Hardy's unsupported word that she isn't anti-vaccine or that her organization isn't trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous. Why would parents exercise their "right not to immunize their children" unless they thought that vaccines were dangerous? (In the case of children who qualify for legitimate medical exemptions they would be right, but that's a minority of cases.)

Furthermore, there is the well-known principle that your right to swing your fist in the air ends at my face. Likewise, parents' "right to not vaccinate their children" (for non-medical reasons) should not override other parents' right to not have their children needlessly endangered by the children of non-vaccinating parents. That's just basic ethics. Which the large subset of anti-vax parents who call themselves "fundamentalist Christians" ought to have learned in church if nowhere else, and most people learn from their parents.

I'll make a motion to put Arizona 2nd in line behind Texas for outbreak likelihood given that: (1) Arizona had the nation's worst MMR vaccination rate per the CDC for 2015 ( 84%, http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/09/02/cdc-arizon… ) and, (2) an analysis of kindergarten vaccination rates found that "About three out of every five kindergarten classes with 20 or fewer students had such low vaccination rates last year that measles could easily spread among the children" ( http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2016/0… ).

True, Arizona does not have Wakefield, but it does have the perhaps even more disgustingly stupidly ignorant, openly anti-vaccine moronic duo called "The Drs. Wolfson", who recently sold out an event in Phoenix ironically called "Wide Awake", which is soon to be a "documentary" in the same way Vaxxed is.

These groups are emboldened by the election of this next President. They are aggressively going after legislators at the federal and state levels. What I do not understand is why vaccine advocacy groups are sitting back and letting this happen so damn passively.

"Likewise, parents’ “right to not vaccinate their children” (for non-medical reasons) should not override" the rights of children not to have unpleasant, potentially very damaging, if not fatal, preventable diseases...

@Zach #1
" This won’t end until an outbreak leaves a lot of people dead. It will literally take a 1930s-style flue epidemic taking a couple dozen lives to wake some of these people up. "

This would convince most anti-vaxxers, but the die-hards still wouldn't be convinced. I think they only thing that would make the die-hards vaccinate is if most of the doctors and scientists suddenly decided that vaccines were bad and recommended that no one get them.

Most of the rabid anti-vaxxers also don't believe in regular dental care, drink raw milk, believe in homeopathy, etc. It's more about defying authority. If the authorities said not to vaccinate...

I think this is a good time to apologize on behalf of all my fellow Texians.

We're sorry for being home to Burzynski, Thoughtful House, Andrew Wakefield, the Texas Board of Education, Mike Adams the Health Ranger, and a radical mixture of ultra-libertarian separatists (Republic of Texas nutters) and old hippies drying out in our western deserts; our redneck swamp people in the east, and the People's Republic of Austin, which will support anything involving "ancient wisdom", anti-corporatism, or involving cannabis as medicine.

We're sorry for the Marfa Lights, mega-churches, people who protest outside mosques with AR-15s, open carry at Chili's, guns in university classrooms and laboratories, and we're especially sorry for Rick Perry (oops).

I'm sure I missed some, but just rest assured that there's a Rational Underground here, too. We'll continue to fight... and we will win.

In addition to thus active PAC, Texas is home to Dawn Richardson, who does advocacy for nvic, and however misguided, is highly competent.

On the other hand, Texas has a talented and devoted team in their immunization coalition that works hard to protect Texas' children.

This is a very well timed post Orac. I live in Texas, and there are actually 2 small mumps outbreaks in Texas right now - in Dallas and in Johnson County, near Dallas.

Hopefully they are contained, but I am concerned that it does not bode well for my state. And the situation would probably be worse if it was cases of measles rather than mumps since measles is so much more contagious.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/Mumps-Cases-Identified-in-North-Texas…

Eric Lund:Likewise, parents’ “right to not vaccinate their children” (for non-medical reasons) should not override other parents’ right to not have their children needlessly endangered by the children of non-vaccinating parents. That’s just basic ethics. Which the large subset of anti-vax parents who call themselves “fundamentalist Christians” ought to have learned in church if nowhere else, and most people learn from their parents.

Ethics and morals aren't the same thing and never have been. Fundamentalist Christians tend to do or encourage a lot of things that aren't ethical, like forcing women to have kids they don't want, forcing people into conversion therapy, covering up domestic abuse and rape cases in their community and defending child abuse that is disguised as training. They consider this moral because God is fine with them punishing people who are 'sinful.' God is, in general, a totally unethical being.

From the CDC: Who should not get vaccinated?

Any child who suffered a brain or nervous system disease within 7 days after a dose of DTaP should not get another dose.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/should-not-vacc.html

MJD says,

How can such statements reinforce vaccine confidence?

@ Orac and minions,

If a child suffers a brain or nervous system disease within 7 days after a dose of DTaP and thereafter the parents refuse to give their other children the DTap are they antivaccine quacks?

@10 Michael

That statement alone does not reinforce confidence, but the knowledge of how rare actual issues occur. So does the evidence of that statement that the cdc does, in fact, research vaccine safety. I don't think anyone is arguing that there should be zero vaccine exemptions ever.

The problem is that parents who don't know what they are talking about are trying to avoid vaccinating their children for non-medical reasons. These reasons include, but are not limited to a hatred of the US government and anything remotely related to a federal policy, religious beliefs that ignore scientific evidence, a deep distrust of modern medicine based mostly in conspiracy theory, and the narcissism that simply donating the genetic material to a child means you become the expert in all matters relating to that child.

The problem is that the quacks harm the children who have legitimate reasons, supported by research and evidence, to not receive a full vaccine schedule. Everyone who is able to should vaccinate so that we don't infect those who can't.

The existence of one medical reason does not create evidence supporting anti vaccine beliefs that have been proven false over and over and over and freakin' over. That's not even considering how much time and money is wasted re-testing and re-proving that Andrew Wakefield was wrong.

It's all those immigrants; Dey took ur hurd imunty

If a child suffers a brain or nervous system disease within 7 days after a dose of DTaP and thereafter the parents refuse to give their other children the DTap are they antivaccine quacks?

Not for that reason, no.

Zach says (#11),

That statement alone does not reinforce confidence, but the knowledge of how rare actual issues occur.

MJD says,

Then the CDC should place some statistics next to the warning so parents can better understand the incidence of such vaccine induced diseases.

In my opinion, this lack of effective communication only reinforces antivaccine tendencies.

I hope Gilbert's post @12 is snark, but I see no obvious signs that it is.

If a child suffers a brain or nervous system disease within 7 days after a dose of DTaP and thereafter the parents refuse to give their other children the DTap are they antivaccine quacks [sic]?

Not for that reason, no.

Um, if you say so. It's curious that susceptibility to "common vaccine injury" is accepted by the colander-wearing brigade as being mamesh genetic, but the subject is utterly taboo when it comes to autism per se. Everything must be once (or twice, or thrice) removed.

I hope Gilbert’s post @12 is snark, but I see no obvious signs that it is.

One more step, and the data reduction will be complete.

The CDC continues to use the phrase "Herd immunity" when describing vaccination rates.

The definition of the word "herd" when used as a noun is as follows:

a large group of animals, especially hoofed mammals, that live, feed, or migrate together or are kept together as livestock.

Again, this incorrect and inappropriate terminology used by the CDC continues to erode consumer confidence in vaccines.

In Orac's posting yesterday (12/1/16), a video showed Dr. Humphries using the phrase "community immunity".

It's amazing how dissension can sometimes force a desirable change in how we think and communicate.

some 250 children held in Dilley this weekend were mistakenly given full adult doses of the Hepatitis A vaccine...

“Children have been forced to sleep with the lights on, are subject to intrusive checks regularly throughout the night, and have been dragged from their beds at 4:00 am to be given shots while their mothers must stand helplessly by without being told what is going on or being allowed a say in the matter,” ...

... she visited Dilley over the past week and met with a mother who complained that her 4-year-old child was “feverish, not eating, having trouble walking, and complaining of the pain in his leg” after receiving the vaccine. “The latest incident again makes clear why children and their mothers should not be detained,” Hines said in a statement. “Private prisons cannot care for families and these facilities must be closed.”

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/hundreds-of-detained-immigrant-kids-in…

So, maybe vaccines aren't so safe when mandated and administered by an inept bureaucracy.

Ironically, Mexico and a lot of central American countries have better vaccine uptakes than the US does.
Also, MJD, get out of MN. Shouldn't you be with your fellow dimwits, not preying on the Somali community?

PGP says (#20),

Also, MJD, get out of MN. Shouldn’t you be with your fellow dimwits.

MJD says,

I'd like to work at the CDC in Atlanta, GA and help improve the vaccine-safety communication effort.

I think people should stop being so bloody precious. Stop whinging about the term 'herd immunity'. Realise we are an unusually intelligent animal and nothing more.

Eric:
I consider the mocking 'redneck spelling' in Gilbert's #12 an obvious sign of snark. I also take Gilbert's #19 as an example of his typical response when minions take his ironies too straight. Which is never to clarify his intent, but to double-down on what you think he's saying with a reference to some news item, which he just puts here without actually saying what credence or importance, if any, he may think it has. In short, he's not taking a position; he's just twitting your sensitivities,

@ NumberWang
How 'bout you stop being so bloody condescending, and realising that the connotations of 'herd' when applied to collective immunity increase the probability children with suffer needless threats from VPDs?

And how 'bout you stop being so bloody stoopid, since – especially in TEXAS (that would be the Longhorn state) – the connotations of 'herd' go way beyond 'animal', and are pretty much mutually exclusive with "unusually Intelligent"?

@ c0c0rdance:

You left out Jake Crosby @ University in Austin ( see his 'Autism Investigated' blog**)
and Gary Null's The Texas Villa ( health resort/ retreat) in Mineola,
TMR's 'Tex' a/k/a Thalia Michelle Seggelik ( sp) of MAMMA ( a MJ advocacy group)
and Alex Jones.

** I know you have a strong stomach I've seen your work.

"Crunchy coastal liberals" -- A relatively minor point to be sure, but after a few decades of being stereotyped as LaLaland and worse, we of the coastal persuasion do get a bit weary of the whole thing. My county has approximately the population of the state of Michigan (give or take a couple hundred thousand) and voted about three-fourths for Clinton in the recent election. Somebody remind me of how those stalwarts of red blooded American values, Michigan and Wisconsin, voted. I merely point out that there is liberalism and there is crunchy, and the two are not necessarily the same thing. You might also remember that Bob Sears is holed up in a conservative corner of the state's second most conservative county. I suspect that one reason for California's reputation is that it was a wide open place where people of all persuasions settled, so they had to either learn to live among each other or start a new civil war. A spirit of tolerance on the broad scale is characteristic of California, with some fairly conservative places interspersed.

I might also point out that Sears and Gordon together make up about 0.2 percent of the pediatricians in the area. I would suspect that they get more publicity than they deserve, partly based on the fact that some national news comes out of this region.

@ Bob G:

Right.
Here in that other bastion of liberalism, crunchy doesn't usually apply except possibly out in the ( so-called) Country where rich people, artists and hippies reside- some of them growing organic vegetables / dying fabrics naturally as a sideline.

Some of the liberal elites are actually elites- working in the markets, buying companies, running things in general etc.

Ironically, Mexico and a lot of central American countries have better vaccine uptakes than the US does.

Really, PgP? What does it matter? For part of 'undocumented' is not knowing the vaccine status -- To shoot'em up with it all in a minimum time frame must be prudent, right?

I'm waiting for immigrants to be blamed for spreading leprosy when the reality is that, after coming here, they were introduced to the local cuisine; indigenous 'possum-on-the-half-shell' aka armadillos which harbor the disease.

http://www.livescience.com/52792-armadillos-leprosy-bacteria-spreading-…

Actually, Gilbert - if vaccination status can be determined by available records (and yes, US authorities do check with their south of the border counterparts), then vaccines aren't given when not necessary.

crunchy doesn’t usually apply except possibly out in the ( so-called) Country where rich people, artists and hippies reside

And even then, only a subset of these are anti-vax.

Having lived in northern New England for mumblety-mumble years, I'm familiar with crunchy liberals. Those are the people who elected Bernie Sanders Mayor of the People's Republic of Burlington, and subsequently Representative and Senator from Vermont. The spillover of that crowd into western New Hampshire, plus their compatriots in places like Nashua, Concord, Portsmouth, and Dover, has been enough to turn this once thoroughly Republican state[1] purple despite the influx of self-selecting Republican voters moving from Massachusetts into the bedroom towns of Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties. But one can be a crunchy liberal and still be practical--being practical is a necessity in places with winters that last as long as ours do. Are some of them anti-vax? Probably. But so far (knock on whatever is handy), not enough to matter.

[1]When I first moved to New Hampshire I registered as "undeclared" (i.e., independent) because in many cases the Republican primary was the de facto election (we have semi-open primaries here). I finally dropped the pretense in February as (1) that is no longer the case and (2) I am not willing to wear a hazmat suit, as would be needed for me to take a Republican primary ballot these days, at the polls. Come January we will have an all-Democratic congressional delegation; as recently as ten years ago it was all-Republican.

Nifty, Lawrence. Many are escaping oppresion from south and central America --

I'm sure their real names of John Barnett, John Bigboote, John Camp, John Careful Walker, John Chief Crier, John Cooper, John Coyote, John Edwards, John Fish, John Fledgling, John Gomez, John Grim, John Guardian, John Icicle Boy, John Jones, John Joseph, John Kim Chi, John Lee, John Littlejohn, John Many Jars, John Milton, John Mud Head, John Nephew, John Nolan, John O'Connor, John Omar, John Parrot, John Rajeesh, John Ready to Fly, John Repeat Dance, John Roberts, John Scott,
John Smallberries, John Starbird, John Take Cover, John Thorny Stick, John Two Horns, John Whorfin, John Wood, John Wright, and John Ya Ya all have accurate medical histories. ICE's google fu must be really powerful.

My bad; How could I forget the higher echelon of John Valuk, John Emdall, John Gant, and John Parker.

Despite the excellent BB reference, you are still a putz....

Guess you've never spoken to border patrol agents....

Gee, Gilbert @31, that list of names sure sounds like you're saying nasty things about Native Americans.

Some here have been accused of tarring with a broad brush, but you choose to use a hose and an industrial fan.

MJD @18: Fun Fact! Herd immunity is also found in heard animals!

Besides, I *like* the image of herd immunity as a herd of bison (immune persons) circled up to protect the young against wolves (VPDs).

OK, Justa Tech;

Count upon the sun
As it will always watch you growing
Count upon the land
To sow the seeds in every young man.

Beating on the drum
Shouting at the moon
No matter what the promise is
I'll never move from this old land of mine.

The promise is to pay
Just watch the people try to steal
The land beneath the clay
The land on which our blood has stained the grass.

Beating on the drum
Screaming at the moon
Promises, oh promises
I'll never move from this old land of mine.

It's a far far cry
>From all the words of exultation
A far far cry
How each child is supposed to be equal
I'm amazed
As you look the other way
To this day
We still don`t believe

Far far cry
Beating on the drum
Far far cry
Screaming at the moon
Beating on the drum
Far far cry

How long do we need to push our brother to the ocean
How long do we need to push our sister to the sea
How many broken promises until we get the message
That until we know the equal we will never feel the free?

It's a far far cry
It's a far far cry
It's a far far cry
So until we know our equal
We commit our suicide.

Beating on the drum
Screaming at the moon

Count upon my heart
As you can feel the earth is beating
Count upon my love
And there is heaven for the taking
Count upon the rest
Count upon the last
Count upon the past
As it will wait until we're coming home.

Far far cry
It's a far far cry
It's a far far cry
It's a far far cry

How long do we need to push our brother to the ocean
How long do we need to push our sister to the sea
How many broken promises until we get the message
That until we know the equal we will never feel the free?

Oh snap, it's another Jon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRQuSC220g

Of course I heard animals!

@ JustaTech #33
The list of "Johns" Gilbert posted is from the film Buckaroo Banzaii.

In the movie, Buckaroo, a neurosurgeon/particle physicist/race car drive/rock star discovers the Earth was invaded by an alien race called the Red Lectroids in 1938. They were accidentally sucked here through an interdimensional warp and stranded due to the backwards state of Earth technology. In the present, the Lectroids have all become employed by defense contractor Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems, where they are building a space warship for themselves under the ruse of working on a new bomber for the U.S. Air Force.

Buckaroo's team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, finds out about Yoyodyne and hacks into their computer. They discover that everyone there has the first name John, with various odd last names such as Yaya and Smallberries. At first they believe it to be a joke, but then they notice all the Yoyodyne employees applied for Social Security cards on November 1, 1938 and all in the same town: Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

The list Gilbert posted was created by fans scrutinizing stills of the Yoyodyne employee list shown on-screen in one of the Cavaliers hand's and adding the names there to the ones spoken as dialogue by the characters looking at the list.
And, it's not Bigboote, it's Bigbooté,..

@ JustaTech #33
The list of “Johns” Gilbert posted is from the film Buckaroo Banzai.

Buckaroo’s team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, finds out about Yoyodyne and hacks into their computer. They discover that everyone there has the first name John, with various odd last names such as Yaya and Smallberries. At first they believe it to be a joke, but then they notice all the Yoyodyne employees applied for Social Security cards on November 1, 1938 and all in the same town: Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.

The names in #31 compose the entirety of the list of Yoyodyne employees complied by fans from scrutinizing stills of a paper list shown on-screen in one of the Cavaliers' hands and adding the names there to the ones spoken as dialogue by the characters reading from the paper.

And, it’s not Bigboote, it’s Bigbooté,..

sadmar @37: Ah, thanks! I've never seen Buckaroo Banzai (although I think I've seen some of their props in a museum).

Gilbert, I apologize.

Thx, sadmar. It seems to be a play on the effectiveness of knowing who/quantifying immigrants who may not wish to divulge their personal info -- I know the feeling.

I suspect that one reason for California’s reputation is that it was a wide open place where people of all persuasions settled, so they had to either learn to live among each other or start a new civil war.

Something something Spahn ranch something.

MJD: I’d like to work at the CDC in Atlanta, GA
And sabotage vaccines. Fixed that for you.

Oh and what a surprise, Gilly's going full white-sheet on us again. I'm sure the Klan has internet forums, why doesn't he hang out there instead?

Ya know, I thought that list looked familiar. Gil, isn't that movie a bit intellectually challenging for you? I'd think the Captain Underpants fandom would be a more suitable place for you.

I'm currently in Amarillo, which has it's own Adams/Null wannabe in Roby Dean Mitchell.

He has a huge billboard on the west side near his office north of I-40. In October it said Amarillo's best doctor, neglecting the fact that his license was suspended in 2012.

He has changed it to

Vaccines Can Cause Autism
Choose Intelligent Design

But he should have added

Carry a Glock

which is apparently part of his little black bag.

http://m.amarillo.com/news/local-news/2016-06-24/former-amarillo-doctor…

Incidentally, he was acquitted because he has.a concealed carry permit which had been temporarily suspended.

I looked up his eponymous web site and it had no articles on autism and only one search result for vaccines.

Vaccines Can Cause Autism
Choose Intelligent Design

Crank magnetism at its finest.

And what makes this idiot think packing heat will help him with his problems?

@Erix Lund

It beats me.

Not sure if it's any safer than his cancer treatment!

Narad: "Something something Spahn ranch something"

Too soon.

But yeah, there was that. I suppose another example of our crunchy liberalism is that we've had two female United States Senators since 1992, and nobody even seems to notice it as an achievement or as unusual. On the other hand, I have it on good authority that until recent years, medical care in southern California was something of the wild west, with unqualified doctors operating their own private surgical hospitals and occasionally doing a lot of harm. Doctors transplanted from Philadelphia and Boston were a bit shocked at what they saw.

JustaTech @38

I've never even heard of Buckaroo Banzai...Is this 'cos of my age or 'cos I'm UK-ian?

@Murmur, I saw it on TV once a great many years ago. I vaguely remember it.

Perhaps Rebecca Hardy will consider adding to her list parents' right not to use car seats, Everyone knows that the safest place for an infant or small child is in mommy's arms.

@Murmur: Here is the IMDB page. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension was made in 1984, and is something of a cult classic.

Roby Mitchell had his Texas medical license revoked back in 2005; the board issued a cease-and-desist order in 2012 to try to stop him from continuing to practice medicine (strange, since injecting a patient's blood into a cow's udder and then having him drink the milk sounds like a swell melanoma treatment to me).

Mitchell (or should I say, "Dr. Fitt")'s Facebook page shows he is a disciple of a certain Friend Of The Blog:

https://www.facebook.com/DrFitt/posts/1085840198149491?comment_tracking…

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension was made in 1984, and is something of a cult classic.

Cult classic? Cult classic? It''s absolute bedrock. Breaking Away could be called a "cult classic." Real People and The Deer Hunter might as well be called "cult classics" for all the traction that references to them is likely to have by this standard.

Repo Man I'll grant you. Wax, fer sure. But not Buckaroo Banzai.

Bullshit. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is about as stone cold cult classic as exists out there.

Thinking that prosecuting attorney in San Anton may actually be a character from the 8th dimension.

^ Ummm, Ordinary People, that is – haven't had coffee yet. I propose the simple standard described here by The Handsome Family:*

Some folks are like umbrellas
They pass through your life with little meaning
And then there's the ones who make you hang on to every word

* Although Flannery O'Connor is in sub-umbrella territory as far as I'm concerned. The song is also correct about the projective plane.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is about as stone cold cult classic as exists out there.

Strangely, nearly everyone here seems to be well aware of it.

Consider the readership of this blog. The reason everyone who reads this blog knows about it is because of the nature of people who tend to be attracted to this blog. Now try going outside of the sort of skeptic, science-oriented, science fiction-loving bubble. You'll find that few will have heard of it.

"Where ever you go, there you are...."

Now try going outside of the sort of skeptic, science-oriented, science fiction-loving bubble. You’ll find that few will have heard of it.

Don't make me start a GoFundMe campaign to support a NORC survey.

...injecting a patient’s blood into a cow’s udder and then having him drink the milk...

Eugh.

Going back to Buckaroo Banzai, there were plans to turn it into a TV show. I think it would have worked better in that medium.

Going back to Buckaroo Banzai, there were plans to turn it into a TV show. I think it would have worked better in that medium.

That notion is utterly horrifying to me – it's too dense. I recall some talk of actually making the "promised" sequel,* but that's just silly.

* For true obscurity, I think the same throwback device was employed at the end of the Doc Savage movie with Ron Ely.

There is still a plan to turn BB into a TV series for Amazon with Kevin Smith. The problem is that the intellectual property rights issue is very convoluted, which has tripped up previous attempts to make a sequel. This time, a lawsuit over IP rights has driven Kevin Smith to drop the project. Will someone else pick it up? Who knows?

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/16/kevin-smith-buckaroo-banzai-tv-ser…

http://deadline.com/2016/07/buckaroo-banzai-tv-series-deal-kevin-smith-…

http://screenrant.com/buckaroo-banzai-tv-series-kevin-smith-rights-movie

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/11/28/kevin-smith-buckaroo-banzai-tv-ser…

Thanks, DB.

But if course the friend us not anti-vaccine and neither is the movie!

Pull the other one too while you're at it.

At least I know where to find firewood if I figure how to use it in my electric only apartment.

LoL, Kevin Smith?

Buckaroo, I don't know what to say. Lectroids? Planet 10? Nuclear extortion? A girl named "John"? Jay and Silent Bob?

I did love the Cameo appearances.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261392/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_BdsFZ74E

There is still a plan to turn BB into a TV series for Amazon with Kevin Smith. The problem is that the intellectual property rights issue is very convoluted, which has tripped up previous attempts to make a sequel. This time, a lawsuit over IP rights has driven Kevin Smith to drop the project. Will someone else pick it up? Who knows?

Now, that's geekery. I was just going to ask the fellow at the dollar store (Palestinian, but his family has relocated to Lebanon; his wife just earned an Ed.D. and found the job market to be awful) whether he knew it.

The imaginary survey instrument is poking into my moving-on-Monday freakout, though: Worcestershire sauce – relatively obscure, or cult classic? Spumoni (my grandmother used to get pint boxes from Walgreens)?

Will somebody turn off that gosh darn Sadmar klaxon?

At least I know where to find firewood if I figure how to use it in my electric only apartment.

Did Karen Black have an electric oven in the third part of Trilogy of Terror?

OK, I'll knock it off.

The reason I thought that a TV series would have been better was due to sadmar's comment that Buckaroo is a "neurosurgeon/particle physicist/race car driver/rock star". That's an extremely...wide reaching character, and that's why I believed it would have worked better over a TV Series as opposed to a two-hour film. More room for the character to do stuff.

I'm not really in the Buckaroo cult, fwiw. Some of the riffs you can do it in everyday life are fun, especially 'John Bigbooté' but also other Lectroid 'John' bits and Dr. Lizardo impressions.

The main reason I know the film is that it came out when I was in grad school and a lot of younger media studies academics were into it, as... ready? ...something that dovetailed with pomo culture theory. IIRC, well known cul-studs-and-pomo dude Larry Grossberg had a "No matter where you go, there you are." t-shirt.

If you want obscure cult from that era: Liquid Sky.

Don’t make me start a GoFundMe campaign to support a NORC survey.

I'm not sure the minions could hit the GoFundMe goal, since you'd have to come up with $500,000 to get Anthony Mawson to put up a web-poll here:

1. Are you inside or outside the skeptic, science-oriented, science fiction-loving bubble?
( ) INSIDE
( ) OUTSIDE

2. .Have you heard of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension?
( ) NO
( ) YES

Watch for the results to be published in Frontiers In Communication. Subscribe now!

"sadmar klaxon"?? huh??

Lord John Whorfin: Will somebody turn off that gosh darn klaxon?

def. klaxon: an electric horn or a similar loud warning device.
????
=======

(strange, since injecting a patient’s blood into a cow’s udder and then having him drink the milk...

Yum. Is that some kind of occult practice of the dark art, or something?

Dear Tony, I am so looking forward to the Spirit Cooking dinner at my place.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15893

http://www.infowars.com/spirit-cooking-clinton-campaign-chairman-invite…

More room for the character to do stuff.

Yah, but "neurosurgeon/particle physicist/race car driver/rock star" is really just the first 20 or so minutes of the movie. Buckaroo is simply a hero. Let us* recall, for example, the character Scooter.

This is what called to my mind the Doc Savage angle. SRSLY. Tom Swift could fit into this mold, but not a part-and-parcel ensemble. G-d help us from Buckaroo MOTW episodes. Kolchak was much better suited.

* TINU.

Loved Buckaroo Banzai! Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd... very fun movie!

I’m not sure the minions could hit the GoFundMe goal, since you’d have to come up with $500,000 to get Anthony Mawson to put up a web-poll here

That was my initial guess, but I think I could talk them down.

“sadmar klaxon”?? huh??

I'm packing for a move. If you haven't seen the movie, do so immediately. If you have, don't post lengthy cut-and-paste summaries.

Ahh yes. Moving sucks.

I hope you have use of a good car.
_____

I wasn't going to ask JustaTech to go watch the movie just to explain Gilbert's joke.

Cosmic coincidence...? The Red Lectroids seem to have invaded the "Bogus Internet Survey" thread @ comment #139...

Gil: Why don't you just go hang out with your fellow trogs at Brietbart? You don't need to keep dropping your trumpturds here. Seriously, everyone knows you're in the Klan.

"It’s a common misconception that antivaccine views and vaccine-hesitancy are primarily the provenance of crunchy coastal liberals. They’re not."

Yet earlier you point out that the highest rate of non-medical exemptions is in Austin - the most liberal city in Texas.

Yerushalmi, good spot!

Yet, how does the liberalty of Austin score when compared to cities outside of Texas?

injecting a patient’s blood into a cow’s udder
This sounds like a case for the Humane Society.

PgP, I'm not in the clan..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c65T90Q3OZ8

Trump's cabinate picks are starting to scare me; Jeff Sessions (do not want), Mike Pence (banned kratom), moar torture, stop-and-frisk. But most importantly, as I've predicted here before, possibly cosying up to that instigator of extrajudicial killings over there in the Phillipines.

President-elect Donald Trump wished the Philippines well in its bloody war on drugs during a call with President Rodrigo Duterte Friday, according to statements by the Philippine leader.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/duterte-donald-trump-praised-philippines-dr…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/03/philippines-rodrigo-duter…

Blood and cow's milk are natural, so the treatment must be good.

On a related front, we should solve the opiate crisis by giving people marijuana instead of pain pills. Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors apparently thinks so.

"You look at something that comes from the earth -- any vegetable that comes from the earth, they encourage you to eat it, you know? So I guess it does make a little sense, as opposed to giving someone a manufactured pill. Like, if something takes your pain away the way some of these pills do, it can't be all good for you."

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/warriors-draymond-green-agrees-with-s…

Have some datura, henbane, pokeweed and poison ivy, Draymond. They're all "vegetables from the earth".

Cannabis is good for pain but maybe not as good as this natural herb, https://www.regulations.gov/docketBrowser?rpp=25&so=DESC&sb=postedDate&… for many people.

In other anti-vax news...

It appears that Dan Olmsted
( Age of Autism,/ yesterday/ weekly (fish) wrap)
is *almost* pleased that Real Clear Science has named his site one of the worst on the 'net. He is only surpassed by Natural News ( #1) and Mercola (#3).

Dan might set his sights higher .. or is it *lower*?

Correction: Mercola (#2).
I can actually count .

DB:
Sheesh!

1. First of all, nobody is looking to Draymond for expert opinions on anything but basketball. Nor is Draymond presenting himself as any sort of authority.

2. He's just bullsh*tting. He was responding to reporter asking for comment on remarks Steve Kerr had made about medical marijuana, which had drawn criticism:

[12/2] If you're an NFL player, in particular, and you got lot of pain, I don't think there's any question that pot is better for your body than Vicodin. And yet, athletes everywhere are prescribed Vicodin like it's Vitamin C, like it's no big deal.
[12/3] The conversation was really about pain relief in professional sports. Because of the way the world works, the way the media works, what is a very serious conversation about pain relief turns into the headline, 'Kerr smokes pot.' But I'm actually kind of glad it became an issue. It's a very important issue to talk about. You get handed prescriptions for Vicodin, Oxycontin, Percocet, NFL players, that's what they're given. The stuff is awful. The stuff is dangerous. The addiction possibility, what it can lead to, the long term health risks.

The issue that's really important is how do we do what's best for the players. If you do any research at all, the stuff they're prescribing is really bad for you. The stuff that they're banning is fine. I'm always struck every time I'm at home on the couch watching a sporting event, some drug commercial comes on and they show these happy people jumping in a lake, rowing a boat, and you just wait for the qualifier: 'Side effects include suicidal thoughts and possible death.' And you're just like 'this is insane'. It's insane. It really is. And yet the stigma is not on those drugs being prescribed day and night to anybody. The stigma is on something that's relatively harmless.

I do find it ironic that had I said that I’ve used OxyContin for relief from my back pain, it would not have been a headline, And I always feel bad for the NFL guys. Playing in the NBA, I had lots of injuries, plenty of pain. I never took anything like the opioids we're talking about. But NFL guys, those guys are basically in a car wreck every week. Sometimes twice in five days which is another issue. But when they're prescribed that, it's really scary. Especially when they're prescribed by team doctors when you do research on the possible repercussions.

When Draymond was asked about the resulting Kerr-fuffle, of course he stood up for Kerr, who is not only his coach but an all-around great guy. So he tried to make the same points about football players and the dangers of opiods, and also that pot is stigmatized far beyond it's danger in comparison. This was an on-the-spot interview, so he just grabbed the first Draymondian expression that popped into his head, which was basically, 'Why y'all afraid of vegtables? I thought they were supposed to be good for you.' He's a guy who's known for colorful hyperbole, a sort of un-serious expression that still addresses some serious point.

In short, the NBA fans who are the primary audience know the context, and won't take him literally.

3. Kerr and Green were only discussing pain treatment for professional athletes, not the opiod crisis in general. Their argument is not that all athletes be given medical cannabis, and none given opiods. It's that players would be better served if effective-enough, less-dangerous pain treatments were available for those for whom they would serve.

4. As far as the non-pro-jock population is concerned, that still sounds like a damn good idea to me.

That's an awful lot of dithering, considering the main point was to highlight the idiocy of saying "any vegetable that comes from the earth, they encourage you to eat it, you know?"

Opioids also derive from or are related to "vegetables that come from the earth".

I realize that I'm addressing someone who thinks physicians just hand out pills willy-nilly without considering other approaches.

# 59 Orac
Now try going outside of the sort of skeptic, science-oriented, science fiction-loving bubble.

Hey, I'm in that bubble and I never heard of it but I almost never watch movies and I don't own a television. Clearly I am ignorant of most popular culture. Thank heavens.

I hope you have use of a good car.

Use of? Sure, although in a limited fashion, as I'm moving into somebody's sunroom. I got me a truck coming, too, up to the storage space.

But you've failed to infer my surname as it's credited in print on rare occasions. One's vehicle represents the state of one's ego, and vice versa, of course.

Gil, dope fiend, you voted for him;, or more charitably you decided to throw your vote away by"voting" for a third party because your bro feelings were hurt by seeing a competent woman running for office. You don't get to complain about the great Orange Id now. So why don't you go away to your native douchebro habitat?

You can only call it dithering from a stance that somehow "idiocy" inheres without exception to the words 'any vegetable that comes from the earth, they encourage you to eat it, you know?' regardless of context.. THAT is idiocy. You are also being evasive about the subtext of your comment: "we should solve the opiate crisis by giving people marijuana instead of pain pills." If you were merely concerned about the naturalistic fallacy of plant/natural/good – pill/manufactured/bad there was no need to frame that with a snide crack at the availability of medical marijuana. Perhaps what you consider 'the main point' was the least telling part of your comment. perhaps, regardless of your imagined intent something else functions very much as 'the main point'.

Speaking of 'dithering,' what shall we call your response to getting something important quite wrong, by shrugging it off as 'not the main point'? Which point you only generated by taking Green's words out of the context – not just the context of who he is and who he's speaking to which would be bad enough, but out of the context on the printed page. Or, as I believe skeptics call it, cherry-picking.

I can't say that I've read into it much. I've never been a guy who has done it, period, so I can't say that I know much about it. But from what I hear from, whether it's /b>football guys, I think a lot of them do it because of all the pain that they go through. And when you read Steve's comments, it makes a lot of sense. You look at something that comes from the earth -- any vegetable that comes from the earth, they encourage you to eat it, you know? So I guess it does make a little sense, as opposed to giving someone a manufactured pill.

Green declares he has no knowledge or authority on the subject of medical marijuana, but he guesses there might be a little that's sensible in Kerr's comments, based on what he does know about football players prescribed opioids for the pain the game wreaks on their bodies. Kerr's point was 'If we're going to let football players take dangerous opioids, it makes no sense to deny them relatively harmless medical pot.' Green expressed that with a typical-for-him off-the-wall metaphor Or, if you will, a "joke', in that neither he nor his fans actually think everything that grows is a 'vegetable' in the sense of what your mom told you to you had to finish eating before getting desert.

Why on earth do you imagine this mild off-the-cuff comment from a professional basketball player is worthy of posting here? Unless, maybe you have some 'issue' beyond your declared 'main point'? Lest you be unaware, there are many many folks in North America who would read 'Draymond Green thinks we should solve the opiate crisis by giving people marijuana instead of pain pills' as 'another Black gangsta just selfishly looking to get a free pass on his partyi drugs'. Good job snipping off the part where Draymond says, "I've never been a guy who has done it, period".

You also cherry-picked distorted Green's printed comment by lopping off the end:

Like, if something takes your pain away the way some of these pills do, it can't be all good for you... he talked about Vicodin and Toradol -- like, you can be completely hurting and then take a Toradol shot and go through a game and feel nothing. Is that really good for you over the course of time? I doubt it. So I think it makes a lot of sense...when you really dive into what he actually said and not the initial thought of, "Oh man, it's weed,"

IIRC, sbm, advocates have made exactly this point about medications that cover up symptoms in a way that may lead to further injury. And that in reference to average J. Does, not extraordinarily fast and powerful athletes taught to 'play through pain' as they hurtle into full-speed collisions with one another.

I’m addressing someone who thinks physicians just hand out pills willy-nilly without considering other approaches.

Ha ha ha. Like I wouldn't recognize the little trick of using language that fails to distinguish between global application and limited application. Back at ya' "I'm addressing someone who thinks physicians hand out medical vaccination exemptions without getting valid documentation of a justifying condition." Doctors, you just can't trust 'em.

What I have actually said is I know of many PCPs who will prescribe benzos at the drop of a hat. I have also said psychiatrists sometimes prescribe meds when other approaches might be better, because that is all they are able to offer within the systemic restrictions imposed by insurance companies and medical groups. I have never said these limited cases involved the prescription of pills "without considering other approaches"; more like "under-considering other approaches." Other than those things, I can't say I know what you might be referencing.

you’ve failed to infer my surname

I didn't try. Are you really Al Jourgensen? Hazel Motes?

One’s vehicle represents the state of one’s ego.

My vehicle is a '96 Honda Civic with a dying battery, two worn out tires, rust starting to creep on the rocker panels, and an interior that hasn't been vacuumed since who-knows-when littered with discarded fast-food wrapping and – usually – a haphazardly unfolded road map. But it's the Del Sol model with a VTEC so it has a little character, charm and even a pit of pizazz on occasion. Really. That's my real car. And while I've honestly never thought of it, it does represent my ego to a 'T'.

Also seriously, I hope you've got a space-heater for that sunroom. As you probably know, I'm from Minnesota, and I'm getting shivers just thinking about rooms w/o insulation in your neck of the woods.

@ jrkrideau

If you have a computer, that's all you need to catch the cool sci-fi movies and shows, while retaining your ignorance of most pop culture, which is mostly dreck.
**cough, cough**bittorrenrt**cough, cough**

You can also get a good idea of what is and isn't worth checking out from Rotten Tomatoes and other review/fan websites. For Sci-Fi shows I've already gushed here at RI over the most excellent 'Mr. Robot', but 'Black Mirror' is really good, too. "Fringe' is a somewhat older show that was good most of the time, though the long-term narrative just fizzles as with most continuing shows with serial elements.

For not terribly old sci-fi movies: Children of Men, Snowpiercer, Another Earth, The Lobster...

One of my favorite flicks of recent years is the unconventional 'biopic' Experimenter, based on the life and work of Stanley Milgram. Highly recommended to all.

Since we're now discussing films on this thread, I'd like to mention a recent one that was a crashing disappointment to me and a lot of other people.
Absolutely Anything
Directed and co-written by Terry Jones and featuring him and the rest of the Monty Python members as well as the late Robin Williams. The story involves a teacher, Neil Clarke (Simon Pegg), being given the power to do absolutely anything he wishes by a group of aliens as a test. If he fails, Earth will be destroyed.
I was expecting a triumphant last hurrah from the Pythons and Williams. What I got was a mediocre, dull, cliched and mostly unfunny film. Check the reviews on "Rotten Tomatoes". It's judged rotten, and for good reason in my view.

National Academy of Medicine: Vaccines contain not only peanut oil, but sesame, fish and soy oils.

pg. 241
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23658/finding-a-path-to-safety-in-food-alle…

"Allergens in Vaccines, Medications, and Dietary Supplements

Physicians and patients with food allergy must consider potential food allergen exposures in vaccines, medications, and dietary supplement products (e.g., vitamins, probiotics), which are not regulated by labelling laws.
Also, excipients (i.e., substances added to medications to improve various characteristics) may be food or derived from foods (Kelso, 2014). These include milk proteins; soy derivatives; oils from sesame, peanut, fish or soy; and beef or fish gelatin. The medications involved include vaccines;
anesthetics; and oral, topical, and injected medications. With perhaps the exception of gelatin, reactions appear to be rare overall, likely because little residual protein is included in the final preparation of these items. The specific risk for each medication is not known.
Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein or gelatin. "

The result:
http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5225/rr-0

@vinu, Citing something You yourself wrote as proof for the claims you're making is regarded as onanistic.

Julian Frost: "Citing something You yourself wrote as proof for the claims you’re making is regarded as onanistic."

And just stupid. So is the being onanistic... that is also very stupid, because it does not prevent anything.

#96 Julian Frost,

I did not write the NAM report ...

@vinu, the extract you posted above has the words "potential", "may be food or derived from foods" and "reactions appear to be rare overall, likely because little residual protein".
That's not proof.
We had this discussion before around a year ago. What you have is a lot of conjecture, and very little hard data.

Vaccines contain not only peanut oil, but sesame, fish and soy oils.

Err, no.

The full quotation, right over there at #95, is:

The medications involved include vaccines; anesthetics; and oral, topical, and injected medications.

I have this feeling that, in this list, oral and topical medications are the ones containing animal or vegetable oil, but it's just me.
I guess one shouldn't expect dietary supplements to contain stuff coming from food.

The result:

Err, no. Not "the result".

A badly-written recap of your arguments that you piggybacked in the comment section of a bona fide scientific article with conclusions opposite to your opinion.

@ Narad:

In the *sunroom*? It sounds so Victorian,
At any rate, good luck with that.

"Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein"

No sh1t Sherlock, erm they grow some of the viruses in eggs and have been using animals to grow viruses since the 1800s. Strange that there wasn't a surge in Beef allergies, from way back then.

Now either you knew that and are maliciously spreading Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty.

Or you didn't know this and should be dismissed as someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.

Pick one.

Well, the state of one's vehicle as representational as one's ego..
that's debatable.
*Par example*, my own ego is quite fine thank you but I drive ( most of the time- I have use of others' vehicles as well) an ancient faded, black 4wheel drive thingie that would look perfectly at home barreling across the savannah in order to photograph cheetahs or to deliver medical supplies to a stranded outpost .
But it runs astonishingly well despite its years so how can I give it up?

Denice@103: I'm with you on that point. I drive a vehicle which is old enough that, if it were a person, it could legally buy alcohol in the US. But it handles curves nicely (an important consideration where I live) and does well in light to moderate snow (also an important consideration where I live). It even does well on dirt and gravel roads--surfaces that many SUVs seldom if ever see. The car has been up the Mount Washington Auto Road, as well as through Sandwich Notch on a rainy day.

It helps that most of the time I walk to wherever I'm going. But I can depend on the car to get me there if I need to get somewhere beyond walking distance

In other anti-vax news...

Today Anne Dachel ( AoA) discusses Orac/ Orac's friend, Dr DHG in regards to his article about Trump's choice for Secretary of HHS. Adams and Bolen have the goods on these fellows.
See comments.

Julian: Have you ever seen Brazil? I think Terry Jones or Eric Idle wrote the script. I need to find a copy to own. I’d also recommend the History of Future Folk, and if you haven’t seen Childhood’s End or the Day the Earth Stood Still, you’re in for a treat. (Also, I’ve been listening to a lot of old podcasts, and I found a rebroadcast of R.U.R., the Czech play responsible for the word robot joining the English language.)

The peanut-oil-in-vaccines meme continues to circulate despite zero evidence.

An antivaxer I recently encountered triumphantly submitted as proof a decades-old patent application for a vaccine, which mentioned possible adjuvants to be used with it, including peanut oil. There was no indication the patent application ever was approved, that the vaccine was ever trialed or OK'd for use, or that any ingredient of it ever included peanut oil.

Standards of evidence in antivax-land are notably lax.

Peanut oil is not approved by the FDA for use as an adjuvant in vaccines.
Peanut oil is used in injections.
Kelso, J. M. 2014. Potential food allergens in medications. J Allergy Clin Immunol
133(6):1509-1518; quiz 1519-1520.

Since it is approved for injection, cross contamination to vaccines is easily possible and why would people invest in controlling contamination by a ingredient approved as safe?.
The problem is that designation that peanut oil is safe, is WRONG.

It is impossible to remove proteins completely from peanut oil.
The human immune system is THE best protein detector.

It takes a lot less protein to cause the development of allergy than it takes to cause an allergic reaction. Please see details here:
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/evidence-that-food-proteins-in-vacci…

Have you ever seen Brazil? I think Terry Jones or Eric Idle wrote the script.

That's one of my favorites. Though, it was written and directed by Terry Gilliam; Michael Palin, also of 'Python fame, plays the particularly dark part as Dr. Jack Lint.

Arresting Officer: This is your receipt for your husband; and this is my receipt for your receipt.

"...We're all in it together, kid."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olXUIcb80N0

Gil: Stop pretending to be an intelligent lifeform. No one's impressed. Seriously, go back t o Reddit and the My Little Ponies, you mega-creep.

I suppose Gil is a good example of the sad little boner problem plaguing the sci-fi community and specifically the Hugos right now.

Vaccines contain not only peanut oil, but sesame, fish and soy oils.

Oh dear God, not this again.

the sad little boner problem plaguing the sci-fi community

Lord, you are acerbic. The Sad and Rabid? I had never heard of them until you were 3itching about it awhile ago. I have it on good faith that those attempting to game that system will soon not be too much fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFTubAdXP8

Children of Men, Snowpiercer, Another Earth

sadmar, since the first two on your list was so powerful, I just watched the other one-- Seeking redemption and botched that way up to; A strange little flick, Thx.

I'd like to throw in The Quiet Earth (also 1985 and filmed in New Zealand).

"I've been condemed to live."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB1tYT_iNkQ

And since PgP likes Terry Jones, Eric the Viking (1989).

Director:Terry Jones
Writer:Terry Jones
Stars:Tim Robbins, John Cleese, Mickey Rooney

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097289/

# 89 Narad

One’s vehicle represents the state of one’s ego

I have a 5 year old Norco Aviva with brand new bright red panniers. Not quite sure what it indicates about my ego but I get great mileage. I figure about 25km/banana.

I need to get the winter tires on tomorrow.

# 93 f you have a computer, that’s all you need to catch the cool sci-fi movies and shows, while retaining your ignorance of most pop culture, which is mostly dreck. **cough, cough**bittorrenrt**cough, cough**

I'll have to learn. Experimenter definitely sounds interesting. His experiments were quite famous when I was a psych undergrad a few years ago.

I’ll have to learn.

One would also need something that plays all the various formats:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Eric Idle wasn't involved in writing Brazil. Terry Gilliam wrote the original story and the first draft of a screenplay with a guy named Charles Alverson – who didn't get a credit and didn't like the direction the film went from there anyway. The screenplay was then re-written over a number of drafts by Tom Stoppard, the celebrated English playwright of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead., Jumpers., and Travesties. Gilliam made changes to the shooting script, which he has described as "making a bit of a mess of the neatness that Tom had brought to the film, and then tried to make it a bit more murky." However the story and dialogue retain a lot of Stoppard's trademark absurdist wit. Here are some Stoppard one-liners, mostly from R. & G.. Do note that they're written from the perspective of the characters, whose ideas are not necessarily the same as the author's:

“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
“We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.”
“A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.”
“War is capitalism with the gloves off”
“If they are all so obsessed with change they should begin by changing for dinner.”
“The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.”
“If rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans! ”
“People do terrible things to each other, but it's worse in the places where everybody is kept in the dark.”
“Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.”
“The scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear.”
“I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.”
"I was trying to face one way or the other and I got confused and fell over. Let that be my epitaph.”

G: What's the first thing you remember?
R: [thinks] No, it's no good. It was a long time ago.
G: No, you don't take my meaning. What's the first thing you remember after all the things you've forgotten?
R: Oh, I see... I've forgotten the question.

________

True story: I saw Brazil on it's release in an old movie theater that had been duplexed by just building a wall down the middle of the original auditorium. The original screen had been slightly curved, and the seating pattern had been slightly concave to account for that. This left each part of the halved auditorium with the screen at an angle. The projectors, in the old booth, also beamed out at an angle in the remodeled house, from positions close to the new center wall. Anyway, I was there by myself at a poorly attended early evening screening, so I had my choice of seats. I planted myself at my chosen distance from the screen, close to dead center on the projection – which in this hatchet-job remodeled theater put me in a seat right next to that added center wall.

This wall was built on the cheap, and as Brazil went on, I was repeatedly distracted by noise coming through the divider from the half-theater showing a different movie on the other side. Not just the boom crash explosion soundtrack, but the chatter and exclamations from whoever was sitting in the mirror image seats to mine. I looked over to the wall a few times in annoyance, may even have said 'shut up!'. It mas me against them.

And just then, the scene below came on the screen. When the movie was over, I walked home in a daze, as if I'd just passed through The Twilight Zone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr3eIAIFyo8

^^ sadmar, nailed it!

@ Eric Lund:

Mine is over 21 as well.

I've driven it in all sorts of horrible conditions : relatively deep unplowed snow, ice, sand, rocks, water, up unpaved steep roads and overgrown rocky forest paths where branches scratched its exterior and roof.. Occasionally, I helped people who WERE stranded by snow or flood- mostly the elderly- when they needed meds or food.

People stop me in parking lots offering to buy it. I'm waiting for someone who can offer me a movie deal.

At other times, I can be seen in a pale gold Jaguar or either a black Japanese or Korean functional vehicle.

Interesting that you draw a parallel between Texas and California. These two states are not as separate as you might think. Migration from California to Texas has been relatively large over the past decade, dwarfing immigration to Texas from any other state. 60,000 Californians moved to Texas in 2013 alone.

So this may be one factor lowering vaccination rates in Texas. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if migration out of California to other states, including Texas, increased after the passage of SB 277.

I hope you've all read the latest shocking revelations about the HPV vaccine as detailed on the real health news websites like Health Impact News and David Icke's site. Another actual scientist just like Dr. Thompson (Mahin Khatami, formerly of the NCI) has ripped the cover off the HPV vaccine scam and revealed the truth. Excerpt from the abstract in Clinical and Translational Medicine:

"Analyses of data and hidden agenda behind repeated failed outcomes of cancer research and therapy, status of American health, safety concerns for HPV vaccines and future research considerations are summarized in this commentary. A closer look at cancer science reveals that highly power structure (system) in medical establishment vs. anti-system and chaos in cancer research (‘medical/scientific ponzi schemes’)* is potent recipe for failed therapeutics that kills patients but generates huge corporate profit."

Yes.

Khatami also tells us that cancer is a delayed hypersensitivity reaction, that HPV vaccination causes premature aging, and reveals that emerging clinical data demonstrates the health dangers of HPV vaccination.**

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40169-016-0126-1

All in all, a fun read, and better not criticize Dr. Khatami as she can be litigious (a superior at the NCI (where Khatami worked before being the object of "forced retirement" in 2009) took out a Peace Order against her to prevent alleged harassment, and wound up being sued by Khatami).

http://www.semmes.com/publications/cases/2012/02/federal-torts-claims-a…

*The paper chastises cancer specialists who, in the immortal words of Rumi, "cannot see the camel in the minaret but can see the hair in its nose!"
**I'm a bit confused about the scholarly references Khatami supplies to document the clinical harms of HPV vaccination, as both involve articles in Health Impact News focusing on rather different subjects (one is by Barbara Loe Fisher blasting flu vaccination, and the other is a rant about the vaccine "police state".

failed therapeutics that kills patients

Imagine my surprise and disappointment that no-one at Springer is proof-reading the Abstracts. What is Dr Khatami's first language?

Imagine my surprise and disappointment that no-one at Springer is proof-reading the Abstracts.

It's pretty bad overall (e.g., "the evil part of human being"), but that one could maybe be filed under "singular in construction."

^ Ah yes, "<blocquote;gt;"; my 'k' key seems to be trying to compensate for the 'm' key's hyperactivity.

my ‘k’ key seems to be trying to compensate for the ‘m’ key’s hyperactivity.
I blame the highly power structure.

Better buy Khatami's book ("Cancer Research and Therapy - Scam of Century - Promote Immunity [Yin-Yang]") before it's suppressed by the power structure. From the summary on Amazon (only $48 for the paperback edition!):

"This report assesses the multi-factorial criminal motives that a highly sophisticated medical hierarchy [cancer establishment] designed for creation and control of a sick society that is drug-dependent. The power of establishment grew since 1955 when public was inoculated with million doses of virus-contaminated polio vaccines that sharply increased the deadly cancer incidence and mortality and many chronic diseases. This book is timely as additional funding [VP Biden Moonshot Initiative] is provided to support the same establishment that created the cancer tragedy for huge corporate profits...The author believes that ‘Love doesn't want people to stay ignorant and frightened. Love doesn't value obedience over all else. Love doesn't judge and find some lives, or loves, more valuable than others. Love doesn't use people and throw them away...’ Jay Jason Stacy."

Better buy Khatami’s book (“Cancer Research and Therapy – Scam of Century – Promote Immunity [Yin-Yang]”) before it’s suppressed by the power structure.

I am happy to wait for the copy-paste trolls to quote the best bits.

The author believes that ‘Love doesn’t want people to stay ignorant and frightened. Love doesn’t value obedience over all else. Love doesn’t judge and find some lives, or loves, more valuable than others. Love doesn’t use people and throw them away…

I'm reminded that HHCBH Art Kleps used to recommend Love's Body by Norman O. Brown as an example of (IIRC, potentially) Snazzm thinking, but I've never gotten around to it.

Love’s Body by Norman O. Brown

I tried reading "Love Against Death" once, only to discover that Brown had set out to beat the records previously set by Freud, Marcuse and Lacan for ex-cathedra bullsh1t.

Please see details here:
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals

Oh dear. Paying the low-life grifters at OMICS to include your claims in one of their journal-shaped dumpsters means that you have wasted your money on a write-only press release.

Judging a book by its cover?
The BMJ and NEJM published references to it.

Why don't you provide the EVIDENCE instead?
You talk about evidence based medicine but practice EMINENCE based medicine?

I believe that the good Herr Doktor practices aquavit based medicine.

aquavit based medicine.
It is a form of herbal therapy that is traditional among my people. The herbs being caraway and coriander, mainly.

Narad, forgive my ignorance but what is "Snazzm Thinking"?

I offer the following as another means of avoiding thinking too hard about the fact that Jim O’Neill is one of Trump's less-awful cabinet picks, compared to the Putin-crony Secy of State, the anti-labor Labor Secy, the climate-change denier head of EPA (paraphrasing SNL, he's excited to protect oil companies from the environment) — and, finally, the guy who thinks Hilary Clinton and John Podesta just might have been running a child sex-slave ring out a bunker tunneled underneath a pizza joint named Comet Ping Pong. He is, of course, going to head the National Security Administration. And no the Senate doesn't have to confirm that one, so the General is absolutely in like Flynn. So clever, that Donald!

If you wanted to speculate on the consequences for science [or reason, or facts, or other boring archaic yada yada yada] of any of that, or what the FDA will be like under a SeaSteading trans-humanist techno-fascistic vampire, you'd be over on the other thread. You sure wouldn't be here trying to reassure yourself with haughty one-liner dismissals of freudo-marxism as "ex-cathedra bullsh1t" while such normally stuffy sources as The New Yorker are pondering that we're so deep in the eff(ed)-lulent that Frankfurt Farms bullsh1t (which only seems ex cathedra if you don't understand those guys were so anti-cathedral they tore down any edifices anyone tried to erect underneath them) just might offer some clues to how we got into this fine mess.

But here you are, so amusing distraction shall be my aim, and bandwidth be damned! Let the ol' superego relax, and fire up the id drive for some Fun with Freudianism!
______

As therapy, I don't doubt the consensus that Freudianism pretty much sucks eggs. However, as a source for useful ideas in film and culture criticism, with the right spin a dose of Ziggy still rocks, and even (albeit rarely) a pinch of re-processed Jack Lacantunderstandhim too. (Woe be it to anyone fool enough to bother reading the original of Lacan, or so I've been told in clear enough tones by people smarter than I am, such that I never risked my sanity trying).

But first, this: A guy I knew in my grad school days who was into the Frankfurt School had a favorite anecdote about Marcuse (I have no idea if it was apocryphal): Since Herb had written Eros and Civiization, when The Sensuous Man hit the best-seller list, some scribe had the thought to seek out ol' Herb in hopes of getting some erudite commentary on this new pop publishing phenomenon. Marcuse just told him (or so the story goes) "I don't need a book to tell me how to f***." If that's ex cathedra, don't tell the Pope.
________

For basic Freud-via-Marcuse applied to movies, see Robin Wood's eminently readable, "Introduction to the American Horror Film" Since i doubt any minions will look it up on Google, I'll leave a (slightly condensed) sample here. Remember, 'theory' is mainly written by socially marginal weirdos trying to flip starchy conventional wisdom on it's head. The good stuff always retains elements of a kind of intellectual slapstick. In short, it's FUN!:

One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses, its reemergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and the happy ending (when it exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression...
Dreams—the embodiment of repressed desires, tensions, fears that our conscious mind rejects—become possible when the censor that guards our subconscious relaxes in sleep, though even then the desires can only emerge in disguise, as fantasies that are innocent or apparently meaningless. One of the functions of the concept of entertainment—by definition, that which we don’t take seriously, or think about much (“It’s only entertainment”)—is to act as a kind of partial sleep of consciousness. This is why seemingly innocuous genre movies can be far more radical and fundamentally undermining than works of conscious social criticism. The old tendency to dismiss the Hollywood cinema as escapist always defined escape merely negatively as escape from, but escape logically must also be escape to. The fantasies are not meaningless; they can represent attempts to resolve those tensions in more radical ways than our consciousness can countenance.
It becomes easy, if this is granted, to offer a simple definition of horror films: they are our collective nightmares. The conditions under which a dream becomes a nightmare are that the repressed wish is, from the point of view of consciousness, so terrible that it must be repudiated as loathsome, and that it is so strong and powerful as to constitute a serious threat.

Wood's most cited example of this thesis (though he didn't make a major point of it himself, really) was the monstrous family of Texas Chansaw Massacre representing the return of the repressed "exploited and degraded proletariat” expressing our repressed fears of "the logical end of human relations under capitalism” i.e. cannibalism. See, I told you, this is fun stuff!
____________

For Lacan by way of marxist-feminism, see "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey. The essay may seem like impenetrable gibberish, but if you have a simple Lacanian-jargon decoder ring, it's actually not only clear (and, as such, possibly makes it lousy Lacan, not that I care) but a model of a well structured essay. Which is not to say it's 'right'. Again', it's primary value is setting out a provacative line of argument, and a certain amount of metaphor and hyperbole come with the territory. It's a mistake to take this stuff too seriously or too literally, which cinema-bros are wont to do with Mulvey. "Methinks the dudes doth protest too much!" ;-) Remember again gang, this is Fun with a capital F and that stands for Feminist Film Theory! And since I think quiz games are major fun, there's a little film puzzler at the end.

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness…
She holds the look, plays to, and signifies male desire. The presence of woman is an indispensable clement of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moment of erotic contemplation. Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.
An active/passive heterosexual division of labor has similarly controlled narrative structure: The male figure cannot hear the burden of sexual objectification. Hence the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man's role as the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen. The man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator, transferring it behind the screen to neutralize the extra-diegetic tendencies represented by woman as spectacle. As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look onto that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events, coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence.
A male movie star’s glamorous characteristics are thus not those of the erotic object of the gaze, but those of the more perfect, more complete, more powerful ideal ego conceived in the original moment of recognition in front of the mirror. The character in the story can make things happen and control events better than the subject/spectator – just as the image in the mirror was more in control of motor coordination.
But in psychoanalytic terms, the female figure poses a deeper problem. She also connotes something that the look continually circles around but disavows: her lack of a penis, implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasure. Ultimately the meaning of woman is sexual difference, the absence of the penis is visually ascertainable, the material evidence on which is based the castration complex essential for the organization of entrance to the symbolic order and the Law of the Father. Thus the woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified.
The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the reenactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery), counter-balanced by the devaluation, punishment, or saving of the guilty object; or else complete disavowal of castration by turning the represented figure into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous (hence overvaluation, the cult of the female star). This second avenue, fetishistic scopophilia, builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself. The first avenue, voyeurism, on the contrary, has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration}, assuming control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness.

If you followed any of that (and you could, if you tried) you might be able to guess what classic Hollywood film (from 1958) Mulvey praises for so thoroughly foregrounding the dynamics of scopophilia (literally 'pleasure of looking' btw) and the controlling aspect of voyeurism that they come out in the open, such that. "the process of identification normally associated with ideological correctness and the recognition of established morality [is revealed] and shows up its perverted side." You've probably seen it. If not, you should. Hint: Not long ago, it moved past Citizen Kane into first place in a critics poll of The Greatest Films Of All Time.
________

You may resume being serious, at your own discretion.

As therapy, I don’t doubt the consensus that Freudianism pretty much sucks eggs.

M. Scott Peck, a psychologist and author of several books I read wrote that psychotherapy worked best for people who needed it the least. To my mind, that's a sign of a poor treatment.

[Y]ou might be able to guess what classic Hollywood film (from 1958) Mulvey praises for so thoroughly foregrounding the dynamics of scopophilia...

Gigi.
Ok, I'll admit I had help. Quiz crossword yesterday had the answer. "1958 film starring Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron (4)".

As I recall, Vertigo passed Citizen Kane back when Roger Ebert was still alive.

Gigi is a fun film, but I don't recall it even breaking the top ten.

Julian might have been joking about 'Gigi'.

The answer, of course, is 'Vertigo'.

As much as Mulvey's essay has been attacked over the years as a paradigm of strident feminism (unfairly... but that's a long story), it sure helped illuminate Vertigo's importance to all sorts of stuff, revive and enrich the discussions around the film. Film theory and criticism is more abut kicking up important and unsettling questions than finding any kind of definitive answers.

When 'Vertigo' was released, in '58, the questions driving its thematic were ones most people refused to even entertain, much less try to answer – and the film had been a box office disappointment. It did not have significant re-releases in the next decade, and was one of five Hitchcock films withdrawn from distribution in 1973 – the year Mulvey's essay was first published, as it happens. So she was looking more to a neglected work by a master than a certified 'classic'.

Whatever you may think of Mulvey's ideas (or her prose), there's no question the ideas filtered out of academia and were a key element in the re-evaluation of 'Vertigo' when it was into back into distribution in '83 and released on video in '84. This is what good film/media scholarship does: enriches and deepens our discussions of how creative works speak to thinks that matter, for good or ill, or often some of both.

If any of you are film buffs: the Criterion DVD of 'Peeping Tom' has an accessible and fascinating full-length critical analysis commentary track by Mulvey. That film, released in 1960, had been labeled 'the British "Psycho"', but received such a vitriolic reception it ruined the career of director Michael Powell ( ‘49th Parallel’ ‘Stairway to Heaven’ ‘Black Narcissus’ ‘The Red Shoes’). It, too, is now considered both a classic, and a masterpiece. Roger Ebert wrote:

Other movies let us enjoy voyeurism; this one extracts a price. "Peeping Tom" is a masterpiece precisely because it doesn't let us off the hook, like all of those silly teenage slasher movies do. We cannot laugh and keep our distance: We are forced to acknowledge that we watch, horrified but fascinated.

Fake news. Poor reporting. Sub journalist.
Just to start out, herd immunity refers to the effects of a wild microbe passing through a population and conferring permanent and inheritable immunity. The fact is that vaccines do no such thing. They work in a chronic rather than acute manner, and do not confer immunity. Did you know that the Disneyland outbreak was mostly among people who had been vaccinated? Learn how to do research and understand science before you write such bullshit.

Point one:

"Fake news" ≠ "something I disagree with."
"Fake news" ≠ "sloppy or biased reporting." (My "reporting" is not sloppy, although I freely admit my bias in favor of rigorous science.)

Point two: I am not a journalist. I never claimed to be one. I am, however, a physician and scientist well versed in matters of vaccine science for someone who doesn't specialize in it. As such, I can call your tropes for what they are: Bullshit. You do not understand herd immunity. Also, it's not the gross numbers of vaccinated versus unvaccinated who fall ill in an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease. It's frequently the case that, because there are usually many more vaccinated than unvaccinated, the number of vaccinated who fall ill will be higher than the number of unvaccinated. However, when you normalize to the numbers of each and look at the attack rate, the risk of falling ill, is much, much higher if you are not vaccinated, as high as twenty times higher or more.

Finally, you are using a new, blatantly obvious technique used by purveyors of false news in which anything you disagree with is labeled "fake news." My response: "Fake news." You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means.

"It’s frequently the case that, because there are usually many more vaccinated than unvaccinated, the number of vaccinated who fall ill will be higher than the number of unvaccinated. "

So logically, the vaccinated ill are responsible for a larger portion of the outbreak/spread than the unvaccinated. The PRIORITY therefore should be improving vaccine effectiveness instead of focusing on the smaller issue of coercing the unvaccinated to vaccinate. And, if simultaneously, vaccine SAFETY is improved, there may be no unvaccinated to fight over ...

@Robin Guara:
Everything you have written is wrong. Thought you'd like to know.

Fake news. Poor reporting. Sub journalist.

Say, Robin, have you met Kristina? You both seem to be fond of necromancing comment threads to complain about "the journalism."

herd immunity refers to the effects of a wild microbe passing through a population and conferring permanent and inheritable immunity

You don't say. Have any examples of this phenomenon in humans?

So logically, the vaccinated ill are responsible for a larger portion of the outbreak/spread than the unvaccinated. The PRIORITY therefore should be improving vaccine effectiveness instead of focusing on the smaller issue of coercing the unvaccinated to vaccinate. And, if simultaneously, vaccine SAFETY is improved, there may be no unvaccinated to fight over.

That' some serious missing of the point.

Sorry, how?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3076704/
" The phenomenon of “oral tolerance” has been known for over a century, viz, hyporesponsiveness to a fed antigen on subsequent challenge with that antigen."

Century old stuff, still perfectly relevant. And this oral tolerance was discovered a hundred years ago while researching injected food proteins causing food allergy.

THE BIOLOGICAL REACTIONS OF THE VEGETABLE PROTEINS.

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/66.short

Wells and Osborne were studying sensitization (development of food allergy) caused by
injections of vegetable proteins. They noted during their study that ingestion of these proteins provided protection against future sensitization by injection (oral tolerance).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312125211_Professional_Miscond…

Robin Gaura #143

Did you know that the Disneyland outbreak . . .

You are wrong. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6414a1.htm

The majority of the 159 patients with reported measles in the 2015 outbreaks were either unvaccinated (71 [45%]) or had unknown vaccination status (60 [38%]); 28 (18%) had received measles vaccine. Among the 68 U.S. residents who had measles and were unvaccinated, 29 (43%) cited philosophical or religious objections to vaccination, 27 (40%) were ineligible because they were too young to receive vaccination (26 patients) or had a medical contraindication (one), three (4%) represented missed opportunities for vaccination, and nine (13%) had other reasons for not being vaccinated

If you have to lie to make your point, maybe you should re-think your position.

Deepak Chopra likes me! He really, really likes me! (Well, not really...)

oracknows — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 00:05:29 +0000

Deepak Chopra likes me! He really, really likes me! (Well, not really...)

Orac is currently hiding from the Federation in an undisclosed location (somewhere warm and out of the country, the better to avoid election news after having cast an absentee ballot), where he is charging his Tarial cells, the better to return fully recharged and ready to dive back into the massive piles of woo awaiting him when he returns. Since it’s only a brief respite, I had been planning on either reposting material from Orac’s other known hideout on the web, the better not to let this blog lie fallow and lack for Insolence, Respectful and not-so-Respectful, as indicated depending upon who (or what) is on the receiving end. However, something so amusing happened over the weekend, that, as I sat yesterday morning having for some reason gotten up earlier than I would want to, I decided a brief post would be in order (and even fun). Only one woo-meister could “inspire” that: Deepak Chopra. (OK, there are others, but when someone as high ranking in the pantheon of alternative medicine gurus actually addresses you directly, it’s hard to resist commenting.) Then the brief post grew, because for some reason I was awake fairly early in the morning an no one else was getting up. That’s how this post changed from one that would just post Chopra’s video and leave a brief comment to a full Orac post. Damn, I’ll have to recharge more.

Actually, no I won’t. This was fun, and vacations are meant for fun.

Last week, I wrote a post entitled Why do medical conference organizers keep inviting Deepak Chopra to speak? It was a simple question asked in some frustration in the wake of the American Osteopathic Association’s having invited Chopra to speak at OMED 2016, its yearly conference, and, more recently, at the Children’s Autism Services of Edmonton’s Annual Conference. As you’ll recall, my chief complaints about these invitations is that Deepak Chopra has long promoted a brand of pseudoscience and mystical mumbo-jumbo that sounds all science-y and cool if you don’t know much about science but that is easily recognized as utter bullshit if you have a modicum of knowledge about the relevant disciplines, such as quantum mechanics, epigenetics, and the like, that Chopra twists into pretzels of woo in his articles, books, and talks. Inviting Chopra to legitimate medical conferences, unfortunately, has a tendency to legitimize his particular brand of mysticism as being valid science and medicine when it is not. I wasn’t alone in my complaints. In fact, my complaints were inspired by Tim Caulfield, thanks to news reports from Canada quoting him about the Edmonton conference, a conference I hadn’t known about. Add that to the AOA invitation (which I had known about but felt that I had probably missed my chance to blog about), and you have a post. That’s the tl;dr version; read the full version if you are interested.

In the meantime, here’s Chopra’s response:

He starts out by bragging about a spiritual retreat he’s directing. Hilariously, though, Chopra makes a remark about my having been on his case for close to two decades now. Would that were true! Actually, this blog has only existed since December 2014, and the first post I ever wrote about Chopra was on the old blog on October 11, 2005, a post appropriately called Deepak Chopra misunderstands skepticism. Of course, since the move over to Scienceblogs in 2006, I’ve “featured” Chopra frequently. So I’ve only been on Chopra’s case for 11 years, but I’ll take it as a complement that Chopra thinks it’s nearly two decades, interpreting it as Chopra thinking it feels that way.

Be that as it may, Chopra even read directly from my post extensively. Indeed, I’m thinking of capturing that sound and using it for...something. Chopra is even more unhappy with Tim Caulfield because, as a result of his efforts, there is a movement to disinvite Chopra from the autism conference where he’s been invited to speak, an effort Chopra rather arrogantly dismisses by saying that if he is disinvited he’ll just be saved a flight and fulfil some other obligation. Nice to know that he thinks so highly of the organizers of the Children’s Autism Services of Edmonton’s Annual Conference that he would so blithely dismiss the talk he’s scheduled to give there. He also brags about how he is board certified in internal medicine and endocrinology, which is nothing that I didn’t already know, although I wonder if he is still boarded in those specialties. Of course, it’s quite possible that he’s old enough to have been grandfathered in after the American Board of Internal Medicine stopped issuing lifetime certifications and started requiring periodic recertification and, now, maintenance of certification. He also goes on about how he has a professorship at the University of California and teaches a course at the Chopra Center that is certified for CME credits.

I must admit that I didn’t know that Chopra was so in with the University of California. Indeed, inspired by this statement I did some Googling and found that in March 2016 this happened

The UC San Diego School of Medicine has promoted Dr. Deepak Chopra from assistant professor to full professor to reflect his growing work with the campus to explore and explain how such things as meditation, yoga and diet affect a person's health.

The promotion does not come with a salary. The 68 year-old physician-spiritualist will continue to interact with the university on a voluntary, unpaid basis. He will continue to be based out of the Chopra Center in La Costa, which he co-founded in 1996 to explore and teach about the wellbeing of mind, body and spirit.

OK, it’s an unpaid professorship, which means it’s probably a clinical faculty position, which is similar to adjunct faculty positions, except that it might not even be paid. The reason medical schools dole out clinical professorships is because it allows those with such positions to teach medical students at clinical sites. Not infrequently, private physicians at whose practices medical students and residents rotate for training will have clinical instructor, clinical assistant professor, or even clinical professor positions. The standards for such positions are a lot less rigorous than for full faculty positions, of course. Chopra also brags about regularly lecturing for CME at Beth Israel in Boston for CME credits certified by Harvard and having several peer-reviewed publications.

Of course, the fact that UC-SD is embracing Chopra so tightly, that he can co-author peer-reviewed articles, and that Harvard also certifies one of his courses are all prime of exactly the problem that I’ve been discussing for so long, namely the infiltration of pseudoscience into medical academia, or, as I like to refer to this phenomenon, quackademic medicine. Chopra brags about all these things, as well he should because I would too if I had these associations. The fault lies with UCSD and Harvard for actually putting the imprimatur of their respected names on Chopra’s activities over the last 14+ years. So I thank Chopra for bringing this up, because, although he’s proud of it, his boastfulness about his affiliations with major academic medical centers gives me the opportunity to discuss the problem of quackademic medicine yet again.

Particularly amusing is Chopra’s urging that Caulfield and I should “catch up with the times,” so to speak and catch up with the scientific literature. Chopra, of course, doesn’t realize that I am caught up. I read the scientific literature about “integrative medicine” intensively. I blog about it all the time, both here and at my less...Insolent...blog. I also read the scientific literature about epigenetics intensively because I have to. I’m a breast cancer researcher; it’s my job. That’s why I know that what Chopra is spouting about epigenetics is a load of fetid dingo’s kidneys. He even starts launching into said fetid pile by going on about how the mind and body are not separate but are one and should be called “body-mind.” Oh please. Science knew that a long time ago when it rejected mind-body dualism. The mind is a product of the brain. If the brain is injured, the effects on behavior and consciousness can be observed and predicted by the anatomy of the injury.

In fact, it is not I, or other skeptics, who reject the contention that consciousness is a product of brain activity. It’s Chopra! In fact, Chopra has a long history of making statements that can only be interpreted as assuming mind-body duality. He’s even gotten into a spat with James Randi about it and castigated skeptics who have questioned him. As my friend Steve Novella has pointed out, Chopra is “one of the biggest names in dualist woo nonsense.” It is not scientists who are arguing that the mind is separate from the body. It’s Chopra, who basically pioneered the latest fad in alternative medicine, namely that through the magic of epigenetics, thinking makes it so and you can heal the body with your mind, even going so far as to invoke epigenetics, “Epigenetics acknowledges that we are not victims, but masters, for we can change our environment or perceptions, and create up to 30,000 variations for each of our genes.” Oh, wait. Chopra just told us that the mind and body are one. So why even refer to the mind at all?

Worse, thanks to the ill-considered embrace of alternative medicine of the ilk promoted by Deepak Chopra, Chopra can even say he’s doing clinical trials based on his quantum mind-body dualism pseudoscience. Not surprisingly, he invokes systems biology without actually understanding what systems biology, referring to Caulfield, myself, and those who castigate him as “pseudoskeptics.” Of course, as usual, Chopra seems to think that anyone who is not so open-minded that his brain falls out is not a true “skeptic” but rather a pseudoskeptic and must be “frozen in an obsolete world view,” which is what he calls me while referring to Caulfield as a “vigilante.” Yes, it’s good to be open-minded and to question existing paradigms. That’s exactly what we do. However, that questioning must be based on evidence, which is not what Chopra does. He claims to be asking the “big questions,” but if the big questions aren’t based on science, rationality, and reality, then what good are they?

As a last bit of fun, Chopra even addressed me on Twitter last Friday.

@oracknows FYI https://t.co/UPJRBQCGj5

— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) November 4, 2016

And:

. @oracknows Above your head ? https://t.co/FIkr3OrMHm

— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) November 5, 2016

To which I responded:

Thanks for the laugh. https://t.co/nB6RJ5hD5C

— Orac (@oracknows) November 5, 2016

And:

Looks like @CaulfieldTim & someone else hit a nerve. https://t.co/qawN0mpkJV https://t.co/b669wlzgGy

— Orac (@oracknows) November 4, 2016

To which Chopra replied:

. @oracknows @CaulfieldTim Focus on what's really wrong instead of being a pseudo skeptic https://t.co/dMALCNtbwZ

— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) November 5, 2016

Leading to my response:

I do focus on @US_FDA when it screws up. You should focus on not mangling science in general and quantum theory in particular. https://t.co/HheZCd7neK

— Orac (@oracknows) November 5, 2016

Which is, of course, utterly true. This lead Chopra to Tweet:

. @oracknows @US_FDA Upcoming book co authored with a quantum physicist . Will send it to you as a gift if you read https://t.co/DSOCKp3ijf

— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) November 5, 2016

Hmmm. Should I take him up on this? He keeps saying variants of “Orac, whoever he is,” apparently not realizing that my pseudonym is perhaps the worst kept secret in the skeptical blogosphere. He might be surprised when he finds out who I am, particularly given that he’s blocked my real life Twitter account in the past. I even brag about it in my Twitter profile!

As for whether or not I take Chopra up on his offer, I’ll think about it. Today, I’ll be too busy relaxing on the beach lowering the levels of those nasty inflammatory cytokines that Chopra so frequently invokes now. You know, I might just take him up on his offer, but only if he signs the book and unblocks my real life alter ego on Twitter! After all, if he’s going to require me to read it as a condition of sending it, the least I can do is require him to sign it.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t resist voicing these musings on Twitter:

.@deepakchopra I might take you up on that offer after I get home from vacation, but if I have to read it you have to sign it.

— Orac (@oracknows) November 6, 2016

I also had one other minor condition: Unblocking my real-life alter ego. Predictably, Chopra was not receptive:

. @oracknows You got outed :)Will ignore you now No time for those frozen in an obsolete worldview. All the best for your personal wellbeing

— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) November 6, 2016

Well, that’s what I get for pushing things a little farther than perhaps I should have. On the other hand, Chopra’s response tells me a lot. For one thing, I’m sure that he still doesn’t know who Orac really is. He just heard that my real life alter-ego was blocked and blocked Orac too. In particular, his reaction also tells me that he almost certainly wasn’t sincere about sending me a copy of his book. I suppose I should be grateful. If he actually did send me a copy of his book based on my promise to read it, my sense of honor would compel me to actually read the damned thing.

I guess I dodged that bullet!

oracknows Sun, 11/06/2016 - 19:05

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complementary and alternative medicine

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Brain and Behavior

The thing that always baffles me about Chopra is that some people seem to understand his quantum flapdoodle and even think it profound. Obviously I am one of those evil materialists who demands that words are anchored in empirically verifiable reality, so for me, listening to one of his explanations is like trying to nail jell-o to a wall. Every time you push at some bit of confusing word salad to try to ascertain it's meaning, the core of what he's saying slips off somewhere else and you're left with an overwhelming impression that what he is actually saying is: if you assume I am right, thus, I am right. As Leonard Mlodinow put it, I understand most of the actual words, but despite the fervency with which he and his followers might believe in his narrative, the words make no actual sense when placed in that order. Consciousness is nonlocal? What is that even supposed to mean?

There is no such thing as "infiltration of pseudoscience into medical academia". Quacks are just here because medical academia is collapsing for demographic, bureaucratic and economic reasons. The scientific evaluation system does not work anymore because it is biased toward productivity, high impact and hype, and influenced by power and conflict of interest.

@GC
Consciousness is nonlocal? What is that even supposed to mean?
If we consider the ordinary meaning, it means that consciousness is not characterized by position in space, which makes sense. But I suspect that Chopra uses it in the sense of physic, action at a distance, which opens the way to telepathy, and obvious bllsht. One has to be very careful with the meaning of words. That's why I am not one of those evil materialists, because matter, I don't know what it is, and evil, I am not sure either.

"The universe is an emergent phenomenon of the mind of god"--D. Chopra. Does that mean anything? And how did he find out?

Upcoming book co authored with a quantum physicist

I see that Kafatos has actually had some items relegated to Vixra.

I disagree that "Chopra has a long history of making statements that can only be interpreted as assuming mind-body duality."

He has a long history of making statements, but those statements can be equally well interpreted as coming from a random phrase generator.

@ Guy Chapman / DANIEL GAUTREAU

if you assume I am right, thus, I am right.

Precisely.

The sentence "The universe is an emergent phenomenon of the mind of god” is just a complicated way of saying "god did it".
There is a hint of Hindu mythology (IIRC), with the universe being a dream of a sleeping god.
We have an adept of purple prose, here. That's not necessarily bad; like all tools, that's important is how well you use them and for what purpose. If it is to spread pseudo-scientific BS...

The end result is the feeling that Chopra is Captain Obvious, bashing open an unlocked door. (bad translation* of a French saying, "enfoncer une porte ouverte"). A god created the universe, ergo the universe was created by a god.

* kudos to Google translate, which gave me a straight "stating the obvious" as a translation

A 43 year-old woman presented with fever, rash, joint pain and weight loss.

Could you imagine a woo doc like Chopra being in a clinic or ER to diagnosis and treat this patient? Of course not. He's too busy patting himself on the back for being enlightened. Maybe if he took a break from giving self-promoting speeches and actually took on the responsibility of a doctor, he would learn true humility.

But like all woo-doctors, it is better for the wallet and ego to receive applause on stage and sell books. Disgusting.

From Wikipedia:

Kafatos has written and lectured extensively on the convergence between science and philosophy to promote discourse between science, spirituality, and religion.

Well, that explains a lot.

Enjoy the recharge!

"The mind is a product of the brain," or, 'The body is a product of the mind'?

If you really reject mind-body dualism then these statements are equally implausible. Subjectively speaking, there is no way to distinguish between mind and body.

If you believe, as I do, in universal intelligence, which I am pretty sure you don't, then you have sympathy for spiritual leadership and mysticism in general. One of the highest spiritual teachings is that spiritual truth cannot be expressed through words. True faith is eidetic. I do fault Chopra for abusing scientific terminology, but it's only one vocabulary among many with which to represent something that is ineffable. I also fault Chopra for profiteering off of primordial human desires such as immortality. No, buying his books and reading the crap he says about epigenetics and quantum mechanics will not keep you young forever. But at least he inspires others to think in unaccustomed ways, to consider the possibility of things that can't be seen. This is the only way to open a door towards the conscious experience of the divine.

Chopra may be off on time values as to how long he's known you because he was time traveling ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4vtuz67DXs ) or possibly his chakras simply got all f**d up from daylight savings time this weekend.

Either way, he's still an utter and complete moron.

The brain assembles a variety of electrical inputs and activity into a simulation of the external. The external may be objective, but each individual brain simulates it differently, meaning that ALL individual experience is subjective. In truth, there are no colors, no tones, no textures, flavors, or scents. Perhaps in truth there is equally no time or space. Truth as we know it will always be a reflection of our embodiment; it will be evolving through time and always in some sense arbitrary. It's obvious that we cannot perceive the external in its totality; hence we infer dark matter and energy while dreaming of a unified field theory. I'm not trying to knock science here, I'm just pointing out that we still don't understand half of anything, and what we can all agree upon is necessarily anthropocentric. But in fact every living thing allows the universe to witness a fraction of itself. My favorite synonym for the universe is 'god'. It's you.

Daniel G @4

Is that not one of the tracks on Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans?

It is a damning indictment that prog rock lyrics make more sense than woo merchants...

In truth, there are no colors, no tones, no textures, flavors, or scents.

Well, that's a load of bollocks. While individual perceptions may vary, we can objectively define all of those things. A wave of light with a length of 450–495 nm is blue. That causes specific nerve firings in the eyes and brain. Similarly, sounds have objective definitions of what frequency is what note. Barring serious defects or damage (and perhaps not even then), a middle C will never be perceived as a G above high C. Nor will a perceived G above high C have a frequency equal to that of a low B.

Perhaps you should slip off back to the Matrix and practice your spoon bending. Oh, right. There is no spoon.

If he doesn't realize who Orac is, there's still time to approach Chopra with an offer to co-author a book.

Suggested title: "Mind-Body Dualism: Why Your Body Doesn't Believe The Stupid Things You Tell It".

Deepak Chopra writes to Orac,

Upcoming book co authored with a quantum physicist. Will send it to you as a gift if you read

MJD says,

Yin and Yang (Orac and Deepak), tremendously entertaining!

But, such a debate on RI would be like watching a soft white bunny (Deepak) being chased by a scruffy pack of hungry wolves (Oracs minions).

Darn. The image tag didn't work. Just imaging a picture of Han Solo asking "Who's scruffy looking?"

@ Todd

While individual perceptions may vary, we can objectively define all of those things.

As a more talented poet than me once wrote, a rose by any other name is still a rose.

Moreover, in the cases of biological molecules; we can actually say that most of these things - colors, smells, textures... - exist, and exist objectively, precisely because there is some living being nearby to experience them. There is a biological purpose to sensations. Flowers' colors are telling the bees where to find the nectar and the pollen. Fruits' color, smell and flavor tell animals where to find food. Animals' smell and taste tell carnivores where to find fodd. Animals using venom to defend themselves are brightly colored so predators remember them and recognize them as dangerous...

We may have defined arbitrarily what is "blue", and experience it in slightly different ways.
But I think arguing that there are no colors is actually confusing the name and that is designed by the name. The label is not the thing.

There is no spoon.

Ceci n'est pas une cuillière.

i thought when I turned my clock back yesterday it was only for an hour! Not a couple of hundred/thousand years to when mind-body dualism was accepted as truth. What a crazy daylight savings time!

Chris Preston: "He has a long history of making statements, but those statements can be equally well interpreted as coming from a random phrase generator."

Which was one tool used in this 2016 Ig Nobel Peace Prize winning paper (with a word in its title that puts comments into moderation): http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf
http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf

But, such a debate on RI would be like watching a soft white bunny (Deepak) being chased by a scruffy pack of hungry wolves (Oracs minions).

Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw

True faith is eidetic.

Oh bloody hell, here we go...

I would say 'prove it', but you've already given yourself the get out of jail free card by claiming that spiritual truth cannot be expressed through words. You might claim to have perceived spiritual truth, however briefly, but for all the rest of us know you could be permanently off your tits on acid.

If you can't express a new concept clearly, nor wish to do so, why should you expect anyone to believe that you're on to something new and worthwhile?

Not a couple of hundred/thousand years to when mind-body dualism was accepted as truth

"Frontiers" journals have become good outlets for publication if you want to put Descartes before the horse and re-invent some version of his pineal-gland-wibble where brain and mind somehow interact.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnint.2012.00103/full

By some yet undiscovered mechanism, consciousness “reads” the neuronal events into conscious experience. Absent a particular specialized brain region or sufficient relevant transmitters and receptors, relevant information cannot be processed and the individual cannot be conscious of that informational state. In natural and many artificial communication systems, communications proceed bi-directionally. By an argument of symmetry, if neuronal activity can communicate with consciousness, there is no reason to preclude consciousness from communicating back and influencing neuronal function.

Recapping this week's episode of The Streisand Effect Game: The contestants were Tim Caulfield, Dr. Orac, and Deepak Chopra.

In round one, Tim lost his entire bank to Deepak, and was eliminated, after boosting attendance and publicity for Deep's upcoming talk in Edmonton by telling the press that Deep should not have been invited to speak, creating enough noise the talk's sponsors faced calls to have Deepak dis-invited.

In round two, Orac lost half his bank to Deepak for echoing Caulfield. But Orac stayed in the game since his loss was limited by being second-in, and by appearing on a science blog rather than in the popular press.

In round three, Orac's apparent error emerged as a risky but brilliant, and ultimately successful strategy. Perhaps over-confident with his big lead, in round three Deepak engaged Orac in a hilariously entertaining Twitter feud, turning his superior celebrity into inadvertent mass advertising for Orac's blog, "Respectful Insolence'. Deepak was thus eliminated from the game, as Orac wound up in possession of ALL the bank. Well -played, blinking box!

I see that Kafatos has actually had some items relegated to Vixra.

I had never heard of Kafatos before, so I looked him up on Wikipedia. The article says of his research:

Kafatos' research has focused on cosmology, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, quantum biology, natural hazards, climate change, Earth system science, and remote sensing.

This is evidently some usage of "focused" of which I was previously unaware.

For many years he was at George Mason University, before moving in 2008 to Chapman University, which according to Wikipedia is a religious-affiliated university in Orange County, CA. (Said Wikipedia page does not list Kafatos as being one of its distinguished faculty.) Readers who have been following climate change denialism may recall, as I verified by looking at the appropriate Rational Wiki page, that George Mason University is home to Edward Wegman of the infamous Wegman Report, as well as the Mercatus Center, a libertarian "think tank" largely supported by the Koch brothers. I don't know what Kafatos's views on climate change are, but the combination of GMU plus climate change research raises a yellow flag.

@ MJD:

Although we are ocasionally hungry as wolves, we are NEVER scruffy looking.
Well, at least I'M not.

Shhhh...I'm embracing my inner-Chopra

Orac once again displays his vastly superior intellect by fleeing the US during the present election mishigosh**

Lots of it is taking place in his own beloved state of MI. Even nearby where he works and lives ( city and suburbs Detroit)

Yours truly has a special ringside seat*** to the Great F@cking Mess whilst working on my "literary project" for whomever.

I'm glad it'll be over soon because, although I give advice about how to deal with nerve shattering adversities like the election, I also suffer from stress, misery and an upset GI system.
HOWEVER ( big however) these methods work.
I know, I'm not only a spokeman, I'M A CLIENT!

Again, I'll advise the nervoius and the upset**** to
- look at the data
- breathe deeply
- meditate
- have a drink or whatever
- let your mind relax and drift
- remember, nothing is real
- your mindstuff is just an illusion in the mind of g-d
- strawberry fields
- psycho killer qu'est-ce que c'est run run run run
- sail away
- oh wait, I've lost my focus
- anyway you catch my drift

** I'm not entirely sure how to spell this appropriate
description of the current state of media coverage
*** virtiual of course
**** you'd be surprised how many people ask me about this over the phone

I see that 'mishegoss' and other variants are listed

@ Eric Lund:

"Remote sensing" tells us all we need to know.

If you believe, as I do, in universal intelligence, which I am pretty sure you don’t....

It's true that D. D. Palmer doesn't have a lot of traction in these parts.

""“Remote sensing” tells us all we need to know.

In the meteorolgical sense, That would be RADAR, SODAR, LIDAR, radio-accoustic sounding systems, heliopyrometers, and microwave recievers on satellites.

Perhaps you were thinking of remote viewing?

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.684.7027

@Narad #32: Neither does Elisha Perkins.

I'll get my coat.

“Remote sensing” tells us all we need to know.

Only if you're REALLY GOOD at it.

Apparently, Means Kafatos has been into the cosmic consciousness stuff for at least 25 years.

He may well be doing legitimate research in using satellite sensors for climate modeling , but he didn't need help from Chopra to get into the cosmic woo.

http://cornell.worldcat.org/title/conscious-universe-part-and-whole-in-…

@ Herr Doktor Bimler

From the Frontier's journal:

In natural and many artificial communication systems, communications proceed bi-directionally.

Ah. An amateur philosopher trying to pass as a biologist and a physicist, and failing on all three accounts.

Hint for the lurkers: your ears are fully unable to do your mouth's job (flapping them will only communicate so much).
Or think about your TV set. the little people inside are definitively communicating with you, but yelling back at them is fruitless.

IOW: most communication systems use different devices for sending and receiving. And there are plenty of cases of mono-directional communication.

if neuronal activity can communicate with consciousness, there is no reason to preclude consciousness from communicating back and influencing neuronal function.

I think the author was trying to say that, when he is surprised, he blinks.

@ Todd

You're off-track on the Wesley-Woo. "In truth, there are no colors, no tones, no textures, flavors, or scents," is not bollocks, it's just not clear in meaning when taken out of context. Helianthus has it more or less 'correct' at the end: We have defined arbitrarily what is “blue”. The label is not the thing. But i think it's you, not so much Wesley, who's confusing the name (concept) and the objective physical reality ('the thing'). That is, Wesley is trying, I think, to say that colors, tones, textures, flavors, scents are concepts we employ to structure meaning, inherently subjective heuristics for dealing with the properties of physical reality. Objective reality doesn't have meaning, doesn't prescribe fixed or stable concepts or word-labels for it's multitude of properties.

This is basic language theory per semiotics (Peirce, Saussure) and post-structuralist philosophy (Derrida). And the thing is. All of these folks would just laugh derisively at Wesley's attempt to derive 'spirituailly' out of it. Language philosophy no more evokes universal intelligence, spiritual leadership, mysticism or (Gaack!)" the conscious experience of the divine" than does quantum mechanics. These languagetheories, Derrida especially, are fundamatenally philosphically materialist, and, no, you can't get to idealist babbling about the universal god-spirit of the cosmos from there. I mean, once you've observed that "Truth as we know it will always be a reflection of our embodiment; will be evolving through time and always in some sense arbitrary, and what we can all agree upon is necessarily anthropocentric" (all of which is 'true'*), your grounds for propositions about "spiritual truth" and "true faith" rest on awfully shaky grounds. (he he he! LOL!)

*YOU can 'objectively' define 'blue' as " wave of light with a length of 450–495 nm, but you'll never get a painter(or Pantone) to agree with you, or the folks who made this chart that IDs blue as 450-500 (http://tinyurl.com/hoassnp), or 'objectively' force me off a contrarian assertion that 425 nm is, in fact, a shade of 'blue'. Nor will any of us ever be able to escape any or all of the subjective semiotic baggage of 'blue', from blue bloods to blue states to blue skies to deep blue seas, to 'the blues' as slang for sadness or 'blues' as an artform expressing affirmation and defiance..

“Remote sensing” tells us all we need to know.

Remote sensing is a legitimate research tool in certain fields of study, and climate change and Earth systems science (as well as, obviously, astrophysics) are among them. But it's not something that makes sense as a tool for probing quantum physics. Quantum biology is probably the biggest single offender on that list; I'm not sure what the term means. And the combination is an odd bunch: some of the pairwise combinations make sense, but quantum physics seldom arises in geophysical contexts.

Rich Woods @23: True Faith is an awesome New Wave song with a really interesting music video.

Does anyone else think Wesley@14 sounds like a stoned freshman philosophy major?

@ Guy Chapman

Yes! Get your coat, because it's Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! and Bigfoot is coming to the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids for the Budweiser Mega Tractor Pull and Monster Truck Jam! It's three hours of engine-blowing, car-crushing Traction Action you won't want to miss!

... What? You're from the UK, and have no idea what monster trucks or tractor pulls are? No, they're not exhibiting a Sasquatch. 'Bigfoot' is a truck with 10' tall tires (that's ~ 3 metres fer you Euros).t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rwd7nsF98M
The monster trucks just drive over and crush obstacles made mostly out of old car bodies. In a truck/tractor pull, a form of oversized hot rod hauls a sled rigged with a massive weight that increases resistance the farther it travels. The idea is to see which competitor can pull it the farthest before the tractor/ truck stops dead, often enough as a result of the engine exploding into spectacular bursts of fire..

In short, it's like reading or listening to Chopra, the farther you go with the worthless load, the more of a drag it gets, until you just can't get any farther, and your mind-motor just shuts off, spins its wheels, or blows up with flames firing off as a result.

Also, a monster truck rally, like a Chopra talk, can only really be safely experienced with the use of earplugs.

Sadly, the popularity of tractor pulls appears to have declined of late. I can't help but note that Chopra's new-age--'we are all god' DIY--faith-healing double-talk has gained more traction over the same time period. I prefer Bigfoot.

But, talking about Deep is kind of a waste of time, yes? What say we get onto more significant questions: Which do you think is better, rugby union or rugby league?

My point is; there is no blue, there is only the wavelength. The wavelength is registered by a sensor and transmitted electrically to the brain. In the brain the electrical input produces a sensation of blueness. Same with tones...the objective reality is a waveform, it is translated into the brain electrically, and the brain synthesizes perception. Physicists ask if the universe is a simulation, but human experience is definitely a simulation; it is a subjective representation of objective wavelengths, chemical configurations, and kinetic forces which have all been translated into electrical signals before being rendered by the brain into a seamless experience of the world.

What is the meaningful difference between "there is such a thing as blue, which I see" and "my eye picks up these wavelengths, the optic nerve transmits that signal to the brain, and I experience it as blue"?

You may imagine yourself into a seamless experience of the world; lots of other people notice gaps in theirs. One subjective moment I am lying in the dark with a cat on my foot; the next is bright daylight and no cat. The seams are pretty good, but I do notice the difference in the fabric.

So I looked up Menas Kafatos to see who this physicist is, and the guy seems a little wooey. I certainly can't decipher his physics work. Some of it looks like ordinary cosmology, but a lot is also weird quantum gibberish that may be about quantum consciousness - I can't tell, and I feel like reading too much would be a waste of my time.

I did look at the only thing I feel I'm actually qualified to judge, Kafatos' work on systems biology, and I was definitely unimpressed. His paper on the subject seems to be nothing more than an extended exercise in intellectual masturbation that carries no information that would be a surprise to anyone familiar with the subject. I threw up and then stopped reading after he reported the discovery of moving parts within the cell as if this was some groundbreaking finding that will rock the world of medicine.

Physicists ask if the universe is a simulation, but human experience is definitely a simulation

Wesley, you're merely putting plural minds and tat tvam asi in a blender. It's fundamentally incoherent.

But in fact every living thing allows the universe to witness a fraction of itself. My favorite synonym for the universe is ‘god’. It’s you.

If I'm G-d, then why aren't you scared senseless?

sigh...Sadmar in post-modernist mode again. Even referring to the über-mountebank, Derrida.
An antidote:
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/dawkins.html
keywords: intellectual impostures

Wesley Dodson (how does he get his posts in the boss's colour?) can at least rise to the dizzy heights of trivial platitudes from time-to-time.
Yes, we cannot experience another person's consciousness, and like last night's hamburger, we are one with everything.

how does he get his posts in the boss’s colour?

Other way around, sort of.

Physicists ask if the universe is a simulation

Really? Which physicists? The ones I know have real problems to think about.

@ HDB
The ones he knows simulate.

"No, buying his books and reading the crap he says about epigenetics and quantum mechanics will not keep you young forever. But at least he inspires others to think in unaccustomed ways, to consider the possibility of things that can’t be seen. This is the only way to open a door towards the conscious experience of the divine."

Not that the divine can be measured, but on those accounts, I, for one, fully agree. What I find so irksome about Chopra is that he seems to gloss over the fact that the material world functions according measurable laws. In short, even enlightened people, of which there are any number of examples from India and elsewhere, become ill and eventually die from known causes.

You know, I thought about adding a line about how the labels we use to define things are arbitrary constructs, and going into linguistics and such, but I thought that part was pretty self-evident. Apparently not.

For example, we like to think about animals having limited, arbitrary perceptions of the universe. We say that due to their physical configurations, they are still limited in their capabilities while humans perceive reality as it really is. Of course, a human is an animal and his or her experience of the world is as idiosyncratic as a crow's. Carlos Castaneda explains this by saying the universe is made of filaments; there are filaments outside of the organism in the universe at large, which connect to the organism through a "luminous" interface. Every species, do to its different configuration, assembles different filaments into an experience of the world, but never all of the filaments the universe consists of. We know there are plenty of things humans can't perceive that are objectively all "around" us: not just the subatomic and infrared but also dark matter and energy. We are no more privy than the crow to objective perception. That doesn't mean there is no objective, or that we don't possess techniques the crow lacks that allow us to investigate aspects of the objective that we do not directly perceive. Castaneda is basically describing brains, and the bottom line is that neuroscience and spirituality are THE SAME FIELD. Whether you believe the brain attunes or reflects a universal presence, or you believe (per rationalists) that the brain creates the illusion of the soul or the supernatural, it makes no difference. All you will ever perceive directly is your subjectivity. At that's why I will always have sympathy for Chopra, Hinduism, even occultism, because spiritual seekers are dealing with the very nature of our reality.

"Carlos Castaneda explains this by saying the universe is made of filaments; there are filaments outside of the organism in the universe at large, which connect to the organism through a “luminous” interface."
Looks a lot like a universe of magic mushrooms.

#52
Rev JC Flannel alive and well, I see.

neuroscience and spirituality are THE SAME FIELD

neuroscience is, or should be, about verifiable predictions. Spirituality is about whatever anyone wants to make up, and the gullible to swallow.
i.e they are opposite poles.

spiritual seekers are dealing with the very nature of our reality

corrected: spiritual seekers are avoiding dealing with the very nature of our reality

Shorter #52:

1 - Some animals are able to sense things that we cannot, and vice-versa
(comment 1: completely true; look at a bear's nose, a whale's song, or a mantis shrimp's vision. Coming on a scientific blog and telling the readership this is preaching to the choir)
(comment 2: "we like to" - my hayfever is kicking in, there must be strawmen prancing around)

2 - and then a miracle occurs
(top right cartoon on page 1)

3 - thus, neuroscience and spirituality are THE SAME FIELD

I think you should be more explicit here in step 2.

Carlos Castaneda? Oy...Don Juan. I am in need of another hand, because a double face palm is just not enough.

I just spent a moment looking into Menas Kafatos. He is a physicist and has a background in the field (as opposed to a "quantum physicist" from Quantum University). He even has awards. What he appears to be very good at is astrophysics. His quantum mechanical publication record seems to focus mostly on fairly low impact work on non-locality, and only basically once in the last ten years. His recent book publication record makes him look like a fellow traveler to Deepak, which makes me think that his quantum background is not very good. Having not read any of these books, I don't know if he's mangled the science. He has a recent conference paper on "retro-causation and non-locality", but this is a conference presentation which may mean a lot less than he would like it to --the bar for a conference presentation is not set that high. He has not actually published in the primary literature on quantum mechanics in the last fifteen years... not surprising, I suppose, since he is not young, but his active period work is astrophysics, not quantum. I get the feeling he's a very confident astrophysicist who has suffered a Penrose break as he's gotten older and has taken to talking a little bit outside of his real area of expertise. Just saying you've got a physicist helping you doesn't mean everything, Deepak: that's an argument by authority and it depends on the quality of the authority.

Carlos Castaneda explains this by saying the universe is made of filaments

I am not entirely sure what we are supposed to gain from the fabrications of a particularly mendacious fraudster.

So, Wesley @52 does this statement " the bottom line is that neuroscience and spirituality are THE SAME FIELD." mean that you would be perfectly happy to have a televangelist treat your epilepsy? Or let the Pope do brain surgery on you?

Carlos Castaneda was a fraud, but he was also a master student of spiritual and philosophical ideas. When I say spirituality (and much of philosophy) is in the same field as neuroscience, it does not mean they use the same methodologies, it doesn't mean they're related or even near each other. A field is a wide open place. Neuroscience and spirituality both confront the nature of the relationship between our subjective conscious experience and an objective universe. What is consciousness, how and why does it occur, what are the implications, what does it tell us about reality? They ask the same questions. And they will get the same answers. People dismiss soundbites like "the kingdom of God is within you" but if you endeavor to understand this as a literal description of a physical phenomenon it makes more sense. The universe as you know it is entirely within you, it is simulated electrically by your brain, but at the same time you are part of the universe and it extends beyond your body. Alternately, consider the fact that we don't know where most of the universe is. It's "dark." Maybe it exists in "inner space" in a way we cannot dimensionally conceive. Compare these analogies to the Hindu conception of the Atman and Brahman, the god within and the god without. "God" is the most tainted word in the English language. We always relate it to an authoritarian man on a throne of clouds but in fact a better definition for god is: everything that exists.

Daniel #53 it is a universe of magic mushrooms.
http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2016/11/1/johns-hopkins-trials-reveali…

In fact, Castaneda explains psychedelics by saying they shift the "assemblage point" of our perceptions, allowing us to perceive filaments of the universe that we usually cannot. For example, in the first book, Don Juan uses mushrooms to transform his perception of the world into that of a crow's. Gotta love a good Master's thesis in Anthropology.

The thing rationalists don't understand is this. They think spiritualists are trying to explain something they haven't seen. But they are explaining something they have seen. Just like the color blue, it can be real to them. One can call that hallucination or mental illness but the fact is it happens to all of us in the same way. It is the source of religious understanding. It does not require drugs to achieve or maintain. But just like we can agree on the color blue, we can agree on magic mushrooms. In order for us to have this consensus you would need to experience the way psilocybin affects the electrical operation of the human brain. If you don't eat the shrooms, you will never sense things that many other people have sensed. Contrary to popular opinion, psychedelic drugs do not produce a photorealistic, idiosyncratic madhouse in the brain. As the latest research is showing, in general, psychedelics have predictable and consistent effects, just like all drugs and foods. And these effects, again contrary to popular opinion, allow flower children et. al. to *release* addictions and gain a better understanding of their lives and their place in the universe. This is not always a pleasant experience. But clinically, risk of bad trip becomes acceptably low when mitigated with the proper precautions. Because seriously though, like last night’s hamburger, we are one with everything, dude.

When I say spirituality (and much of philosophy) is in the same field as neuroscience

Ah, but that is not what you said. You said that "neuroscience and spirituality are THE SAME FIELD". Did you just make a mistake and leave out the word "IN" in your original comment?

I just want some Insolence laid on me. :'( Also #64, it's a field of inquiry.

@ Daniel Corcos

I think you hit the nail on the head.

@ Wesley

consider the fact that we don’t know where most of the universe is. It’s “dark.”

Actually, no, we perfectly know where the universe is.
We know there is "dark" matter over there because, while we cannot observe it with our eyes, we can observe its gravitational interaction with the non-dark matter around it.

Seriously, drop the shrooms.

I just want some Insolence laid on me.

Would you settle for a plonking?

Wesley -

A suspicion has been creeping up on me that you are a Poe.
Either that or you're using the equivalent of the Postmodernism Generator in the link I included above, but set for spiritual flim-flam.
Perhaps you and Deepak have a franchise on it.

As for your cosmic vapidities, all I can say is.....ommmmm...

"It's all French to me."

“Graecum est; non potest legi.”

What if turns out psilocybin has a quantifiable spiritual effect?

What if turns out psilocybin has a quantifiable spiritual effect?

Earlier you said that "spiritual truth cannot be expressed through words." Are you now suggesting that it can be expressed through numbers?

@ Helianthus:

" Seriously, drop the shrooms."

*Au contraire, mon ami*, perhaps ( in light of recent earth shattering events ) we should ALL partake of the sacred fungi. It might be better than reality.

I didn't remote sense any of the giant wave of crap approaching . Perhaps if I had had a shroom or two, I might have had the sensibility to foresee its power and to go
HIDE SOMEWHERE.

I had an inkling early on when a wonk on television began typing furiously on a tablet without comment. Then a supporter of HRC had a very blank look on her face which is certainly unusual.

Somebody I Know ( Not Me) is predicting the end of the world as we know it and doesn't feel fine.

Maybe if we're very nice to her, JP will teach us how to meditate more effectively and erase our recent memories.

Oh wait, it doesn't work like that . ( Guess who studied memory?)

At any rate. we will all survive this.Be happy if the place you live 1. isn't in the US, 2. is not a hot bed of Trumpism ( i.e is Blue) or is right down the road from Beyoncé's place ( like me- no joking)

"Perhaps if I had had a shroom or two, I might have had the sensibility to foresee its power and to go
HIDE SOMEWHERE."

Lol. You Godless/souless dems got pwnd!

We won; Yay!???

Not much help on the meditation front today, sorry.
I just crawled out of bed with a massive hangover.

Oh wait, it doesn’t work like that

On the IWW CD Rebel Voices, the late Utah Phillips attributes the quote (IIRC) "the long memory is the most radical idea in politics" to Pacifica's Clare Spark.

Anyway, I rarely check Jake's blog (and I'm still waiting for that Hooker PNAS paper), but after glancing at the amusingly empty-headed AoA comments, it occurred to me to look.

He's really been putting his self-perception on display. He's a "deplorable," weirdly trying to rage against AoA, etc.

I'm idly wondering whether that doctorate program isn't going so well. (I've been there.)

#71

WTAF does "quantifiable spiritual effect" mean?

Can someone give me a definition of "spiritual" which actually means something? Pretty much all of those I have seen become very circular very quickly.

@ Denice

I didn’t remote sense any of the giant wave of crap approaching .

In retrospect (eh, hindsight is 20/20), we should have seen it coming.
(I did say to people around me it's a big mistake to ignore the former birther, and I always had the feeling it was going to be a close match - after all, he became the official candidate for his party, and that's all that's counting for many people)

We already know - and have seen before - the strong political divide between rural counties vs megacities in US. Other countries have similar divisions (for us French, the strongest divide of elitism vs countryside is, or was, Paris vs "la province").
Ignoring these people is a big political mistake, although they are never going to vote for anyone they perceive as a New York elitist snob, no matter that.
Another factor is that angry people from the sides of the political spectrum are more likely to go vote than shruggies from the middle.
With a 50% participation, 50% of people voting for a big-mouthed clown may only mean that 25% of voters are actually that far off the political spectrum.

It's something we have seen in France, time and time again (like in 1995). 20% of people liking the far right, but with a poor turnaround, they made up 40-45% of the votes.
We French may see it again in 1997.

Ah, I meant 2017.
I'm wanting to turn back the clocks, too, apparently.

@ Helianthus:

Actually, one part of me ( which I kept trying to silence) did think that there was a chance he might prevail : after all, the odds were ( variously) 80/ 20, 60/40, 70/30 and kept shifting.30% is NOT nothing.

I kept hearing the word "wave" in my mind and also heard it once or twice from television wonks. I thought also ( last year), " Maybe he's the Second Coming on Reagan". I tried to quash that thought.

You're correct about the 50/ 50 participation. Something like that occurred in 2004. Obama rode a bigger wave which swept him into office.

I worry about France - esp with Le Pen.

#77
spiritual (adjective) - circular
god (noun) - reality

Todd:
Well, my point was that no reasonable concept of "the subjective nature of reality" leads in any way to the 'cosmic consciousness god stuff' that's the woo-ey heart of Wesley's comments. But what's more important here is that ragging on Wesley's mysticism misses how Copra's spiritualism is different from others, and why that difference makes him dangerous.

Now that he's piped in with more, I think I know what Wesley means, and it's not the language issue that 'there are no colors' evokes for me. By "simulation", I think he means the raw mental constructs of sense perception, not any cultural assignment of meaning to them – something like the difference between how you and I see, and how a Jordi LaForge (if he was real) would see. Or how an AI fit with a video camera would see, etc. This observation is not bollocks, but it's nothing more than trivial. It's also, I think not a premise of Wesley woo, just an appendage tagged on to the underlying unquestionable first principle, an so even it was disputable, countering it wouldn't get you anywhere.

Unpacking any 'reality is subjective' idea, we have to consider what 'subject' and 'object' mean. One way to distinguish between them is that a subject acts with some purpose, while an object is inert, re-active and devoid of motive. When the thinkers I'm familiar with say 'reality is subjective', they mean reality as we perceive and process it is filtered, labeled and ordered toward some human purpose. They aren't making claims about the physical material universe outside of our minds. That 'reality' is objective by definition. No so with spritualists. For them the universe was created by some acting subject, and embodies a corresponding subjectivity. For the traditional spiritualist, this acting subject – be it 'god' or the cosmic consciousness is unknowable and most importantly uncontrollable. The whole idea of the 'seeker' in Eastern theology is about gaining insight into the god-consciousness-of-the-universe and placing oneself in harmony with it. The 'seeker' follows the cosmic order of reality, but does not transform it. This form of spiritualism makes no promises for wealth or anything else material, only inner peace. Wesley's hippy-trippy god-consciousness doesn't DO stuff in our everyday pragmatic lives. It's all in the realm of the astral plane. Which makes this perspective relatively benign as woo goes. Wesley doesn't want to get in the way of good science, since he thinks that if we view it in the correct mind-enlarging way, it will "open a door towards the conscious experience of the divine." To be fair, some fairly accomplished scientists have had similar views – John Lilly, various computer/internet pioneers... While you and I may gag at their spiritual kookiness, these 'seekers' have actually contributed to the advance of science. And while science and this form of spirituality are not "the same field" at all, it seems they can go hand in hand.

Chopra's spiritualism is not that at all, and Wesley knows that. He defends Chopra here in the land of the anti-spiritual, simply because he takes any sort of spirituality to be better than a perspective that pooh-poohs the whole ball of wax. But he gives us a clue to where Chopra reverses the trajectory of the Eastern tradition: ""I fault Chopra for profiteering off of primordial human desires such as immortality. No, buying his books and reading the crap he says about epigenetics and quantum mechanics will not keep you young forever."

What Chopra is saying is the each of us as individuals have the ability to transform the concrete reality of our bodies, each of us are the subjects creating our own reality – not metaphorically, or perceptually, or on the astral plane, but in the realm of physical matter. He's claiming we are our own gods-of-one inside our bodies, maybe not that we can "live forever" exactly, but rid ourselves of disease at least, all by some telekinesis of will into our DNA or something like that. Where traditional 'seeker' spirituality is all about humility, submission, and subverting the ego, Deep's is all hubris, ego projection, and command.

Consider the woman who wrote to Deepak Chopra that her breast cancer had spread to the bones and lungs: “Even though I follow the treatments, have come a long way in unburdening myself of toxic feelings, have forgiven everyone, changed my lifestyle to include meditation, prayer, proper diet, exercise, and supplements, the cancer keeps coming back. Am I missing a lesson here that it keeps reoccurring? I am positive I am going to beat it, yet it does get harder with each diagnosis to keep a positive attitude.”

Chopra’s response: “As far as I can tell, you are doing all the right things to recover. You just have to continue doing them until the cancer is gone for good. I know it is discouraging to make great progress only to have it come back again, but sometimes cancer is simply very pernicious and requires the utmost diligence and persistence to eventually overcome it.”

This isn’t meaningless babble. It’s cavalier cruelty. You know how this goes: If the cancer doesn’t go away after all the unburdening, forgiving, and mediating, this woman can only conclude It’s All Her Fault for falling short of “the utmost diligence and persistence”. And this is what Chopra is doing, not just in correspondence with one patient at a time, but on a mass scale, over and over again, all for the sake of puffing himself up, acquiring power, and stuffing his bank account.

It's not the mere fact that Chopra is 'spiritual' that's the problem, it's how he shapes it and what he does with it. It's just the higher-concept 'quantum' version of, "if you think it, it will happen" And that's a non-science that not only can't walk with science, not only actively hurts science, but hurts vulnerable people. And I submit that these things, not the broad arcane theological/philosophical fine points, is what we should be addressing here.

#81

Hello, Humpty Dumpty...

Hillary is Humpty Dumpty.

If we're done with Castaneda, can we discuss how orthogonal timelines were revealed to Philip K. Dick by Jesus Christ? Spoiler alert: everything happens for a reason.

Or maybe ever ascending spirals? The wheel of time? Eschatology? Bowie? Crowley?

The devil himself?

Or should we focus on quantum mechanics.

How about Crowley? He'd eat you for lunch, and I'm not only speaking metaphorically.

Do you know the secret of the 5th elephant?

Spoiler alert: everything happens for a reason.

OK, what's the reason for your sudden flood of really dumb comments?

#90 1) Probably because of the unceasing torrent of dumb comments from "experts" and even scientists about the Presidential race that turned out to be 100% false. 2) Because there are two orthogonal axes of cause and effect; in other words, the future is written. This is where Dick comes in. ALSO, the most important thing to remember about Castaneda is that he died of cancer at the age of 72.

Again, if you want proof of any of this, see comment #61. Enroll in a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins. Don't speak about that which you do not know.

#89 Crowley, horrible person. Practicioner of black magic. The point in Crowley is this: you can appeal to the power of god in 2 ways. You either subsume yourself to god's will (i.e. wu-wei) or you demand that god enrich and glorify your earthly existence. The former is faith, the latter is satanic. Crowley was satanic. But the amazing thing is that, satanism never prevails. Every human dies with nothing. Will you be ready to go?

OK, what’s the reason for your sudden flood of really dumb comments?

The audio is really bad, but -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GK6cct0Vjs

"...as Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time, for no reason..."

Spoiler alert: everything happens for a reason.

In the real world we call that "causality".

Every human dies with nothing. Will you be ready to go?

Sounds like I don't have to pack, which will be a time saver. Do I need paperwork? Is my passport good enough?

Thank you for the citation #94. Could quantum mechanics possibly be responsible for Trump presidency?

Probably because of the unceasing torrent of dumb comments from “experts”

Yah. Or perhaps you're a sophomoric halfwit, Wes. How fυcking old are you at this point, anyway? What do you do?

Girl I'm an artist.

@Narad,

The "sophomoric" comment made be right on target.

I was thinking that practically all of Wesley's comments remind me of the sort of dormitory babble that we students would banter with each other on Friday nights in the lounge room.

I think it was a combination of letting off steam before the football game the next day and the subsequent frantic studying for the next week's assignments with trying to assimilate and make sense of some of the ideas from the previous week's classes. And, maybe a bit of just trying to impress each other.

But, seriously, Wesley, if you want to convince anyone of something, you should at least state a prima facie argument for it.

I'm happy to discuss philosophy and tend to a mix of stoicism and epicureanism, but I much prefer my medical treatments to be tested and shown to work.

But, I am curious, which version of string theory corresponds most closely with those philosophical filaments you mentioned and how would you test to see if that were correct or false?

Wes must be on a wind up: no-one takes that sort of old stylee student stoner stuff seriously, surely?

Starting to remind me of Pinto in Animal House...

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Really the best you people can muster is ad hominem prejudice against stoners, hippies, and young people? Nixon would be proud.

Nixon would be proud.

Oh, do show everyone the breadth of your historical understanding.

The Tao of Physics asserts that both physics and metaphysics lead inexorably to the same knowledge.

Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science, but man needs both...

Capra struggled to reconcile theoretical physics and Eastern mysticism and was at first "helped on my way by 'power plants'" or psychedelics, with the first experience "so overwhelming that I burst into tears, at the same time, not unlike Castaneda, pouring out my impressions to a piece of paper"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Physics#Origin

Things that make you go "hmmm."

@wesley (103),

I did ask a question. So you have an answer?

What's. the over/under on conflation of the Landscape with Everett?

""So you have an answer?

Answers can change the question line every time; And now the truth in confidence tells a lie.

What's going on?

-- Pete Belotte, Adam Ant, Giorgio Moroder

Hah, I completely forgot that this was on-line. I can't remember whether it was a Swedenborgian or a Rosicrucian book sale where I picked up a roughly 18mo perfect-bound copy, along with a matching The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew.

@103

Nope: I was a student and young and got stoned and spouted bullsh!t like that, as did most of my mates. I worked for many years with teenagers and heard some very similar things.

It's not prejudice, it's a description based on experience. And it isn't an ad hom, either.

You haven't actually said anything that we can properly engage with really, so I have to comment on the form of what you have said. Give me some substance and we shall see...

sullenbode, thank you for your comments, namaste.

squirrelelite, I know next to nothing about string theory although I do expect there are 10 or 11 dimensions. I think the simplest explanation for one of Castaneda's filaments is a wave/particle. Again, you can conceptualize it as a sensory interface (between the brain and the universe) or a physical interface (between outer and inner space) but either way, that which appears without is within, and that that appears within is without. It's a MONOdeific UNIverse. One with everything.

Narad I won't tell you all the awful things I know about Nixon. Suffice to say that he shut down promising medical research for decades and gave us the War on Drugs because he was AFRAID of a few academic, intellectual, free-thinking hippies. He was a paranoiac of the highest order and deserves every ounce of his disgrace.

We were talking
About the space between us all
And the people who hide themselves
Behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth
Then it's far too late
When they pass away.

We were talking
About the love we all could share
When we find it
To try our best to hold it there
With our love, with our love
We could save the world
If they only knew...

Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you.

We were talking
About the love that's gone so cold
And the people who gain the world
And lose their soul
They don't know, they can't see
Are you one of them?

When you've seen beyond yourself
Then you may find
Peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come
When you see we're all one
And life flows on within you and without you.

[The Beatles]

TINW, Wesley.

I see you Narad. http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2014/10/20/death-is-an-angel/

If Castaneda and Aldous Huxley are not your cups of tea, what about Newton? Max Planck? Einstein? And so many others?

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” -Planck

Quoting philosophers and deep thinkers of yore? Right, I can do that.

"All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons" - St Augustine.

Bleaching away what ails you: Miracle Mineral Solution and Jim Humble's Genesis II Church

oracknows — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 05:30:48 +0000

Bleaching away what ails you: Miracle Mineral Solution and Jim Humble's Genesis II Church

It’s time to get this video clip out again:

Yes, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. But who are “they”? I’m referring to the cult that thinks that bleach enemas (and also ingested bleach) will cure children of autism. I was reminded of that cult when ABC News 20/20 aired a special on Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), the aforementioned bleach miracle cure. It’s the sort of story that we need to see more of, the result of what was reported to be a year-long investigation of Rev. Jim Humble and his church, the inventor and primary promoter of MMS as a cure for autism and just about everything else.

Before I get to the story, let’s recap. MMS is bleach. Specifically, it is a 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water that generates chlorine dioxide when diluted with citric acid-containing or other acid-containing foods, as instructed. This is a chemical used for water purification that a quack named Jim Humble has touted as a miracle cure for just about everything from cancer to AIDS to a wide variety of conditions, serious and not-so-serious. There is no currently known valid medical reason to administer this chemical to anyone to treat anything, much less cancer, autism, AIDS, or other medical conditions. None of this is (or should be) in serious dispute from a strictly scientific, medical, or ethical standpoint.

The next fact that is not in serious dispute is that a woman named Kerri Rivera, operating out of a quack clinic in Mexico, has been touting MMS as a “biomedical” treatment for autism. Although she appears to have gotten out of the MMS business ever since having had to agree to sign an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with the state of Illinois, which means that she agreed to stop promoting and selling chlorine dioxide bleach as a treatment for autism, she was the main person who popularized the treatment in the “autism biomed” community. As part of the treatment, she advocated feeding MMS to autistic children every two hours over the course of 72 hours (her “72-2 protocol”) and giving children MMS enemas three times a week, basically to “bleach the autism away.” She admitted that the side effects included at minimum diarrhea and fever. In fact, she has said that the diarrhea is a good thing if it’s “detox diarrhea” and that the fever means the immune system is being stimulated, thus making it a good thing as well. What is also not in dispute is that Rivera brought this message of bleaching autism away to the yearly autism biomed quackfest known as Autism One multiple times, making even some die-hard supporters of autism quackery cringe. Again, there is currently no known valid medical reason to give this chemical to any autistic child to treat autism. Again, none of this is (or should be) in serious dispute from a scientific standpoint.

So it was that I learned of a joint investigation between ABC’s 20-20 and the southern California affiliate ABC7 looking at MMS, Jim Humble, and Kerri Rivera. Here’s part 1 of the 20/20 report:

ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

It’s a shocking report. The level of lies coming from Jim Humble is truly amazing, as is his shamelessness in claiming to be able to cure breast cancer, prostate cancer, brain cancer, and autism, describing MMS as a “sacrament.” Steve Novella makes an appearance, and Jim Humble’s reaction to being challenged is quite telling. I must admit that I particularly liked the part where they poured MMS on a pair of blue jeans to demonstrate what a strong bleach it is. One particularly horrific part comes near the end of the first segment, where Humble's "archbishop" Mark Grenon is shown in his studio saying that if you get breast cancer, you brought it on, and that women should rely on MMS, not mammograms, surgery, and chemotherapy.

One woman, Sylvia Nash, died after taking MMS as a preventative measure for malaria. Her widower Doug gives a harrowing account of how his wife died in his arms after taking MMS. It’s not clear from the autopsy that MMS actually caused her death, but one really has to wonder, given the temporal proximity of her death to her having taken MMS. Correlation doesn’t always equal causation, but it’s very suspicious, it’s initially plausible that MMS caused Nash’s death, as you can see if you examine more details in the ABC7 report:

On the other hand, his wife only took two drops, which shouldn’t have been a highly toxic dose for an adult. So it’s still unclear whether MMS is what killed Sylvia Nash.

The next segment shows ABC News tracking down Jim Humble in his Mexican redoubt:

ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

One thing I never realized before is just how whacky Humble is. He claims to have come from another galaxy, for one thing. When cornered by a reporter, Humble remained cool, calm, and collected, denying that MMS could be harmful and standing by claims that it is good for children and women with breast cancer. Tellingly, when asked for evidence, he was unable to produce any.

One good thing that happened last year on the MMS front is that a major distributor of MMS and believer in Jim Humble’s Genesis II Church, Louis Daniel Smith, was convicted of selling MMS as a drug and sentenced to four years in prison. Unfortunately, Smith was part of a huge network of at least 1,700 selling MMR around the world; so stopping him hardly puts a dent in MMS distribution. After all, there are many others like this:

And the occasional celebrity testimonial, like this one by Lindsay Wagner, who starred as The Bionic Woman:

Her claim:

But none of that 70s TV magic prepared Wagner for an ailment she would suffer in real life - a case of chronic Urticaria, which is severe, disabling hives.

"All over my body, like welts, like big welts. I looked like a boxer, my eyes were all swollen," she said.

Steroids and antihistamines helped, but they had side effects and weren't a permanent solution. So after eight months of suffering, Wagner was desperate for a cure.

"It would burn. It would itch like crazy. It's something that could just make you go insane," she said.

Through a friend, Wagner was put in touch with a woman whose child seemed to be nearly cured of severe autism by something called Miracle Mineral Solution, or MMS, that was purported to work for a variety of ailments, including chronic hives.

And:

"I was dumbfounded. Within a week, I was off the Prednisone. Within one week, I was just shocked," she said.

She said within weeks the hives disappeared and never came back.

"I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a chemist. But it just seemed like this had actually cured whatever I was reacting to," she said.

Chronic urticaria is a skin condition with a wide variety of presentations tied to a large number of causes. It’s often very hard to treat, but its natural course is to wax and wane, to become quiescent for a while and to recur. In other words, it’s a perfect condition to give the illusion of effectiveness to a quack remedy., and it’s incredibly unlikely that MMS cured Wagner’s urticaria. That’s why I wish ABC7 had resisted the temptation to include this segment. It adds nothing to the story, but it’s a credulous treatment of MMS that taints an otherwise very good report.

Unfortunately, as long as Humble stays in Mexico, there isn’t much that US authorities can do to investigate or extradite him. His archbishop, Mark Grenon, continues to sell MMS in the US, claiming immunity due to his being an archbishop and Genesis II being a church. Grenon isn’t quite as smooth as Humble. Basically, when confronted by the 20/20 team, he started ranting, swearing, and asking if ABC is owned by the Rothschilds. It’s simultaneously hilarious and disturbing at the same time to watch.

One thing that disappointed me about the 20/20 segment was that there was very little about autism and virtually nothing about Kerri Rivera. Fortunately, ABC7 takes up that slack:

Particularly balmy is this claim:

"Will it cure autism?" Wedeen asked.

"Well, we've seen 234 people lose their autism diagnosis with the protocol," Rivera told Wedeen.

"I guess I'm just scared of the side effects? But if there aren't any?" Wedeen said.

"There are no side effects. It doesn't have any. Within an hour it's out of the body," Rivera responded.

Rivera insisted the potion was safe because it's chemically different from bleach. She also claimed it's most effective when doses are timed to cycles of the moon.

"Yeah, full moon because the parasites go into the gut during the full moon and the new moon and they mate," Rivera told Wedeen.

"Really?" Wedeen asked.

"And so you can get a lot of kills. You can kill a lot of parasites during the moon cycles," Rivera stated.

I’ve examined photos of the “parasites” parents using MMS have claimed to have removed from their children’s intestines through the use of MMS enemas before. They’re generally disgusting ropy-looking strands with mucus attached. Basically, anyone with a modicum of knowledge about parasites and gastroenterology will recognized that these are not actually parasites, but rather mucus mixed with fragments of colon mucosa (the innermost lining of the colon). It’s definitely not worms or parasites, and the claim that the parasites go into the child on the full moon to mate is about as daft a claim as I’ve ever heard. Four years after having learned of MMS and Kerri Rivera, I still have time accepting that anyone could believe such nonsense, but believe it they do.

One of the best disinfectants for quackery like MMS is to shine the light of publicity and skepticism on it. Kudos to ABC and ABC7 for doing just that.

oracknows Mon, 10/31/2016 - 01:30

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Medicine

What about removing coffee stains?

It is good that there has been an investigative report on MMS. Humble comes out of it looking like the charlatan that he is. But this doesn't seem to matter to the true believers, who just make excuses. It must be a strange mindset that allows you to do that and explains why these charlatans can continue in business.

Personally, I liked Mark Grenon. What a maroon.

Now if only CPS would start coming down on parents that use this crap on their children. Religious mumbo-jumbo or not, abuse is abuse.

It's one thing for adults to take MMS, but the idea of feeding a child bleach is beyond the pale in so many ways.

I helped out with the "20/20" and ABC7 reports as part of my anti-MMS group of autistics, same as I did with the CBC "fifth estate" investigation back in March. It was me who put MMS to Brian Ross' attention more than a year ago, through Lisa Bartley in Los Angeles. Some comments.

1.) I think the reason autism gets little mention in the "20/20" segment is behind-the-scenes drama. Simply put, the priorities of the ABC team (getting an exclusive story) clashed my group's priorities (confronting the church through the press wherever and whenever they planned a seminar), thus we were cut out of the loop early on. But we still had a good relationship with ABC7, resulting in the story on Rivera.
2.) "ABC7" being KABC in Los Angeles, not KGO in San Francisco.
3.) Mark Grenon made the gross comments about women being to blame for breast cancer, not Humble.

I enjoyed the 20/20 segment, while being disappointed at its shallow, superficial approach (complete with '70s-style ambush interviewing). Too bad they didn't confront those who while not directly involved with selling this scam, facilitate it. Like J.B. Handley:

"In the last few years, an entirely new theory has developed about what’s causing the behaviors and symptoms we call Autism: parasites. It’s a novel theory, spearheaded by three very innovative people: Kerri Rivera, Andreas Kalcker, and Jim Humble. (Parents like Robin Goffe have further added to the protocols.) As a ten-year veteran of biomed, I’m skeptical to any and all new ideas, and was extremely skeptical of the claims being made by these revolutionary parents and practitioners."

"I hope all parents will take a closer look at the Parasite-Autism theory and see if their child may fit the profile of a child suffering from parasitic infection. What’s most shocking about this new treatment approach are the claims being made by parents. At last count, 163 parents claim their children have recovered from Autism by following Kerri Rivera’s protocol. One hundred and sixty-three kids? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lot of kids, particularly for something that’s supposed to be impossible to do! And, as if we need to ask, how many people from the CDC, AAP, or Autism Speaks have looked into the parasite-autism theory or interviewed the parents of the 163 children they claim are recovered? You know the answer."

"Who’s afraid of Autism recovery?"

"Mainstream Autism organization who have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and spent it all on genetic causation research."

http://www.ageofautism.com/2015/01/whos-afraid-of-autism-recovery.html

Excellent work, Sebastian!
This crap *really* needs to stop.

Still, a few drops of MMS should turn my sheets back into white sheets again. Currently, they have blue areas, due to my wife's chromhidrosis.
Note to self, pick up some antibacterial soap. Well, that is one effective "treatment", as it's a reaction between body waste products in perspiration and bacteria colonizing the skin.
But, do note the more appropriate usage of MMS, as a bleach for clothing, even if MMS would be very serious overkill (as in, dissolving sheets if insufficiently diluted).

Now, off to ponder Monopoly, well, a part of it, as applicable to these monsters. "Go to Jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200".

His archbishop, Mark Grenon, continues to sell MMS in the US, claiming immunity due to his being an archbishop and Genesis II being a church.

That won't necessarily protect him if suitably minded federal agents get on his case about selling MMS to people who aren't members of his church. The precedent is the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, which claimed that marijuana was a sacrament, but which turned out to be a front for a marijuana smuggling operation. (The linked article is a story from 1981, written shortly after the smuggling operation was busted; the author is the same Carl Hiaasen who went on to be a best-selling novelist, so you can see how he gets some of his plot ideas.) The "religious freedom" claims simply mean that the authorities have to be that much more careful about making their case, but there is likely a case to be made here.

@Daniel Corcos (#1) "What about removing coffee stains?"

I immediately started thinking of the cross-marketing potential if Genesis II teamed up with the fine folks at the Gerson Institute.

Where's The Food Babe when you need her? [I wonder how many MMS users avoid 'chemicals' in their food...]

I'm sure MMS reverses the evil effects of fluoridated water. It's not regular bleach. It's Holy sacramental bleach. Blessed by the God of Andromeda. (Strain in credibility there. Humble? I think not!)

I'm waiting for Gilbert to crack a joke that Hillary Clinton will now claim she bleached her email server so it won't get autism.

MMS, MLM, MDK, MIB, MOFO,...
https://youtu.be/X_dO4x1kbJ4?t=13s

Ha ha, on wiki, food babe title "known for" pseudoscience. When wiki calls you out, there is no escape

Hillary neglected her dirty, sticky v-box. Unloved, a lackey felt sorry for it and scrubbed it out with pinecones and donkey fat -- But it was too late for the savvy little server; It started babbling, complaining about being chocked with Dust-Off and the lipophilic flesh of an animal. A second lackey shut it up with digital BleachBit; Now it's got soulless ports, like a doll's ports.

Hillary didn't see that the server got the slightest standard of care nor even miss the poor thing after it had been lobotimized. Indeed, she feigned ignorance of the fate of her ward:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rha6Wamfp0

So there is a use for the Food Babe!

On the autism front, most people interested in the area may have already seen this but it is a nice change from the totally wacky.

/The results are the first to show long-term symptom reduction after a randomised controlled trial of early intervention in autism spectrum disorder.

I've only read the abstract but it looks a bit promising. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31229…

@ Sadmar

Blessed by the God of Andromeda. (Strain in credibility there.

Were you trying to pass a subliminal message that MMS would cure victims of the Andromeda strain?

@ Science Monkey:

Although you are most likely a very wicked person to say that, I find that we think alike.

@ sadmar:

Or else make various lesbian-bashing asides about HRC and Huma.

@ MarkN:

I'm pleased to announce - as I have elsewhere- that Food Babe's numbers on Alex have declined since this time last year.

that is ON ALEXA

Humble comes out of it looking like the charlatan that he is. But this doesn’t seem to matter to the true believers, who just make excuses

The obvious fraudulence of the MMS industry just results in Alt-Med scammers using it as a shibboleth -- they pay homage to MMS as a sign of sincerity, and to demonstrate their independence from the Pharma / Big-Med / Rationality complex. Credo quia absurdum!!

So here's the proprietor of an "organic health food" shop in Bournemouth ('Earth Foods'), pimping the whole broad spectrum of lies and frauds and grifts:

The ingredients for the mixture were alcohol from wood,made by themselves,pine resin, eucalyptus resin and 70% OF PURE CANNABIS oil made from the same family seeds for over 1,000 years. Do Not take the modern day skunk ,stay off sugars, apart from Agave, Xylitol and stevia ,use Organic foods ,stay off meats ,and do not to eat much cheese and use Hemp Oil and or Linseed oil. Check out (Prof Dr Burszynsky .com and the Budwig Diet.com, Alkalize for health.com,Mr Bean Videos ) also Prof Linus Pauling a vitamin Guru ,and his top Student, Dr Mathuis Rath. They have both been out spoken regarding the truths learned about anticancer, longevity of life, using nature's medicines, also using pure minerals that are negatively charged and are made from the Eucalyptus tree millions of years ago. Over 70 minerals in liquid solution, mineral salts and over 95 negatively charged minerals were made about 260 million years ago. Open cell ‘Phytomarine Plankton Spirulina’ contains virtually everything a human needs to survive, including R N A < D N A the Double Helix (I am pretty sure if Darwin new about Spirulina he may have suggested that we may have a connection with this ‘Super-Duper’ food). Have a mixture of spirulina and linseed oil, mix with pink salt, use it on any organic food add it in blender with broccoli carrots avocado some hemp milk, or almond or quinoa milks and just blend. Use plenty of vit C, L-Lysine, L- Proline, Silica, vit D, vit k, Curcumin Longa, Green teas , Resveratrol, selenium and B17 which has negatively charged hydrogen cyanide locked into it, also known has Amagdelen. Personally I have taken between 30 and 50 bitter Apricot kernels per day for over 30 yrs. Check out Dr Contreras at the Charity of Hope Hospital in Tijuana Mexico. Eat only Organic Veggies,some exercise according to age,Cellfood (made from Deuterium Sulphate and lignite), M.S.M and MMS and so many other natural products, it may be possible you can live with most Cancers. Chemo, Radiation and Sugar can spreads tumours

I first looked up 'Earth Foods' after they were caught importing GcMAF through Bulgaria and peddling it as a cancer cure; I stayed to find out more about his "CellFood" deuterium sulphate (i.e. sulphuric acid made with Heavy Water).

J.B. Handley:
“[...] As a ten-year veteran of biomed, I’m skeptical to any and all new ideas, and was extremely skeptical of the claims being made by these revolutionary parents and practitioners.”

This has been another episode of "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

they pay homage to MMS as a sign of sincerity, and to demonstrate their independence from the Pharma / Big-Med / Rationality complex

Mustn't forget Klaus Ross, the German cancer conman with the impressive trail of bodies. Although his idiosyncratic approach to administering bromopyruvate was his main drawcard, he wasn't going to turn down other income streams:

1. Het remmen van het niet-fysiologische metabolisme van de kankercellen
3-BP Glucose Blocker
2-DG
DCA

2. Kankercel metabolisme herstructureringstheraphie
Enzym Therapie (Horvi)
Hoge dosis vitamine C
Glutathion zuur
Alfa- liponzuur
Medicinale paddenstoelen
MMS
DMSO / MSM
Curcumine
B17 (Amygdaline)
Artemisinine

3. Immuun Theraphie
GcMAF
NK Cells
Mistletoe Therapy
Organo peptide (o.a. thymus, lever, milt - faktor AF-2)
Allopathische behandeling (door dokter Guenther Enderlein – Sanum therapie)
Colostrum therapie
Vaccins tegen kanker

4. Pijnbestrijding
Neuraaltherapie
Acupunctuur
MSM
DMSO
Vitamine B

5. Anastasistheraphie

6. Bio-resonantie en Bio-feedback

7. Zuurstof therapie, H202, Ozon, Vitamine B15

8. Cranio-sacrale therapie

@ Helianthus

No, I was hinting MMS is</i. the Andromeda Strain. Humble is an shape-shifting alien trying to infect the people of Earth with space bugs in preparation for the takeover by his reptilian race. Not only should Food Babe be fighting him, but every true Christian must reject this false 'god', who is surely a demon sent to plague man by Satan himself. (By which I mean Humble buys his bleach wholesale from Monsanto*.)
[/parody]
_______
* New NYT business-page report on GMO's: safe to eat, but don't increase yields OR reduce the use of pesticides. Just more profits for the agribiz octocpus.

That NYT report was debunked on Illumination yesterday.
Yield is indeed increased, by virtue of the crop surviving. Pesticide usage varies, depending upon how one redefines pesticides creatively.

As for the Andromeda Strain, that's easily enough avoided by using barrier contraception. Ya hear me, Jim Kirk?!

the God of Andromeda
If this involves building a supercomputer that runs a program to synthesise Julie Christie, I am not sure if I approve.
https://jameswharris.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/a-for-andromeda-001_th…

May be if we start playing Slim Whitman again these aliens will explode also.

OT WUWT reports that Donna Laframboise has a report out on peer-review fraud written for Global Warming Policy Foundation.

It should make interesting reading.

I never read her earlier book as it would have meant spending money and I was not about to encourage her.

Good Herr Doktor @19

I think I can feel a report to Dorset Trading Standards coming on...

But I need to steel myself for a thorough wade through that ocean of bovine excrement first.

Oh, FFS!

I read more at HDB's link @ 19...

http://www.earth-foods.co.uk/anti-cancer is pretty much a primer on alt med cancer woo, and note a version of the Quack Miranda at the bottom - "Disclaimer: All material on this web page is provided for information only and may not be construed as medical advice or instruction. No action or inaction should be taken based solely on the contents of this email alert; instead, readers should consult their family doctor and other qualified health professionals on any matter relating to their health and well-being. The information and opinions provided on this web page are believed to be accurate and sound, based on the best judgment available to the author. Readers who fail to consult with appropriate health authorities assume the risk of any injuries. The publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions."

Dorset Trading Standards here I come!

@ Herr Doktor Bimler #19
Where do those Mr. Bean videos fit in?

Dorset Trading Standards here I come!</i

Good luck!

'Earth Foods' were in the news earlier when a BBC journalist found them trying to steer cancer patients away from therapy and in the direction of more lucrative scams.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/721633/Briton-Amanda-Jewell-…

The shop reckons that (A) the shop assistant had gone rogue and does not represent Earth Foods' own position; and (B) Carl Hardman (owner and scammer whose blog compilation of lies and fantasies we are citing) has retired so the Earth-Foods website doesn't represent Earth Foods' position either.

Marxist tools are running scared. What's wrong, docs, profits running dry? I bought MMS in 2009 for a nagging cough. I took ONE DROP - the recommended dosage - with 5 drops of lemon juice plus 4 ounces of water and the nagging cough left immediately. Since then I've used it to treat countless sore throats, all gone in roughly 30 minutes. That's a complete guess because I used to wake up in the morning with sore throats, take the MMS, then fall back asleep. So it could be faster than 30 minutes, could be a couple hours. But MMS kicked the infections 100% of the time. I used it for a friend of mine who had flu like symptoms. She was near 100% better in 3 hours. Oh and the doctor that discovered MMS has treated tens of thousands of malaria patients in Africa. I'll keep my MMS, you can keep yer nasty vaccines, drugs, chemicals, and Obamacare.

Well, enjoy your cancer. That's essentially guaranteed when one incessantly takes strong oxidizers, which were never intended for enteric usage in humans.

"Oh and the doctor that discovered MMS has treated tens of thousands of malaria patients in Africa."

Oh, he's utterly cured an entire continent of malaria, yet magically stayed off of the news. How wonderful!
Here, let me reach into the cat box, ah! Here's a cookie.

Since then I’ve used it to treat countless sore throats,

So the relief isn't very long lasting?

gaist@33: Or maybe it's the 4oz of water that are fixing the sore throat? I know that sometimes I wake up with a sore throat because I slept with my mouth open all night and my throat dried out. A glass of water usually gets me back to feeling fine!

But no, it's totally drinking bleach that instantly cures an infection. smh

Oh and the doctor that discovered MMS

You lose.

has treated tens of thousands of malaria patients in Africa.

Twice.

I don't doubt that drinking even a dilute bleach solution leads to countless sore throats.

I love the quaint delusion alties have that MMS, hydrogen peroxide, apple cider vinegar or any of their myriad SuperCures are threatening to put the medical profession out of business. Those who rely on these nostrums for serious problems will wind up in physician offices (or ERs) eventually, often with bigger and more lucrative problems to fix. It's just a shame that their delusions get inflicted on their children.

I'm sort of puzzled though that docs are Marxists, yet simultaneously worried about their profits. ?????

Well, on a plus side, MMS is useful for disinfecting large amounts of water. Might get some and titrate it for the pool.
H2O2 is a useful disinfectant and bleach in its own right, I keep some dilute H2O2 on hand as a disinfectant.
Apple cider vinegar is something I also keep on hand, along with malt vinegar - for cooking. :)

Yeah, I didn't get that Marxist nonsense and the capitalistic notion of profit, together it's an oxymoron, akin to military and intelligence.

It's a shame that they insist upon using a valuable tool incorrectly, for the incorrect purpose. Even money, these fine folks likely utilize a sledgehammer to install a wood screw into the wall to hang a picture, with equally predictable results.

So the relief isn’t very long lasting?

This Chris might also want to find out why he or she has, ah, some sort of immmune problem:

But MMS kicked the [countless] infections [causing sore throats] 100% of the time.

This Chris might also want to find out why he or she has, ah, some sort of immmune problem:

Oxidative stress of the immune system and capillary damage, perhaps? That, plus mucosal damage, as those protective tissues keep infections at bay by entrapping pathogens.

I suspect that Chris is in an unintended race with me toward Barrett's esophagus. In my case, due to longstanding GERD. While the proton pump inhibitors are doing their job, enzymes still are produced and do their job quite effectively.
But, there is one key difference if that comes to be. In my case, I don't have a powerful oxidizer being swallowed, to cause genetic damage to the goblet cells. Chris would.
So, I'll stay at a 10% elevated chance of cancer, Chris will have a substantially greater probability of cancer.

A probability that likely, even our intrepid host wouldn't be able to calculate, due to the rather random and uncontrolled exposures.

Perhaps, I should go to the cat box and get Chris another cookie...

Chris: "I’ll keep my MMS, you can keep yer nasty vaccines, drugs, chemicals, and Obamacare."

MMS is a chemical, specifically bleach. You obviously do not have a clue, and you should really have that throat looked at if you get so many sore throats.

@#40, I get my share of sore throats in the winter. Low humidity in the house, (I don't snore, we need a brand new word for what I do, it's so much greater) open mouth while sleeping, GERD.
A bit of hypertonic saline sets things right when plain water rehydrating tissues works like a charm.

Of course, salt and water are chemicals. MMS obviously isn't a chemical, it's a unicorn fart.
Or something.

Some other important questions: how big is "one drop"? 50uL? 500uL? Probably not 5uL, most people don't have anything small enough to make a drop that small (although if you had a lot of hypodermic needles lying around you could probably do it).
And how big are the drops of lemon juice? Fresh squeezed? What if you use Meyer lemons?
And what about the water? Tap water, spring water, rain water, distilled water, deionized water?

Obviously, distilled water, rain water or grain alcohol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

Ahh, Wzrd1 #41.

Magnesium citrate + half a teaspoon of baking soda stops GERD in it's tracks. Don't fall for the "purple pill" unless you wish to retardate a little bit more:

The results are potentially worrisome considering the number of elderly individuals who take PPIs (recent studies estimate more than one quarter of U.S. nursing home residents use them) and the devastating, difficult-to-treat effects of dementia...

inhibiting acid production could impair the cells' ability to break up the protein tangles that are thought to be related to dementia.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-popular-heartburn-meds-re…

@Gilbert, having the craps isn't my first goal in daily life. Magnesium citrate will do just that, not to mention that it's ambiguous in nature, due to multiple compounds that can fulfill that name.

As for "retardate", ROFLMAO! I can drop dozens of IQ points and still remain well above average in any score range.
Short term memory has taken a hit, but after being slammed in the head a number of times and an IED blast leaving everyone save myself unconscious, yeah, that's a confounder right there.

That said, I do enjoy the right foods to ensure that I do get enough magnesium, which is a rather important mineral.
I do have to watch calcium input, as I'll obviously be deficient in calcium absorption, due to prilosec dosing.
As I'm not calcium deficient, as proved by blood work, I'm fine, how are you?
I'll still not screw around with a saline laxative that I have no need for.*

*Feel free to imbue my response in a George Patton styled profanity laced response that the above would be included in. It's a personal trademark, just to ensure people underestimate my intelligence. :)
That, especially, as we've been in the upper 80's here, such a laxative would cause significant electrolyte imbalance and dehydration. Something that's a *really* bad idea.

I’m sort of puzzled though that docs are Marxists, yet simultaneously worried about their profits. ?????

Don't overthink it. MMS = Health Freedom. Everything else is a list of shibboleths and Interchangeable signifiers to establish Mark's purity and sincerity to the cause.
Marxists = Obamacare = doctors = the Pharma-Medicine-Rationality-Complex = SCREEEE!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo

(Sorry, "Chris", not Mark)

Ok, a bit off topic I know, but I'm curious.
Wzrd1 mentioned that Magnesium Citrate is a laxative. I happen to know that Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate) and Milk of Magnesia also have laxative effects. Is there something about magnesium that causes that?

Good Herr Doktor @30

Thanks for that.

I got trapped in some Matrix style recursion trying to contact Dorset Trading Standards anyway: they've "out-sourced" the initial contact bit to Citizens' Advice, so you have to go round in hoop-jumping circles to do anything...So I gave up.

Welcome to Tory Britain.

@Gilbert: seriously? They started with people already age 75 or older, followed them for 7 years - so now in their 80s - and saw an increase in dementia? Now granted, they tried to control for some information. But other causes that put people at risk - smoking, genetics - were not available.

DO try to fully understand something before you link to it, dear. Now, go and play quietly. The grownups are talking.

Assuming MMS were able to cure anything, where are all these cured people? Humble claims to have worked his magic on thousands of people suffering from AIDS. If this were so, why aren't there clinics in Africa screaming about this cure?

The answer to any reasonable person is that it doesn't work. The answer to crazy adherents of MMS is it's some massive conspiracy. A conspiracy involving everyone in the world except them.

Is there something about magnesium that causes that?

It causes water to be drawn into the small intestine as well as enhancing muscle contraction and rythm -- Tables used as a supplement are more of a stool-softener than a laxative; It keeps one regular. Stopping the supplementation after being 'aclimatized' to it can aggravate constipation.

Adam @51: Exactly! And if it really does work (it doesn't) but the MMS people are withholding it from those who could be cured, that's plain cruelty.

I love how there's also never any mechanism of action for how it's supposed to cure all these different things. But then again, maybe that's the point, that there is no mechanism, it really is just a miracle.

To unpack the seemingly odd reference to Marx from troll-Chris:
I think the accusation is that docs are tools of a Marxist conspiracy, not Marxists themselves - 'useful idiots' who shortsightedly do the dirty long term work of establishing the new world order in return for short terms profits. However the sleepers have begin to awake and reject the "nasty vaccines, drugs, chemicals" pushed buy the Pharma Overloards (who are in turn controlled by the <strike.Jews Commies) in favor of MMS. Thus, the greedy docs are running scared because they're losing business.

Of course, outside the US, there are marxist doctors, and they're pretty damn cool. There has much to criticize about Cuba since the revolution, but not the health care, nor the fact that Cuban trained and supported doctors have brought modern medicine to any impoverished area of Latin America willing to let them in.

Then, there was that commie plot from Cuba, curing one form of lung cancer via a vaccine.*
Which, as the US wasn't recognizing Cuba, the US simply ignored the existence of said vaccine.
Well, until quite recently.
Thanks, Obama! ;)

*Hey, I'm all for anyone, regardless of socioeconomic, faith, creed or "race" plotting against disease. :D

The Church of Bleach seems to have adopted the pyramid-scheme business model from Scientology (was Jim Humble ever a Scientologist? It would explain a lot). You pay $50 per pay for a few weeks or months of "Sacramental Training" and then become ordained as a Bishop, with the authority to sell the Sacrament (and to harvest from the pockets of the next tier of suckers). Meanwhile sending money upwards in the pyramid for further initiation into the Arcana.

So naturally from the perspective of bleach scammers, it's everyone else who is motivated by greed.

@ Sadmar

I think the accusation is that docs are tools of a Marxist conspiracy

It's also the result of two conspiracies colliding - like any good conspiracy theory, you have to mix contradictory elements.
- on one hand, you have Big Pharma pushing for more products to sell
- OTOH, you have the gov' pushing for more control over your life, by instituting socialized medicine

The former gives you the "all corrupt" element of the conspiracy, and the latter the "commie" aspect.

A reasonable person would see each element as mostly separate - and heterogeneous - entities just following their own purpose and entropy, for better or worse. Private companies trying to make money, and politicians trying to manage the country*.
A conspiracy theorist weaves these elements as a concerted effort to stifle him personally.

* on the matter of socialized medicine, The Pump Handle has reported recently a study in which, surprise**, states which invest more money into health service have a lesser number of people suffering from AIDS. However, investment into income support doesn't have much effect.
** as a French and thus, highly dependent on our commie*** "nanny state", I'm not that surprised, but I'm biased.
*** by certain North American standards

Deepak Chopra castigates Donald Trump for not being reality-based. Another irony meter explodes.

oracknows — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 01:19:56 +0000

Deepak Chopra castigates Donald Trump for not being reality-based. Another irony meter explodes.

I’m sure that most of you watched the Presidential debate on Monday night, just as I did. Over the years, these debates have always always painful for me to watch, given the candidates’ tendency to answer the question they want to answer rather than the question actually answered; to find ways to spew prepackaged talking points into answers, whether they’re related to the question or not; and, above all, to see how much spin they can get away with. Particularly annoying is when they pander to their base with particularly brain dead bon mots. Candidates from both parties do it, of course, but this year is a bit different because not only is one of the candidates, Donald Trump, am antivaccine loon dating back a decade, but he lies all the time more frequently, shamelessly, and proficiently than literally any political candidate I can remember in my adult lifetime, and I’ve been following Presidential elections since 1976. Add to that his penchant for insulting his opponents, conspiracy theories like the “birther” movement that denies that Barack Obama is an native born American citizen and thus is ineligible to be President, and his skill at Gish galloping, and this was going to be the most...unusual Presidential debate in modern history.

Donald Trump ended up doing far more poorly than I expected, falling for a number of rather obvious traps laid for him by Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, the topic of vaccines didn’t come up, and the topic of anthropogenic global climate change only came up when Trump lied about ever having said that anthropogenic global climate change is an invention of China to hinder US industrial competitiveness. He did.

I’m not here to dissect what happened on Monday night, though. There are many out there who’ve already done it and are better at understanding politics than I am. Regular readers already know what I think of Donald Trump, and not just my contempt for him for being an antivaccinationist, which is perhaps the only belief that he’s been utterly consistent about for a decade. No, rather, I couldn’t help but laugh uproariously at an article about which the Friendly Atheist gave me the heads up, an article by that master of woo, Deepak Chopra, entitled Donald Trump and the Looking-Glass War. In it, Chopra seems to be going out of his way to nuke another one of my irony meters.

For example:

More than one observer has remarked that the tactics of the Trump campaign, which misses no opportunity to turn the truth upside down, have taken us to a crossroads.

And that’s just the first sentence. Remember, Deepak Chopra is a man who is so full of himself (and woo) that nearly a decade ago I coined a term for the mixture of mystical blather liberally sprinkled with science-y sounding bits of science utilizing terms like “quantum,” “cosmic consciousness,” and “epigenetics.” That term was “Choprawoo.” Once you read a few Chopra articles you’ll be able to recognize it in a few sentences and realize that there’s only one proper response to Choprawoo. After all, he’s applied it to attack evolution as “materialism,” by invoking “intelligent genes,” and, of course, by attacking Richard Dawkins. Sadly, he’s actually conned real scientists into collaborating with him to do a clinical trial.

In fairness, my amusement with Chopra’s article is not about Choprawoo, though. It’s about an extreme lack of self-awareness, such as here:

The looking-glass war is a contest taking place in collective consciousness. According to a fact-based view of reality, the U.S. is not in imminent danger from terrorism on a mass scale; we are a prosperous, growing economy; our military strength far surpasses any other nation; immigrants are a positive force in our pluralistic society, not a gang of criminals and freeloaders. But facts aren't the same as consciousness, and the wrong-is-right strategy that the Republicans have fostered for decades is rising to claim what is due to it. Because they owe their political survival to the very values that Trumpism expresses in exaggerated form, few Republicans are safe enough, or courageous enough, to speak out against him, and the prospect that this grotesque caricature of a candidate may actually win the Presidency has actually had the opposite effect. It has made estranged Republicans "come home," as they say, which means the embrace of shameless, shameful values as if they are acceptable.

And:

Collective consciousness holds up a mirror to the truth, and in the end there is no arguing against reality, wherever it takes us. My only point is to underline that all of us are reflected in the mirror as individuals

There is “no arguing against reality”? Really? “No arguing against reality”? Chopra is a man who has spent his entire life and career since abandoning real medicine for quackery and science for pseudoscience arguing against reality and losing! Just look at his brief bio after the op-ed. It lists him as being the author of Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Well-Being. Basically, it’s a book that invokes epigenetics to claim that you are the “user and controller of your genes, the author of your biological story.” Basically, it’s the same quack view of epigenetics as a magical biological mechanism that allows you to basically tell your genes whatever you want them to do and protect you from pretty much any disease. The bio also mentions that he is the author of Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine, perhaps the ultimate popularizer of the misuse of quantum physics to justify quackery. If you don’t believe me, just look at the blurb:

Inspired by the unexplained recovery of patients in his own practice who had been given just a few months to live, Dr. Chopra began his search for answers. After returning to his native India to explore humanity’s most ancient healing tradition, Ayurveda, he combined those insights with Western medicine, neuroscience, and physics. What he discovered—a “network of intelligence” in the human body with the potential to defeat cancer, heart disease, even aging itself—forms the basis of Quantum Healing. In this new edition, Dr. Chopra once again offers a fascinating intellectual journey and a deeply moving chronicle of hope and healing.

Now there’s your Choprawoo. Here’s some more that Chopra used recently to sell something he calls a HumaGram™:

HumaGrams are life-size photo-realistic digital representations of people, projected using ARHT’s patent-pending Augmented Reality Holographic Technology, capable of eliminating time and geography by allowing a speaker to appear in front of an audience as a hologram in real-time for a two-way interaction, without having the need to physically be there.

And:

With the advent of HumaGrams in the health and wellness space, individuals can now be beamed into virtually any location around the world using the public Internet, and can interact with multiple audiences in multiple locations in real-time opening up endless boundaries for greater engagement and collaboration. The use of this technology will bring the insights of key thought leaders to the masses while fusing the online with the offline. Jiyo users will be able to access a schedule of lectures, meditations, and workshops around the world where a HumaGram of these experts will be available to interact with them.

I was only disappointed that Chopra didn’t invoke quantum physics.

Still, given Chopra’s skill at laying down the world’s most concentrated woo over a long period of time, I’m sure you can see why yet another of my irony meters is lying on the table in a bubbling, quivering pile of molten plastic and wires.

I just had a terrifying thought: What if Donald Trump and Deepak Chopra joined forces? The woo would be YUGE, perhaps so huge that the world couldn’t handle it. I also had another thought. Even though Chopra is correct about Trump’s relationship with reality, he needs to learn to realize that he’s no different. In fact, he’s probably worse.

oracknows Tue, 09/27/2016 - 21:19

Categories

Policy

In a sense, it's no surprise that Chopra is so pissed off at candidate Trump. Not only the guy routinely badmouths immigrants, reminding him that all his success means nothing in the eyes of racists, but Trump is also loudly and shamelessly an egotist and materialist. And that's anathema for Chopra, who is after all a lifelong proponent of religion, who tries to "scientifically prove" that his Vedanta Hinduism (including yoga, mantras and meditations) is the key to perfect health and a spiritual life.

I also had another thought. Even though Chopra is correct about Trump’s relationship with reality, he needs to learn to realize that he’s no different. In fact, he’s probably worse.

I think Chopra's also envious as Trump may have an even lower signal to noise ratio that somehow still resonates with enough people to give him more popularity the Chopra.

A couple of years ago I was booked into a Trump hotel for a conference (not by choice). I felt out of place anyway but when I saw Deepak Chopra in the lobby I knew I didn't belong.

As usual, the Deepak Chopra Random Quote Generator has many perspicacious and epigenetic responses to Orac's article:

http://wisdomofchopra.com/

I was going to suggest that Trump needs his own random quote generator, except that he already does this without any help.

A Chopra HumaGram makes me shudder

I see two factors in play here:

1. As an immigrant from a country with a large Muslim population, Chopra correctly views Trump as an existential threat. As Irene @1 points out, Trump routinely badmouths non-European immigrants (his attitude about European immigrants is different, as can be seen from the fact that he has married two of them) to an extent that borders on incitement of violence. If he is elected, there will be pogroms. Chopra understands this much. He's less likely to survive a Trump presidency than a similarly situated white man.

2. Being a BS artist himself, Chopra recognizes that Trump is a BS artist, and Chopra would prefer not to have the competition (this is more or less the theory Chris @2 articulates). I agree with Chopra being worse than Trump in the following respect: I think Chopra knows he's a BS artist, but is too deep in the grift to explicitly admit it. I doubt Trump knows he's a BS artist--the man is a walking embodiment of Dunning-Kruger.

Hillary uses a HumaGram:

“The first impulse of the average Muslim in the Islamic world is that this kind of borrowing [culturally] would be somehow an alien factor into our social fabric and thereby destroying the integrity of our ethos … the integrity of our culture,” he added.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/weiner-father-law-exposed/

Uh hu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9K2TCON58

Eric @ 6

And of course he is from European immigrant stock himself, what with the German paternal side and, oh did we not know about it, his mother being Scottish...He just went on and on and on and on about that when he was over here, trying to break our planning laws, bribe his way into getting what he wanted, trampling all over the wishes of the locals, attempting to destroy protected sites...

#4 Dangerous Bacon - I had immediately gone to the random quote generator site and got this:

"Good health shapes quantum experiences"

Also, there is a Drumpfbot that will answer your questions -

https://www.donalddrumpfbot.com/

@SpecialFrog #3:

but when I saw Deepak Chopra in the lobby I knew I didn’t belong.

Don't worry, I don't think you did really see Chopra. You just saw one of his HumaGram™ projections.

He just went on and on and on and on about that when he was over here, trying to break our planning laws, bribe his way into getting what he wanted, trampling all over the wishes of the locals, attempting to destroy protected sites…

Which is more or less how he operates in the US. Except that in the US he has a well-documented habit of stiffing his contractors, many of which have had to resort to suing him for payment. (In the "hoist on their own petard" department, some of the contractors who have sued Trump for nonpayment are lawyers who represented him in other such suits.) Trump is such a notorious deadbeat that US banks will no longer do business with him. I don't know if he pulls this kind of stunt in other countries, but I do know that in some jurisdictions this would result in criminal rather than civil action.

I recall that Trump was at his golf course in Scotland the day after the Brexit vote, openly stating his glee at the result ... which Scotland had voted strongly against. As the line in The Big Lebowski puts it: Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos.

Lately, whilst doing my literary work in a related field-
I have sought the refuge of *voices on the television as background noise* thus I hear so much..from people,,,

I can't help but notice how the Donald's woo is so much like the crap I survey and have surveyed for a long time. He spouts out wish fulfilling fantasy and easy answers to difficult situations as though he were the Gary Null of real estate or reality TV or the Mike Adams of
the PRESIDENCY ( universe forbid!)

Watching the debate, it seemed to me as a trained psychologist
HOW MUCH IS AMISS WITH HIM -
No dx here
but please!
Let me vent!
He can't hold back verbally. or his actions
he has no depth
he rambles and SNIFFS
on and on

It is truly atrocious as well as frightening.

Don't viewers see this? And imagine what type of person would perform in that manner? What a lack of skills he has?
How that would get him up sh!t's creek rapidly? Sans a paddle? I am just aghast at the prospect of him with more power. Holy mackerel!

( and putting on my purple shirt or tie - to signify my non-bias-- it should be noted that HRC and Mr follow Dr Hyman's functional medicine or suchlike)

At least she took antibiotics

Still wearing the purple shirt/ tie...**

I thought that Orac and company might enjoy a comment or tweet ( I forget which) from DR Howard Dean..
about that sniffing-
HD ventured that perhaps the Orange One might
be using cocaine:
after all grandiosity, pressured speech etc
PERHAPS!

I am hoping that HD was being sarcastic or joking. I found the idea hilarious. It would be problematic if he were serious.
Trump supposedly never used any drug and never drank alcohol

** although I am liberaler than almost anyone

@Denise: Cocaine would make a lot of sense. Not so much as a cause of Trump behaviour, but as a consequence. I mean, so far the guy exhibited all the hallmarks of a mob boss, in his business style as well as in his private life. So why forgo the powder?

""he rambles and SNIFFS

So. Hillary Clinton has crabs.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/jacob-geers/2016/07/someone-in-maryland-is-pa…

Quantum Healing? Can healing really be quantized into discrete and identical units? What the hell is a healing quantum?

I get the impression this word has been misappropriated in a futile attempt to instill awe and scientific legitimacy to his BS in a confusing way that it not immediately discernible to the reader, since hardly anyone fully understands quantum mechanics. His woobabble is only second to David Wolfes' brand of woospeak.

Chocolate is an octave of Sun energy; chocolate lines up planetarily with the sun. In fact, it is the energy in the center of the Sun.

-David Wolfe

In fairness, my amusement with Chopra’s article is not about Choprawoo, though. It’s about an extreme lack of self-awareness...

I wish to submit the observation that if Deepak Chopra had any self-awareness, he wouldn't write what he writes.

@ Denise Walters
Still wearing the purple shirt/ tie…**

Be careful, you may find yourself supporting someone you have never even heard of.

But now, as Canada’s ranks of independent candidates adopt one of the last viable colours on the rainbow, purple is getting conscripted for political service.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/post-partisa…

And a cute line allegedly used by Québec's non-political clergy when commenting on elections in the late 19th C. "Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge".

@ irenedelse:

Haha!

But really and truly, I do firmly believe that his speech patterns and actions are not caused by any external chemical substance like alcohol and / or drugs INCLUDING cocaine
BUT they're all him!
( with maybe a little help from his handlers)

@ jrkrideau:

Certainly I was referring to a blend of USian red ( Republican) and blue ( Democrat) - thus, neutrality- which was established a while back after earlier choices based upon UKian blue ( Conservative) and red ( Labour) were flipped.

Of course purple has been associated with royalty in past eras and occasionally, gay causes. As well as with Mssrs Hendrix and Prince..

I wouldn't actually wear a true purple - it's too much except as an accent in a shirt or scarf or tie- although I often use faded lavender as a base to highlight my ivory-ness. Why not?

In other news...

Today Kim ( AoA) expresses her displeasure at a Dallas newspaper not praising her fem-mance**, Jenny McCarthy's Autism Education Summit to the skies. Quite the reverse.

Media are truly the "scum of the earth' ( or suchlike) as the Orange One recently noted
.
** female bromance

I didn't know where to put this.
Governor Chris Christie, a fervent Trump supporter, who comes across as as blustering, bullying and obnoxious as Trump, msy find himself serving time.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/13/chris-christie-facing-10-years-p…

The Republican Party of Donald Trump vs. science

oracknows — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 01:06:08 +0000

The Republican Party of Donald Trump vs. science

I’ve frequently said that a tendency towards pseudoscience knows no political boundary. For example, antivaccine views, contrary to common belief, are not detectably more prevalent on the left than on the right, as I’ve discussed on more than one occasion. It’s just that for so many years, antivaccine beliefs were associated in the media with crunchy, back-to-nature lefties, and still are to some extent. (I’m talking to you Jill Stein.) However, last year the battle over SB 277, the new California law that eliminates nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates, and the Republican presidential primaries helped illustrate the antivaccine views on the right, particularly the libertarian-leaning right. There were even three candidates for the Republican nomination who either pandered to antivaccine voters (Chris Christie) or outright espoused antivaccine views (Rand Paul and Donald Trump). One of them, Donald Trump, as we all know this week, is the Republican nominee for President, and he’s the most rabidly antivaccine of any politician I’ve seen, Republican or Democrat, with a long, sordid history of spewing antivaccine pseudoscience.

I must admit, though, that the election this year is making me wonder. The Republican Party and its nominee have embraced a slate of pseudoscience and quackery that goes beyond anything I can recall seeing before. I was reminded of this, to the point of thinking it a worthwhile blogging topic, by a story I saw yesterday about one of the speakers last night, Michelle Van Etten, who was portrayed as someone who “peddles pills that make Alex Jones ‘crazed.’” Now that’s saying something:

Michelle Van Etten was presented by the RNC in a Sunday evening press release as a “small business owner” who “employs over 100,000 people.” That’s roughly 1.5 times the number of employees Apple employs in the United States, making it a highly unlikely claim. For such a supposedly large employer, she has flown under the radar—until the announcement of her speech at the convention, there was no record of her business work in the press.

Van Etten is involved in selling products that claim to improve health and even fight cancer, all based on dubious science. And as you peel the story back, every single layer is fascinating: there’s Alex Jones hysteria, pyramid-scheme-style marketing, and questionable Clemson University research.

“The whole basis of the products and the claims are pseudoscience,” said Janet Helm, a nutritionist and registered dietitian who writes frequently about diet myths, nutrition trends, and misinformation.

It turns out that Van Etten works for a company called Youngevity as Senior Vice Chairman Marketing Director. It’s a company founded by a naturopath and veterinarian named Joel D. Wallach best known for his widely distributed audio tape “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie.” Basically, after seemingly having a reasonable career in research, he came to the conclusion that all diseases are due to deficiencies in trace minerals, hence his supplement company. In the early 1980s, he branded himself as a “Manner Metabolic Physician,” and treated cancer patients with laetrile, one of the favorite forms of cancer quackery back then. He also worked with Kurt Donsbach at his notorious quack hospital in Tijuana, and used chelation therapy. Hilariously, Wallach touts himself as a Nobel Prize nominees, which sounds impressive but is not, particularly given that he was nominated by the Association of Eclectic Physicians. (Eclectic medicine was a branch of medicine in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century that advocated the use of botanical medicines and physical therapy.)

The whole Youngevity website is littered with red flags for quackery. For example:

Our Plant Derived Minerals™ are extracted from humic shale, which is a layer of earth formed from ancient, mineral-laden plants. Humic shale is superior to other commonly-used supplement sources such as bentonite (ground up clay) or dried sea beds (ground up rocks).

As in plants, Plant Derived Minerals™ have a natural negative electrical charge that has two important benefits. First, it may enhance the transport and bioavailability of other nutrients, and second, it may support the body’s natural detoxification of toxins and heavy metals.

Yep, any time you see the terms “toxins,” “detoxification,” and “heavy metals” on a website of a company formed by a naturopath, it’s a pretty good indication that there is no good science there. I could go on, but there’s more to cover; so I need to move on. I might come back to the Youngevity website in the future.

So what? you say. It’s just one speaker and not a star speaker at that, someone pretty much nobody’s heard of (certainly I had never heard of her before) whose presence on the main stage, given that, was actually rather puzzling. So how about the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Mike Pence? It turns out that Mike Pence doesn’t believe that smoking causes cancer, or at least has been paid to say repeatedly that cigarettes, although "not good for you," don't kill:

Over his political career Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) has consistently carried the tobacco industry’s water, denying the dangers of cigarettes, opposing government regulation, and slashing smoking cessation efforts. In return, they rewarded him with more than $100,000 in campaign donations.

In 2000, Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN), then running for an open U.S. House seat, came out against a proposed settlement between government and the tobacco industry, calling it “big government.” In a shocking editorial, he wrote: “Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.” Pence acknowledged that smoking is not “good for you,” but claimed that two-thirds of smokers do not die from smoking related illness and “9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.” He warned of a slippery-slope in which government would soon seek to discourage fatty foods, caffeine, and SUVs.

In a debate that September, his Democratic opponent pressed him on the suggestion that smoking does not cause cancer and noted his contributions from tobacco companies. According to the Indianapolis Star’s coverage of the exchange, “Pence clarified that he wrote that there was no causal link medically identifying smoking as causing lung cancer.” While cigarette manufacturers might have been still claiming that there was not causal link between smoking and lung cancer, medical science had settled the question years earlier. A landmark report by the U.S. Surgeon General had documented the link — in 1964.

The original editorial is still available, thanks to the almighty Wayback Machine.

Actually, the link between smoking and cancer was strongly suspected at least a decade before that—actually for more than two decades before that if you take into account little known studies done in Nazi Germany that were the first to find the link between smoking and lung cancer. But let’s look at two of the things he said. First, he said that nine out of ten smokers don’t get lung cancer. That’s true, but a stupid thing to say. According to the American Lung Association, citing scientific data, male smokers are 23 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers, while women who smoke are 13 times more likely to get lung cancer than women who do not. Smoking contributes to 80% of lung cancer deaths in men and 90% of lung cancer deaths in women. In other words, If roughly 90% of smokers do not get lung cancer, at least 99% of nonsmokers do not get lung cancer. As for his claim that 2/3 of smokers do not die of smoking-related illness, that’s even dumber, because the converse is that 1/3 of smokers do die of smoking-attributable diseases, the vast majority of whom would not die of those causes if they didn’t smoke. That's a huge number of deaths among smokers caused by or contributed to by their addiction! It’s widely accepted in the medical and public health community that eliminating smoking would prevent more cancers and more death than any other single preventative intervention, with the possible exception of vaccines. Seriously, a man this innumerate should not be Vice President.

But it goes beyond that, of course. Mike Pence doesn’t accept evolution, doesn’t accept the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding human-caused climate change, has stated that condoms are "poor protection" against sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV), and believes that “morning after” pills are very dangerous.

Of course, Donald Trump himself is very much anti-science in more than one area. I’ve documented in depth his many, many antivaccine utterances. He’s a die-hard believer in the long-debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. He has called climate change a “Chinese hoax.”

All of this pales in comparison to the Republican platform, which features gems like:

Information concerning a changing climate, especially projections into the long-range future, must be based on dispassionate analysis of hard data. We will enforce that standard throughout the executive branch, among civil servants and presidential appointees alike. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy. We will evaluate its recommendations accordingly. We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which represent only the personal commitments of their signatories; no such agreement can be binding upon the United States until it is submitted to and ratified by the Senate.

And:

America’s healthcare professionals should not be forced to choose between following their faith and practicing their profession. We respect the rights of conscience of healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and organizations, especially the faith-based groups which provide a major portion of care for the nation and the needy.

It also opposes embryonic stem cell research and states:

America’s healthcare professionals should not be forced to choose between following their faith and practicing their profession. We respect the rights of conscience of healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and organizations, especially the faith-based groups which provide a major portion of care for the nation and the needy. We support the ability of all organizations to provide, purchase, or enroll in healthcare coverage consistent with their religious, moral, or ethical convictions without discrimination or penalty. We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.

As regular readers know, my philosophy with respect to health care and religion is that patients deserve science-baed medicine. If your religion prevents you from administering any science-based treatment, you need to find a different profession, instead of imposing your religion on patients who might not believe the same things you do.

I understand that Democrats aren’t without their antiscience contingent. For example, Hillary Clinton has embraced Mark Hyman and the quackery that is “functional medicine,” and Bernie Sanders likes the pseudoscience “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) to the point of trying to promote CAM programs in the VA. I also understand that Rublicans aren’t entirely wrong. For example, their platform opposes GMO labeling laws. (Of course, one could argue that they are correct on this, but for the wrong reason.) Of course, the Republican Party and many Republican politicians held views that were in stark conflict with science before. This is nothing new, but it's gotten much worse this cycle. Even so, the differences this year between the two parties on science are so striking that, compared to the 2016 Republican Party, the 2016 Democratic Party could well be made up of Nobel Laureates in comparison to the Republican Party.

oracknows Wed, 07/20/2016 - 21:06

The Vice President's views make this duo even more frightening.

So the Party of Lincoln Nixon Dubya Drumpf has now officially declared itself an MLM scam? Color me all shades of surprised.

“If you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you have?”

a “small business owner” who “employs over 100,000 people.”

"small business"? Truly, in America everything is bigger.
For us, small is under 50 employees. And during government-business negotiations on hiring laws and other regulations, they tend to be forgotten...

Plant Derived Minerals™ have a natural negative electrical charge

I'm going to be charitable and assume these minerals come with the appropriate number of counter-ions.
The other possibility is that these supplements come in the form of a charged plasma, with the stripped cations stocked somewhere else. I'll admit, that would be radical, as treatments go.

Eclectic medicine was a branch of medicine [...] advocated the use of botanical medicines and physical therapy.

Early-days naturopaths, then.
And already at the task of stealing stuff from mainstream medicine and calling it "alternative".

“9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.”

Reversing this metric, it means about one in ten are getting lung cancer. That's a lot more than in the non-smoker population.
(**re-reading** - oh, Orac covered it already. But it's just something so dumb to say...)

If antivaxers overlook this blatant example of tobacco science and flock to these guys...
Who am I kidding? Of course they will.

We support the ability of all organizations to provide, purchase, or enroll in healthcare coverage consistent with their religious, moral, or ethical convictions without discrimination or penalty. We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.

OK. This cannot be more clearly stated.
It's not a surprise, but the Republican party line is clearly about personal opinions trumping science.

The part about parental choice over their children medical care is also oddly specific. It could be just general whistle noise to attract the libertarians and other conservatives, without much desire to change anything (political promises and all that).
But, given the antivax/antiscience history of Trump and consorts, it looks like medical freedom movement is more mainstream than I was fearing.
On second thoughts, I wonder how much of this sentence is aimed at the healing-by-prayer crowd.

Either way, if these guys win, I fear the Americans are going to see more children dying because their numbskull parents decided they know better than "overeducated" scientists.

Just to add:

He warned of a slippery-slope in which government would soon seek to discourage fatty foods, caffeine, and SUVs.

Frankly...
He said this as if this was a bad thing.

Also, highly hypocritical from someone who wish the government to discourage plenty of other things.

has@2: Well, you have at least 2 buckets and you could have any additional number. I get that the joke involves adding the gallons instead of the buckets, but there is also that ambiguity involving saying that you have 2 buckets but not saying they are the only buckets. It's like saying "if" without also saying "and only if."

has@2: Well, you have at least 2 buckets

You are probably a walrus.

It's become very fashionable these days to call someone a hypocrite based on a straw man argument.

America’s healthcare professionals should not be forced to choose between following their faith and practicing their profession.

I have to thank the GOP for being so supportive of this. I mean, the reason I left healthcare was because I had to choose between my religious beliefs that every person should have a vital organ removed as a sacrifice and those pesky healthcare requirements to not do any medically unnecessary procedures. If Trump wins, I feel much more empowered to return to the medical profession and once more begin harvesting and sacrificing vital organs from my patients.

[/sarcasm - also, for the humor impaired, I've never been in the medical profession, nor do I hold any beliefs that vital organs should be harvested and sacrificed.]

The level of science literacy in the US is appalling. The idiocracy is here.

@helianthus:

He warned of a slippery-slope in which government would soon seek to discourage fatty foods, caffeine, and SUVs.

Frankly…
He said this as if this was a bad thing.

You'll take my caffeine when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. :)

(Actually, I can take it or leave it. I just prefer my mornings WITH it.)

Ooopss...and apologies to Helianthus. Darn shift key.

I also understand that Rublicans aren’t entirely wrong. For example, their platform opposes GMO labeling laws.

I seriously doubt that the GOP opposes GMO labeling for scientific reasons. More like they think it’s a gubmint intrusion.

@ Mephistopheles O'Brien

Sorry.
I was aiming for the "government shouldn't take away your guns, fatty food and cars from you, but it should tell you who you can marry and when women could have an abortion" dichotomy.
Among other things.

Actually, I admit Mike Pence's is more about all the things the government shouldn't do. Seems it could be summarized as not listening to scientists.
OK, I caught myself in double negatives and got carried away.

If the minerals are gotten from shale, how can they be "plant-derived"? I mean shale is rock and not a plant, or am I thinking about this too deeply?

darwinslapdog @12 -- In general, the Republicans have aggressively fought government regulation of all kinds when it encroaches on the ability of businesses to make money. You can build that nitrate fertilizer plant wherever you want!

palindrom@14: The quip that I have heard is that Republicans want to keep government out of boardrooms and put it in bedrooms.

Gov. Pence is a poster child for this phenomenon. I understand that he recently signed a highly restrictive abortion law, which hasn't taken effect yet due to a federal court injunction. One of the requirements of this law is that women must hold funerals for aborted or miscarried fetuses. How is this provision enforceable without massively violating HIPAA?

If this were a healthy society, we could afford to laugh at Republicans, as the Onion did last month. But too often the Onion has trouble keeping up with reality, and this is one of those times. Trump/Pence have a nonzero chance of winning this election.

# 3 Heliantus

Canadian Definition of Small, Medium & Large Employers from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/home

Small: 1-99 employees; Medium: 100‑499 employees; Large: 500 employees and more

The Canadian Government at least gives lip-service to SMEs when talking about the economy and encouraging job creation.

I had a very cursory look at the GOP Platform yesterday. Other than looking like it was written by a bunch of bats...-crazy ultra-right-wing nut cases who seem to have no idea of history, the Bible, or the US constitution (or much of anything else that reflects reality) it's not bad. The 2014 Texas Republican policy document was just as crazy and delusional. What´s that line The lunatics are running the asylum ?

P.S If you look at the Platform document, have a look at the American Exceptionalism section.

Over the past several months in my travels around Woo-topia (tm), I've noticed that quite a few of the woo-entranced support or admire Trump.

I imagine they find the pseudoscience attractive as well as the shrill idiocy and overactive posturing.

Jake, MPH is certainly a fanboi.
Mikey has said nice things about the Donald.**
A few anti-vaxxers have come out because of their agreement. But not Dan Olmsted.

Gary Null advocates for third party choices especially the aforementioned Jill Stein, a doctor: both she and Gary Johnson have appeared on his show over the years as has Nader.***

** now there are TWO Donalds-- *pere et fils*-
Yiiiiiiii

*** Think of a homonym quick

@ Eric Lund:

People must hold FUNERALS?

Holy crap, you don't have to do that for PEOPLE who die.

About the best thing you can say regarding Pence is that Trump could've picked a true antivax loon to be his running mate. Pence is on record supporting vaccination (in the wake of the hoohah surrounding Rand Paul's antivax revelations). On the other hand, Pence was involved in watering down Indiana legislation to encourage (not mandate) HPV vaccination.

MIDawn: You’ll take my caffeine when you pry it from my cold, dead hands

Seconded. I have no idea how Mormons live.

jkrideau: Other than looking like it was written by a bunch of bats…-crazy ultra-right-wing nut cases who seem to have no idea of history, the Bible, or the US constitution (or much of anything else that reflects reality) it’s not bad.

Did you not notice the part where they support reparative therapy, or plan to sell off the national parks? Trust me, it's bad all the way down. And of course, Americans are just fine with no national parks, no voting rights for anyone but white men, and no contraception ever. We ought to start making academic tests mandatory for every office seeker. Otherwise, we get this.

@ PGP:

Fortunately, the US isn't the same as the people at the convention.

Unfortunately, they're more likely to vote.

The population has shifted a great deal since 1960 or even 2000. Why do you think that they want to restrict voting rights?

# 20 Politicalguineapig
Did you not notice ...?

Sorry, I come from Eastern Ontario, Canada and also have been accused of having a dry wit. The Other than... ,around here, is about as condemnatory as one can get. without resorting to physical violence.

I believe I noticed all those things you mentioned plus a few other things, some of which, to a non-USAian, look to be stark raving mad.

What seemed like a proposal to destroy/cripple Medicare was, shall we say, interesting

# 21 Denise Walter
Why do you think that they want to restrict voting rights?
Demographics. White Americans are about 48% of the population and if you remove groups like Catholics, who I believe tend to vote Democrat the natural GOP base is sinking fast into the quicksand. Pity.

Totally OT but John Ioannidis has a new paper out Evidence-Base Medicine Has Been Hijacked: A Report to David Sackett .

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/abstract

An extract from the absract

As EBM became more influential, R it was also hijacked to serve agendas different from what it originally aimed for. Influential C randomized trials are Slargely done by and for the benefit of the industry. Meta-analyses and guidelines have become a U factory, mostly also serving vested interests. National and federal research funds are funneled N almost exclusively to research with little relevance to health outcomes. We have supported the A growth of principal investigators who excel M primarily as managers absorbing more money. Diagnosis and prognosis research and efforts to individualize treatment have fueled recurrent spurious promises. Risk factor epidemiology D has excelled in salami-sliced data-dredged papers with gift authorship and has E become adept to dictating policy from spurious evidence.

Blogged about when it was first released:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/04/04/better-late-than-never-ora…

#26 Orac
Apologies, I thought I had kept up with all your posts in the last couple of years but I did not see the paper in my biblio list where I would have put it so I obviously missed the post.

I remember: Ask not what your country can do for you and I have a Dream.

Where have the great people in this country gone?

Just checking in to let everyone know I'm still alive. Send me an email if you'd like an update (it's all kind of sensitive):

jparsons@sdf.org

Yea, Rich Bly #28; That was a good speech.

Ask not what your country can do for you

-- Melania Trump

I have a dream.

-- Melania Trump

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

-- Melania Trump

Gilbert,

Which writer stole those quotes for Melania Rump?

PGP@20

Did you not notice the part where they support reparative therapy, or plan to sell off the national parks?

Almost certain that was sarcasm.

I didn't realize that there were still tobacco apologists around. How can an elected official ever be reelected after saying that kind of bull?

Another thing Republicans ignore the science on is gun control.

Even if they were anti-science I could never support the anti-civil rights party. I don't understand how people do*.

*Actually I understand the appeal quite well. I'm not angry with my country, just disappointed.

And I now see that jrkrideau already responded to PGP. This is what happens when I write a comment then let it sit for a couple hours before posting.

JP! Glad to hear you are safe.

@Rich Bly: There was a blink-and-you-missed-it Twitter fad after it was discovered that the current Mrs. Trump's speech Monday night plagiarized from the speech Mrs. Obama gave at the DNC in 2008. People would jokingly attribute famous quotes, sayings, song lyrics, etc., to Mrs. Trump.

Rich Bly,

"Stole"? I hope you're not implying anything unsavory has been going on. JFK, MLK, and John Lennon all borrowed those most powerful words of Melania in one great heave of awe and retrocausality.
===================

If the minerals are gotten from shale, how can they be “plant-derived”?

I am Still Here #14, shale is a sedimentary rock and some of that sediment was mud, plants, and fossils (that were put there by Satan because there were no real animal remains from that far back) --

Shales and mudrocks contain roughly 95 percent of the organic matter in all sedimentary rocks. However, this amounts to less than one percent by mass in an average shale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale#Composition_and_color

Eric,

I don't follow twitter or face book (I have better uses for my time) so I missed that fad.

How can an elected official ever be reelected after saying that kind of bull?

By running as a Republican in a red state. A longstanding joke asserts that, if a Republican politician were to claim that the Earth is flat, the story headline would be something like "Opinions Differ Regarding Shape of Earth".

Another thing Republicans ignore the science on is gun control.

It's worse than that. The CDC is prohibited from funding studies on the subject of gun violence. Never mind the obvious health hazards of being struck by high-velocity lead projectiles. It's easier to ignore evidence that has never been examined.

HI JP, so glad you are okay and thanks for checking in. Been thinking of you.

Rich Bly:Where have the great people in this country gone?

The US killed them.

jkrideau: Sorry. Sarcasm translates poorly on the net.

Hi, JP.

Hi JP, thanks for checking in

@has:

So the Party of Lincoln Nixon Dubya Drumpf has now officially declared itself an MLM scam? Color me all shades of surprised.

And the second comment here started with an ad hominem. Wonderful. And you wonder why I hate democrats. All smug pseudo-intellectual superiority until you open with the ad hominem. You could have all kinds of agreement from the likes of me if you didn't automatically show yourself to be part of what drags the level of the discourse down. You wonder the reason why there's a reflexive push against intellectuals: look no further, you are it!

Our Plant Derived Minerals™ are extracted from humic shale, which is a layer of earth formed from ancient, mineral-laden plants

OMG. Did David Wolfe write this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnhr-1V7MiI

[00:04] Wolfe: Chocolate lines up planetarily with the sun; chocolate is an octave of sun energy.

@ JP:

I'm glad to hear you're still amongst us.

Hi, JP. Thanks for the check in. Can't email but am very glad to know you are able to check in on occasion.

Again...has anyone heard from Krebiozen? With all that's going on in Europe, I'm getting concerned.

@ MI Dawn:

I wonder about him too.

He IS not anywhere near Nice though.

Yay, JP! ❤️

Minor note: And let's not forget that vocal Trump-ian Tom Brady (yes, the cheating, lying NFL star) is BFF and business partner with a man named Alejandro Guerrero, a quack who posed as a 'Dr.' on infomercials shilling his scam nutritional supplement Supreme Greens as a remedy for cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease... and, well, just tell us what ailment you might have?

It was after the feds and lawsuits put the squeeze on Super Greens that Guerrero hooked up Brady, who served as one of the key spokesmen for the quack's new scam. A supposed preventative and remedy for concussions (yes, the claim is concussions can be cured with vitamins...)

Guerrero dropped that scam after another warning from the Feds. Which was when he actually went into business with Brady as partners in 'TB12': a 'lifestyle program' based on something called "the acid-alkaline theory of disease" which is about “re-educating muscles” and “prehab” with, as Brady told Sports Illustrated:

the 80-20 theory—80 percent alkaline, 20 percent acidic... to maintain balance and harmony through my metabolic system.

TB12 seems to be a safer way to market quackery. Instead of selling snake oil pills to the masses with specific bogus claims, now the scam is to fold the pills into a pricey lifestyle program for pro athletes, wanna-bes, and other upscale clients where only vague claims of 'wellness' and 'performance' are presented publicly. It's basically the same mystique that was used by Balco, except the TB12 program won't actually include steroids, other banned substances, or anything beyond One-A-Day+Placebo+Con+probably some legit diet/exercise.

If this promotion of access-to-secret-inside-methods-of-super-successful-celebrity sounds a little bit like Trump University, like some other Donald ventures it's not necessarily intended to succeed through actual sales. Various financial interests associated with the Patriots are investors in TB12, and it may serve as a way for Robert Kraft to funnel money to Brady circumventing the NFL's salary cap. By all appearances, though, Brady actually believes Guerrero's woo has been crucial to his triumphs on the field and off...

Hi JP! Internet Hugs!

viggen @42: Well, the speaker mentioned in the OP (Michelle Van Etten) does seem to run an MLM, so it's not a total non-sequitur.

Separately, Michelle Van Etten needs to stop selling *anything* that makes Alex Jones more crazy. I read elsewhere his description of how these pills make him feel and my first thought was "oh, meth!"

Hey JP,

Be careful of to much sun there in Yakima. If you were farther east l could tell some good places to go or do but I don't know Yakima very well.

Rich

I just saw this and thought it was interesting:
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Donald," a study by University of Pennsylvania political science Professor Diana Mutz for PS: Political Science and Politics, revealed an interesting trend among Potter fans. The more a reader was exposed to J.K. Rowling's wizarding world, the more likely they were to have a negative opinion of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

You scoff, Eric Lund #35

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I'm no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

--Melania Trump

I don’t know Yakima very well.

I do know that it's a hop-growing region (some NZ brewers use Yakima hops).
Hi JP!

The more a reader was exposed to J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world, the more likely they were to have a negative opinion of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

I can see some potential confounds there. It does require some openness to new ideas to enter Rowling's world, and "openness to new ideas" is hardly compatible with becoming a Stormtrumper.

HDB,

Hops and believe some good micro-breweries. Also, I try to get over there in august to get some fresh peaches and other fruit.

JP, glad to hear you are okay. There should be some good local fruit and veg there in the valley. Go get some cherries and apricots.

@Sadmar During TB12's upcoming DeflateGate suspension he will likely be able to go to his property at Patriot Place but can have no contact with the team (about 100 yds away). I'm sure there is a tunnel.

The Republican platform incorporates “Right to Try,” and lays it open for what it is: co-opting our pity for the terminally ill in service of an agenda to deregulate medical research.

We pledge to restore the FDA to its position as the premier scientific health agency, focused on both promoting and protecting the public health in equal measure, so we can ensure that Americans live longer, healthier lives, that the United States remains the world leader in life sciences and medical innovation, that millions of high-paying, cutting-edge device and drug jobs stay in the United States, that U.S. patients benefit first
and most from new devices and drugs, and that the FDA no longer wastes U.S. taxpayer and innovators’ resources through bureaucratic red tape and legal uncertainty. We commend those states that have passed Right to Try legislation, allowing terminally ill patients the right to try investigational medicines not yet approved by the FDA. We urge Congress to pass federal legislation to give all Americans with terminal illnesses the right to try.

Yeah, I probably should have added that. Maybe I will later. :-)

[Ginal Is Colorado's right to try sponsor, the quote is from her partisan hometown paper The Coloradoan]The email, sent to Ginal, states, "together, we have protected this fundamental right for a majority of Americans in just two years. Patients are being treated and lives are being saved. And we will not stop until every American is free to try to save his or her life without begging the government for permission."

I'd like to know, which patients are being treated and where?

Off-topic per se, but does anyone know who was shrieking "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" around 7:15 CDT during the RNC broadcast? (Falwell?)

It just really reminded me of the Paul Stanley stage-banter collection.

Speaking about hops, I'm working on a multimillion business plan to start an ambitious business around hops culture, processing and beer fabrication to be started in 10 years maximum.

More later if there is any interest.

@DW @19 (regarding mandatory fetus funerals)

Holy crap, you don’t have to do that for PEOPLE who die.

Makes perfect sense in the Religious Right context. Fetuses outrank actual live people. Look at their indifference to child poverty. Being born is analogous to what happens when buy a new car and drive it off the lot except the loss in value is much greater.

One of the requirements of this law is that women must hold funerals for aborted or miscarried fetuses. How is this provision enforceable without massively violating HIPAA?

There is that figure that ~30% of fertilised and implanted blastocytes miscarry naturally. That is, a non-trivial number of delayed or unusually heavy periods contain a Snowflake Baby. Best give the tampon a decent christian burial just in case, or post it to Mike Pence.

One of the requirements of this law is that women must hold funerals for aborted or miscarried fetuses. How is this provision enforceable without massively violating HIPAA?

It's time to play.... Read The Law!

Or, more to the point, Consult The Order!

I'm just skimming the latter, but the bit about disposition of remains is described as "a much closer call [that] present[s] difficult legal questions about which there are few clear answers." I'm not seeing a role for HIPAA. In fact, there seems to be little difference from current law – the shift seems to be hair-splitting about what can be handled as any other leftover surgical tissue.

In short, a sanitation issue comparable to the extant law regarding disposition of regular corpses. This simply imposes an economic burden upon abortion providers for compliance.

As for the enforcement part, it's always a pain in the ass to read redlined copy, but it seems to comprise a misdemeanor charge against the provider. A woman already has the ability to personally arrange for the disposition of remains in a medical context, and I'm guessing that this doesn't include whimsically taking home a stillborn fetus as a memento.*

* Where placentas figure into this is anybody's guess.

^ But, yah, Indiana.* Purvi Patel's freakish sentencing was today... remanded.

I'm done with this sidetracking, promise.

* Something something R. Dean Taylor something.

^ R. Dean Taylor references may be OT, but they're awesome. A Canadian who recorded for Motown, but was mainly employed there as a songwriter and producer, most notably for 'Love Child' by Diana Ross and the Supremes, so, yeah... Mike Pence.

a “small business owner” who “employs over 100,000 people.”

For reference, Disney World in Orlando employs 60 000. That includes all the characters, all the countries in Epcot, all the animal keepers at Animal Kingdom, all the food vendors at all the parks, the people who drive the buses to and from the airport and through the parks, and all the workers at the various resorts. It's MASSIVE, and it employs 60K.

Are they suggesting that Disney World is a "small business"?

I understand that Democrats aren’t without their antiscience contingent. For example, Hillary Clinton has embraced Mark Hyman and the quackery that is “functional medicine,” and Bernie Sanders likes the pseudoscience “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) to the point of trying to promote CAM programs in the VA.

Eeek! False balance!

Neither Bernie nor Hilary are "antiscience". On the contrary, Sanders is vocally pro-science on the whole. For that matter, so was Tom Harkin. It would be fair to say, 'I understand some prominent Democrats have taken poor positions on CAM,' and also note that a few gave too much credence to anti-vax (n>0) in the past, what with Jerry Brown weakening AB2109, and HRC giving sops to Claire Dwoskin. But Brown vetoed right-to-try, signed SB277 enthusiastically, and HRC came out strongly pro-vax with her Grandma tweet...

Here's the difference: the wingnut GOP, the Club-For-Growthers, and the pyramid scheming Trumpers are all into magical thinking down to their cores. They're also Machiavellian-cum-Orwellian-cum-Rove-ian BSers who will say anything that serves their agendas regardless of the facts at hand. They just 'know' they're 'right'. On the other hand, while as a non-scientist lay-person I can still see through Mark Hyman (who I despise) preety easily, I can recognize he talks a pretty good game, and certainly has institutional cred indicating a lot of medical professionals don't consider him beyond the pale. So it doesn't surprise me otherwise reasonable politicians fall for his schtick. And look at what Harkin did from the other side of things. He was convinced there was some efficacy in CAM, but he didn't buy any of the magic explanations (or at least didn't consider them as justifications for policy). So he sponsors OAM/NCCAM/NCCIH because he thinks there has to be some non-magical mechanism at work in CAM that can be uncovered and verified by scientific research. Being wrong in that is a far cry from advancing Michelle Van Etten as an exemplary citizen.

"Compared to the 2016 Republican Party, the worst Democrats on science issues look like Nobel Laureates in comparison." FTFY ;-)

I sort of agree with you on Clinton, although I am worried that she might appoint Mark Hyman to some advisory role or even a real post involving health policy, but Bernie? Not so much, Have you checked out Bernie Sanders' statements regarding GMOs? He's as off the rails on that topic as Jill Stein. When it comes to alternative medicine, Bernie is completely in the pseudoscience camp, buying into traditional Chinese medicine, etc., to the point that he used his power to sponsor and promote bills to require the VA to offer CAM services.

As for Tom Harkin, I've frequently noted that he was widely viewed as a friend of the NIH, supporting increased research funding. This was true. However, when it comes to CAM, his forming the Office of Alternative Medicine, which became NCCAM, which became NCCIH, you clearly don't know much in the way of details. Basically, Harkin was a true believer that bee pollen had cured his allergies and had a lot of connections with quacks; so he decided he wanted to prove the quackery he believed in worked.

Now here's the thing. You can say Harkin wanted to investigate these thing and find scientific mechanisms, and certainly that was his stated rationale for forming OAM, but his actions later belied that and showed rather clearly that what he really wanted was to "prove" that CAM works or at least put the patina of science on the pseudoscience of CAM. For instance, the first OAM director resigned under Harkin's pressure, having objected to Harkin's OAM Council nominees who represented cancer scams such as Laetrile and Tijuana cancer clinics. Another influential Harkin collaborator and constituent was a travel agent for a Bahamas cancer clinic In 1998, when then NIH Harold Varmus tried to rein in OAM and impose scientific rigor on it, Harkin got a bill passed that elevated OAM to an autonomous center, largely outside the NIH director's control. That's how OAM became NCCAM. Afterward, NCCAM's budget skyrocketed, and the NCCAM Council, which oversees what the NCCAM director does, has had naturopaths, homeopaths, and all manner of quacks on it.

Perhaps the best example of Harkin's true attitude occurred in 2009. By that point, NCCAM hadn't shown any CAM modalities to be effective, but had shown that a lot of them don't work. Harkin was displeased, and said so:

One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. It think quite frankly that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.

This is, of course, a massive misunderstanding of science and basically close to an antiscience attitude. Hypothesis testing in science often involves trying to disprove hypotheses, not trying to prove them. CAM just didn't stand up to that testing, the same way conventional medicine does. Basically, Harkin was engaging in special pleading. This is what I said about it at the time:

Note what Harkin first says here. He doesn’t say that the purpose of NCCAM was to investigate alternative approaches and determine if they work or not. Rather, he says that the purpose of NCCAM was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. That’s why he’s so disappointed that the vast majority of the studies coming out of NCCAM are actually negative. Moreover, he doesn’t understand science. Hypothesis testing involves designing experiments or clinical trials that can be falsified; i.e., “disproved.” That’s how the scientific method works. But Tom Harkin does not want NCCAM to work by the scientific method. Not really. Or, at least, he said he did in the beginning until the studies performed by believers even under conditions most optimized to produce “positive results” have failed to do so.

Yep.

#64 herr doktor bimler

Best give the tampon a decent christian burial just in case….

I would not have put it exactly that way but I had wondered why religious organizations who opposed abortion did not mandate funerals for miscarriages.

#66 Narad

^ But, yah, Indiana.* Purvi Patel’s freakish sentencing was today… remanded.

Jebuss, that's not a joke? Given the choice between Inidana and Saudi Arabia, Jeddah here I come.

Michelle Van Etten was presented by the RNC in a Sunday evening press release as a “small business owner” who “employs over 100,000 people.”

According to http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/07/20/woman-speaking-at… she is an independent retailer and doesn't directly employ anyone. It is possible that as many as 100,000 people make money off of "Youngevity" sales, but they aren't employees in any conventional sense of the term.

jkrideau: Given the choice between Inidana and Saudi Arabia, Jeddah here I come.

I'd hold off on moving for a few more years. They haven't outlawed bicycling by women in Indiana yet.

"If your religion prevents you from administering any science-based treatment, you need to find a different profession, instead of imposing your religion on patients who might not believe the same things you do."

What if your religion prohibits any involvement with capital punishment and you live in a society in which executed criminals are put into the organ banks? (Yes. I am a science-fiction fan.)

What if your religion prohibits any involvement with capital punishment and you live in a society in which executed criminals are put into the organ banks? (Yes. I am a science-fiction fan.)

Unfortunately, that's actually happening in Mainland China. Executed criminals have their organs harvested.

Well... from a purely pragmatic point of view... they're no longer using those organs, and we all know how long organ donation waiting lists are.

Quite frankly, if you are for the barbarity that is capital punishment, you might as well go the whole grisly hog and harvest their organs, too.

Just to be clear: I personally do not. Far from it.

Orac:
Oh, i know Harkin was so sure about some of the CAM stuff he wasn't open to the possibility it would be dis-proved. He was, 'if you didn't get it validated, you must have done it wrong, so go back and try it again', right? I'm just saying he thought there needed to be scientific proof to make it legitimate for social policy. If he was trying to game the science, at least he thought science matters. Compare to, say, Jason Chaffetz: The R's are just 'we don't need no stinking science messing with our health freedom!' Defund NIH. Eliminate the FDA. Let the market do it.

Honestly, I haven't dug for any of Sanders stuff on the VA or GMOs. I just took in what he was talking about during the campaign. And he regularly made arguments for science and from science on AGW, creationism, etc. etc.

I'm more worried about Clinton, by far. Bernie's WYSIWYG. Hilary's a mask. Her conversion on vaccines doesn't at all convince me she wouldn't put Hyman in some official position, and that would be truly disturbing. But we're making comparisons, right? Trump has apparently/allegedly cut a deal to appoint Ben Carson Surgeon General (or worse, maybe) if he's elected... :-(

JP, glad to hear you are okay.

Mneh, okay might not be the right word, but yeah, I'm amongst the living.

I can't tell you much about the fruit, since I'm not within walking distance of anywhere that sells it, but my mom did stop somewhere and picked up some peaches that were evidently wildly underpriced.

There's not much in the neighborhood, though. There is a public library, which is great, though I almost got mauled by a German Shepherd trying to find it. And somebody got shot recently walking to a bodega about a block away.

Technically things could be worse though, I could be in the Eastern State Hospital or something, so hey! small victories.

^ Which isn't to say that I assaulted anybody or anything - that's not how I landed here - but it turns out that a routine suicide attempt in Washington State can land you in this business, which sucks.

Which reminds me that I need to figure out what day the "lawyers at the library" thing happens, I could use some legal representation.

@ Sadmar

Nice Icon. Do you represent the Lollipop Guild?

JP,

You might call the Recovery Hotline at 866-789-1511 (WADSHS), they may be able to recommend legal help. I'll ask some of our BH people if they have any ideas for you.

Rich

Say it with me, JP #79 -- Bo-De-Gas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIncGi-Ne2Q

This is the first election I've lived through that genuinely frightens me.

@Ryan

Agreed. I will take a third party please, even if the third party is a noose or fatal dose of arsenic.

I've always been fond of Vermin Supreme myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme

This is the first election I’ve lived through that genuinely frightens me.

Meh.

Phoebe C.:
Neither I nor my avatar have any relation with The Lollipop Guild. We are parables of anarcho-nihilist revolution. We aim to destroy and defile all lollipops and all guilds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzIUb1LAUTY
Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen by Werner Herzog. One of my favorite films. Hombre (pictured) is my hero.

The result of the presidential election of USA will have a huge impact on developing countries in the Asian and African regions. We are about to get the result, though we just thought of finding the America's WORLD PRESIDENT for the coming four (04) years. Please cast your vote here. http://kln.ac.lk/blog/

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Why I would believe in God if I wasn't an atheist.

gregladen — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 10:48:30 +0000

Why I would believe in God if I wasn't an atheist.

I have often made the argument that religiosity, a personal belief in god, spirits, the supernatural, etc., would emerge in human societies on its own if it wasn't there already.

Imagine taking an entire generation of people in a geographically isolated region, and wiping out their memory of religion, and also, removing all references to religion that they might ever encounter. They would be religion free for a while, maybe even for a number of generations, but eventually, they would reinvent it.

Everybody has a theory of why religion exists, what purposes it serves, etc. etc. Until proven otherwise, I will assume that these "functions" are all post hoc. Religion may serve one or another role in a given society or culture, but I'm going to assume that religion was incorporated for this purpose after the fact, not developed, evolved, or inserted for this purpose. I may be wrong, but until I see compelling evidence to the contrary, I think it is the safest assumption.

Why would religion (using that term very loosely) emerge in a non-religious human society? Because of lawnmowers and dogs, or dreams or delusion, mainly.

One day I was driving down the street and I witnessed a dog transform into a law mower. How could that happen if there was no spirit like force beyond some kind of veil that usually clouds our perceptions, hiding from us things that defy physics most, but not all, of the time? The only way to explain this is to invoke some sort of religious thinking, right?

Here's what happened. It was a bright sunny fall day. Warm. It was a densely populated residential neighborhood. Families were out, parents raking leaves and the kids jumping in them, dogs running around, children playing ball. I was unsure of where I was or where I was going (I was not familiar with the neighborhood), scanning back and forth for street signs and house numbers. The sun was low enough to be causing a lot of glare. So, I was paying a lot of attention to my peripheral vision (looking for a kid running into the street, or a dog not seeing me coming). Off to my left, I saw a large dog sitting on a lawn. I glanced to the right, then back to the left, and now saw that the dog was a lawn mower with someone's coat draped over the handle. Miraculous transformation of a spirt being!

Or, a simple mistake.

And that, of course, is how I would actually explain what I say ... a trick of the lousy light in a confused tapestry of activity that I was not initially paying much attention to.

We experience things in real life that can't be true, now and then. We usually but not always explain them, but sometimes we explain them with "I don't know what that was, but it is not important... just a trick of the light." But say I was a young and impressionable youth searching for meaning in life, and I had just seen a talk given by a spiritualist who claimed that spirit dogs occasionally appeared out of nowhere, transforming from inanimate objects into a large dog, then back again. Well, if that has been the case that day, perhaps I would have started worshiping spirt dogs, and I would never look at a lawn mower quite the same way again. If the spirit dog belief was a growing belief in my subculture, a belief held by community leaders, respected individuals, potential mates, and family members, I might be even more likely to break that way. And so on. You get the point.

The current National Geographic Roundtable asks the question, "Is belief in God innate in our brains, as if it were installed by some divine programmer? Or is spirituality a more complex evolving adaptation that has both helped and harmed us as a species?"

Neither, as stated. It is not innate in our species, as people usually understand the term -- coded for by genes, the inevitable outcome of typical development. But I said it would always emerge in human societies, right? Yes, but not because it is innate (built in) but because the process of human behavior in the context of our physical world and culture would prod and poke and hint and push until it started to emerge here and there, and eventually, it would become part of the larger system of behavior. And no, of course, a tendency to eventually develop religion in a society was not put there by a divine programmer, any more than a paisley tea pot was set into orbit around the Planet Jupiter by a mischievous flying unicorn.

Yes, religion, spirituality, and all that, is a complex changing thing that may have helped and may have harmed. But is it an adaptation? No. It is a side effect.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But to get a different set of perspectives, check out The God Brain, which premiers Feb 21st at 9PM Eastern on National Geographic.

Host Jason Silva travels to Jerusalem, Israel, to explore, “The God Brain.” Fascinating new research has uncovered the possibility that believing in God may be hardwired in our brains. Is this because a divine power greater than us installed this software? Or is it possible that the believing part of the brain has evolved over thousands of years as an evolutionary adaptation that helps us succeed as a species. Physician and neuroscientist Andrew Newberg of Jefferson University Hospital has spent decades exploring the neurophysiology of religious and spiritual practice. Dr. Trevor Cox from the University of Salford, an expert on sound perception, explains how you respond to different musical keys and music played in churches. Dr. Jennifer Whitson of UCLA focuses on the psychological experience of control and sheds light on how to make sense of the environment and inexplicable events. Dr. Bruce Hood, an experimental psychologist at the University of Bristol, will demonstrate that even the most nonbelieving brain can have unconscious biases, which are fundamental characteristics for supernatural thinking.

gregladen Mon, 02/15/2016 - 05:48

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Let's not conflate "religion" and all it's Orthodoxy / Orthopraxy / Christology ( and all the other -ologies http://tinyurl.com/judylp8 ) with the understanding that there is a Creator.

The suggestion that all humans are indwelt with a moral compass or an ability to recognize beauty or a "soul" isn't one that most atheists attempt to tackle. The naturalist who attempts this is swimming in uncharted waters.

It's a worldview discussion where one side can provide for the preconditions of intelligibility, and the other cannot. http://tinyurl.com/hvsmdkz

Religion/belief in spirituality/denial of reality are hard-wired traits that enhanced the survival of early humans and so virtually all people have the indelible urge to succumb to some sort of myth about eternity/souls etc. This is all beautifully laid out in Morrison's Spirit in the Gene (http://regmorrison.edublogs.org/1999/07/20/plague-species-the-spirit-in…) and from another angle Ernst Becker's classic The Denial of Death.

I actually stopped by to ask you about something else when I saw this post, Greg. I was wondering if you might consider thinking about a post on the following topic, referencing the linked article below.

Given 1. We need to get to zero emissions, soon (actually, negative emissions) and 2. there will never in the foreseeable future be any way that air travel can occur without emissions (whether of fossil or biofuels)

what should climate scientists be saying about public policy restricting air travel; and
should climate scientists set an example by not flying themselves?

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/life-after-oil/how-far-can-we-get-wit…

I would be so curious to know your position on these questions.

thanks,

Gail

@Ron

Oh rubbish. Only someone unfamiliar with the online atheist community would say such a silly thing and then arrive at such a wrong conclude as you do.

Humans are meaning making, pattern seeking, critters. We presume agency; that's why you yell at inanimate objects that are bothersome. Religions hijack this tendency (don't they all steal everything and claim the good bits for themselves?) and pretends it's evidence for some agency of Oogity Boogity!. When asked how this agency causes such effects as morality and whatever, we are introduced to Poof!ism... as if this is an answer! Only the credulous think it is and only the most smug amongst them assume this is a slam dunk argument.

It's not.

Assigning agency is what people do. It's how con men and homeopathic naturopaths make a very good living: from the credulous and gullible: hidden agencies.

So why do people do this?

In evolutionary terms, consider the person who always assumes the rustle in the tall grass is a malicious entity. By making this assumption, the person can then put themselves in that place and consider the motives of this agency... generalized, let's say, to be a motive of hostile intent. In almost every case, this person is factually wrong but once in a while the rustle really IS an agency with hostile intent. By responding appropriately in only a few instances, the person goes on to successfully reproduce.

Now compare that to the person who assumes no agency with intention but in almost every case understands that the rustle is merely the wind. When this person does encounter an agency with hostile intent, that person gets killed and does not go on to successfully reproduce.

The same is true for morality: those people who fail to understand why going forth every day to rape, murder, and pillage is not a long term career path that produces lots of offspring.

And so on.

The answers to the causes of human behaviour and intelligibility belong with biology. All theology can produce is pseudo-answers that satisfy only the those already committed to some religious allegiance. And we know this because religious belief does not produce real world knowledge about anything. Ever. One might be tempted to see this as a clue...

Do you have a link for the National Geographic Roundtable you referred to? thanks

#3 tildeb said "The same is true for morality: those people who fail to understand why going forth every day to rape, murder, and pillage is not a long term career path that produces lots of offspring "

Odd that you would appeal to morality (multiple times) and against violence as it relates to societal advancement. I'm trying to set "religion" and its doctrines aside when appealing to transcendental argument for the existence of God, and you swerve into one of those immaterial concepts that must originate from God (morality).

It seems Darwinian evolution would encourage the strong to "pillage" the weak, or do I misunderstand what the vast online atheist community espouses? Despite this teaching, nations throughout history, dare I say universally(?), have set their laws in opposition to this version of "morality".

Self-defense does not hold its place in society based on Darwin's propagation of species, but the concept that humans have inherent worth, due to their dignity/reflection of the Creator. http://tinyurl.com/jjazflf But I digress...

Appealing to morality when Darwinian morality, if we can call it that, is so universally rejected, seems to undercut the argument.

@ Ron said

It seems Darwinian evolution would encourage the strong to “pillage” the weak, or do I misunderstand what the vast online atheist community espouses?

You misunderstand both evolution and the atheist community. You have bought into the misinformation of the religiously motivated to vilify that which stands in conflict with certain fundamental beliefs. Next time you think of an atheist community, look to the happiest nations in the world and the ones least socially dysfunctional. Then try to comport the lack of widespread religious belief with high functioning societies. You'll find your misunderstandings revealed to be such by reality.

Do not confuse social Darwinism with evolutionary theory; the former has exactly nothing to do with the latter.

Yes the IDEAS of superstition and pattern seeking as an aim to survival and dealing with unknown. This activity will produce customs and traditions that if investigated will lead to dogma and to religion as religion as NOTHING to do with faith but wheeling power. And then kings and nobles. As when did we get government by & for the people before science slapped down religion or after? When people learn to think and question past primitive survival did we gain what we now have. And to be thrown onto desert island type scenario after a short time if there are no real leaders to keep thinking on track it will revert to BS believing because for the majority thinking is too much work. One smart dude with no moral compass can soon control most and the most will then control the few who may try to think.

If there is a god S/He, should be held accountable. I suggest something along the lines of the Nuremberg Trials.

Or as George Carlin said, "“I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in His own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.”

Kevin: It's the people...

Ron #5: 'It seems Darwinian evolution would encourage the strong to “pillage” the weak, or do I misunderstand what the vast online atheist community espouses?' You misunderstand both the community and biology.
'Survival of the fittest' does not necessarily mean 'strong preying on the weak'. Cooperation is everywhere in nature. In mammals it starts with relatives; your genes have a better chance of surviving if you cooperate with them. In the approximate words of J.S.B. Haldane, "I would be willing to die for two brothers or four cousins." If you form groups (herds, chimpanzee bands, tribes), the same applies to cooperation with allies--and against other tribes. As human groups grow, the scope of cooperation expands, until now, in a world unified by technology, it becomes reasonable to regard everyone as brothers and sisters (but still punish non-cooperators). And religion tends to get dragged along the upward path.

Brainstorms writes: " It’s the people…"

Product liability laws then.This will be the mother of all class action suits ....

Greg: The factors I think are relevant appear to be innate and many of them should follow one or another well-known statistical distribution (e.g. skewed normal curve, yeah I'm a frequentist;-) A few examples:

Sense of meaning in relation to something larger than self. Identification of self with tribe clearly had adaptive value in collective endeavors e.g. food-seeking and defense. Identification of self with various transcendent ideas is a variation on the theme, reinforced by the emotions related to these ideas.

Attribution of agency. Has adaptive value where concerned with predators, hostile others, etc. Easily extends to forces of inanimate nature such as storms, particularly their more dramatic effects such as lightning, thunder, tornadoes, and rain where agricultural dependencies are concerned.

Attribution of personhood. Subtly different to "agency," and applies to numerous aspects of nature including other organisms as well as inanimate objects/processes. Thence comes the idea of plants and animals having souls, etc. Attribution of personhood to other humans is essential to forming interpersonal bonds (obvious adaptive value). Conversely the absence of this characteristic is a clear sign of sociopathy which in turn is maladaptive.

Extraordinary experiences. The obvious one is the discovery of plants with mind-altering properties (notably hypnotics & psychedelics, e.g. cannabis, opium poppies, psilocybin mushrooms, etc.), and the discovery of fermentation (alcohol). Less obvious, but I believe far more pervasive than generally given credit, NDEs (near-death experiences) with spontaneous resuscitation. Regardless of one's hypothesis re. the nature of NDEs, they are certainly experientially compelling and would provide an immediate basis for beliefs in immortal souls and in various unseen person-like agencies e.g. deities.

Emotional states. Awe, wonder, etc., all of which must necessarily have neurochemical correlates, some of which are known and others are yet to be determined. Keep in mind that many are the well-known working scientists who have remarked on the value of these emotions in motivating their own work.

Dreams. The subjective impression of having been "elsewhere" whilst one's body was soundly asleep in a room and seen by others. This is an obvious source for the belief in the existence of an immaterial self, which belief becomes formalized in terms of the immortal soul.

So yes, if you were to isolate a population from all exposure to beliefs regarding deities and immortal souls, it would not be long before some members of that population had experiences that suggested those beliefs, and others took those suggestions and ran with them.

---

I'm of the opinion that arguing over untestable propositions (deities and immortal souls) is a dead-end, and the place to focus the effort is on propositions that are clearly falsified and are having pernicious effects.

At this point in history, the irrational belief that is doing our species the greatest harm, is the belief that infinite economic growth is possible on a finite planet. Speaking of pervasive irrationalisms, that one is nearly universal, and the behaviors it produces are destroying the biosphere. The Church of the Invisible Hand is in serious need of a dose of Even-Newer-Atheist pushback.

#9 Treesong said: "‘Survival of the fittest’ does not necessarily mean ‘strong preying on the weak’. Cooperation is everywhere in nature."

SOTF certainly doesn't rule out preying on the weak. Packs/prides and cooperation does provide an added level of protection when preying on weaker groups.

#3 tildeb said: "And we know this because religious belief does not produce real world knowledge about anything. Ever."
That's quite a claim. (I'd like to hear an explanation of inductive reasoning from the vast atheist community.)

Francis Bacon, a Christian who is widely credited with establishing the Scientific Method disagrees (http://tinyurl.com/jdzgw7c):

I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Of Atheism.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
Of Atheism.

http://www.accsedu.org/filerequest/3712.pdf
That might be a clue...

@ Ron

You don't even understand fitness. In evolutionary terms, it means success of one's offspring to reproduce. Little critters filling a niche can be far more fit than some large carnivore.

Again, the misrepresentation of what 'survival of the fittest' actually means is most common among those whose fundamental religious beliefs are most threatened by how reality is known to operate. That's why you sometimes find a religion without creationism but will never find creationism with a religious impetus. Creationism comes from not understanding how reality operates, and accepting the idea that understanding reality means granting it to be an arbiter of the beliefs we hold about it, but is misrepresented to be an important element of faith... a means of believing promoted by religious beliefs that necessarily castigates an evidence-adduced method as a vice.

Show us one new understanding about how reality operates brought about only by religious belief. Show us one new therapy, one new application, one new technology discovered by religious belief alone. There are none. Theology is not a path to knowledge or insight into reality but is imposed on it. That's why it requires faith to erect pseudo-explanations that explain nothing, while motivating those who don't know - and don't really care to know - to pretend they do.

I'm reminded of Skinner's superstitious pigeons... In a world where many important things are at least to some degree unpredictable, people (and pigeons!) will inevitably begin to ascribe good or bad fortune to unseen influences, simply as a by-product of the ability to (mis-)perceive cause and effect. Then various social feedback loops kick in, and before long, hey presto! You've got a bouncing new baby religion.

#15 "Show us one new understanding about how reality operates brought about only by religious belief. Show us one new therapy, one new application, one new technology discovered by religious belief alone. There are none. "

I have just demonstrated more than you've demanded... how one man's religious belief brought forth the concept of inductive reasoning and the Scientific Method (which has been used for centuries to find new therapies, applications and technologies). Study Bacon (and/or acknowledge that atheism cannot account for inductive reasoning).

http://www.accsedu.org/filerequest/3712.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/3us2fl4
They that deny a God, destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts, by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God, by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

No, Ron. Religion did not produce the scientific method any more than my dancing produced the rains. There is no causal link. The methods of science to use the OED definition require systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses... none of which are in harmony with the central claims of religious faith. Yes, Bacon formalized inductive reasoning but did not produce these methods that allowed reality to arbitrate our beliefs about it. That distinction tends to be assigned more to Galileo who wrote extensively about why reality should be used to inform a better understanding of scripture... an accommodation that worked out almost as well for him as Collin's failed BioLogos site worked out to comport creationism with evolution. Religion has been the primary adversary of those who would respect reality's right to arbitrate claims made about it... because such fundamental religious claims do NOT comport with overwhelming evidence adduced from reality but stand contrary to and in conflict with it.

In my mind religion addresses two important areas which are only vaguely related. On the one hand it is an attempt to answer musings such as "why are we here" and "what is all this happening", which covers not only religion but philosophy in a wider sense. On the other hand, it also is a set of rules and rituals to govern our daily life.

The latter case is not really about religion per se, but there is an overlap with "law and order" since ethics an morality straddle the fence.

Th first case is a legitimate line of consideration, but as most people do not have the patience or inclination to spend time on it, they leave it to "specialists": priests, shamans, philosophers, hermits, etc.

The second case is what creates much of suffering since the rules and rituals are prescriptive and restrictive and have no other motivation other than appeal to "higher authority", i.e. they cannot be reasoned about but must be followed even when they make little sense.

So, in your hypothetical scenario, I believe that very quickly rules of conduct for a functioning society will be established ("the law") but they need not be attributed to some deity.

A slower process is the growing body of knowledge (or actually speculation) on why we are here, but these thoughts do not need to absorb the "law and order" aspect. In the western world we have spent decades trying to separate the two.

(To quote Kilgore Trout in "Venus on a half shell" where he travels the universe asking the question "Why are we born to suffer and die?", in the end he receives the answer: "Why not?". It is a funny book, but the answer merits some serious consideration).

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
~ Douglas Adams

"For years astrophysicists have been racking their brains over the reason for the great difference in the amounts of cosmic dust in various galaxies. The answer, I think, is quite simple: the higher a civilization is, the more dust and refuse it produces. This is a problem more for janitors than for astrophysicists."
~ Ijon Tichy

Religion is a pollution of the intellect that is gradually being cleaned up all around the world.

Given intellectual leaders who promote and share their capacity for rational analysis with their communities, there shouldn't be any reason why anybody would want to listen to intellectual leaders who try to inflict irrational non-thought, usually through bullying, threats and violence.

Then again, Dawkins thinks like Greg and explains it using similar words. I call them both pessimists. Many, many people live in societies where religidiots can and are almost completely ignored. France, Scandinavia, Japan. Australia is almost there, at least we've had a PM who was able to declare her atheism.

Dawkins, being English, lives in a country where Archbishops are part of the system of governance, and where the Head of State is by definition the head of a religious sect.
And Greg lives in America, a country pioneered by a large chunk of Europe's least wanted expelled religious fundamentalists and crazies whose malign influence has yet to die down.

It's good to see the desperation exhibited by the rear-guard action of religidiocy in one of the world's most advancedly secular nations:
http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/relvet/pccr/wievpoints.html

Well, science evolved out of superstition, for instance astronomy evolved out of astrology. That in no way makes for an endorsement of astrology. Just an awakening and putting aside of childish things.

ron#15: Bacon had plenty of predecessors and successors in developing the scientific method, including many in the Arab world (until Islam shut them down). Insofar as religion was involved in his philosophy, it was because there was no other starting point for educated people then. But the scientific method has done a great deal to demolish the pretensions of religion, so I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it if I were you. And you still haven't answered Tildeb: 'Show us one new therapy, one new application, one new technology discovered by religious belief alone. There are none.'

You add, 'acknowledge that atheism cannot account for inductive reasoning'. I'm not sure what argument you're making here, so I'll answer the two that seem likeliest.
One is that because evolution is a 'random' process (no,it isn't), there's no reason to believe our senses. The answer to that is that from amoebas on up, if your senses (and, in higher animals, your brain) don't give an accurate match to reality, you are not going to survive to breed.
The other is that induction works because (1) the universe is an orderly place and (2) that's because God said so. I see no reason to complicate the question with a fuzzy concept that explains nothing, so I stop with (1). Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Yo, Treesong, WRT your last two paragraphs:

Too little definition here to have a serious discussion. I could argue that the universe is not an orderly place, and I could argue that "God" is a single entity that explains everything.

plg at #17 makes a good start at clarification by separating the mundane from the sublime-- ron is trying to conflate the two tracks. If there were no "religion" in his sense, there would still be philosophy.

So, what exactly are you guys (ron et al) talking about?

zebra #23: In the context of induction, when I say 'orderly' I'm not talking about organization, but the fact that the universe acts consistently, so that we can predict the future from the past. By induction. (Quantum indeterminacy is irrelevant to things our size.
'God' can't be a single entity that explains everything. As Dawkins and others have pointed out, if it created the universe, it has to be at least as complicated (and in need of explanation) as the universe. Postulating God just kicks the problem one step further along the ontological road, so I prefer to stick with the universe, a single entity that explains everything. It is what it is and ever more shall be so.

@ron--

Look, there's a lot of conflation going on here.

Let's first define a few terms. Religion is broadly speaking a belief in the supernatural. This can take many forms. A monotheistic god is actually a relatively new innovation, and for a long time was limited to a small part of the planet. (China, for one, didn't go in for it, nor did much of India and Africa, Australia and South America pre-1500).

You seem to posit that cooperation is not a good survival strategy, and that there has to be some innate "moral compass" that defies naturalistic explanation. But cooperation between species and within occurs a lot in the natural world. At one end is the eusociality of insects. I don't think you'd ascribe moral agency to bees or ants or termites. Yet they work together very well, and the "strong" do not prey on the "weak" (what that means isn't every really explicated in your posts). If anything the warrior caste protects the queen, who would be unable to defend herself.

Among mammals there are social organizations of many, many kinds (usually some variant on pack behavior). Social cohesion seems to be damned common, in fact. And this makes perfect sense when you consider that mammals do not lay eggs and invest a lot in offspring. The bigger the investment the more important sociality is, generally. (I can't think of too many mammal species that are solitary; perhaps some big cats, porcupines, and sloths?)

From that it makes perfect sense that humans would find their survival strategy in cooperation; our ancestors did it. And in fact there's been a lot of work suggesting that the modern human innovation was cooperation across kin groups, allowed by our superior ability to manipulate symbols -- to make analogies. That is something that most other animals seem to have a tough time with.

And if you cooperate across kin groups (or even within), then a morality of a sort -- it doesn't matter what -- has to emerge. Otherwise the group wouldn't function. And yes, there are some limits on the size of the group that can be built with personal connections (I know people have issues with the guy but Napoleon Chagnon's stuff on the approximate maximum size of a Yanomomo village is interesting here -- it seems to be about 300-500 people or so). I don't think it's an accident that you don't get cities without some way of sending and encoding information that didn't involve people just telling oral stories. (Example: the Incas has no writing but they had the quipu system of numerical records -- every city civilization has had something like it even if they had no writing).

And I should say that human societies have some broad agreements about what is moral -- taboos on killing people and incest seem to be almost universal things -- but the way those play out is insanely varied. Have a conversation about morality with a Zen Buddhist, a Christian and a Diné and you'll see what I mean.

That would point to people coming up with what works in context. And that is going to be something that is highly dependent on the environment you are in. There's nothing particularly mystical about it. The Native Americans weren't into being "one with nature" because of some mystical force, they did it because it kept them alive and every one of the 400 or so Native cultures in the current United States did it differently. Some were not so "at one" with Nature at all -- the Algonquin-speakers built plank houses and had farms, and the mound builders of Illinois had cities and all of that wouldn't have been too unfamiliar to a European.

Religions are outgrowths of this cooperation and response to local conditions. I don't think there's any one function they serve -- again, it depends on where and when and what. (Supposedly, by the way, there is no Diné word for the concept, though I do not know if that's apocryphal).

And again, the way people approach religion is so wildly varied. It's hard to talk about because the basic assumptions of a Shinto shrine builder are almost completely different than a Catholic building a cathedral. (A Christian sees God as apart from the world; Shinto sees the world as lots of little gods -- the two are almost opposites).

So it is far from clear to me that morality has to have a supernatural source.

And getting a little bigger here, it's far from clear to me that the universe has to have "meaning" for anyone or anything. n fact the very nature of reality would seem to work against that, given that immortality is a basic physical impossibility. (The universe will eventually no longer support the existence of matter).

Um, I agree that there is a problem with definitions here, probably because religion tends to subsume so much of people's thought and, especially in the west, discourage questioning.

Generally I borrow from Bob Brier's framework on how we attempt to deal with the big questions:

Mythology -- contains stories from primordial time that are not to be taken literally.

Religion -- belief is essential and includes stories that are taken as historical. (In practice, I see this as cultural. There are people in a lot of traditions, for instance, who identify as culturally religious, but are atheists.)

Philosophy-- deals with the same questions as religion but requires proof based on logic. So it deals not so much with opinion as facts that are unknown. (Contrast this with 'faith'.)

Treesong #24,

What I think puzzles me the most when I come across these discussions is what the "sides" would be like if they didn't have each other to disagree with.

If we say "the universe was created by the Big Bang", which some might argue was an event that occurred in a purely random (quantum random, not chaotic) meta-frame, then the argument about "God would have to be complicated" (a derivative of Godel, I guess?) doesn't hold up at all.

Really, that's an argument that only works with certain preconceptions about "God", which you derive from people like Ron. Does that make sense?

Again, I'm not sure what the philosophical disagreement is.

The mundane argument-- physics is about measurement and prediction, and "religion" isn't-- is almost trivial. The question that interests me is whether your conception of the universe beyond that-- the meta physics-- can be differentiated from that of the religionists.

#22said : "Bacon had plenty of predecessors and successors in developing the scientific method, including many in the Arab world (until Islam shut them down). Insofar as religion was involved in his philosophy, it was because there was no other starting point for educated people then."

Bacon wrote about atheists in his day, so you're excluding atheists from the set of "educated people" who advanced Science?

You close by citing Occam's Razor to explain induction. If anyone claimed Occam's Razor to explain the existence of God, you'd likely reject the claim, but expect readers to accept this explanation (or consider this a sincere contribution to the conversation)?

#20 "Bacon formalized inductive reasoning but did not produce these methods that allowed reality to arbitrate our beliefs about it."

Reality or truth exists outside of our beliefs about it. Bacon's beliefs led him to the truth of induction and an atheistic belief system cannot reconcile induction as Treesong demonstrated by citing Occam's Razor. Without induction, there's not much to discuss.

Back to Treesong #22 Why do you trust your thoughts/senses (perhaps Occam's Razor)?
“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity, p. 32

Ron tells us about some known atheistic belief system as if this makes sense. Now, we know atheism means non belief in a god or gods so he's telling us about a non belief belief system. That might make sense to him, loading the terms to mean whatever he wants them to mean be but let's substitute and see if this writing technique makes any sense at all: a non bicycle bicycle system, a non fish fish system, a non economic economic system.

I am truly mystified how anyone can make an antonym mean a different kind of synonym. That's quite the linguistic trick and seems to be swallowed without any critical misgivings by so many in the various theistic communities when it comes to atheism. Obviously, we're a special case where it's fine to mangle language as long as it involves deriding and misrepresenting atheists.

Ron,

This argument from C. S. Lewis is completely circular. If you don't have enough education to see that, you are in way over your head.

The reason that 'survival of the fittest' when only applied (erroneously ) to an individual (who would become a monster presumably) is a poor strategy for long time survival of the individual, is that everyone needs to sleep at some point.
Cooperation and integration in groups is a better hedge against threats.

" The question that interests me is whether your conception of the universe beyond that– the meta physics– can be differentiated from that of the religionists."
Well, they would seem to be polar opposites: scientists are asking questions in order to fill in the blanks with facts. Religidiots are filling in the blanks with non-answers without regard to the facts in order to stop questioning.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/17/atheism-has-ancient-roots-…

"Whitmarsh, a fellow of St John’s College, believes that the growing trend towards seeing religion as “hardwired” into humans is deeply worrying. “I am trying to destabilise this notion, which seems to be gaining hold all the time, that there is something fundamental to humanity about [religious] belief,” he told the Guardian."

zebra #27: The argument is not 'God would have to be complicated', but 'God would have to be more complicated, more in need of explanation, than its creation.'

ron #28: 'Bacon wrote about atheists in his day, so you’re excluding atheists from the set of “educated people” who advanced Science?' The Church had a near-monopoly of education before the Reformation, so yes, it was hard to be an educated atheist in Europe in his time. I suspect he was arguing against Greek and Roman atheists.

'You close by citing Occam’s Razor to explain induction. If anyone claimed Occam’s Razor to explain the existence of God, you’d likely reject the claim, but expect readers to accept this explanation (or consider this a sincere contribution to the conversation)?' I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I explained why, if 'God' is 'one thing', so is the universe (which is simpler), so who needs God? Induction doesn't even come into it.

ron #29: 'Why do you trust your thoughts/senses (perhaps Occam’s Razor)?' Did you spend more than two seconds thinking about my comment? To anyone who knows anything about evolution, the nonsensicality of Lewis's argument is blatantly obvious. Brains work because good (reality-simulating) brains outcompete bad brains.

treesong #35,

The argument is not ‘God would have to be complicated’, but ‘God would have to be more complicated, more in need of explanation, than its creation.’

Why? You too are being circular, just like ron, which is my point-- too many unstated assumptions. How do you know how complicated God "would have to be"?

Craig Thomas 34,

Why did you leave out the first sentence in that paragraph?

"The mundane argument– physics is about measurement and prediction, and “religion” isn’t– is almost trivial."

zebra 36: Again, this argument is specifically aimed at the argument that God is one thing and therefore is the most parsimonious explanation for the universe. It obviously doesn't apply to Azathoth, the blind idiot god that blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity, but nobody claims that Azathoth explains the universe. Similarly for a deist god who set up a Big Bang and let the universe evolve as it saw fit. But if you want a god who deliberately made everything as it is; who can explain why we are born to suffer and die, or why a hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile; who decreed that this star should go nova and that whale should have vestigial leg bones; then I think the argument holds. He's got the whole wide universe in his mind, he's got the whole universe in his mind.

Let's hope that Nat Geo can explain induction and the human mind reasoning within itself, at least better than R. Dawkins could...
http://tinyurl.com/ntaehrd

"A universe with a God would be very different than a world without a God. For starters, a world with a God would be one in which non-material entities — like logical propositions — could be reasonably aligned with facts in the material world, such that we could call such propositions either “true” or “false.”

In a world without God, we have no reason for thinking that the chemicals churning around in Dawkins’ brain have any relation whatever to the affairs of the outside world, any more than the clouds in my coffee are doing shrewd stock market analysis. In a world without God, atoms bang away over here in this way, and some other atoms bang away over there in another way, and so we consequently have no reason to believe that our thoughts on the matter are in any way true, which then takes away from us our one remaining solace in the fact that any atoms are banging away at all. We know nothing. We can’t even know that we know nothing, for to know that we know nothing is a species of knowledge. But then, even a blank nihilism pursued for the sake of consistency is in fact an attempt at consistency, and all such attempts are self-contradictory. But trying to stop it is self-contradictory also. Atheism is a high and demanding calling, and someone should point out that no one has ever actually attained to it yet.

Look at it another way. Dawkins picks up a banana and acknowledges that it has the appearance of design. It is not designed, he maintains, but natural selection makes it look as though it were. That is only the appearance of design, you chump. Okay, let us take that picture of Dawkins dismissing the banana and zoom out, shall we? Now we are looking at Dawkins tossing a banana on the table, and doing so as though he were actually arguing something. But is he? It seems that he is also just part of these appearances. Dawkins’ argument has the appearance of design. There is nothing to it but blind chance, right?

Dawkins might try to reply that his argument has actual design and rationality because he is the one who designed it. He framed the argument, and so it is therefore designed — but by Dawkins, not God. But who is Dawkins? Excuse me, what is Dawkins? I have just learned from Dawkins that he is just a complicated banana, only less yellow. He is not arguing for atheism because atheism is true. Given his premises, he can no more do that than the banana can."

ron #39: 'In a world without God, we have no reason for thinking that the chemicals churning around in Dawkins’ brain have any relation whatever to the affairs of the outside world' Argument by false assertion after I've explained the falsity of the assertion twice. Not convincing. I don't see any way to make the point any clearer, so I'll just yell. EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM!

Treesong,

Obviously, Ron has no understanding of evolution and has no desire to learn. He has his beliefs and he's going to stick with them no matter what anyone or even reality itself has to say about them.

I'm going to follow my own advice to you and just go and enjoy the day.

Treesong 38,

You are confirming what I said at 23 and 27 and subsequently-- you have not been clear what you are arguing about.

Now that you have picked a God, I can point out that invoking Parsimony is not valid here-- unless you have some further clarification about what it is to which you are applying that test.

You can't say that "God's will" is less parsimonious an answer to the question "How did the universe get to be the way it is?" than "it's random".

And speaking of randomness-- you keep missing the point in your replies to ron. The fact that evolution is constrained says nothing about whether or not we are perceiving "reality" beyond the mundane.

Again, we can make measurements and predictions, which differentiates us from those practicing some form of magical thinking, but that doesn't mean that the stories we tell ourselves to help in the process describe an actual underlying structure.

If "EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM"!, then who / what designed it to follow certain constraints and what are those constraints?

ron #43,

I guess I have to educate both you guys on this word.

"Random" does not mean "not designed".

-It means, in quantum physics, that there is no cause.

-Random in the classical vernacular is used to describe things that are unpredictable in practice, like the path of a gas molecule. The path is, however, the result of causes, and it is also constrained.

-But evolution is probably best described as "chaotic", because there are different possible discrete outcomes. We can't predict them, but the number of possible states is limited.

Perhaps you could rephrase your question to reflect these distinctions?

If we're to accept that evolution is chaotic (rather than random), what / whom limits it? What / whom sets its limits? If not a Creator or a mind, what?

If we're to accept Occam's Razor (advising which hypothesis to test first) as an explanation for the basis of induction versus a chaotic system, why would one believe that God is not preferable / simpler than chaotic systems?

Phylogenetic (including genetic) constraints, adaptive space, mechanistic inertia and potential, history, time, and luck constrain evolution. Random inputs are mostly ignored but critically shaped by these things.

Occam's Razor, though not recommended to find correct answers (it is used rather to limit the number of wrong answers), would never predict, prefer, or suggest god, for obvious reasons.

ron 45,

No idea what "an explanation for the basis of induction" means.

Please see my #42 for treesong. You can't apply OR unless you have a clearly stated question. I certainly haven't been able to figure out what yours is. (Please note that is talking about the universe not evolution.)

Greg is correct-- evolution occurs in a particular "space"-- Earth, with all its physical characteristics, like sunlight and water and asteroid impacts and mineralogy and so on, and then there's more fundamental physics and chemistry-- gravity, molecular bonds, yadda yadda. So the possible outcomes are obviously limited.

Ron:

Who designed the Designer?

Who created the Creator?

"The Creator/ Designer" is merely a place holder for 'I don't know'.
Think of the (further) fantastic leaps of imagination beyond the fuzzy ideas of an uncaused, eternal, all powerful, non-material being (if it could even be thought of as a being by those criteria) to any of the specific gods (of which there are many) as described by the myriad religious texts that exist.
There are so many leaps of faith that have to be done from the beginning of that premise to the end, that it is truly amazing that anyone who has truly thought about it in anything approaching an open and intellectually honest way, could ever take it seriously. But many do, and they are all certain that they have miraculously stumbled (been born to, in most cases) upon the 'correct' answer out of all of the thousands of possible 'correct' answers.
What are the odds, I ask you?

zebra #42: 'I can point out that invoking Parsimony is not valid here.' That's what I keep saying!.

'The fact that evolution is constrained says nothing about whether or not we are perceiving “reality” beyond the mundane.' If by 'mundane' you mean everything we can or ever will be able to see, feel, hear, examine with electron microscopes and large hadron colliders, quantum-frandobulate, calculate, etc., then you're right. But I see no reason to believe that there is anything beyond that 'mundane'. If that's not what you mean, then you're wrong, as has been explained repeatedly.

So I'm not going to try again. Bye, all.

Except I forgot to recommend Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea to anyone who doesn't think evolution is the greatest idea since fire.

OK, now I'm going.

Treesong 50,

...or ever will be able to see, feel, hear, examine with electron microscopes and large hadron colliders, quantum-frandobulate, calculate, etc., then you’re right. But I see no reason to believe that there is anything beyond that ‘mundane’.

Why not? Your belief that humans have an infinite capacity to do all that frandobulating and calculating, and get it right, is as fantastical as anything the rons of the world think.

We are clever monkeys, and we can light the fire of the sun over our cities if we so choose to wipe ourselves out, but our conceptualizations are rooted in a limited frame of reference.

Power is not wisdom.

Faith and climate change: A meteorologist's view

gregladen — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:30:07 +0000

Faith and climate change: A meteorologist's view

I don't normally write about faith (I'm an atheist, I'd be bad at it), but I do often write about climate change. But my friend and colleague Paul Douglas happens to be an Evangelical Christian, Republican, and Rock Star Meteorologist. You've seen his work if you've seen the movies Jurassic Park or Twister. If you are from the Twin Cities area, you are probably still mourning his departure from WCCO TV, where he was famous for giving highly accurate weather forecasts, and acknowledging the realty of global warming.

Paul calls himself an albino unicorn, because he is a Republican and an Evangelical Christian who seriously respects, and understands, the science, and is very open about that. Paul is part of a small group of interested parties including me, John Abraham (at St. Thomas University), and meteorology expert Tenney Naumer, who stay in touch on a regular basis pointing out interesting meteorological events to each other so we can all keep up with happenings in this rapidly changing world, and passing back and forth ideas on how to communicate this information to the general public while at the same time keeping very true to the science.

Paul's day job is to run Aeris weather, a high end very sophisticated meteorology company. This is one of a series of companies entrepreneur Douglas has created and developed into a success. He also blogs at the Star Tribune. If you live in the Twin Cities, this is where you get your short and long term weather predictions, if you are smart.

A note about that blog: Paul adds to every blog, after discussing the regional weather and the most interesting or important tropical storm or other untoward event happening elsewhere in the world, a listing of climate change related news stories, so this is a great place to keep up with what is going on in both those worlds of weather and climate change.

Paul also regularly gives talks on climate and meteorology to groups in the Twin Cities, and regularly appears on local TV and radio shows. In a way, he moonlights as a kind of therapist for many of us who live in this rugged and unforgiving climate, where for many days in the winter, there is nothing between us and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence. (A favorite expression of Paul's.)

And, as part of that mission to speak with the public about climate change, retired Minnesota Public Radio host Gary Eichten interviewed albino unicorn Paul Douglas at a local Evangelical college about climate change.

The interview actually addresses climate change in general, addressing the "faith" side of it for only part of the interview. There is a lot of good information in the interview, and Paul does a great job of modeling how to speak of these issues to a presumably hostile audience.

Here is the interview/talk. Enjoy.

ADDED: Now available, a video of the talk:

gregladen Thu, 02/11/2016 - 03:30

Tags

It must be tough staying in the Republican party and being passionate about climate change.

I listened to the whole thing; he's well spoken and good humored. And not the only evangelical saying we should follow the science and be good stewards (noting that not all evangelicals are fundamentalists).

What do you think of his optimistic assertion that we can have everything and have it sans fossil fuels, because markets & innovation?

C'mon, Greg -- St. John's University is a 150+ yr old Catholic college with a rich history of intellectual diversity, active social teachings, and thoughtful ecumenism. With its coordinate college, St. Benedict's, St. John's operates a widely respected and top-100 ranked liberal arts colleges. Describing the schools as "a local evangelical college" is a little snotty.

The rise of a new grief vampire

oracknows — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 02:00:12 +0000

The rise of a new grief vampire

I don't write about psychics that often. Most commonly, when I do, it's about psychics making claims that could be construed as medical claims, such as when America's Quack, Dr. Mehmet Oz brought psychic scammers like John Edward and the "Long Island Medium" Theresa Caputo, even going so far as to imply that psychics can actually talk to the dead and that their act can even be therapeutic for grief.

This time around, I'm learning of what is arguably the most despicable use of a psychic yet. It's so bad that Susan Gerbic labeled this particular self-proclaimed psychic a "grief vampire," and so he is. The psychic is, quite literally, the new kid on the block as far a psychics go; his name is Tyler Henry, and apparently the basic cable channel E! is really pushing a TV series featuring him, Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry. His website describes him thusly:

Tyler Henry (born January 13, 1996) is a teen clairvoyant medium oringally from central California. Born with a unique gift, Tyler has helped countless people acquire closure, comfort, and proof that consciousness transcends physical death. Working as an evidential-based medium, his ability to provide specific, detail-oriented specifics has allowed him to share what he sees with medical professionals and missing person cases.
As Tyler's grandmother was terminally ill with cancer in April of 2006, he began having strong intuitive hunches that would later turn into a series of profound visions that proved to be true. After a series of life changing events (including a near death experience), Tyler's passion, calling, and life purpose has been to bring clarity, closure, and evidence to those he is privileged to read.

Marvelous. The next generation of psychic scammers is here, led by a handsome, boyish-looking 20 year old who is being advertised as three, three, three psychic scammers in one. First, he claims to be a medium, claiming that he can communicate with the dead. Second, he claims to be a clairvoyant, implying that he can predict the future. Third, and finally, he claims to be a "medical intuitive," defined as having the "innate ability to describe the cause of a physical or emotional condition through the perception or feeling of another's energy." E!'s website claims that while performing a reading, "Tyler can often physically sense the prior medical conditions of the spirits he is attempting to communicate with."

OK, I know what you're thinking. So what? This guy is just another in a long line of psychic scammers. He's young. He's charismatic. He's telegenic. In other words, he's like a young John Edward and perfect for television. What's the harm? It's just entertainment, right? Well, it is entertainment, but it's far from harmless, as Susan Gerbic points out:

Reading more, I stop and hold my breath. Here it is. The part that makes it clear whether he is a psychic entertainer who is up-front about his act or just another grief vampire. Henry tells the interviewer his goal for the future. It is to work with parents who have lost their children to suicide. I can feel my blood pressure increasing and the hackles on the back of my neck starting to rise. He isn’t just a grief vampire; he is aspiring to be one of the most despicable types of grief vampires, tying for first place with those who work as psychic detectives. These are the people who prey on families when they are the most desperate and vulnerable. I’m appalled that he thinks this is something to aspire to. Something to be proud of!

Indeed. This is the sort of thing that makes my skin crawl. It is at this point that I can't help but point out that psychics aren't the only kind of grief vampires. Cancer quacks are a particularly despicable form of the monster. They prey on the grief and desperation of cancer patients; psychics prey on the grief of those who've lost loved ones. Sylvia Browne used to be among the most despicable of these, but there are many others who haven't achieved national or international prominence who function similarly. Worse, there exists an entertainment industry that promotes them. Henry will be on Dr. Phil's show today, and you might remember that Dr. Phil has fallen for a psychics before.

Gerbic makes an observation about Henry that I thought of as soon as I learned of him: Where did this guy come from? I had never heard of him before. He seems to have appeared out of nowhere! He already has a show. The hollywood hype machine is promoting his show. He's all over Twitter and Facebook. There are articles in the entertainment press about him and, of course, ads for his new television series. Clearly, a fair amount of marketing muscle is being placed in the service of his show, complete with bits showing him doing readings on various celebrities. There are interviews like this:

We have chills! You have to see @CharissaT's reading with @tyhenrymedium! @HMTylerHenry https://t.co/EwUsdwENO8

— ExtraTV (@extratv) January 21, 2016

It looks as though there's some editing there, but I don't see anything that doesn't look like a combination of your basic run-of-the-mill cold reading with an awkwardly scripted conversation. But, hey, Tyler's a skeptic, ma-an:

Lots of people feel either that [my gift needs] to be proven or that, on a personal level, they need the validation that their loved one is ok. Some people come to readings with a ‘prove-it-to-me’ mentality and others come with an openness.

I do inherently understand both sides. I think it’s important to have a healthy degree of skepticism. I myself am a very skeptical person. In readings, my goal is to bring up information that there really is no way I could know. I don’t like saying general things. I don’t like saying information that everybody knows. I focus on information that can’t be researched or googled, and that usually includes inside jokes or sentimental pieces of information that only families really know.

As Gerbic mentions, this sounds like something that should be fairly easy to test. If Henry really is a skeptic, surely he's be up for a carefully designed and controlled test of his "powers." Somehow, I doubt that's going to happen any time soon. More likely, at some point, if his show takes off (which is, of course, by no means a given) he'll get someone like Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil to "test" him, and you know how worthless that will be.

Both Steve Novella and Susan Gerbic ask the question: Does Henry believe in his ability? Is he nothing more than a scammer or is he just a misguided young man who, by whatever means, has come to believe that he possesses special "gifts"? I tend to agree with Novella on this one: Practically, it doesn't really matter. Moreover, it's likely that there is a spectrum along which psychics exist from pure scammer to pure believer, with most of them falling somewhere between. It doesn't really matter that much where on that spectrum Henry falls. What matters is what he does.

It might well be that, as long as Henry restricts himself to doing readings on celebrities for his show, all he's doing is harmless entertainment. The problem is that we already know he isn't restricting himself to that. He already advertises private bookings on his own website. (We don't know how much he charges because that isn't listed.) He has stated that he wants to "help" parents whose children have committed suicide, and no doubt before too long he will do that. Likely the producer of his show is looking for such grieving parents right now, fodder for the grief vampire, to be shown for the morbid entertainment of the masses.

oracknows Thu, 01/21/2016 - 21:00

Tags

medicine

Paranormal

religion

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

I can´t say I lke the term "grief vampire", vampires are seen much too positive in today´s cultural context. "Ghoul" would be a much more appropriate term for such people

I find this class of thing especially infuriating: in my professional life I worked extensively with those who had made an attempt at suicide and also with complex grief reactions. These are complicated and messy areas requiring some very careful handling, not this sort of exploitative bovine manure.

As an aside, anyone who has experience of and skills at interviewing people for a living can get a large amount of information out of people without them quite realising how you did it, even when they might have decided they would not talk about that area: I did this regularly...And I was merely an experienced MH nurse, no super powers...

"Some people come to readings with a ‘prove-it-to-me’ mentality and others come with an openness"

'Prove it to me' IS an openness.

grief vampire

For some reason, I'm stuck thinking of a episode of the BPRD comic book (an Hellboy spin-off), the one where Johann Kraus, the resident spirit medium, explains how he once abused a customer's trust by encouraging him to keep coming for more séances so he (the medium) could keep meeting in the astral plane the ghost/soul of the customer's dead wife.
It lasted until the customer, wracked with fresh grief at every seance, could not take it anymore and angrily walked out.

There is not much relevance with Tyler Henry and his likes, aside from the fact, already pointed by Murmur, that grief could be a powerfully debilitating emotion and should be handled carefully, not used to manipulate others.

I'm actually more afraid by the fact it's going to be a TV show. A private séance - one can hope the medium doesn't want to end up with customers on suicide watch. A TV show, on the other hand... The more emotions, the more frictions, the more drama, the better.

Yet another fledging conman given a platform by TV and let loose on the world.

Dreadful.

Reminds me of the novelty song "Teenage Brain Surgeon" beloved by Dr. Demento, and sung by some freakishly low contra-bass --

I was a teenage brain surgeon
Teenage brain surgeon,
The sharpest operator in town

He actually looks like he "sparkles."

#5 Adam
Yet another fledging conman given a platform by TV and let loose on the world.

Yes, I used to think that the most easily conned people were salesmen (or other conmen) but TV personalities seem to be taking the lead.

I wonder if this implies a similar personality type across the groups?

^ Oops, that was a bit ambiguous. I meant con men conning con men not that salesmen were con men.

re Ms Caputo

She's a fake.
How do I know this?

If she really were in communication with the spirits of the dead, she would be harangued into madness by shades of deceased fashion designers and icons who would shriek unceasingly after encountering her 'look'.

And if she had more interpersonal savvy, she would be able to figure out what living fashionistas were thinking when they viewed her choices and thus, clean up her act.

Tyler rocks the boy band look in order to interest/ entice teenaged girls, millennials and their mothers.

Where did he come from? A PR firm, Hollywood agent, stage mom?

Denice@10: You remind me of the joke told by comedian in the 1980s (I forget which one). He calls the Psychic Friends hotline, and the first thing they do is ask for his credit card number. That's how he knows they're fake: if they were real psychics, they would either know it already, or be able to read his mind as he holds the card in front of him.

As for whence young Mr. Tyler came: Follow the money. Somebody thinks there is a profit to be made.

With all his claimed abilities, this vulture should be able to prevent teen suicides instead of merely exploit them for fame and profit.

Scum. Pure scum. Either because he's lying about what he can do, or because he could actually do some good but won't. Odds of the former: 100%.

Which boy band did he escape from?

It's all fun and games until you realize that Tyler predicted this article from Orac.

"As Tyler’s grandmother was terminally ill with cancer in April of 2006, he began having strong intuitive hunches that would later turn into a series of profound visions that proved to be true. After a series of life changing events (including a near death experience), Tyler’s passion, calling, and life purpose has been to bring clarity, closure, and evidence to those he is privileged to read."

How psychic can you be if you can't predict the future well enough to AVOID your own "near death experience"? Didn't he see this coming??

@ Denice Walter

she would be harangued into madness by shades

I suspect that, if dead people were able to speak with us, the conversation's tone would indeed be rather less peaceful and less polite than the usual "spirit medium speaking in a toneless voice" cliché.

Where did he come from?

I have a few hypotheses. The one involving a bite by a radioactive badger seems far-fetched, tough. I'm not sure that badgers are carrion eaters.

Hardly as ghoulish as religious-right preachers who had parents believing that their gay sons and daughters who died of AIDS or suicide were burning in hell and deserved it.

What this kid is doing is making claims of supernatural knowledge to people who have suffered a suicide in the family, which is no different than what clergy members do in religious services and in counseling family members after loved ones die.

Where I would draw a hard line is if the kid is offering medical advice to people with dangerous illnesses. At that point he would deserve to be prosecuted along with all the other quacks and frauds in the zoo.

I would also draw a hard line if he was setting himself up as a charismatic leader in a cult that used brainwashing tactics, such as the Moonies, though that's far more difficult to prosecute unless "members" are being sexually or otherwise physically abused, or held against their will.

But supernatural blah-blah as emotional palliative? Meh. The shadiest aspect of that is that he's on TV, and it doesn't take ESP to predict that his show will probably go nowhere.

But even that's hardly as goulish as those horrid daytime shows such as "Maury" where minor children are routinely traumatized on stage before the cameras and live audiences, as their parents fight over adulterous affairs. I once caught a glimpse of that on a TV in a medical office, and wanted to reach through the tube and (redacted, redacted!).

It is to work with parents who have lost their children to suicide.

I think he'd be far more useful in suicide prevention: I know I would find punching that face all day incredibly therapeutic.

I had an experience where a ( possibly disturbed) person was trying very hard to convince me- I have no idea why- that she knew my parents well and that I was too young at the time to remember her.

I knew that she was lying because everything she discussed was knowable at the present time or apparent by other means. For example, she discussed a building where they used to live as it appeared in the recent past- not decades ago. I asked her questions like ( she claimed remembering a large tree) , "What was next to the tree?" ( She didn't know that actually a large summer house was there until 30 years ago) I asked her what my father looked like- which led to much hedging not a description- when really I look very related to him- most people say I look like him or his mother - that is, most people who KNEW them.

That's what these 'psychics' are doing in order to gain power over people or get their money.

I couldn't hold it in, I had to go to his Facebook page and ask if he'll be putting his magic powers to the test with James Randi's million dollar challenge. After all, he do so much good for the world with that million.

I wonder if this is a variant of Mythomaniac aka Pathological lying?

There is another possibly more deadly component to the danger of his talking to youth who have committed suicide as a way of consoling parents. In Jennifer Michael Hecht's book "Stay", a major component is her argument that suicide is often a future murder, as a large number of people who attempt suicide have known friend(s) and or relatives who have committed suicide and this makes it easier to take such action. (I am over-simplifying Hecht's premise)

My fear is that, with such a charismatic persona, Henry is going to inspire already troubled young people to kill themselves.

I give you these thoughts from my compendium of great advice:
I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something. – Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil

A grifter will also exploit his victim's virtues. – Rich Marotta

The Yellow Kid was so good at what he did that the detective who finally was able to make the arrest and get the conviction was driving him to prison and Weill sold him $30,000 in bogus stock.
00 of bogus stuck from him.

PSYCHIC'S ARE FOR REAL. Sad that so many people can only see this world as 3 dimensional. Open up your mind and go to one. It will change your life. PS. My beautiful, 19 year old daughter committed suicide and I'm okay with it because I know that she is still with me just not in the physical sense. <3

Sorry about the orphan line on my previous post. My browser visited a few too many vineyard sites today.

Saw this today in passing.

The kid should have a show called "Medium Gay", but I don't know if he's out. Not that there's anything wrong with him being gay, I just think that'd be a fun title for a horrible exploitative show.

He's out. You obviously didn't click all the links. :-)

I intentionally didn't mention that Tyler Henry is gay because I didn't consider it relevant to what I was writing about. It doesn't matter to me.

Yeah, I don't care if he's gay. That's not a problem. I was just thinking they could use it in his branding.

How about "Queer Eye For The Dead Guy" ?

Psychics make me angry. My sister came back from one in a state of near-hysteria once. She had asked the nasty fraud if my mother's next trip abroad would be good, and the "psycho" responded that my mom wouldn't come back, which we interpreted as she would die during the trip. Insanely, this "psycho" provided tape recordings of her "readings". My sister kept repeating "Why would anyone say something like that?"

I have two theories - my sister was deliberately not volunteering information for the psycho (to test her "abilities"), and the psycho wanted to punish her for that.
Secondly - the psycho suggested that my sister visit her again and they might be able to forestall this death - a con - milk someone for more money. We probably should have gone to the police.

It was disgusting. That was about 20 years ago and my mom is approaching her 81st birthday. So much for psycho psychics.

Doesn't really matter what he thinks of his own ability but after watching his "reading" of Jamie Pressly, I'd be hard pressed to believe that this isn't a deliberate con down to the notebook prop.

Nor do I think he is all that good at this; what a balatant fishing expedition. Along with self justification at the end that he is helping people.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/06/hollywood-medium-trailer-premiere-…

Terri Kavanaugh - I once saw a video of a woman dispersing "chemtrails" with a spray bottle of vinegar. It made me sad and uncomfortable. Your comment makes me feel much the same way.

It wouldn't surprise me a great deal if he is quite sincere. He's young. The young are uniformly idiots. Except for the those who aren't.
Take a kid who has limited experience (i.e. is young), perhaps isn't especially sharp, add some older adults, especially those from the petty amusement trades who smell profit and will encourage the kid and stroke his ego, and you get someone like Tyler Henry. I see a Macaulay Culkin, just pointed in a different direction.

If he tells a few parents of kids who have committed suicide that they did it because the parents were horrible people who made everyone around them miserable, I'll be even more convinced of his sincerity.

Terri appears to be a fan of rank scammer Susan Deren. L-rd only knows what led her here.

Yet another scammer, and the worst kind of scammer at that, one who preys on the families of suicides. This makes me angry enough that I'd like to smack him around.

Doug,

I can't figure out how he can get around not knowing it is fake when someone would need to gather and then tell him the information. In the video I linked to for example, that Jamie was born in the South where there are many houses with white pillars and that there is a dry cleaner with that name in her town. Not sure how the other info was obtained but it certainly is easier to find things out about celebrities than the rest of us.

Then there was the midget psychic who escaped from jail....

Police are looking for a small medium at large.

Re.Mephistopheles O'Brien @ 32:

Yeah, those videos make me squirm too. Silly fools spraying vinegar in the air to erase chemtrails. I use Windex.

Like the commercial says, "Windex cleans up even the most stubborn chemtrails without leaving streaks or soapy film on the sky! On sale now!"

Not a Troll,

"Jamie was born in the South where there are many houses with white pillars"

He may have noticed a bit of an accent. The "white pillars" is just antebellum architecture (or faux-antebellum), a romanticized feature of the South. It probably wouldn't matter if there were only one such building in her home town, it would fit with her mental concept of the south.

#30 Jane Ostentatious

But Jane, did your mother come back? I knew one woman from the UK who went to Hawaii and never went back. Well, she might have dropped in to visit her son when passing through Heathrow.

I went afollowin' some links. I discovered there is an American Board for Scientific Medical Intuition.

Terri:
Someone close to me took her life too. If this dude came up to me and told me he could communicate with her, I predict he would be bent over clutching his junk about one second later.

@Gray Squirrel - I've seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You don't have to sell me on the miracle substance that is Windex.

Gahh. Skeptics. In the spirit of the new X-files premier tomorrow, "you ought to want to believe" or totally square.

An anecdotal: After one particular individual in my life lost his best chess partner to a sort of 'suicide by accidental death', him and the widow, in memoriam during a home gathering after 'visitation' (aka pity party), struck up a game of the ol'e 8x8.

During the endgame, and with a seeming crushing defeat for the non-widow opponent, the daughter of the deceased (three years of age) reached down, grabbed the queen, and placed it on a valid square. This lead to a forced mate in three for the widow.

^^ I think that is particulary striking for a little girl that considered any move of any piece valid -- including to place it across the room somewhere.

Cut the kid some slack; Perhaps he is a grifter or perhaps he really believes in his 'ability' and is being exploited -- I'd feel bad if scorchingly bad reviews of his 'performance' hastened him to go and meet those of which he supposedly speaks.

That said, I do think I'd like to see him doing a 'reading' of Justin Beiber -- Is that bad?

I predict he would be bent over clutching his junk about one second later.

You would be striking a happy medium. No court would convict you.

My sister came back from one in a state of near-hysteria
Florida?

I can't say I like the term 'Grief Vampire' either.
May I suggest 'Grief Leech'? It's what I usually call them.

HDB #45

He won't be happy after that blow, however, odds are that he'll remain gay.

“Windex cleans up even the most stubborn chemtrails without leaving streaks or soapy film on the sky! On sale now!”

If you drink enough, everything becomes invisible.

TBruce,

If you wear size 10 shoes, I can lend you my work boots for that occasion ;)

Alain

Gaahh! You'd think that the Fox sisters coming clean would have ended this crap forever, or the debunking done by Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini working together.
(Sir Arthur was looking for an "honest" medium. Houdini broke with Doyle when he kept insisting that Houdini had "mediumistic powers" that were responsible for his abilities. It's hard to blame Doyle. Even though he was a believer years before, the appalling loss of relatives and friends in World War 1 - his son, brother, and nephew, the brother of his brother-in-law, all five sons of his wife's best friend, and more - pushed him irretrievably into spiritualism as a religion.)

Alain,
Thanks for the offer, but I've got size 9 Doc Martens. What's good enough for Pete Townshend vs Abbie Hoffman is good enough for me.

I have schizophrenia, in particualar constant auditory hallucinations. As tempting as stuff like this is I try to stay away from it, I have to. It kind of reaffirms my notion that society is pretty schizophrenic these day. Much like my voices the internet and TV spew out all this stuff. Some is good some isn't and the clarity of thought is needed to discern the right way through. For whatever that is worth.

This kid is full of it, he ought to get a real job somewhere, is all I have to say about him.

Who likes Chicago?

# 41 doug

Looks legit to me, here's a respectable looking practitioner
http://www.byregion.net/cgibin/users/profiles.pl?username=medicalintuit…

I obviously lead a sheltered life. Murderers (well not that many anymore), crooks cooks academics. but nothing like this.

Another anti-psychic story - my SO received a telephone call. He was supposed to give a tour to a group of psychics at a historic site but had completely forgot. He was upset - he'd never forgotten about a tour before. He wasn't amused by my response - I was rolling around laughing that "If they were psychics, shouldn't they have seen that coming?"

Guess not.

She is a certified [sic] by Caroline Myss PhD,Norman Shealy MD and the American Board of Scientific Medical Intuition

...where the ABSMI is simply a company set up by Myss and Shealy to sell Grifter Certificates.

Looks legit to me

I knew jrkrideau was going to say that.

hdb,
Ah, you noticed she is certified [sic] by Caroline Myss PhD but did you see that she has studied Medical Intuition Science with Carolyn Myss Ph.D.

Norman Shealy MD

He was part of the reason why my 2015 Dead Pool portfolio tanked, as it happens.

Yoru Teruhiko

Who likes Chicago?

I like some of their early albums, and I've enjoyed their concerts over the years.

I just watched him on Dr. Phil. He read a girl who had lost a friend in a car accident. It was easily explained cold reading and rather upsetting to watch actually. Dr. Phil called himself a " healthy skeptic". Heh.

Yoru Teruhiko@55

Who likes Chicago?

Hi JP (or Yoru Teruhiko now). I live and work here (well I live in the suburbs and work in the city). Do I like it? We have the best pizza, the best hockey team and a beautiful skyline. We also do well in the categories of potholes, corruption and murder so... I like it enough that I wouldn't want to work in the suburbs but not living in the city is worth the commute.

I just watched the first part of this dude's new show. He and his "Mommy" are driving to a "reading". They both insist over and over that they have NO idea who they are going to see until that someone opens the door. BULLSHIT! This show and this guy is so fake! They've roped in all of these celebrities for him to do these FAKE readings with and you can tell they are faking it right along with him.

I think the long term goal here is to start doing bookings with all of the idiots at home who will watch the show. They'll BELIEVE that if he can help a celebrity, he can surely help them! The MONEY will roll in. People are so gullible. It's really sad....

I can't imagine a better target clientele for a medium than celebrities, given the amount of trivial information readily available about their lives online. Even the passing of a celebrity's pet badger in a tragic croquet accident likely made it into an interview at some point.

Maybe this kid can offer a serious challenge to John Edward's Biggest Douche in the Universe crown.

capnkrunch, I've had pizza in Chicago, and the truth is that the quality of pizza is in inverse proportion to the distance of the pizzeria from Phil's Pizza on Kings Highway in Brooklyn.
Except for all those Original Ray's Pizza, Famous Ray's Pizza, Original Famous, Famous Original, Those Other Guys Are Liars We're The Real Ray's Pizza, Aboriginal Rays' Pizza, and all the others in Manhattan of that subset. Their pizza is just about as good as I imagine the pizza in Ulan Bataar is.

Devil's Advocate department:

It occurs to me that many of these "successful psychics" may in fact have a higher than average degree of empathy, enabling them to pick up on others' feelings easily.

If that's true, then it's possible that they could be encouraged to go the whole academic route to practice clinical psych or at least marital & family counseling. Along the way it's more probable than not, that finding a viable channel for using their empathic abilities will get them off the "psychic" track and into a legitimate track.

By analogy, someone with a talent for picking locks can be encouraged to become a licensed locksmith rather than a burglar. Some of them might still end up as burglars, but some will switch tracks to lawful employment, and it's worth making the effort to encourage them to do so.

Along the way it’s more probable than not, that finding a viable channel for using their empathic abilities will get them off the “psychic” track and into a legitimate track.

What, and leave show business?

i have just finished watching an episode of tyler henry's reading. I have a very open mind about stuff like this and believe that it is true. I my self and other members of my family have had small encounters with the other side. For those that call people like him quacks or vampire or whatever for whatever reason need to think about this...just because you don't believe in it doesn't make it fake. just because he's on t.v to share other peoples experiences with his readings dosen't mean that hes some kind of shark. As with making money off of the show he has to have some kind of income to be able to make it to all of the places he goes. Gas and living is not free. It does not mean that he is taking advantage of anyone. I myself would love to meet with him and have a reading from him just to see what he can tell me. I know I have a lot of questions for him that he may or may not be able to answer. What he reads is not entirely up to him, it is how the spiritual ones convey to him and it is up to him to translate what they send him. it might not be what anyone wants to hear but it is what the spiritual ones want to say to the ones that they are reaching out to. And I believe that he may be able to do great things when helping families with loved ones that have passed away due to suicide. when people die from suicide a lot of the times the loved ones don't know why they did it. with tyler helping families of suicide victims it just might give them closer. I my self had a best friend that committed suicide and no one knows why. her family and myself have no closure as to what led her to do it.

Rebecca, you are entitled to your own beliefs, but not to your own facts. When you come back with actual scientific fact that the young man is actually speaking to the dead and his other claims then we will be convinced.

Until then, he is taking advantage of the desperate and that is unforgivable.

@ Gray Squirrrel:

Sure. In order to scam people you need a reasonable degree of person perception, social cognition, interpersonal skills, ability to 'read' motivation, non-verbal communication skills- whatever you'd like to call it. Psychics aren't the only ones in this category -btw-.

And I truly believe that at least SOME 'psychics' think that their 'powers' are real and do want to help others.

The problem is that scammers won't spend the time - years!- and money to become a counsellor/ psychologist - they want easy money probably instantly
and the true believers have no reason to study because they believe that they have a gift and are helping people already.
They may even believe that their gift is pure and from g-d or the universe. Not from universities and books.

"This kid is full of it, he ought to get a real job somewhere, is all I have to say about him."

He could hire out as a feces donor.

http://thepowerofpoop.com/epatients/donors/donor-registry/

And I believe that he may be able to do great things when helping families with loved ones that have passed away due to suicide. when people die from suicide a lot of the times the loved ones don’t know why they did it. with tyler helping families of suicide victims it just might give them closer. I my self had a best friend that committed suicide and no one knows why. her family and myself have no closure as to what led her to do it.

If she didn't explicitly tell anyone while she was alive, what makes you think she will now that she's dead? Even if you could reach her, why would you? If you believe you can reach her, then don't you think she can reach you? And if she could, and wanted to tell you, wouldn't she?

Do you people EVER take your heads out of your own navels??

What, and leave show business?

M O'B is a very bad person.

We have the best pizza…

Some would beg to differ -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrqSizC-T-4
(May not be safe for work, but bad words are bleeped)

It occurs to me that many of these “successful psychics” may in fact have a higher than average degree of empathy, enabling them to pick up on others’ feelings easily.

If that’s true, then it’s possible that they could be encouraged to go the whole academic route to practice clinical psych or at least marital & family counseling. Along the way it’s more probable than not, that finding a viable channel for using their empathic abilities will get them off the “psychic” track and into a legitimate track.

You know The Mentalist was fiction, right?

If that’s true, then it’s possible that they could be encouraged to go the whole academic route to practice clinical psych or at least marital & family counseling.

Maybe but mental health services is not known to pay very well...unless you get a gig like Dr. Phil has.

Even though I am a firm believer in this:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

and in addition, could tell you a couple of personal experiences that would curl your hair, I think what this man is engaging in is exploration at best, and at worst, inherently dangerous. He has no idea how he can mess with people's minds doing this regardless of how much help he may provide by sheer luck.

@Rebecca:

I my self had a best friend that committed suicide and no one knows why. her family and myself have no closure as to what led her to do it.

Depressed people don't need a reason to commit suicide. Depression is the reason they commit suicide.

What is it with TV psychiatrists (this guy and Ablow) and gleaming scalps? Do they polish their pates or something?

Oh, Harry Houdini, we have learned nothing from you. (Houdini spent a good portion of his career unmasking bogus psychics.)

I used to think I had telepathic abilities. When I was 9, for about a week. Then I got bored and moved on to cooking for dragons.

In all the urban fantasy I've read, where people really do have magic or psychic abilities, none of them are "pay per view" mediums, and most look down on those people as, you guessed it, fakes and grifters.

On my 40th birthday, I awoke to find my dead Granddad standing in the doorway of our bedroom. He said, "I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, my darling." In his own posh London accent. He was there -- I saw him and heard him and he was wearing the same mustard cardigan he wore Christmas '76. And then he went away and I never saw him again.

If I told you this story, just like that... omitting that I was nursing a newborn, suffering from mastitis, with a fever of 103F and incredibly sleep deprived....

Grey Squirrel @66

"It occurs to me that many of these “successful psychics” may in fact have a higher than average degree of empathy, enabling them to pick up on others’ feelings easily."

I would completely disagree: these fraudulent "psychics" are displaying a complete lack of empathy in their deliberate exploitation of other people's grief and loss. Their actions are (I hesitate to use the term as it is one I dislike from professional experience) more akin to psychopathy in their disregard for others cloaked in a veneer of caring.

Delphine @80

Toxic confusional states are very weird: I still remember lying in a hospital bed, post-surgery, running an even higher temperature and watching all manner of monsters running around the ward...

#81 - I completely agree. I popped my skeptical cherry looking into, and being appaled by, the callous actions of one Sylvia Browne - which lead me to (The Amazing) James Randi and the rest is as they say history.

That woman hasn't got a single empathic bone in her body. The very definition of a grief vampire as outlayed by Orac in this blog entry.

M O’B is a very bad person.

Why, thank you, herr doktor!

Re. MOB @ 67, Denise @ 70, Johnny @74, Not a Troll @ 75, Murmur @ 81:

All of you are so psychic yourselves, that you've mind-read everyone who claims to have various paranormal abilities, and determined that they're sociopaths who are out to deliberately scam others for money?

That's a shameful failure of objectivity and display of bias, frankly not much different to what we see from political extremists on both ends of the spectrum. Obama's a secret Mooslim! Obama's a shill for the military-industrial complex! Gimme' a break.

Plausible etiology for some of these cases: a teenager with high empathy gets positive social feedback for it, but comes from a relatively uneducated family, who attributes the kid's ability to having a direct line to God or what-have-you. The kid has an honest intention to help others. S/he becomes a minor local celebrity and accrues more positive feedback from his social milieu, which becomes self-reinforcing. The kid ends up becoming a faith healer or psychic or whatever.

No intention to defraud, any more than there is with a kid under similar circumstances who ends up becoming a preacher. There are atheists who would assert that preachers are also frauds, but atheists vs. preachers is a digression.

The answer to this stuff isn't to attempt to mind-read fraud as motivation.

The answer is to reinforce and strengthen our educational system.

Whereby, our hypothetical high school kid takes a psych course in high school, and then gets encouraged to take another at the local community college for extra credit. This sparks an interest in clinical psych, leading to an undergraduate major and graduate degree, and legitimate position doing family counseling or going for the Ph.D. and full-on clinical psychology practice.

Or if the kid comes from a military family and plans on joining the service, perhaps s/he applies for an MOS that can make use of those skills: interrogator/translator, civil affairs, human intelligence. Or goes into the business world and puts those skills to work in some role where negotiating is a major part of the job description.

Put yourself in the position of a high school guidance counselor, where one day a kid pops in to see you, and says "I seem to be able to read minds, got any suggestions?"

What do you tell that kid? "Oh, you're going to become a psychic fraudster, get thee away from me, scoundrel!" Or, "If you're unusually sensitive to others' feelings, perhaps you'd be interested in becoming a psychologist"...?

Really: sit & think for a while, chuck the bias, think objectively, and look for solutions.

Put yourself in the position of a high school guidance counselor, where one day a kid pops in to see you, and says “I seem to be able to read minds, got any suggestions?”

Art Kleps, Millbrook, Chapter 3.

Remember the old saying, "By their actions shall ye know them"?

That's part of what I'm going on...That and there being no credible evidence for any psychic phenomena...And going on TV as a first line of practice...

I cannot defend the indefensible, which is what this kid is doing.

one day a kid pops in to see you, and says “I seem to be able to read minds, got any suggestions?”

"Why yes, but I hope you don't expect me to verbalise them."

All of you are so psychic yourselves, that you’ve mind-read everyone who claims to have various paranormal abilities, and determined that they’re sociopaths who are out to deliberately scam others for money?

Please re-read my comment and tell me where I said "sociopath" or "scam". Thanks.

In the absence of evidence of actual psychic powers, all current successful psychics are, in fact, show people. Their motives may vary, but all are putting on a show. Heck, Tyler Henry (the young man who is the subject of Orac's post) is on television. How can that not be show business? Would a person who is drawn to the bright lights and adoration of the TV series also be likely to take training and become a non-psychic psychotherapist, working with individuals or small groups without the fame, audience, and applause? Possibly, though most likely after the show business career has faded.

Gray Squirrel, read carefully, did I say that 'scammers' and those who 'truly believe they are psychics and want to help people' ( true believers) are the SAME individuals?
Not at all.

Interesting. Lots of self-defense, but not much to say about diverting vulnerable kids away from the psychic side-show and into legitimate career paths.

We can do better than that, but it takes work, and increased taxes to pay for better science ed and school guidance counselors (Denise: in the USA, that's someone who helps kids figure out their educational and career paths) and make college affordable rather than a new form of indenture.

Here we have one kid who's what?, 18, 21, somewhere in that range?, and he's gotten dazzled (Mesmerized, if you will;-) by the glare of TV lights. Simple behaviorism tells you that positive reinforcement elicits more of the same behavior.

What I see in that, is a kid who is being manipulated and abused by grownups. Manipulated by some who are innocent True Believers, and by others who are morally culpable. Abused by those who are milking the pathos for all it's worth and making the even-bigger-bucks as middlemen. That's where the moral culpability comes to roost, not on the kid who is being manipulated.

Here's where my own subjectivity comes into play:

Gay teenagers have 300% the suicide risk of straight teenagers. This kid is gay, out of the closet, and a minor celebrity. That makes him a role model for other gay kids, gay kids in high school. All the more so because his subject matter is suicide, the leading killer of gay teens.

On one hand, great!, a successful gay kid speaking to the topic of suicide.

On the other hand, arrrrgh!, he's promoting himself as God's own switchboard operator to the dead.

Reminds me of stories about people in poverty who win the lottery and then go out and waste it all on stupid bling rather than putting themselves and their families in a better position for the long run.

We NEED, desperately need, successful role models for gay teenagers. We also need them to be well-grounded in reality, and offering a path forward that is realistic, reality-based, and really achievable by others.

IMHO, that's what's so f***ing tragic about this case.

All of you are so psychic yourselves, that you’ve mind-read everyone who claims to have various paranormal abilities, and determined that they’re sociopaths who are out to deliberately scam others for money?

In the words of the Great Poet Minchin -

Look , Storm, I don't mean to bore you
But there's no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or tea-leaves or star-signs or meridian lines
These people aren't plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for people who claim to hear Gods demands
Or Spiritual healers who think they've got magic hands.

By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Isn't that totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you're in touch with the other side?
I think that's fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there's no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we fu****g 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson didn't have face lifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edward?

Gray Squirrel:
Or we could encourage children to read more fantasy and sci-fi. If the only place kids see characters with 'psychic' abilities is alongside dragons or faster-than-light travel, that's a great way to draw a good hard line between reality and fiction.

And like I said earlier, most authors of urban fantasy (fantasy set in our current world) who have characters who are mediums also decry "TV psychics" as frauds.

As for this 'kid' being mislead by people who should know better, yeah, he's young. That doesn't explain other 'mediums' with TV shows like, say, the Long Island Medium. She's hardly a 'misled child'.

And like I said earlier, most authors of urban fantasy (fantasy set in our current world) who have characters who are mediums also decry “TV psychics” as frauds.

The word "medium" is kind of weird to me. I was reading an article lately about "trance states," which musicians (esp. drummers) and artists know a lot about. Basically it's about getting into a "flow" state, and there are deeper and lighter states.

Maybe "mediums" get a little too far into the medium, I dunno.

The Siberian shamans knew a lot about this stuff, but they're hard to find. I'm sure there are some of them still kicking up there with the Samoyeds or something, though.

-JP

Interesting. Lots of self-defense, but not much to say about diverting vulnerable kids away from the psychic side-show and into legitimate career paths.

If you'd bothered to read what I wrote, you'd see that IMHO there's minimal chance of convincing someone who has started a successful career as an entertainer (or possibly con man - not that this is necessarily the case here) that he/she/it should chuck it all in favor of hard study and a life outside the footlights.

I mean, if someone is willing to say for money that they can talk to the dead then they most likely either a) are badly misinformed; b) have convinced themselves that they are in some way helping people; or c) don't care as long as the money rolls in.

Besides, with the ability to read people well and push their buttons they might become politicians. I'd rather they were psychics.

Believe it or not, usually school counsellors have a very limited time in which to interact with students - that's not really enough to induce attitude change and impart the fine points of critical thinking.

As someone who assists adults with finding appropriate education in order to change careers ( and similar) I find that
they often have strong ideas about what they want to pursue - and no, no psychics yet- I just help them in getting the skills to get it. Counselling people is very different if it is required ( because of school attendance or court/ medical order) or if it is chosen by the participant.

someone is willing to say for money that they can talk to the dead

I am happy to call spirits from the vasty deep talk to the dead, as long as no-one is expecting a reply.

school counsellors have a very limited time in which to interact with students

My experience of school vocational counsellors is that they have found an appropriate job for exactly one person, i.e. themselves, and their powers go no further than that.

If you’d bothered to read what I wrote, you’d see that IMHO there’s minimal chance of convincing someone who has started a successful career as an entertainer (or possibly con man – not that this is necessarily the case here) that he/she/it should chuck it all in favor of hard study and a life outside the footlights.

Not that I disagree, but could you please stop it with the "it" stuff? It's dehumanizing as all get out, and it "triggers" some of us. (For real.)

I mean, unless somebody has specifically been asked to be called "it," which by all accounts is a very rare thing, at least in the English-speaking world.

I don't think this guy particularly enjoyed being called "it," for example.

@JP

could you please stop it with the “it” stuff?

Thanks for your feedback. I will endeavor to keep your wishes in mind in future.

I'm getting lola lala oh its Lulu! Cracked me up seeing that. But watching this snake oil merchant he scribbles on a notebook his prop. But when he does his readings he doesnt give anything away he just asks or interviews his victims. If he was a clarvoyant then he should know who his next client is. But if you have someone famous sitting infront of you you are going to know some information about that person from press or the internet. He even says in episode 1 whats a tv. He said he didnt know carnnie wilson when he entered the house. But when he did his post reading he said it was great to know that this was CW. I will only believe a medium or reader if they pick up on grandad what was his favourite word or saying. So far none have said it. If he is speaking through the medium then he will speak as i know him. Also my partner went for a reading and managed to get the sex of the partner incorrect. I heard the tape and lolled. The reader just could not get out of that trap.

Wonder how people from the most developed country in the world fall for such nonsense.
Either this kid is so smart that he knows most celebrities have fame and money other than brains, or those celebrities know that this kid is a fraud, but they just need another show to show their sensitive side to their foolish fans.

I had lunch with him and his mother a couple of month ago. they both were charming but very calculating.
I wouldn´t like to be his friend at all !!

I WOULD like to be his friend. Everyone is a big ole fraud and phony except for him, me, and Theresa Caputo. His abilities aren't as powerful as mine and Theresa's though. There are rare freaks out there who have these abilities, just the same as there are freaks who have like elephant-man lumps all over their faces. It's just that there's like less than 5 people ever in existence to be "blessed" with these rare anomalies, hence why they have been given their own shows on TLC. There was like a documentary special called like "Tumor-Face Boy" that starred a young man inflicted with elephant-man disease. And the original elephant-man had a movie made after him and everything. They became well-known because of their freaky, unnatural, inhuman, and inexplicable deformities. It is the same thing with Theresa (and me, when I join her as an intern later next season). But, like, dude, y'all should all like seriously calm down a little bit. Like why do you get SO angry about.....of all the zillions and millions of things to be angry about.....something as pointless, irrelevant, and inane as this? If people want to believe in things that are idiotic; such as bigfoot, alien abduction, or crop circles, just let them be a freaking idiot. Like who cares? There are SOOOOOOO many idiots on this planet like why even try to fight against them. Remember, they, being, of course, the idiots that they are, will not be able to comprehend the explanations, rationalizations, opinions, or arguments of non-idiots. It's like 2 different languages. Even in the off chance that they do understand the gist of what the non-idiot is saying, they will refuse to change their stance, no matter how illogical or implausible it might be, on the grounds that they will never come to terms with and admit the fact that they are, indeed, an idiot. The close-minded, immature, stubborn idiot is incapable of realizing his own idiocy due to the existence of said idiocy. It's like a vicious cycle of idiocy. Like why are you so concerned about the lives of idiots anyway, especially when it comes to this like random, weird topic. Like, it's so weird, for real. There are way worse things going on in the world than this. Anyone who is not a certified medium with the Forever Family Foundation is not to be trusted. Omg, like Sylvia Browne?? I remember like literally rolling around on the floor laughing at what a ridiculous joke she was when I saw her on a talk show or something. Like, truly, anyone who believed her is a raging idiot who might as well believe in Bigfoot and Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. Oh and when I watched the youtube video of that dude tricking James Van Pragh or whatever his name is.....I was ROTFL just as hard. I mean anyone who believes these clowns is clearly a complete idiot who believes in the Tooth Fairy......but like, that's their prerogative. If they're happy believing in the Tooth Fairy, and are unlikely to be convinced otherwise ever due to the well-known fact that idiots have little to no common sense, and being unable to get out of that cycle of idiocy, lest they spontaneously and magically transform into a non-idiot (not too likely...), are prone to the inevitable continuance of their idiotic belief in the Tooth Fairy. I mean, I'm a huge b*tch and love to make sport of arguing and complaining about an endless variety and multitude of topics, but like why are you guys so dedicated to this one nitpicky, obscure, pointless topic??? Seriously like I don't get it! It's like hilariously odd!! What a waste of time and energy....time and energy that could be spent b*tching about much more important, relevant, and worthy topics. Like if I just clear this up for you, my abilities come directly from God, He placed these special abilities in a chosen few before birth, it is not something that is able to occur naturally. It is completely impossible. God had to like specially code these abilities into the DNA of those chosen to have this gift, and has to use like specifically designed custom made ectoplasm or something in order for us to be able to communicate so clearly, easily, accurately, and "naturally", with the higher vibrations or whatever. He had studied those with inborn and natural intuitive ability to communicate with higher frequencies, I suppose you could call these people "intuitives", "empaths", "spiritually sensitive", or what have you, and that helped him to create the DNA code allowing for the powerful abilities to be entwined into the ectoplasm and DNA of his choice. It is impossible for those not specifically chosen by God and entwined with this DNA to ever come close to having the power and abilities of the entwined ones. So Theresa and I are among his first "test subjects" for this special ability. I guarantee you guys that there most definitely is life after death and that I, along with a few others, are endowed with the honor and privilege of having the unique powers and abilities to communicate with Spirit and be influenced very directly by their divine guidance. I mean you seriously just have to believe even if it seems completely ludicrous. Like have some faith. I mean not in like swamp monsters. But just that there is a possibility of things out there in the universe that you can't possibly know about, and can never definitively and objectively prove either the existence or non-existence of things like the afterlife and Heaven. Like you believe we just die and then cease to exist after living this entire miserable life on this planet of idiots? Like what's the point of anything in life, you know, if before you know it, you won't know of your, or anyone's life or existence, or the existence of anything, bc you'll just die and it will be as if you never existed, just as it was before you were born and became aware of your existence. Nothing in your life will matter at all, even if you like cure cancer or something and make the world better for the future, who really cares bc after you die, you'll never ever know of anything again bc you will no longer exist. Like it's such a horrible and depressing thought to live with. You have to freaking have faith that there's life after death. I mean even if you die thinking there's an afterlife and you turn out to be wrong, hey, guess what: YOU'LL NEVER EVEN KNOW bc as soon as you die and think you're going to the afterlife, you'll cease exist and have no knowledge that you were ever wrong, or of your life on earth, or of your existence, or the existence of anything or anyone. So oh well. Like I don't know why or how anyone ever, could honestly go through life believing that we just die and then only exist in the form of a nasty, rotten corpse with like disgusting maggots and other hideous, awful, gross bugs crawling on you and eating you and that is the outcome and value of your entire life. It is all for one day sustaining and supporting some of the most hideous, terrible, disgusting, worthless creatures on the planet- nasty bugs. Like how could you. I will NEVER support the life of a nasty bug, they are the ones who deserve to be dead and to not exist. I obviously want to be cremated. But it still seems pretty anticlimactic to have my entire life's worth and self worth be reduced to a bunch of fishflakes. Like you guys have to believe there is something more and you HAVE to at the very least find something better to spend your time and energy arguing and sharing your opinions either in support for or disapproval of the cause/subject matter/topic than this. I mean seriously the poem?!? LOLOL!! Idk...just.......wtf?!?! So funny!! And the line about John Edwards is totally true. Lol they probably like wouldn't communicate with him even if he did have any psychic ability, which clearly he does not. Like he's such a douche. But anyway...like you wrote a freaking poem....like WHAT?!?! Lol. I mean you guys are really passionate!! lolol....it drew me directly into this beloved hobby/sport of mine...ranting, arguing, complaining, and being an all around b*tch. But it is my signature style drop my b*tchbomb and flee the scene, never to be returned to, I say everything I need to say in one bomb, release it onto the unfortunate, but usually deserving, victims, then permanently detach myself from the situation. There's no need for me to argue back and forth with anyone, because I know I'm right and if you disagree that's your problem. I tried, there's nothing more I can do. I left a b*tchbomb that I felt needed to be dropped, it is up to the bombed to interpret, analyze, utilize, and learn from any and all of the parts and pieces of the rather large bomb in any way you like and any way you see fit. I obviously don't care and will not be back to this site any time soon, if ever, so don't bother like replying to me or anything I'll probably never even see it. Well this has been fun and funny. Bye guys. I hope to never run into any of y'all ever cause y'all seem pretty violent and have made it obvious that you would take immense pleasure in committing hate crimes against anyone claiming to be psychic.....which obviously I do claim because it is a true fact about me just as much as other facts like that I am a female, I have blonde hair, and I am 5'3". I can't help any of these things, I didn't choose any of these things, and if anyone finds out about any of these traits that commits hate crimes against anyone in possession of or thought to be in possession of any or all of these traits, will likely commence an attack on me. I am not scared for my safety, rather, I am concerned for anyone who dares to attempt to attack me, because I am a very ferocious b*tch. I am actually more concerned that I might get into legal trouble for my vicious assault on the attacker, even if in self defense, because it will probably be considered like "cruel and unusual defense" or something because I am so ferocious and mean. Beware. Ok bye guys. Don't really beat anyone up. It's mean. Calm down. You guys seem like really stressed out and wound up about something that's kinda stupid to get so mad over, seriously. Try to relax. For real. Ok..........peace out. bye. ...... .

Kristin Sasha: "Like if I just clear this up for you, my abilities come directly from God, He placed these special abilities in a chosen few before birth, it is not something that is able to occur naturally. It is completely impossible. God had to like specially code these abilities into the DNA of those chosen to have this gift, and has to use like specifically designed custom made ectoplasm or something in order for us to be able to communicate so clearly, easily, accurately, and “naturally”, with the higher vibrations or whatever. "

Was the price for all these powers the complete inability to use paragraphs or write coherently? Can you at least tell me the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of those vibrations?

Come back to us after you have won the Sisyphus Prize.

Like you believe we just die and then cease to exist after living this entire miserable life on this planet of idiots? Like what’s the point of anything in life, you know, if before you know it, you won’t know of your, or anyone’s life or existence, or the existence of anything, bc you’ll just die and it will be as if you never existed, just as it was before you were born and became aware of your existence.

Perhaps you should think harder about the boldfaced bit.