Alternative medicine

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“The tooth comes out” (Tooth Fairy Science)

tooth

When my children put teeth under their pillow, they wake up with substantially more money than I did at their age.

If attempting to ascertain why, I could examine various factors, such as whether the amount the Tooth Fairy leaves has kept up with inflation, if the Fairy values incisors more than molars, and if the time in between lost choppers impacts the amount left. I could query 1,000 children, analyze results for socio-economic trends and determine if there is a correlation between the frequency of Tooth Fairy visits and the sell of home security systems. I may even endeavor to conclude once and for all if the Fairy is male, female, or androgynous. The findings could be put in a snazzy hardcover book with impressive graphics and detailed footnotes. Yet none of this would establish that a stealthy, mobile spirit is replacing extracted calcified objects with cash.

Tooth Fairy Science refers to doing research on an unverified phenomenon to determine what its effects are, rather than to ascertain if it exists. It is post hoc reasoning in research form. The phrase was coined by Dr. Harriet Hall.

This shoddy science is a regular feature of studies into ghosts, cryptozoology, reincarnation, alien visitors, alternative medicine, parapsychology, and creationism.

I have three co-workers who believe our office is haunted. Curiously, this spirit only manifests itself when the workers are by themselves at night. Perhaps he is nocturnal and dislikes crowds. We have ample video and audio equipment in the office, and we could set these up and record what times bumps most occur, detect any unexplained shadows, and note any high-pitched whistles. This data could by analyzed and a conclusion reached about the ghost’s characteristics. But this would not take into account wind, pipes, electromagnetic interference, or a worker on floor above coming in at 11 p.m. We would have to assume the ghost’s existence and attribute these factors to it.

Similarly, cryptozoologists will shoot sonar into Loch Ness or look for disturbed vegetation in Bigfoot’s supposed stomping grounds, then attribute any findings they consider consistent with their monster to be proof the animal was there. As such, they do not consider other explanations, such as the sonar detecting a bloom of algae and zooplankton, or a warthog beating Sasquatch to the trap.

That’s because when Fairy Tale scientists uncover data that is consistent with their hypothesis, they assume the data confirms it. For example, psychiatrist Ian Stevenson spent years collecting stories from people who claimed to be reincarnated. He used these anecdotes to support his belief in reincarnation, and he used reincarnation to explain the stories, a textbook case of circular reasoning.

Moving onto alien abduction, John Mack talked with persons who claimed to have been taken by extraterrestrial beings. He assumed the stories to be real instead of considering that he might have implanted the ideas by asking leading questions, such as, “Was the alien about four feet tall,” as opposed to “How tall was the alien?” The mental state and susceptibility of the subject was not considered, nor were explanations like fraud, attention-seeking, or sleep paralysis. 

Alien abductees aren’t the only subjects that spend time on a Tooth Fairy scientist’s couch. So do alternative medicine patients. Chi, meridians, and blockages are assumed to exist in “energy” medicines such as craniosacral therapy, iridology, therapueitic touch, reflexology, chiropractic, Reiki, Ayuvedic, and more. I have addressed the rest of these in previous posts, so we’ll address Therapeutic Touch here.

First, Therapeutic Touch is neither. The practitioner’s hands are close to the patient, but are never on them. As to the therapy part, practitioners claim to be able to sense a patient’s “human energy field” with their hands, then manipulate the field by moving their hands near a patient’s skin to improve their health. Scientists have detected and measured minute energies down to the subatomic level, but have never found a human energy field. Nine-year-old Emily Rosa designed a controlled test of the practice which Therapeutic Touchers failed spectacularly. Any seeming success is because of the fluctuating nature of many illnesses, the placebo effect, confirmation bias, and nonspecific effects. The latter is a common error and refers to confusing the effects of practitioner-patient interaction with the supposed effect of the treatment.

In a test that proponents claimed proved Therapeutic Touch’s validity, researchers gauged the effects of the technique on reducing nausea and vomiting in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. All patients were on the same chemotherapy regimen and they were randomly divided into three groups of 36 patients. The first group received usual Therapeutic Test treatment, the second group got a similar treatment except the practitioners’ hands were farther from the patients, and the third group received no treatment. A single practitioner performed all the treatments, which was fatal to conducting a proper study because he should not have known which patients were receiving which treatment.

Since there is no evidence the energy field exists, there can be no evidence that how far the practitioner’s hands are from the patient would make a difference. The alleged energy can’t be measured, so there’s no reason to believe any energy was transferred to, or benefited, any patient. While the authors claimed the study showed Therapeutic Touch worked, they had failed to establish that the central feature of the practice even existed.

Likewise, parapsychologists are quick to point to rare instances of a subject performing better than chance as proof that various forms of ESP are legitimate. Unsatisfactory results are considered as the power being unable to be accessed due to cosmic interference, negative energy from a skeptical observer, or some other ad hoc reason. They look to justify the failure as owing to a particular cause rather than the cause being that the power doesn’t exist.

Then we have the creationists. The Institute for Creation Research website informs us, “The very dependability of each day’s processes are a wonderful testimony to the design, purposes, and faithfulness of the Creator. The universe is very stable. The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. Earth turns on its axis and always cycles through its day at the same speed every time.”

All of these phenomenon are explicable through known laws of physics and astronomy, and the ICR has affirmed the consequent by saying if there is order in the universe, there has to be a god controlling it, and since we see that order, a god exists. They attribute any majesty to this deity without bothering to prove his existence first. It’s one thing to do this as faith in one’s religion. It’s quite another to claim this as science while bypassing the entire Scientific Method.

I’m going to have to wrap this up. My daughter lost another tooth so I’ve got more research to conduct. 

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“An eye for sore sights” (Iridology)

iris

Iridologists claim they can determine whether an organ is diseased by examining the iris, as opposed to the more logical tactic of looking at the organ.

The field has its roots in 19th Century Hungary, where teenager Ignatz von Peczely accidentally broke an owl’s leg. Despite the animal’s shrieks and convulsing, von Peczely was able to detect a black stripe toward the bottom of his iris. Twenty years later, the now-Dr. von Peczely noticed a similar stripe in the same area when mending a patient’s broken leg.

Von Peczely went to work documenting other alleged eye markings in future patients. This, combined with post hoc reasoning and apopehnia, led to the first iridology chart. There are now many such charts and each has different diagnoses and treatments. Even what qualifies as a marking is subjective.

If a physician diagnosed a patient with tonsillitis, another doctor giving a second opinion would not instead determine it was appendicitis. Yet two iridologists might recommend a tonsillectomy and an appendectomy, respectively, because the field is driven by conflicting iridology maps and creative interpretations of eye specks and pigments.

I can’t blame the von Peczely for trying a different approach. But there’s no reason to use it today. Iridology has failed miserably in controlled scientific studies and there is no known mechanism by which body organs can transmit a health status via the iris.

Besides, the iris is one of the most static areas of the body. Biometric identification uses it as the identifying feature because its pattern is established in utero and is unchanging from then on, except for slight color change in newborns. Subsequent changes can only happen because of eye injuries or an eye disease such as glaucoma. And a person would know they had these conditions without having to consult an iridologist.

There have been at least a dozen attempts to put iridology to a scientific test and it has failed spectacularly each time.

In 1979, three iridologists were shown photos of 143 persons and asked to identify which ones had kidney trouble. One deduced that 88 percent of the healthy patients had kidney disease, while another determined that 74 percent of those with ailing kidneys were healthy. The third performed no better than chance.

The next year, an Australian iridologist examined photographs of 15 patients who had a total of 33 health problems. He struck out each time, failing to diagnose any of the diseases.

In the late 1980s, five Dutch iridologists were shown slides that included 78 persons with gallbladder disease. None of the five could distinguish between the patients with gallbladder disease and those without.

In another test, an experienced practitioner was asked to diagnose 68 patients. He correctly identified three of the patients as having cancer, which is much less impressive when one learns that all 68 had the disease.

These overwhelming failures are explained away with some Great Moments in Ad Hoc Reasoning. Specifically, it is sometimes asserted that iridologists are so medically savvy they are able to diagnose conditions years before they manifest. Or iridology may be touted as a way to determine how susceptible a patient may be to a particular disease. Of course, a decent physician could do that by considering a patient’s habits, diet, genetics, and family history. Some iridologists have taken to downplaying actual diseases and instead detect imaginary disorders such as electrostatic interference, magnetic imbalance, chronic stress, or toxin buildup. Still others use it as a pretext to sell herbal supplements and vitamins.

With most alternative medicines, the biggest danger is that of a patient being inadequately treated, such as battling high blood pressure with raspberry smoothies. That could still happen with this field since a patient might falsely be given clean bill of health. But the most likely danger with iridology is that a patient will be diagnosed for something he or she doesn’t have, leading to freaking out and pumping unnecessary medicine into themselves.

The only health issues the iris reveals are problems with the iris. If needing to have someone look deeply into your eyes, schedule a romantic dinner.

 

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“Evidently not” (Alternative medicine proofs)

bloodletting

Alternative is defined as “something available as another possibility,” or “relating to behavior that is considered unconventional.” So alternative medicine proponents may present it as just another idea to consider. The more paranoid might describe it as a justified counterassault to the existing order.

Most accurately, however, the “alternative” in alternative medicine refers to the field’s definition of evidence. Dr. Steven Novella has said, “Alternative medicine creates a double standard where the rules of science and evidence are stood on their head to manufacture the result that is desired.”

In many cases, what’s passed off as evidence are testimonials. These can be anonymous, such as a magazine advertisement in which J.T. of Greensboro, N.C., praises his applied kinesiologist. Or it can be face-to-face, with your cousin relating how acupuncture eased his sinus trouble. Some in the alt-med crowd consider mainstream medicine the enemy, while others are content to try something different because medicine has made mistakes before and hasn’t found all the cures yet. But as Dara O’Briain has observed, “Science knows it doesn’t know everything; otherwise, it’d stop. But just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.” When Jenny McCarthy was asked about the total lack of evidence that vaccines cause autism, she responded, “My science is named Evan and he’s at home.” One could attribute Evan’s autism to what he had for lunch the day he was diagnosed and it would be just as legitimate.

At the other end of the spectrum, if a product or technique can be validated through double blind studies, it is embraced by the medical establishment. These studies help prevent the problems of selective memory and magical thinking, and they account for the placebo effect. Bypassing this method or ignoring the results of it is how many alternative medicine practitioners operate.

Also, terms like alternative, complementary, and integrative have no scientific or legal meaning. They are used by spin doctors, not the medical ones. They are marketing ploys that sound better than quackery, snake oil, and Old Wives Tales. The traveling wagon has been replaced by CureCancerWithCumquats.com.

Some alternative medicines are absolute lunacy with no plausible working mechanism. These include homeopathy, craniosacral therapy, and Ayuvedic. There are others that may hold more promise, such as essential oils and herbal medicine. Half of medicines are plant-based and there are surely boatloads of cures and mitigations yet to be discovered. We may someday learn that lavender is effective for toddler fevers or that basil eases arthritis symptoms. But determining this would be the result of double blind studies. And making this information useful would require further research to learn how to best extract the healing properties, how to decide the optimal delivery system, and how to determine the proper dose. Passing ideas around in online forums and support groups is inadequate.

Those who see mainstream medicine as the enemy assert that Big Pharma and doctors are repressing cures or at least scared of them gaining acceptance. Yet the mainstream HAS tested acupuncture, chiropractic, iridology, and so on, and these techniques flunked out.

So adherents rely on their alternative definition of evidence. They may cite preclinical studies on animals and test tubes even though these mean nothing until verified by tests on people. Or they may reference a doctor who starts with, “In my experience…” Dr. Mark Crislip calls these the three most dangerous words in medicine because personal experience, especially from an authority figure in the field, can compel a patient to embrace a false cure. No matter how many testimonials there are and no matter what the source, they are not proof of efficiency. Dr. Harriet Hall has noted there was more than a millennium’s worth of anecdotes describing the curative properties of bloodletting.

Science is collaborative and self-correcting. The results of one study will be validated or contradicted by subsequent research and eventually a consensus will emerge. There are oodles of studies out there of every possible level of quality. Some of it is fraud. Some of it is lazy science. Some of it seemed to be good science that was replaced by better science. Trying to filter the charlatanic chaff from the sound findings can be challenging. But a good place to start is with Dr. Hall’s hierarchy of evidence, which is shown below. Note that failing to make the list are anecdotes and testimonials:

  • Test tube studies
  • Animal studies
  • Case reports of one patient
  • Case series of multiple patients
  • Case control studies (such as comparing people with and without diabetes to determine if the overweight are more subject to the disease)
  • Cohort studies (such as following people who are overweight and those who are not for a few years to see if one of the groups has a higher incidence of diabetes)
  • Epidemiologic studies (such as studying whether people in countries with more overweight individuals have a higher percentage of diabetics. These studies can show correlations, but they can’t determine causation)
  • Randomized controlled trials
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that evaluate all peer-reviewed published evidence.

The best studies are large, randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind, and peer-reviewed. These should always be used if practical and ethical. Testing car seats and including a control group of infants that are subjected to crashes without the seats would be unethical. So too would be treating a baby’s asthma with wheatgrass or not giving him his MMR shot because Jenny McCarthy said not to.

 

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“Bash in your chips” (CieAura company)

chipshoulder

Most alternative medicines come in the form of pills (homeopathic tablets), liquids (essential oils), or nothing (Reiki). The CieAura Company distinguishes itself from that bunch by selling what it calls Transparent Holographic Chips for pain relief.

But while its product is a little different from the others, the verbiage is pure alt-med. Its explanatory statement crams in almost every cliché possible: Meridians, balance, blockage, energy, flow, natural, vibrations, chakra, and holistic. Also included are science terms like organs and cells even though these have no relevance to the product. This is a common ploy when trying make counterfeit products seem genuine.

The cieaura.com website also makes the expected Appeal to Antiquity: “In every culture the sacred explanation of energies were provided by the healers or sages. Healers of old felt that negative thoughts and emotions carried by the energy currents caused blockages resulting in disease. The ancients believed removing energy blocks and balancing energy fields would restore health.”

Left out of this nostalgia for druid doctors and shamanic surgeons is that it refers to a time when the average lifespan was 32 and most parents lost multiple newborns. These ancient medical ideas were written on parchment and delivered by donkey, so why use word processors and websites to praise them if old equals ideal? Many alternative medicine practitioners and followers embrace modernity in every aspect of their lives except improved health.

The appeal to antiquity shifts abruptly to a trumpeting of the cutting edge: “There has been an explosion in the technology of intrinsic energy research instrumentation. Tremendous advances are being made in being able to measure and verify the existence of these energies.” While it is true that devices such a MIT’s Super Quantum Induction Device have allowed the detection of extremely faint magnetic fields, there’s no reason to believe these energies are being transferred to a chip you can slap on your knee and end your gout bout.

In what passes for their attempt to explain the process, the company gives us this: “CieAura Transparent Holographic Chips adhesively charge intrinsic energies into holograms for the purpose of influencing the human cycle. The natural meridians in our body get out of balance and cause blockages in the natural energy flow between the vital organs, cells, and tissues of the body. Without help, there is rarely a balance in our body that keeps energy, concentration, stamina, and yin and yang at the optimum level.”

Holographic chips plus yin and yang. Whether you prefer your hogwash ancient or futuristic, CieAura has you covered. This gobbledygook is likely intended to impress or at least bewilder. Navigating this sea of confusion, we learn that these chips will be applied to the body for pain relief by tapping into natural energies. Almost as if anticipating my question, the authors write, “These intrinsic energies are not measurable in the same manner as frequencies and vibrations are measurable.” This inability to verify the existence of the crucial feature of the product is sadly typical for alternative medicine. As is this type of phrase: “These holograms bind sound vibrations to influence the human energy field.” They never confirm what type of energy it is, how it is accessed, how sound vibrations are bound, how they are transferred to the chips, or how this would take away Aunt Millie’s backache.

While offering a meandering description of this product and how it works, we at least are given clear instructions for its use. The chips are meant to be placed on the skin or clothing, as getting them within two inches of the body will activate them, with the effect lasting about two days. If this is true, that means the only ones who would ever benefit from them are the persons producing, stocking, or delivering them. None of those activities are possible without getting within two inches of the chips, so they would be activated and used up by the time the customer got them.

Whoever the activation impacts, the recipient will be receiving “non-invasive, non-transdermal chips, which are 100 percent natural.” The Appeal to Nature fallacy aside, I’m unsure where these transparent holographic chips are growing wild.

Perhaps the website’s lone accuracy is telling us, “The chips are safe and non-transdermal, and no drugs enter the body. There are no side effects.” In other words, it’s not medicine. Transdermal describes the route whereby active ingredients are delivered across the skin. If there are no active ingredients to deliver, there is nothing to effect the body and no way to mitigate any pain. That chip on your shoulder or anywhere else is worthless.

Even if it did work, one statement from the website accidentally reveals that it could only impact one type of malady, not all of them. For it noted that specific frequencies were found to be effective for the different types of pain. Yet there is only one type of chip and it cannot be adjusted.

Without offering evidence, the website claims that heart attacks are much more likely during heightened solar activity. It thus deduces, “This indicates brain waves can be entrained by outside electromagnetic forces. Of course, this is conflating correlation and causation, and maybe they have it backwards. Perhaps a cardiac arrest sends out negative yin-yang streams that screw with the sun’s balance.

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“Scalped” (Craniosacral therapy)

cran

My only chat with a craniosacral therapist took place a year ago at the Quad Cities Paranormal and Psychic Expo. I asked him how it worked and was told, “It has to do with the cerebral spinal fluid, which is what houses all of the nerves. Craniosacral therapy bathes and nourishes and protects this fluid, which is in the cranium and goes all the way to the sacrum. There’s a rhythm that’s involved in the expansion and contraction of the craniosacral system. The idea is to make sure the system is able to expand and contract without any restrictions.”

I felt just fine that day, so I opted against paying $65 for a 20-minte scalp massage. Had I gone ahead with it, I would have been treated by a therapy that purports to manipulate noggin bones and the base of the spine for wide-ranging health benefits. The basics are that spinal fluid pulsates with a craniosacral rhythm, but that this flow can become blocked. However, practitioners such as the one I encountered say cranial bones move sufficiently to allow a therapist to feel this pulsation and give gentle massages that enable the flow to resume. With this, good health returns. Craniosacral therapy advertises itself as being able to achieve substantial health benefits with miniscule invasiveness and complete safety. Two-thirds of these claims are almost always accurate. It’s the one centering on health benefits that lacks substantiation.

For starters, craniosacral therapy makes no sense from an anatomy and physiology standpoint. The skull lacks moveable parts and the eight cranium bones don’t even separate to relieve the pressure from dangerous swelling so they sure won’t budge for a therapist’s oscillating fingertips. This, even though that is touted as the central feature of the treatment. It would be like a paying for a tune-up when the mechanic is unable to replace the spark plugs. Besides, the skull moving in multiple directions is something medics should be treating, not causing. Secondly, the only rhythm detectable in the cranium and cerebrospinal fluid comes from the cardiovascular system. This is crucial because craniosacral therapists deny that the rhythm is caused by blood pressure. Rather, they say the brain makes rhythmic movements and that this is the flow they are feeling.

Another huge problem with the field is the lack of instruments, measurements, and verifiable data. I had an emergency room trip last week in which medical personnel tested my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, plus gave me an X-ray. By contrast, the craniosacral rhythm that proponents consider the key to health is determined by the therapist’s hands. Any needed changes to this rhythm are likewise completely reliant on the practitioner’s palms and fingers. The crucial feature of this field is craniosacral rhythm, yet proponents offer no way to detect, measure, or control it. Since no instrument is used to measure the rhythm or its changes, there exists no reliable way to distinguish healthy flow from the impeded variety.

Likewise, how to approach treatment and gauge success is determined exclusively by the practitioner. With there being no tests, instruments, or valid anatomy & biology involved, 10 different craniosacral therapists will have 10 different ways of analyzing and treating a patient. There are also broad claims about what symptoms can be alleviated by craniosacral therapy, with the more brazen claiming that ANY malady can be fixed.

While craniosacral treatments lack therapeutic value, they are usually innocuous. But it can have indirect deleterious effect, such as when children with cerebral palsy are given false hope that it will make them better. The one significant danger is if a serious condition is treated with craniosacral therapy instead of genuine medicine, and two deaths have resulted from this. One victim was an epileptic who was treated with cranial therapy and was told to stop taking seizure medication; the other was a 2-day-old who was given craniosacral therapy for a high fever, which is a life-threatening condition for a newborn.

When I asked the craniosacral therapist last year, “Is it for specific issues like a sore arm or for general health,” I was assured, “It works for everything.” This is perhaps the biggest giveaway that the field is bogus. All ailments are attacked with the same fingertip scalp massage. The epileptic and infant fever victims were given the same treatment that would be given to patients with cancer, carotid arteries, canker sores, and anxiety.

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“Overactive blather” (Immune system boosters)

POM

Next to assuming that natural means beneficial, the most ubiquitous alternative medicine folly is thinking the immune system can be boosted with the likes of mushrooms, sage, pomegranates, and bottled elixirs.

None of them work, which is good because boosting one’s immunity would leave one less healthy. In fact, an overactive system leads to autoimmune conditions such as lupus, arthritis, asthma, eczema, and even life-threatening anaphylaxis.

Even a small boost of the immune system produces results that, while not as pronounced, leave one feeling poor. That’s because coughs, fevers, and aches are not caused by pathogens, but by the body going after them. A fever is the immune system trying to fry the pathogen and a cough is the system trying to expectorate it. 

This is innate immunity, which acts quickly but paints with a broad cleansing brush, treating all invaders without distinction. That’s why colds feel the same even though they are the indirect result of 100,000 different pathogens. The innate immune system continues churning longer than necessary, manifesting itself in lingering sore throats and runny noses.

Therefore, cold and fever medicines work to suppress the immune system, not boost it. The vanquishing of an infection is primarily done by the acquired immune system, which builds over a lifetime. The acquired immune system contains B and T cells that produce and interact with antibodies to attack infections. Most of these antibodies are produced when a person first encounters an infection and they are held in reserve for future attacks. If the body is hit by a pathogen it has previously been exposed to, or been vaccinated against it, the acquired immune system reactivates and harnesses the antibodies needed to fight the infection.

The immune system is a mix of organs, cells, proteins, and tissues working in harmony to prevent fend off invasion of the body by pathogens. It is far too complex to be impacted by increased flaxseed consumption. Green tea and cinnamon sticks make for a tasty snack, but they won’t boost your immunity, regardless of what your friendly neighborhood naturopath tells you. If the immune system was so weak as to need a kale kick to get stimulated, pathogens would wipe out our species.

With billions of years to refine, why hasn’t the opposite happened, with the immune system conquering pathogens altogether? Because pathogens are also biological agents that evolve, leading to an unending battle between them and the immune system. The influenza virus adapts so quickly that annual shots are needed, and those are of varying efficiency. And HPV has managed some evolutionary trickery by bypassing the immune system and ingraining itself in our DNA.

There are extreme cases where boosting the immune system is both possible and desirable. Examples would include persons undergoing chemotherapy, who are HIV positive, or who are suffering severe malnutrition. As one example, it can be done with a bone marrow transplant, a necessary evil for some with leukemia or multiple myeloma.

The acquired immune system is also boosted though vaccinations. Antigens are injected into the body, where the adaptive immunity system recognizes them and responds as if there was a genuine threat. If the real thing comes along later, the acquired immune system is ready and it won’t need Dr. Oz’s Magic Coconut Juice.

 

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“Got any change?” (Anti-science groups)

SCIENCEBOOM

Third basemen who make two errors in the second inning are sent back to that position in the third. Defense attorneys who lose a trial are still trusted with a client’s case the next week. And chefs who send out the wrong dish are allowed to serve future customers.

Some persons, however, seem unwilling to extend this redemptive mindset to science. The thinking is that past mistakes from the field mean that any other conclusions it reaches are at least suspect, if not dead wrong.

First off, it’s good to admit when one is wrong and adjust one’s thinking when presented with new proof. But admirable traits aside, the larger issue here is to understand how science works. It is more than beakers, telescopes, and magnetic resonance imaging. It is an unending cyclical process aimed at learning the truth. It is self-correcting, self-criticizing, and invites critical examination. If we knew that all science was correct and complete, lab coats would be traded for swimming suits, and we would retire the field. Instead, there is no settled science, nor is there any all-knowing, all-powerful entity that declares, “This and this alone is science, and that shall never change.”

Indeed, change when justified is what science is all about. A physician may treat a pneumonia patient with antibiotics, which are the consequence of discovering, understanding, and embracing Germ Theory. By contrast, chiropractors still insist that an unknowable entity called Qi is blocked, allowing pneumonia and all manner of other ills to assault our bodies, necessitating spinal manipulation.

Another example of changing positions when justified centers on climate science. A frequent tactic of climate change deniers is to highlight Time and Newsweek articles in 1975 that portended global cooling. There were some scientists who thought global cooling was coming, but there were more who thought this to not be the case. But both camps employed the Scientific Method to arrive today’s consensus that anthropogenic global warming is real. Again, this is not sacred writ and anyone with contrarian evidence is encouraged to submit it to a reputable journal for peer review. Instead, producers of “Climate Hustle” send their findings not to a journal, but to a theatre.

In 1922, Harold Cook found a tooth remnant that he considered part of the the first developed primate discovered in North America. It was dubbed Nebraska Man. Further research and digs revealed that the tooth actually belonged to an extinct pig, and the claim that it was a primate was retracted in the journal Science. Searching for and finding new evidence, then adjusting when warranted, is one of the hallmarks of science. Ken Ham is correct when he says, “Science was wrong about Nebraska Man,” but he fails to follow up with, “Science uncovered the erroneous thinking about Nebraska Man.”

Like all persons, scientists make errors. The difference is that anthropologists are no longer zealously defending Nebraska Man. Meanwhile, Ham says humans were created in their present form 5,000 years ago in a six-day old universe. This position requires ignoring the totality of anthropological, geological, and astronomical evidence.

Another anti-science trope, this one from the anti-GMO and anti-vax throngs, trumpets that science gave us DDT. Besides poisoning the well, this statement is another illustration of failing to understand how science works.

Paul Hermann Muller received the Nobel Prize for discovering how efficient DDT was as an arthropod exterminator. This led to typhus, dengue fever, and malaria being nearly wiped out in Europe. Later science learned the negative impact DDT had on some sea life and birds, among other creatures, and its use was curtailed. DDT is still used to control insect vectors, and it was through the Scientific Method that researchers determined DDT’s value as a pesticide, and then learned of the environmental dangers and what steps were needed to use it safely. 

For all their wailing about science, these groups are giving us nothing themselves. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has been around since 1992 without announcing a cure or treatment achieved through alternative medicine. In 40+ years, the Institute for Creation Research has yet to contribute to our understanding of biology, anthropology, or astronomy. Anti-vaxxers have yet to concoct a cure for Alzheimer’s using red sage root and dandelion stems. Climate change deniers level charges of hoaxes, false data, and criminality, but have contributed just two of the more than 13,000 peer-reviewed papers on the subject in the last five years.

Meanwhile, genuine science is providing you air-conditioned comfort and freedom from polio as you read this on your iPod.

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“No energy” (New Age medicine)

DOGHEALER

Because energy is a word everyone knows but far fewer understand, it is a convenient umbrella term for those in the New Age healing and empowerment movements. Types of energy said to be available for our benefit include chi, prana, vibrational, orgone, crystal, vital, and the most polysyllabic yet, bioelectromagnetic.

It is sometimes insinuated that this energy hails from another dimension, consistent with some scientists thinking there is a fifth dimension and maybe even a 15th. Of course, there is a huge difference between postulating something’s existence and declaring it to be the source of medicine and tranquility.

These movements fuse the ancient and the futuristic. They are descendants of vitalism and faith healing, but also coopt words like quantum and make up undefined terms like biofield. Misrepresentation of energy is what these fields are built on. Energy has a number of different forms, all of which center on the ability of an object or system to do work on something else. These forms include kinetic, thermal, chemical, electrical, electrochemical, electromagnetic, and nuclear. An excellent, concise rundown of these forms is available here.

Whatever form energy comes in, it will have certain properties. First, it can be transferred from one object or system to another through the interaction of forces between the objects. Second, energy can be converted from any form to another. In some cases, this happens regularly, while in other cases it is only theoretically possible. In all instances, these transfers are impacted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which in simplest terms states that as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is used. Thirdly, energy is always conserved, and never created or destroyed, as stipulated by the First Law of Thermodynamics. 

Energy is not its own entity, but is rather a property of other things. Hence, energy healing is as nonsensical as trying to cure someone with mass or volume. Energy is not a self-contained force that can be obtained through chants, gyrations, or ersatz electronics.

Batteries, windmills, and nuclear power plants work in ways that are measurable and knowable. By contrast, New Age counterfeit energy is unknown, undetectable, and undescribed. Here are questions I have put to energy healing proponents without receiving anything besides silence and stammers: What type of energy is it? How is it stored? What is its source? What instruments are used to detect or transfer it? What unit is it measured in? How do you determine how much energy is being used? What is a safe amount and how do you prevent this threshold from being crossed? Proponents will talk of unblocking, harmonizing, unifying, tuning, aligning, balancing, and channeling this force without offering how this is accomplished or even what the force is.

In the best-known physics equation, Einstein revealed that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Brian Dunning of Skeptoid explained this means that, “Speed is a function of distance and time, so energy can be expressed in mass, distance, and time. That’s how we define work that can be done. Energy is a measurement of work. If I lift a rock, I’m inputting enough potential energy to dent the surface of the table one centimeter when I drop it.”

Nowhere did Einstein mention life force, disruptions in the aura, or discordant frequencies of sickness. New Age energy involves no mechanics, electricity, or atomic nuclei. I have seen hundreds of New Age energy claims, with nary a reference to ergs, joules, electron volts, or calories (unless talking about weight loss that will come via energy appetite suppression).

Dunning suggests substituting “measurable work capability” for “energy” when encountering New Age healing advertisements. This will highlight the claims’ ridiculous nature, as we can see in this example: “The release and ascent of the dormant spiritual measurable work capability enables the aspirant to transcend the effects of the elements and achieve consciousness.”

Despite the science vacuum that is the New Age energy field, it was supported for five years by the National Institutes for Health. Taxpayer money and the University of Arizona’s reputation were sacrificed in the name of magic healing at the school’s Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science. I am tempted to include a mocking, condescending line here, but can meet that intent by quoting the center’s website: “We conducted a series of experiments examining the effects of Reiki on e. coli bacteria and biophoton emission in plants.” It also lets us know that, “The findings were again too controversial for mainstream journals,” a euphemism for, “Scientists weren’t buying our preposterous conclusions.”

While no peer-reviewed journal would touch them, that didn’t stop their leader, Dr. Gary Schwartz, from publishing, “The Energy Healing Experiments: Science Reveals our Natural Power to Heal.” Like much good pseudoscience, the treatise is lacking in data but bursting with anecdotes. This includes Schwartz claiming a preschooler’s heart condition was cured by a touch from a Hindu holy man. Another story has a patient being cured from 1,000 miles away from a clinician harnessing a cosmic elixir. Again, these are the claims of a man who says bias is the only reason reputable journals reject his work. This is a frequent gambit of pseudoscientists, to claim a conspiracy is keeping them from being the latest in a line of vindicated geniuses that includes Galileo and Alfred Wegener. Glad to be doing my part for the conspiracy.

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“Selective disservice” (Anti-vaccine claims)

MOUSEMEASLES

About a dozen West Virginia lawmakers celebrated the re-legalization of raw milk this year by quaffing the cow juice, which they promptly vomited up before spending the next few days bedridden. The delegates blamed their sickness on a stomach virus unrelated to the consumption of raw milk.

While it would seem unlikely that they all happened to get the virus at the same time they drank the raw milk, it’s remotely possible. Correlation and causation must always be considered and maybe one of the delegates had a stomach bug he passed onto others during the celebratory libation.

In any case, adults should be able to consume the beverage of their choice and can deal with the consequences, be they stronger bones or brucellosis. Similarly, the propriety of seat belt laws can be debated, but almost no one would argue against infant car seat use being mandatory.

But when it comes to vaccines, opponents are not arguing for something equivalent to an adult chugging unpasteurized milk while driving with the safety belt unfastened. The cause they promote impacts their children, as well as persons who are too unhealthy or too young to be vaccinated.

Sometimes the anti-vaxxers will just make it up, such as Modern Alternative Mama claiming her Google searches have made her more learned than any physician on the issue. This is an egotistical absurdity that most people would ignore. However, it’s more dangerous when anti-vaxxers present evidence that is correct, but incomplete.

In the mid-1970s, there was an automobile race between two teams, one from the United States and one from the Soviet Union. The Americans won, with TASS reporting that the USSR had taken second place and the USA next-to-last. When anti-vaxxers present numbers that are technically correct but greatly disingenuous, it can make a normal person begin to question the efficiency of one of medicine’s greatest achievements.

A frequent claim is that improved sanitation is responsible for the decrease in disease. Sanitation is a public health benefit, but does nothing for an airborne disease like rubella, which has been eliminated in the United States, or for smallpox, which has been eliminated everywhere. Vaccines were the reasons for these successes and they have also reduced or eliminated diseases that are not airborne. But anti-vaxxers use selective facts to argue that vaccines played little or no role.

One example is a chart showing measles death rates in the United States. It features a sudden drop in 1900, followed by a minor peak 15 years later, and finally a tapering off that goes down to very few deaths in 1963, the year the vaccine was introduced. The insinuation is that measles deaths were already on the way out and would have ended even without vaccination.

But this chart only addresses mortality. The number of cases, however, were consistently 500,000 to 800,000 annually. This lasted until the vaccine was introduced, and within seven years the numbers were down to almost zero. The same thing happened with Whooping Cough, with anti-vax charts again showing only the mortality rate and not the morbidity rate. If hygiene was enough to prevent disease, chicken pox rates would have plummeted before the mid-1990s. Instead, there were a steady four million cases per year until the varicella vaccine was introduced, and since then occurrences have gone down 85 percent. Also relevant is that death rates from diseases were going down largely because of health care advancements. Death rates for polio, for instance, declined due to the iron lung.

Besides use of selective numbers, anti-vaxxers will also play to chemo-phobia. This is a winning strategy in a nation that is becoming less scientifically literate, and even easier to peddle to the already science-compromised anti-vax crowd. A typical approach is to mention that a vaccine has such-a-such a chemical in it. This is done without pointing out that the dose makes the difference. Modern Alternative Mama will gladly munch an organic pear that has 50 times more formaldehyde than the vaccine she is railing against. Moreover, the human body naturally produces more formaldehyde than what vaccines contain.

Licking two tablets will not take away your pain, taking two tablets should do it, and taking two bottles of tablets will take you away. The same concept works for any ingested chemical. Mercury, aluminum, and sodium are used as preservatives in vaccines and come in minuscule amounts, much smaller than what we find in the foods and beverages we consume daily.

Another instance of demagoguery is displaying a doll with two dozen syringes stuck into it and ominously telling passersby that children will receive this many vaccinations and boosters before middle school. This needle doll is another example of selective reporting. It’s true that the two shots most children received in 1940 had quadrupled by 1980, and that the 1980 number had tripled by 2010. Left out of this tidbit is that the number of antigens in the vaccines has decreased dramatically. The vaccine schedule in 1960 would have included about 3,200 antigens, compared to about 125 today. This is mainly because patients in 1960 received the whole-cell pertussis vaccine instead of its acellular successor. The former has about 3,000 more antigens.

The current schedule calls for 14 immunizations by age 6, and each is for a disease that would cause serious illness or death in unvaccinated populations. So to be accurate, anti-vaxxers should remove the syringes from the doll, have it represent an unvaccinated child, and then place it in an iron lung, wheelchair, or toddler-sized coffin.

 

 

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“Unappealing bananas” (Naturalistic fallacy)

MULECAR

The appeal to nature fallacy rests on the easily disprovable assumption that nature is necessarily good. It comes in forms such as, “I use herbal medicine because it’s what nature intended,” or “I won’t vaccinate because natures knows best.”

This assumption relies on nature being conscious and benevolent. Of course, nature is not conscious and, while human interaction with it may be good, bad, or neutral, it’s all by coincidence, and comes with no intent on nature’s part.

Berries that grow wild do so because the soil, conditions, and weather are conducive to that happening, not because nature wants to bestow upon us a free source of Vitamin C. Plants that excrete chemicals which lead to medicine don’t have our inflammation reduction in mind. It’s the result of natural selection and climate. Canada geese fly in formation for means of transportation and migration, not for our esthetic enjoyment.

What’s more, those who appeal to nature don’t realize many of their examples of it are actually unnatural. The banana, for instance, is synonymous with potassium and is one of the healthier foods available. But the one we eat is not natural. It has been modified over thousands of years, from a tiny, green fruit full of large, hard seeds, to today’s easily-peeled, delectable Corn Flakes accompaniment. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, savoy, and kohlrabi are all modified versions of brassica olearacea. This plant can usually only grow near limestone sea cliffs, but thanks to unnatural modifications, we have an abundance of leafy greens to eat. A diet high in these unnatural vegetables goes a long way toward reducing one’s chance of experiencing natural cancer.

Probably the best way to cure someone of their naturalistic fallacy is with a trip to the Australian Outback. If the sun, wind, and other natural elements don’t do them in, there are scorpions, taipans, and even a venomous snail. The flora can be deadly as well. One mushroom indigenous to the Outback will, if consumed, produce two days of anguish and pained vomiting, followed by death unless a liver transplant can be effected. Then there is the Stinging Brush, whose tiny hairs have been responsible for at least one human fatality. Another victim who survived the plant described his encounter with nature thusly: “For three days, the pain was almost unbearable. I couldn’t work or sleep. The stinging persisted for two years and recurred every time I had a cold shower. It’s ten times worse than anything else.”

Leaving Australia for Africa, lions may seem majestic when they roam across the savannah with their manes waving. But the lion ripping a zebra’s back open with its claws and gashing its jugular vein with knife-like canines is also nature in action. Nature is what the Discovery Channel aired during its glory days. It is not represented by the adorable, chirping, cooperative gang of anthropomorphic animals in Disney movies. Examples of nature include poison oak, tapeworms, smallpox, earthquakes, hungry polar bears, and mercury poisoning.

Some people prefer to double dip their naturalistic fallacy and add the appeal to antiquity. They may say, “That’s the way people did it for thousands of years.” And in this naturopathic Shangri-La without gluten, vaccines, antibodies, or GMOs, and where food was grown locally and the medical treatment was herbs delivered by shamans, the average lifespan was one-fourth of what it is today. Since 1900 alone, the average lifespan has risen 50 percent, owing mostly to vaccines and antibiotics.

Some who appeal to nature claim that sanitation is the real reason for this, which is kind of strange since plumbing, sewers, and solid waste disposal are unnatural. But hypocrisy aside, the claim is only partly accurate. Sanitation was a major plus for public health, but sanitation standards in the developed world have changed little since being introduced. Meanwhile, lifespans keep increasing even though sanitation standards have been steady.

Another argument from the naturalistic crowd is that without vaccines and antibiotics, homo sapiens would evolve resistance to disease and, eventually, nature would act to our benefit. While this might be possible, the idea that this could happen a million years from now is a lousy reason to let your child die from polio today.

Besides, pathogens evolve just like humans do so natural selection might work against immunity. Whenever a new mutation arises, the pathogen may evolve a response to it and this could lead to an even more lethal disease.

Truth is, those who live this fallacy already realize how unnatural products improve their lives. They learn of all-natural shampoos on an unnatural blog; they live somewhere other than a cave; their organic squash in kept fresh using an unnatural storage method; and the hybrid that gets them to their anti-GMO protest is a Prius, not a mule.