Pseudoscience

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“Psichobabble” (Dean Radin and extrasensory powers)

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Polls have consistently shown that about two-thirds of Americans believe in some sort of paranormal phenomenon. About two in five believe in ESP, about the same number who think ghosts are real. Also, just over half think that mind over matter can heal the body. There is another poll, the unscientific one I have taken of paranormal proponents I’ve spoken with over the years. This poll shows that zero percent of believers come to their position after a review of controlled studies employing the Scientific Method and peer review. Rather, it is based on personal experience, a cousin’s anecdote, or regular History Channel viewing.

Of course, the numbers have nothing to do with what is real. If 100 percent of those residing on a remote Pacific Island believe in the same Cargo Cult god, this unanimity of 1,000 worshippers will not equal one deity.

Some psychic promoters attempt to put a scientific spin on alleged extrasensory phenomenon. Author and parapsychologist Dean Radin is one of the more prominent using this approach. His overarching assertion is that, “Information can be obtained in ways that bypass the ordinary sensory system.” He calls this mysterious force “psi.” In presentations, he has never demonstrated that this force works and, in two books, has provided no evidence for its existence.

And while Radin uses graphs, charts, and statistical analysis, the applied mathematics veneer quickly gives way to the babble used by most psychics. He puts a lot of stock in studies, which would be admirable if they were conducted using solid research methods, sound statistics, and a following of the Scientific Method. However, these studies fail to explain how ESP or remote viewing could be falsified, and make no attempt to do so. Moreover, many of them rely on a preposterous ad hoc explanation to shoo away any failure. If people perform better than chance, this is considered proof of psychic ability. But if they perform at, or worse than chance, this is touted as proof that a separate psychic phenomenon is leading the test subject astray.

Radin dismisses skeptical scientists due to the “insular nature of their disciplines. The vast majority of psi experiments are unknown to most scientists.” Indeed, the Nobel Prize committee seems to not know Radin’s e-mail address and he has not sent it to them telepathically.

The numbers Radin presents can seem overwhelming (in terms of their volume and complexity, not in terms of their evidence). But this reveals the problem. Far better than an exhaustive book of graphs would be providing us with one prescient person who can correctly guess what word is scribbled on the note James Randi has in his vest pocket. Show me someone who can fool Penn and Teller by using genuine magic to move a cup across the stage and that will blow me away with more than Radin’s analyses of 1,000 studies.

Being unable to produce such a person, Radin gives us a complex statistical overview of tons of data. Any seeming anomaly is attributed to psi, which skeptics recognize as the appeal to ignorance. In this case, it’s a New Age god of the gaps argument, whereby any unexplained phenomenon proves that psi is responsible.   

In classic pseudoscience tradition, Radin asserts the proof is coming someday. He insists that psi will eventually be explained as part of quantum mechanics. He anticipates people “pushing atoms around with their minds” and our bodies enjoying “mass mind healing” that will end disease and cure paraplegics.

He also anticipates miracles being verified, as we gain an understanding of how Jesus and Krishna used psi techniques to perform them. He also predicts we will see confirmation that mediums talk with the dead, although he failed to clarify if the deceased will finally talk back. He sees us being able to communicate telepathically with anyone, even our friend who now lives in another solar system, which will be possible due to psi’s contributions to the space program. The human mind will become as fast and capable as a supercomputer. Presumably a psychic will finally win the lottery, although the winnings will have to be split 200 million ways.

In his attempt to tie all this into quantum physics, he embraces the concept of entanglement as the key to understanding psychic phenomenon. Entanglement refers to connections between subatomic particles that persist regardless of them being separated by various distances. Radin therefore concludes that this must apply to all entities, be they microscopic, mammals, or moons. He wrote, “The fabric of reality is comprised of entangled threads that are consistent with the core of psi experience.” However, Skeptics Dictionary editor John Renish notes that, “Entanglement can be only of identical elementary particles”

Radin also misapplies the Uncertainty Principle, the idea that observing a particle will affect its behavior. He tries to project this notion onto every other entity in the universe. But the Uncertainty Principle only applies if the observation inputs energy into the system being observed. Put another way, viewing a comet through a telescope won’t cause it to veer off course. And thinking about a long-lost friend won’t prompt him to search you out on Instagram.

Just as astrologers have yet to find an exoplanet and Reiki practitioners have yet to discover any cures, parapsychologists like Radin have yet to make a contribution to neuroscience. Rather, they try to modernize what they consider the wisdom of the ancient mystics by misusing scientific terms and electronic equipment.

  

 

 

 

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“Crooked mechanics” (Quantum quackery)

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Most peddlers of alternative medicine present their products and practices as equal to or greater than the traditional stuff. Extremists at naturalnews.com condemn all mainstream medicine as poison, while the reflexologist next door might say only that she is a complement to what physicians and surgeons do. But in general, alternative is the key word, and not just because they aren’t doing medicine. They claim to be offering something different, and they therefore keep away from the other guys.

But the one seeming exception are alternative medicine practitioners that use the word “quantum,” and appear to embrace mainstream science. They describe quantum mechanics as valid and praise the physicists doing the research and development. However, this is done in a backhanded way. They use the appeal to antiquity to assert that today’s quantum physicists are confirming what the wise men of yore already knew (although these men were apparently not wise enough to write this valuable knowledge down and pass it on).

In brief, Quantum Quackery is the attempt to promote health, healing, mental agility, and more by tying the practices into particle physics and mechanics. Throwing around buzzwords like “energy field” and “wave particle duality,” the practitioners mean to impress the listener, or at least confuse them. Since most people have no idea what genuine quantum mechanics terms mean, this obfuscation is easy.

The word quantum is used to justify almost any supposed wonder or mystery. Rationalwiki notes that it functions as a “New Age version of the god of the gaps,” whereby anything unexplained can be answered with, “Quantum mechanics did it.”

The Quantum Quackery field pilfers terms and overarching ideas from a legitimate, advanced science, then uses them to hawk all manner of products, from books to bracelets, from healing sessions to cat food. The quickest way to determine if a person is using legitimate quantum mechanics is to ask him or her to explain the mathematics behind the idea they are promoting.

While attempting to ride quantum mechanics’ coattails, purveyors also play up an Eastern mystical angle that appeals to many of their customers. They insist that not only does their product or notion have a grounding in advanced science, but it is complementarily rooted in Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism. However, Quantum Quacks here demonstrate almost as much misunderstanding of religion as they do science. Asian faiths are not cut from the same theological cloth. They have differences in philosophies, ceremonies, and habits. If not, there would be no need to have more than one. Trying to pass them off under the umbrella of eastern religion is as mistaken as equating mechanics with amphibian biology since both involve science.

As to the branch of science they are stealing from, quantum mechanics is the study of the behavior of matter and energy at microscopic levels. It is unrelated to consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, healing, or mysticism. But without studying this overwhelmingly complex and mind-crushing topic, a prospective customer might not know that. That is how quantum mechanics ends up being misrepresented by someone who passes it off as a kind of mind medicine. Consider this example, from a review of a book written by someone employing the preposterous moniker Silver RavenWolf: “She puts quantum physics theories into plain English and explains how they can be put into practice for personal fulfillment. She teaches how to achieve a special state of consciousness, including how to create and project a ‘mindlight,’ or ball of energy, through meditations, visualizations, rituals, and mind exercises. These techniques – some involving elemental energies, astrology, oils, and herbs – can be used for healing, problem solving, relaxation, banishing negative thoughts, and general wellbeing.” Here, we see the misuse of science terms, such as elements and energy, combined with a hodgepodge of undefined ideas not even pretending to be scientific. The resulting mishmash promises us the ability to vanquish our fears, get out of debt, and earn that promotion, or at least land a larger desk.

Misuse of terms, or the coining of words that sound scientific but are not, is a hallmark of pseudoscience. Another trait is claiming to do science without using the Scientific Method, and I have yet to see Silver RavenWolf’s byline in Nature. She is selling books to the public, not submitting her findings and research methods to scientific journals.

While it is good for Neil Tyson or Michelle Thaller to explain their fields in relatively simple terms that make them more accessible and appealing to the masses, this pop science approach can be abused by Quantum Quacks, who copy the methods and claim to be explicating quantum mechanics and tying it into a higher consciousness.

I suspect Quantum Quackery started with a mangling of Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. This referred to the frustrating fact that observing particle movement was impacted by that very observation. For example, to know the velocity of a quark, the particle physicist must measure it, and if it is measured, its movement is impacted.

A wonderful result of this realization was the building of particle accelerators which eliminated this unintentional human influence. A more unfortunate consequence was the assertion that this meant there must be a connection between quantum mechanics and human consciousness. This manifests itself in all manner of fabricated silliness, including selling quantum straws for $90.

The most infamous Quantum Quack is Deepak Chopra, whom I’ve chronicled before, so I won’t spend much time on him here. I will just note that he wrote “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind,” which based on photos of him now and 30 years ago, contains advice he has apparently disregarded.

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“Absurd Reich” (Orgone energy)

mad energy

Asserting that there is a mysterious and unproven energy form at our disposal is one of the most frequent lines in New Age and alternative medicine circles. The precise term varies, but proponents claim to have access to a secret healing force that can be yours for $29.95. These purveyors of magic pixie dust have as their predecessor a German immigrant to the United States, Wilhelm Reich.

In the 1930s, he proposed the concept of orgone energy. While he predated today’s crystal and Reiki healers by a few decades, his ideas were not entirely original. He coopted the unscientific notion of a life force from acupuncture and chiropractic. Reich described orgone as massless, omnipresent, and associated with inert matter. We’ll have to take his word for it because no one else could ever detect it. Reich also held that deficits or constrictions in orgone energy within people caused disease. The idea of unblocking mystical energy as a form of treatment is seen today in countless alternative medicine practices.

Trying to figure out what makes the universe operate, Reich came up with the idea of bions, which he described as self-luminescent, sub-cellular vesicles that were omnipresent and observable in decaying material. Someone had to be the first person to think that planets revolve around the sun, to contemplate the existence of atoms, or to postulate about String Theory. However, these were all the starting point for potential discoveries. They were not dogmatic beliefs that were honed while working mostly in isolation. The first proponents of heliocentrism, atoms, and String Theory did not label disbelievers conspirators or fools. They followed the Scientific Method, laid out their ideas and welcomed input, including critical questions. Coming up with an idea about how the universe works is fine; the way Reich followed up on his notion was not.

During this subsequent work, he asserted that orgone was a “primordial cosmic energy” responsible for the sky’s color, gravity, the nature of galaxies, and even nonscientific ideas, such as why political revolutions fail. He seemed to use orgone energy as a fallback to every unexplained mystery in astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics. It is similar to the god of the gaps argument, whereby a person will insist that since we don’t know why something happens, it must be the work of a supreme being.

Reich was once testing his hypothesis that if sterile dirt and coal are soaked long enough, they will give spontaneous rise to bacteria and amoebas. Then an assistant accidentally prepared a sample with sterilized ocean sand instead of dirt. Under a microscope, the sample gave off a blue glimmer. Reich gave this sample to a radium physicist to test, and the physicist reported that he could detect no radiation being given off. Reich therefore concluded that he was seeing a previously undiscovered form of radiation. In truth, the blue glimmer was likely the result of focusing light through a lens, and this incident highlights the importance of submitting work for peer review, rather than just concluding that you and Igor have accessed a secret power.

Not content with his status as a self-appointed microbiology pioneer, Reich attempted to start his own branch of medicine. He devised a therapy he said could tap into orgone energy, using as assemblage of boxes, blankets, and hand-held devices. It was not unlike the products marketed today as energy bracelets and ionic jewelry.

There are few orgone proponents left. One is orgoneproducts.com, which offers an enormous assortment of gadgets, gizmos, and what-is-its. One of the many is an orgone pyramid. The website’s description of the object is one of the most concise assemblages of pseudoscience giveaways I’ve ever come across. In one paragraph, it squeezes in the idea of a panacea, a spectacular claim, and allegations of a cover-up: “The possible uses for this device are only limited by your imagination. For less than the cost of a doctor’s visit, you could have the end of all disease. What have you not heard of orgone? Because the AMA was scared of losing its monopoly on medicine, so it conducted a witch hunt which led to Dr. Reich’s death in jail.”

The website maintainers, therefore, bravely risk their lives to sell a zapper that will cure Lyme disease and end those inconvenient comas. New Age medicine practitioners and conspiracy theorists may maintain cordial ties, but they are generally segregated from one another. But this site blurs, then completely obliterates any distinction between the two camps. For instance, one of the website contributors informs us that, “Hurricane Irene was another artificially-generated HAARP hurricane” meant to kill and terrify thousands.” But our intrepid orgone super heroine was ready.

“In preparation of the storm, I want down to the East River and prayed to the moon god. Then I hid a mini orgone chembuster in the shrubbery.” With an assist from this grassy knoll and a lunar deity, she and the orgone piece foiled the plot. “The winds were expected to be over 100 mph, but never gusted about 25 mph,” our anonymous reporter gloated. “Orgone does more than just change the weather. It actually changes the dimensions vibrationally so that negative events like this won’t happen. Quantum changes within the matrix occur when we project and maintain high energy states.” She referenced energy, vibrations, quantum, and matrix, but left out chakra balance.

Next, she explains that while G-men and their Illuminati compatriots can create disastrous weather, they are unable to control its direction without our inadvertent mind control. Our fears and anxieties attract the artificial hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. But never fear, these piffling volcanoes and such can be thwarted with orgone pellets. Also available are healing discs, anti-chemtrail spray, and magic toothpaste. Then there’s colloidal silver, which the site advertises as being able to cure HIV, Ebola, tuberculosis, diphtheria, diabetes, gonorrhea, well pretty much every disease ever discovered, and probably even a few that haven’t been. The product description notes that the ancients cited colloidal silver as being able to smite werewolves and vampires, and indeed, I don’t see those monsters around anymore.

One other site hawking orgone ornaments is natures-blessing.com. Other than offering some chemtrail busters, this site embraces the peace, love, and unicorns aspect of orgone. Displayed most prominently is a Chakra System Orgone Pendant, which will get your aura reception system in working order. Other pendants promise to give wearers the vision of a shaman, open their third eye, and allow them to chit-chat with dolphins.

If there are still more gold doubloons in one’s New Age budget, one can augment these potent pendant powers with crystals, and take advantage of their “natural ability to arrange energy and direct energy flow,” as well as revive dead orgone. Yes, beware, for orgone has a negative side. If orgone energy dies, the ghosts will cause you to experience sickness, fatigue, headaches, confusion, and depression. And since everyone experiences these at least sometimes, it shows how widespread orgone deficiency is.

The sales pitch just had about had me hooked until it mentioned that the pendants can be used as distance healing, so I’ll just take my treatment that way.

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“Shot down” (Anti-vax arguments)

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During my immersion in the skeptic movement, I have come across some silly ideas. For instance, some folks have espoused for a flat Earth, or for Earth being round but hollow and inhabited by benevolent creatures trying to telepathically communicate with us.

Others ideas are potentially harmful, depending on what the person wishes to do with their beliefs. For instance, someone on an anti-GMO rant is relatively innocuous unless they want the government to ban golden rice, a Vitamin A-rich food that prevents blindness in poverty-stricken countries. Or a person who posts a meme purporting to show that the Big Bang is a myth is hurting no one, unless he lobbies to make this a staple of public school astronomy classes.

But the most dangerous I’ve encountered, by far, are the anti-vaxxers, whose actions threaten those too young or unhealthy to be given immunizations. Here are 10 frequent arguments I hear from anti-vaxxers put forth, and my counters to them.

  1. “Vaccines are not guaranteed to be safe.” And neither is polio. Some vaccines have mild side effects, and there is the very rare serious complication. All that is explained here. If safety is the overriding concern, vaccines are the way to go.
  1. “Vaccines are not guaranteed to be effective.” Nor are parachutes, but skydivers are much better off percentagewise in using them. And failing to vaccinate is zero percent effective at preventing disease. Vaccines have greatly reduced the instances of some diseases and have eradicated others. That there is an infrequent person they won’t work for is not a sound reason for someone else bypassing them.
  1. “Death rates were already declining and the introduction of vaccines was incidental to this trend continuing.” It’s true that death rates were declining, but infection rates were steady or increasing. Disease rates drop dramatically when vaccines are introduced, and skyrocket when people stop getting inoculated. One anti-vax graph showed how death rates had dropped to one-thirteenth their previous rate before the measles vaccine was introduced. A pro-vaxxer then added the pertinent information that the measles infection rate went from 275 per 100,000 to zero within five years of the vaccine being introduced.
  1. “The polio vaccine of the 1950’s was contaminated by the SV40 virus which is now confirmed to have caused cancer in many people who had received the vaccine. It’s a matter of Russian roulette on when such a virus will sneak into another vaccine.” This is the argument from ignorance and provides no evidence that any current vaccine is dangerous. Again, if safety is the concern, get your shots. This argument also glosses over scientific improvements in the last 60 years that make this kind of mistake less likely today.
  1. “Cow cells, monkey cells and chick embryo cells are all found in various vaccines. How can anyone really know the long term effects of injecting this foreign DNA into a six-week old baby’s body?” The second sentence comprises two logical fallacies, the appeal to emotion and the argument from ignorance. Additionally, the first sentence is wrong, as none of those animal cells are in vaccines, although the vaccines may contain cell proteins. Moreover, there is nothing to suggest those cell proteins are dangerous.
  1. Continuing our field trip to the Fear Factory, we are told, “Add some heavy metals, antibiotics and preservatives, and you have a toxic cocktail called a vaccine.” This plays to some people’s lack of chemistry background. Some folks pump a mix of zinc, coal tar extract, and polysorbate 20 into their arms. It’s called insulin. Likewise, sodium will explode in water and chlorine is a poison gas weapon, yet together they make table salt and give us yummier French Fries. Danger is determined by dosage, not chemical or element.
  1. “Big Pharma cannot be trusted and is in it for the money.” Which is irrelevant to whether vaccines work. One need not trust a company to believe in the science behind its products.
  1. “Herd immunity is a myth.” I’ve never seen this one followed up with any numbers or supporting arguments of any kind. Anti-vaxxers seem to be just throwing it out and hoping it will stick with somebody. Herd immunity is real and it is what happens a virus has difficulty spreading since enough of a population is immunized. This is especially important for those too young or unhealthy to be immunized.
  1. “In New Zealand, 65 percent of people who contracted whooping cough in 2012 were vaccinated.” Taken by itself, this statement is true, and indeed, vaccines will not always prove effective. What this statistic left out however, was that nine percent of those vaccinated got the disease, compared to 45 percent of those who were unvaccinated.
  1. “Diseases are actually caused by vaccines, so the vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated because they shed disease.” What’s being shed is the inactivated virus, so there is no danger to anyone, except in the very specific (and revolting) instance of an immunocompromised person coming into contact with the excrement of a recently vaccinated individual. And even if the vaccinated made the unvaccinated sick, I’ve learned from my chats with naturopaths that there’s no ailment beyond the scope of ­­Reiki and peppermint oil.
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“Positively mistaken” (HIV denial)

Medical Claim REJECTED

Today, HIV denial is a garden variety conspiracy theory. A scapegoat is pegged, the establishment is accused of a coverup, and evidence is cherry picked. Logical fallacies and ad hominem are sprinkled liberally and when backed into a counterpoint corner, proponents move the goalposts.

But in its early days of 1984, HIV denial might not have seemed all that crazy. For some, identifying HIV as the cause of AIDS was just too convenient to have happened in a presidential election year. Specifically, a reelection year for a conservative darling whose administration had been criticized for doing so little to combat the disease. Coming not long after Vietnam and Watergate, it’s easy to see how a person could have doubted it when government scientists announced this major breakthrough.

One classmate during my sophomore year of high school wondered what the big deal was, since AIDS was primarily killing homosexuals and drug users. While this extreme position was not a consensus opinion even in small-town 1983, AIDS was a peripheral concern among many considering how serious it should have been taken by all. It was primarily impacting some of society’s most scorned populations, so questioning whether the solution had even been sought could have seemed legitimate. 

However, once the science was explained and repeatedly demonstrated, the doubt turned into denial, and it cost some people their lives. This was most true in South Africa, where Thabo Mbeki’s terms as vice president and president were marred by his pushing of sham treatments for HIV positive persons. He championed the use of virodene, which contains dimethylformamide. Unlike those cited by the Food Babe, this chemical is dangerous to ingest, as it can lead to irreversible and even fatal liver damage. Mbeki considered other treatments to be a fraud meant to enrich pharmaceutical companies. He also embraced a homemade remedy of Africa potato, olive green leaves, and grapefruit seeds.

In what would be comical sideshows were the issue less serious, other denial camps claimed HIV was the result of voodoo, or that it was a western plot to undermine communism. Alas, the issue was of utmost seriousness. Denial caused some to reject medication until it was too late. Mbeki’s shameless denial and promotion of bogus cures led a third of a million South Africans to die without seeking legitimate treatment. And one of the saddest ironies of the denialist movement was when some of its main proponents, the editors at Continuum magazine, all perished from AIDS.

Another poignant case was that of Christine Maggiore, who promoted HIV denial while HIV positive and pregnant. She and her baby both died from AIDS-related illnesses. With these deaths, the HIV denial movement largely collapsed. Today, it would likely gain momentum, as the Maggiores’ deaths would be followed by immediate, baseless claims that they had been murdered by government agents and Big Pharma thugs. Of course, there are still pockets of deniers, just like there are those who think super-evolved reptilians and lording over a Flat Earth.

HIV denial fails to address the fact that AIDS is successfully treated with anti-HIV medication, and that almost anyone with HIV develops AIDS if untreated. The counterarguments are flimsy. Maggiore, for instance, pointed out that other factors could lead to symptoms experienced by HIV positive persons. That would be like arguing that fatal crashes can be caused by texting or whiteout conditions, so therefore, no one has died from drunk driving.

Meanwhile, Cal-Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg thinks it a crucial point that AIDS can stay latent for five years, whereas other viruses attack the host within days. This is irrelevant since latency is unrelated to causation.

When CDC epidemiologists searched for the cause, one of the earliest clues was the mode of transmission. People with AIDS had been exposed to bodily fluids of others with the disease. Another key realization centered on hemophiliacs. Though the blood they received was filtered, they still became ill, and only viruses were able to bypass these filters. During CDC research, HIV was found to be present in all AIDS-afflicted persons, while no other agent was present in every patient.

This leads us to the Koch Postulates. These are the four criteria that must be met to establish a causative relationship between a microbe and a disease. All are met when trying to tie AIDS to HIV: The microorganism is found in all organisms suffering from the disease; the microorganism has been isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a culture; the cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism; and the microorganism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host, then identified as being identical to the original causative agent.

However, Duesberg continues to insist that AIDS stems from drug use – not the sharing of needles portion, but from the ingestion of drugs such as cocaine. Duesberg is either mistaken about cocaine causing AIDS, or reports of the drug’s prevalence among upper middle class white urbanites has been greatly exaggerated since that demographic is not disproportionately impacted by the disease.

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“Hollow idea” (Concave Earth)

EARTHEGGAt various times, Alaska, oceans, and space have been presented as a last frontier for Mankind to explore. But while we’ve gone to, dove into, or rocketed to all these locales, we have yet to go down very far. The deepest drilling ever went down seven and a half miles, during scientific research done near the Russian-Finnish border. This got us .002 percent of the way to Earth’s core.

That leaves plenty of room for the imagination. Greeks and the Norse figured that’s where souls migrated to. Some still speculate that’s where Hell or purgatory might be. Dante, Jules Verne, and Rick Wakeman are among the many who have pondered the deep subterranean in entertainment form.

Edmund Halley proposed the idea that our planet is a series of spherical shells spinning in different directions and all surrounding a core. He suggested that Aurora borealis may be escaping gas. His name is still dropped by those who support ideas about something cool being underneath us all.

These ideas include the center having a miniature sun, a giant cavern, or being a lush paradise. In the 19th Century, an era when people had middle names like Cleves, John Cleves Symmes Jr., took it further, arguing the entire universe was hollow. Good luck trying to falsify that one. Closer to the modern day, some speculate inner Earth was the final stop on an escape route used by Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels. Göring apparently showed up late for the ride and ended up at Nuremburg instead.

Admittedly, there is a little guesswork when trying to determine what’s down there. But most evidence points to Earth being a series of layers, crusts, and liquid magma, leading to a dense core of extremely hot iron and nickel. Seismic waves bounce around, changing direction and speed based on the material they pass through. By determining how fast a wave moves, geologists can calculate what those waves are passing through.

Another clue comes from above, as meteorites suggest iron is a common building block. And without a partially liquid core, convection wouldn’t occur, which would make it impossible for Earth to form a magnetic field and give us protective atmosphere goodness. Then we have gravity’s impact. Ordinary matter is too weak to support a hollow shape of Earth’s size against gravity, so an empty planet would collapse.

So some say Earth has layers and crusts, some say giants and lizards, still others say Holocaust perpetrators. Then we have Rodney Cluff, who argues inner Earth contains Big Macs, cricket teams, and polyester suits. That’s because we are inside the planet already.

Cluff’s ideas are driven mainly by an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Book of Mormon. He cites the book as the key to understanding science, and vice versa. Since he has gained these understandings, he knows the outer Earth inhabitants are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and that have achieved an ideal state. Specifically, “They have flying saucer technology, they live lives of perfect health for hundreds of years, and their science is much more advanced than ours.” They also enjoy a perpetually perfect climate and grow to 15 feet tall, with their trees reaching thousands of feet.

Cluff insists humans have traveled there, but that this has been hushed by an “international banking conspiracy.” That is normally code for “Jews,” but not in this case since he is presenting Hebrew descendants as the most enlightened and advanced. They are the ones promoting this ideal, not the ones trying to suppress it.

Besides relying on his interpretation of the Book of Mormon, other distinctions of Cluff’s work are highly speculative geology and a misuse of physics principles. He also gets in some unorthodox anthropology. To establish that the Ten Lost Tribes made their way from Jerusalem to north of the Arctic Circle, he selects groups of people, each a little more northerly than the last, and says each of them were actually those tribes in migration.

After making it to the North Pole, they went through a secret passageway out of inner Earth, and their descendants reside there today. He also claims descent from the tribes’ patriarchs, and for the last few decades has been trying to arrange a trip to meet them, in what would be the ultimate family reunion. He was once in the serious stages of planning, including selling $20,000 tickets for the expedition, but everything fizzled with the death of the man who was going to fund it. With his travel plans on hold, Cluff is free to  self-publish ideas such as gravity not pulling matter, but being pushed toward it.

Lost Tribe members share their world with wooly mammoth and others supposedly extinct creatures. Cluff said that when these animals are found in the Arctic, they are recently deceased, having floated from an icy river, through the mysterious pole opening, and out into the Arctic Ocean, somehow ending up under an ice sheet.

And while others are arguing if Christopher Columbus was a noble visionary opening trade routes or a genocidal monster, Cluff refuses to be pigeonholed. To him, the 15th Century Genoan seafarer was looking for the Garden of Eden. (Indies, Eden, get it? How could we have all missed it?) But Columbus didn’t get very close, since Cluff tells us that the Garden is 800 miles beneath Independence, Mo. Or, I guess that would be 800 miles above Independence. I lose my sense of direction easily.

People who create these types of bliss in their mind are allowing themselves to vicariously experience a utopia to make up for whatever is missing in their lives. But at least Cluff is cheery enough. An angrier version of Concave Earth Man is a fellow dubbing himself Lord Steven Christ. This may be the closest call I’ve ever made with regard to Poe’s Law, but I have concluded that he is genuine in his beliefs. His videos seem too voluminous, too detailed, and too much work (lots of him drawing by hand, plus video graphics) for it to be someone playing a joke.

Christ is not one for much dialogue. Most of his videos have a disabled comment section and he encourages those who disagree with him to, somewhat cryptically, “keep popping those blue pills.” You can check him out on YouTube, where you will be treated to titles such as, “Saturn is 50 feet wide,” “Stanley Kubrick knew there was glass in the sky,” and “Fuck you to people who believe Earth spins.”

While we haven’t made it very far under Earth, delving into the minds of those who think it houses giant creatures and tiny planets has been almost as interesting.

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“Sour sweetener” (Aspartame)

diet soda health risks

The main argument against the supposed dangers of aspartame is that I’m alive and healthy enough to write about them.

The artificial sweetener was the target of one of the Internet’s first wide-ranging smear campaigns, and has since been linked to serious disease and even death. Given the number of diet sodas I drank from ages 25 to 45, I should be either be dead or writhing in agony wishing I was. The 1998 e-mail was forwarded millions of times and, despite being almost completely inaccurate, is still cited in some credulous circles.

However, an FDA report called aspartame, “one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved.” Indeed, metadata of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies done by private industry and government agencies showed the sweetener to be safe in normal doses. The one exception is that it should be avoided by those with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria.

Aspartame’s beginnings are similar to that of LSD, minus the crazy visions and sounds. Chemist James Schlatter was working to create an anti-ulcer drug when he licked his finger, unaware it had aspartame on it, and he noticed the sweetness. Had it not been for this accident, aspartame would have been an obscure gastrointestinal medication, as opposed to one of the world’s most ubiquitous substances. It also would not be part of Internet lore, specifically, the chain mail written by someone using the pseudonym Nancy Markle. The letter linked aspartame to Gulf War Syndrome, lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, and birth defects. Much of the e-mail consisted of silly correlation-causation errors, such pointing out that a significant percentage of lupus sufferers were diet soda drinkers, without offering evidence of a direct connection.

One isolated accuracy was the claim that aspartame ingestion produces methanol and formaldehyde. However, the author omitted just how little of these are made. The amounts are less than what is found in citrus fruit, which some anti-aspartame crusaders recommend being 75 percent of a person’s detox diet.

Like anything else, it’s the dose that matters. Two Tylenol will ease your backache, while two bottles will permanently relieve it and all other pains. A soda drinker would need to down 20 Diet Cokes a day to do damage.

The conspiracy allegations centered mainly on suggestions of an improper relationship between regulators and industry executives. Two persons, Samuel Skinner and Arthur Hayes, had worked for both government regulators and (indirectly) with G.D. Searle, an aspartame producer. An extensive review by the Government Accountability Office determined there was no impropriety and that the relationships did not impact the studies’ results. Depending on one’s viewpoint, this either ended the controversy or expanded the conspiracy, which now included the GAO.

For those that embrace the latter interpretation, Janet Starr Hull hosts a website where persons with scary sweetener stories can relate their experiences to others in a perpetual communal reinforcement party. Hull also issues dire warnings about adverse reactions and side effects from aspartame that seem to include almost every disease or malady ever identified. The absurdly exhaustive list is here. 

Per this list, diet cola aficionados should be a raging hoard of blind, deaf, suicidal epileptics. Any health concern, from a scratchy throats to lymphoma, can be blamed on aspartame. Hull even cautions that if nothing is wrong, that could be the artificial sweetener playing tricks: “It is typical that aspartame symptoms cannot be detected in lab tests and on x-rays. Textbook disorders and diseases may actually be a toxic load as a result of aspartame poisoning.”

Using pseudoscience standard operating procedure, Hull cites no peer reviewed studies, conducts none of her own, and wraps it in a commercial bow by selling products to fix the mess. She throws in the usual detoxing message, glossing over the fact that only the liver and kidneys can manage that. She also recommends a 10-step program, which includes such groundbreaking advice “be happy” and “get control of your life.”

Additionally, she advises asking people drinking diet soda if they have any of the symptoms Hull had outlined. So next time you see a strange woman downing Tab, ask her if she has been experiencing irritability or severe PMS. I’ll bet the reaction will indeed be hostility, one of the items on the list.

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“Thought for food” (Tilapia, superfoods)

EVILFISH

Much of the U.S. public lacks a strong grounding in science and this distinction extends to many journalists. However, unlike the rest of the public, journalists are professionally obligated to learn more, or at least find a source who does, when reporting on science stories. Often, this does not happen, which is how Dr. Oz and the Food Babe can go so long before being challenged.

It also allows unfounded fears to foment, which is why tilapia is often in the same sentence as “warning” and “risks” in mainstream newspapers articles and television news broadcasts. Tilapia is sometimes said to contain high amounts of PCB and mercury, even though it has very little of these, driven by the fact that tilapia have a short, mostly vegetarian lives.

Another alleged danger is that tilapia contains low amounts of omega 3 fatty acids, as well as higher amounts of omega 6. The first part is wrong. Tilapia has the same omega-3 levels as lobster and tuna and is a good source of this essential fat. It is high in omega 6, which only means it should probably be avoided by those with inflammation problems. But the fish is not inherently unhealthy for everyone. It is low calorie and packed with protein, potassium, and B12.

There is one legitimate concern about how they are raised. Small farmers in China often feed the fish manure, which may contain salmonella and makes the fish more likely to spread foodborne disease. This is a reason to avoid tilapia raised in Chinese farms, but it does not justify eliminating all such fish from the diet, nor does it vindicate the fearmongering.

Just as avoiding tilapia is an overly broad suggestion, so too is the idea that certain foods should be ingested by all in great quantities. There are also lists of foods every person should avoid in every instance. Depending on a person’s condition, some foods may legitimately be encouraged, discouraged, or eliminated. But there are no superfoods or super bad foods, as indicated by avocados showing up on both types of lists. Similarly, tips that fail to consider differences among people are problematic. The most prominent example is encouraging all persons to avoid gluten, when this really only applies to those with celiac.

Some foods are more nutritious than others, of course, but there are no superfoods. Healthy eating requires a balanced diet that includes all the vitamins, along with fiber, potassium, calcium, and protein. Egg whites are low-calorie and packed with high-quality protein, but they have no fiber or vitamin C. Loading up on egg whites and six similar “superfoods” would leave one consuming an unbalanced diet.

While traditional foods appear on these lists, the ones that generate the most excited squeals among anti-GMO, gluten-free, organic types are the ones the readers haven’t heard of before. Fruits and vegetables that are exotic (i.e. obscure) periodically pop up and are touted as the latest, greatest undiscovered superfood that will cleanse the body, neutralize toxins, strengthen immunity, slow aging, prevent Alzheimer’s, shine your skin, mow your lawn, and change your oil.

Examples are açaí, baobab, maqui, and goji. Extra points seem to be given for foods ending in ‘i.’ There also exists major love for wheat germ, blackstrap molasses, cider vinegar, and wheat grass. Standard fare such as milk, blueberries, mushrooms, and salmon also make some of the lists. These are healthy foods with strong nutritional value, but no food contains everything a person needs, and superfood is an undefined term. There are various superfood lists, and it’s telling how little overlap there is. Getting people to accept a food as super is just marketing, which is nothing new. Bananas are associated with potassium, but orange juice has more. Those squeezed oranges, meanwhile, are synonymous with Vitamin C, but red bell peppers have nearly twice the amount.

A varied diet with an emphasis on grains and plants will likely provide all the needed nutrients. There is no need to consult the dozens of superfood lists floating around out there. Besides, none of those lists contain doughnuts.

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“Null and Bones Society” (Scientific Method, Challenger conspiracy)

MIXEDNUTS

I cringe when usually well-meaning people declare something to be “settled science.” This is most frequently heard with references to evolution, the Big Bang, and climate change. It is true that the evidence for all of these things is overwhelming. We’ve dealt with these evidences on this blog, and far better, more extensive documentation exists elsewhere. Still, scientists will always give a fair hearing to an alternate viewpoint that is reached by following the Scientific Method. This method consists of defining the question, developing a hypothesis, making a prediction, testing that prediction, attempting to falsify the prediction, analyzing the results using proper statistics, replication, peer review, and data sharing.

If scientific consensus meant an issue were settled, we would have never accepted heliocentrism, Germ Theory, or airplanes. However, those advances came from employing the Scientific Method. By contrast, denying evolution, the Big Bang, and climate change is based on negative evidence or cherry picking, both of which are inconsistent with sound science.

Here is an example of negative evidence, in this case for creationism. Answers in Genesis writes that chimpanzees are only capable of being bipedal for short distances. The writer therefore concludes that, “God created Adam and Eve fully functional and able to walk and talk. Humans were created on the same day as all kinds of land animals and did not evolve from apes or have to evolve the ability to walk.” There is nothing about man and chimps having distinct locomotion that would negate evolution or point to them not having common ancestors. But even if this were the case, it would be no point for creationism. Additionally, steps in the Scientific Method include testing a hypothesis and attempting to falsify it, and AIG never attempts this with their idea that God did it.

With regard to cherry picking, climate change deniers are fond of pointing out that warming has paused in the last 17 years, and they have graphs to prove it. However, this only works if you use 1998 as the starting point. Using 1997, 1999, 1915, 1950, or 2010 shows a rise in average global temperature. 1998 is the exception because of an unusually strong El Niño season.

If negative evidence and cherry picking are unavailable, there is always simply rejecting the truth. Consider Homo naledi. Naledi is an anagram of denial, and when this major discovery of extinct hominin bones was announced this year, some foxnews.com posters insisted the bones had been fabricated and planted. This blurs the line between anti-science and conspiracy, so let’s segue into the latter.

Just as astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics are open to change through the Scientific Method, history can also be adjusted if supported by evidence. However, conspiracy theories rest on negative evidence, the argument from ignorance, and the appeal to personal incredulity.

I bravely entered the world of YouTube conspiracy videos to observe these creatures in their natural habitat. I felt an IQ drop of five points by the time I was done. I’ll need to hit the acupuncturist today to unblock this negativity.

In the argument from ignorance, a conclusion is reached based on a lack of proof from the other side and without considering all possibilities. The video I watched purported to expose the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster as a Free Mason hoax. It beings by begging the question, asserting without evidence or deference to logistics that if we went to the moon in 1969, we should be making daily commercial flights by now. This is used so establish that NASA is fraudulent.

Addressing the Challenger disaster specifically, the commentator points out that onlookers were not upset enough. He never considered that they might have been unaware what had happened in the immediate aftermath, that they were in shock, or that they were trying to digest it all. Since it is impossible to prove what anyone was thinking 29 years ago, this ignorance is claimed by the commentator as proof of his position that the observers were actors and the event staged. In still more appeal to ignorance, he chirps, “We don’t actually see the astronauts walk into the space shuttle. That could have been filmed anytime, it could have been faked.”

He also regularly uses the argument from incredulity, where one’s inability to believe something could be true is proof that it is false. Not only is that an unsound conclusion, it is often a deliberate ignorance. A short while after the Shuttle explodes, Christa McAuliffe’s parents were shown on the screen. The commentator said, “What I find strange is that 13 seconds after this massive explosion, if you were the cameraman, you wouldn’t take your shot off of it.”

For starters, there is more than one camera involved when national networks cover space launches. More importantly, there is zero evidence offered to support the commenter’s assertion that the parents being shown is indicative of a hoax. He provides only arguments from ignorance and unsupported speculation.

In another example of arguing from ignorance, he again excitedly notes the mostly stolid expressions. However, there was already smoke and fire from the boosters, so when the shuttle exploded, it was not readily apparent to everyone what had happened. The commentator said the spectators were not upset enough, yet later when they were crying, he cited this as proof they were planted actors.

Beyond these logical fallacies, another hallmark of conspiracy theorists is extreme hostility to contrary positions. Differing views are presented as evidence of the questioner being a shill or a fool. One poster asked what the incentive would be for Free Masons to stage the space shuttle hoax. The response: “There are all sorts of reasons to do this. The biggest one is to FUCK WITH OUR MINDS and by doing that they control us. WAKE UP IDIOT. For fucks sake get your head out of your asshole.”

Conspiracy theorists instruct us to disbelieve all media except their YouTube videos. Moreover, we are told to accept that a wicked cabal of anonymous men has the ability to stage elaborate hoaxes, invent AIDS, and instigate hurricanes, but remain unable to shut down videos exposing them.

When appealing to ignorance, the theorist is limited only by imagination. “There is no real shock from these people, a bit of a smile from one of them actually.” Because a skeptic cannot explain 29 years later why a person had a little grin, it proves that Free Masons and NASA blew up an unmanned Space Shuttle for the purpose of psychological warfare.

Later, the theorist shows a photo of Christa McAuliffe alongside a photo of Syracuse University professor Sharon McAuliffe and claims they are the same person. This even though the shape of the chin, nose, and ears are different. He makes no attempt to verify any of this is unchallenged by posters who are too busy calling skeptics sheeple. I’m sorry, that would be “SHEEPLE!!!!!”

Photos of six of the seven victims alongside pictures of persons with the same or similar names have made the Internet rounds. In some cases, the accompanying photos were of siblings of the deceased, and only one of the six bore a strong resemblance to his namesake. Snopes goes through an astronaut-by-astronaut refutation of the claim and points out, “This exercise demonstrates how easy it is to weave a conspiracy theory out of a few suggestive elements, but its premise defies credulity: NASA faked, for no explicable reason, the deaths of seven astronauts in a shuttle accident, then allowed those astronauts to openly live out the rest of their lives without even taking the basic steps of disguising their physical appearances or real names, and nobody noticed it until nearly 30 years later.” Of course, all this makes Snopes part of the conspiracy.

While the commentator is unconvinced of moon landings, shuttle flights, or satellite launches, he is not entirely averse to accepting aeronautic development. Late in the video, a white blur speeds across the screen. Skeptical sheeple think it’s is a bird, but our commenter assures us it is an alien spacecraft. Probably with a cargo of fabricated hominin bones.

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“Lesion legion” (Morgellons Syndrome)

KAFKA2

We all feel bugged now and then, but no one has it worse than those with Morgellons syndrome. This is a psychotic condition in which people think their skin is infested with disease-carrying parasites or similar nastiness. For maximum effect, this condition is sometimes attributed to chemtrails. The victim may experience sensations of biting, stinging, or itching, or have seemingly unexplained lesions.

A CDC multi-year study concluded there were no disease organisms present in supposed Morgellons sufferers. The study consisted of skin biopsies and blood tests of more than 100 people said to be afflicted, and revealed no evidence of an infection or common environmental factor among the subjects.

In another era, this would have been the end of it. The Dallas Observer noted a “long line of weird diseases that have swept through populations, only to disappear without a trace once public concern subsides.” But with the Internet, there is no subsiding. Here, persons can find communal reinforcement for their suffering and search for cures, and possibly present the CDC report as part of a government cover-up.

This problem can be exacerbated by false balance in the media. If the topic is a minimum wage increase or whether our military should intervene in Lower Eastern Craznovia, a good journalist will present all sides of the issue and let each source give his or her opinion. But with science and medicine, opinion is of no value. A person could think gravity is a hoax or that Sirhan Sirhan was framed, but a journalist doing a documentary on high jumpers or the RKF assassination would be under no obligation to present these silly sides to the stories.

But in cases like Morgellons, reporters feel it necessary to let everyone have a turn. So one side says, “No biological agent has ever been shown to be consistent with this supposed malady,” or “No biopsy has ever identified a pathological agent.” The other side counters with “My skin is crawling and itching, this is real,” and scores of similar anecdotes.

Now, this is a real condition, as it is a form of delusional parasitosis. As such, it can best by treated with antipsychotics, which many sufferers will shun because they don’t think that’s addressing the problem. The notion that they don’t have a physical condition makes them more deluded and desperate.

With no mainstream doctors to turn to, sufferers may do their own diagnosis, inspection, and treatment. In doing so, they sometimes claw at the phantom parasites, causing lesions to form, with these being considered an advanced stage of the disease. So the rapid scratching is accelerated and the sore made still worse. Many turn to alternative remedies. All will be ineffective, but they can range from as innocuous as crystals, sage, and reflexology to as dangerous as bleach treatment, equine medicine, and industrial insecticides.

Unlike much of pseudomedical lore, this phenomenon has a known starting point. In 2002, Mary Leito claimed her son demonstrated the symptoms of a disease described by Sir Robert Browne in 1690. This story was passed around the web and the hysteria began. 

It is good to identify previously-undiscovered diseases and start seeking treatments. But this needs to start with a working definition of the disease and involve corroborating with other medical and science professionals. It should not start with a definitive declaration by an amateur and spread unchallenged online. That really bugs me.