by

“Absolutely lipid” (Statins denial)

BANANA

There exist among us those who advocate rejecting all medication in favor of “natural cures,” which are neither, and who implicate physicians and pharmaceutical executives in an alliance to pump patients full of needless, nefarious medication. Some of these potent pills and potions are said to kill people by the millions, which if true, would quickly leave the malevolent medics with no one left to prey on. If there was a conspiracy to sell medication that was without value, it would make more sense to sell placeboes that could be made much cheaper and which would avoid poisoning the customers.

Statins are among the drugs cited by believers in this conspiracy. Statins are lipid-lowering medications that reduce instances of cardiovascular disease among those most at risk. The anti-statin brigade includes the usual suspects, Mike Adams and Joseph Mercola, as well as a new one to me, Leonard Coldwell. The latter claims to have concocted a cure for cancer that is 92 percent effective. If so, there is truth to the hidden cancer cure conspiracy theory because Coldwell has yet to make his treatment publicly available.

Coldwell calls statins a mass murder method that invariably hardens the liver and slices 20 years off your life. In a lengthy retort, the SkepDoc Harriett Hall wrote that statins actually lengthen lifespans for those most at risk for cardiovascular disease, while lowering cholesterol. Coldwell agrees with the last part, but argues this is detrimental since he considers high cholesterol beneficial. But Hall noted, “You don’t die of either too much or too little cholesterol. You die of heart attacks and strokes, and reducing high cholesterol levels reduces your risk of those events.”

Coldwell claims that 250 being considered a normal cholesterol level is an arbitrary number dreamed up, but it actually came from measuring cholesterol levels in large populations. Those studies found that those with higher cholesterol levels were more likely to have heart attacks, and 250 is where the increase in risk was noticed.

Instead of scientifically-researched, tested, and proven statins, Coldwell recommends fending off heart disease with two bananas on an empty stomach. He cites this as a natural cure, even though the bananas we eat are remarkably unnatural, having been modified from a tiny, green, barely edible pod into today’s scrumptious elongated yellow fruit. And while regular consumption of fruits and vegetables promotes good health, there is no evidence for Coldwell’s claim that two daily bananas is an especially potent foe of cardiovascular disease.

Coldwell claims that Big Pharma spokespersons have described statins as a magic pill that will ward off heart attacks and other cardiovascular ailments. Hall shot down this strawman, noting that the medical establishment considers statins to be “drugs with risks and benefits, and the benefits have been determined to outweigh the risks.” It is not magic, doctors know how it works, and know it will work better for some than others.

Mercola and Adams both write that cholesterol has no bearing on heart disease and that statins will impair many biological functions and cause muscle pain. However, Hall’s PubMed search produced more than 30,000 articles on statins research, and a 2016 review of these studies by the Lancet found statins reduce the rate of heart attacks and strokes in at-risk patients by as much as 50 percent.

Of the 30,000 papers, Adams and Mercola cherry-pick a few isolated passages that suggest low cholesterol levels may be associated with higher death rates among the elderly. But the papers also noted this was not a causal relationship. People in their 90s often die for reasons unrelated to low cholesterol.

Critics sometimes label statins as overprescribed and while this strictly speaking is true, it is the result of a medical shortcoming, not a furtive attempt to enrich pharmaceutical executives and their lackey physicians. There is no way to know which patients will benefit from statins, but it is logical to treat anyone who may be at risk of heart attack and stroke. Consequently, many patients will take statins without seeing their risk of cardiovascular disease reduced. While the treatment won’t benefit everyone, those who do benefit do so greatly.

The detractors also highlight the drug’s possible side effects, but according to Hall, only one patient in 50,000 will develop a serious condition as a result of taking statins, and those usually disappear when the medication is discontinued. The critics also gloss over the fact that the side effects of bypassing statins can include premature death.

by

“Squeeze play” (Alternative massage therapy)

MSSG

Massage is the manual manipulation of muscles, joints, and tissues for therapy. It can help relieve soreness, increase range of motion, and feels pleasant enough. Leave it to alternative medicine to screw all that up.

Some unscrupulous practitioners make claims that go far beyond massage’s abilities, asserting it can eradicate or ameliorate disease. Some integrative medicine specialists and Dr. Oz claim the practice is effective for allergies, asthma, bronchitis, constipation, diarrhea, fibromyalgia, and sinusitis. Proponents also credit massage with work done by the liver, kidneys, and colon, saying it can help with waste removal, immune system functioning, and toxin removal, though they never specify which toxins or explain how squeezing someone’s shoulders will exorcise them.

As to its supposed role in disease control, there is no scientifically plausible explanation for how this works, nor any double blind studies attesting to this ability. The claims primarily rely on the mythical concept of the ki flowing through meridians, and the purported need to periodically unblock this. Neither ki nor meridians have never been shown to exist in any X-ray or CT scan and no explanation is proffered on how any technique would clear blockages or why this would be beneficial.

There are subcategories of medicinal massage malarkey. The ones most resembling traditional, legitimate massage are acupressure and shiatsu. These are so similar that the only difference seems to be that the former aims to access ki, while the latter taps into qi. As to the technique, it’s mostly just a massage, though more attention is usually paid to a specific body part. Different parts are said to be connected via meridians to various internal organs or tissues. So applying acupressure to the lower right thumb might be used to deal with wheezing lungs. There are multitudinous meridian charts so which body part corresponds to which organ or tissue will vary by practitioner. By contrast, all physicians would treat strep throat in generally the same manner, with prescriptions and proven, understood techniques that were arrived at via the Scientific Method and validated in double blind studies.

Acupressure and shiatsu generally advertise themselves as needle-less acupuncture. This is a relatively good idea since the only point of acupuncture is at the end of the needles. If spending 60 minutes receiving make-believe medicine, getting pampered is preferable to getting poked.

Aromatherapy might be considered another form of medicinal massage, although the focus is less on the hands and more on what the hands are applying. In aromatherapy, an essential oil or combination of oils is applied topically, usually on an infected body part. Whereas shiatsu may involve rubbing a calf to try and placate an upset stomach, in aromatherapy, oil would be applied on the infected body part.

Aromatherapy is a little less ridiculous than the other forms of massage medicine. For one, there are no meridians or ki associated with it. Second, the oils are extracted from plants and herbs. About half of medicines have a plant base, so it is not entirely unrealistic to think that some of the oils may have medicinal potential.

The big problem is that they haven’t been tested in a laboratory. There has been no active component identified or isolated. No correct dosage has been determined and no pill, lotion, or cream containing the extracted ingredient has been tested in double blind studies.

Instead, a practitioner or online proponent will announce, “Jasmine works great for migraines,” or “Try sage and patchouli for inflammation.” Another tipster may suggest sandalwood for the same aliments and a third person offer lavender. All the recommendations are all based on anecdotes, which are unreliable because they fail to consider the fluctuating nature of illnesses, the placebo effect, or selective memory. That is why double blind studies are the gold standard for determining what works.

There are no such studies attesting to effectiveness of craniosacral therapy. This from of massage medicine is based on the notion that skull bones are movable and can be manipulated for a variety of health benefits. Precisely what benefit is almost invariably whichever one the client needs when he or she shows up at the neighborhood head shed. The truth is, a person’s skull bones have fused by the time they are regularly watching Paw Patrol. Also, these bones can only be moved by blunt force or a scalpel, not nimble fingertips. As to why one would want to pull apart and move around the brain’s shield, reasons I found included improving life energy, attuning to rhythm, and getting in touch with one’s inner cinnamon bun, or similar undefined and unproven notions. Yet another form of medicinal massage is reflexology, which focuses on the feet.

The more extreme proponents credit massage medicine with treating several dozen conditions as broad as anger, fear, arthritis, cancer, emphysema, shyness,  eczema, bulimia, insomnia, infertility, nightmares, panic attacks, and sciatica. Lists this exhaustive are nearly always a pseudo-medicine giveaway. Authentic medicine has been researched, tested, refined, and has been tailored to treat a specific condition. Doctors and scientists understand the pathological, biological, and anatomical principles behind it, know how it works, why it works, and why some patients might respond better than others. A mainstream treatment for infertility won’t be used to reduce the anxiety of another patient and to treat dyspepsia in a third.

With no research to verify their claims, medicinal massage practitioners are left with the usual alt-med fallbacks. They display dexterity in this area, for they credit the field with employing both ancient methods and cutting-edge knowledge of physiology. Most alt-med practitioners use only the appeal to antiquity or the appeal to novelty, not both.

Meanwhile, massagetherapy.co.uk makes use of the ad populum (“Shiatsu is one of the fastest growing areas of complementary therapy in the UK”) while tryshiatsu.co.uk appeals to authority (“Shiatsu is officially recognized in Japan.”) This last boast does not say precisely which entity recognized shiatsu, what about it was recognized, or why this matters. As to what shiatsu actually does, the website states that it will, “Contact with the energy pathways and help to correct imbalance in the functioning of internal organs and to re-balance the effects of emotional disturbance.” I have no idea what any of that means, maybe the ki flow to my brain is blocked.

by

“Arbour missed” (ADHD denial)

DENNIS

Nicole Arbour has become a minor Internet celebrity by videotaping rants about groups of people who are different than Nicole Arbour. Blacks, the overweight, and feminists have all been on the receiving end of her mocking monologues. Her most recent assault is on ADHD sufferers and their parents. The gist of her railing is that the disorder is make-believe and that unfit parents should be spanking their little hellions into line.

In actuality, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has been a known clinical condition since at least the early 1900s. In his takedown of Arbour, skeptic blogger Emil Karlsson noted there are more than 30,000 articles about ADHD in PubMed.

Biological factors that contribute to ADHD include genetic variants of neurotransmitter receptors and transporters as well as differences in executive function that are related to memory and attention. Environmental factors may include brain injury, premature birth, and heavy lead exposure during pregnancy.

Arbour offers no research or a different interpretation of data. Rather, she is content to reject outright a swath of parents, make evidence-free claims that cola and cereal cause ADHD symptoms, and offer erroneous anecdotes. For instance, she claims the first person to describe ADHD eventually rejected his initial finding and concluded the disorder was nonexistent.

She is referring to Leon Eisenberg, who contributed to psychology’s understanding of childhood behavioral conditions, but ADHD had been identified 20 years before his birth. Second, Eisenberg never claimed ADHD was fictitious, he only thought psychosocial factors were more important than biological ones in causing the disorder. He therefore thought that pills to control the condition were being overprescribed. Most importantly, even if Eisenberg had said ADHD doesn’t exist, that wouldn’t make it true and wouldn’t override what the tens of thousands of papers and decades have research have shown.

Another Arbour claim, one frequently espoused in the anti-ADHD camp, is that the disorder is over-diagnosed in the United States. Critics will point out that six percent of U.S. children are identified as having ADHD, nearly 10 times what is seen in Europe, particularly France.

It is true that most American children diagnosed with ADHD would not be similarly labeled in France, while a child not diagnosed in France might be in the United States. But this is because the countries use different diagnostic systems and analyze different factors in making the determination.

In Europe, a child must show a sustained inability to adapt due to inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. In the United States, a child needs to show substantial impairment in just one of these categories.

Arbour uses the disparity when trotting out hackneyed claims of a Big Pharma conspiracy. Like most alleged conspiracies, it collapses under the weight of the ever-increasing number of participants who would need to be involved and stay silent for it to work. This one would have to involve pediatricians, school nurses, teachers, and psychiatrists working in concert to continue a sham for the benefit of shadowy pharmaceutical executives. Also conspiring would be parents such as Cristina Margolis, who blogs on issues related to ADHD.

In her response to Arbour’s characterization of parents like herself as lazy, coddling miscreants “who give kids drugs,” Margolis related her experience of being married to an ADHD sufferer and being the mother of one.

She noted that one of Arbour’s many mistakes was dismissing ADHD boys and girls as being nothing more than typical, hyper children. Margolis pointed out that hyperactivity is only one type of ADHD, with inattentiveness and a combination of the two being the others.

“Not all children with ADHD are hyper. ADHD affects people differently,” Margolis wrote. “When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, more coexisting conditions can arise as well, such as depression, anxiety, oppositional defiance disorder, and bipolar disorder. My then 6-year-old daughter told me she wanted to die. ADHD, depression, and all the other coexisting conditions are nothing to belittle and make fun of.”

This is not the first time that a public response has been warranted following a misinformation piece about the disorder. In 2015, blogger Matt Walsh labeled ADHD a myth, which prompted a detailed reply from Steven Novella of the Yale School of Medicine and president of the New England Skeptical Society.

Perhaps the most fundamental of Walsh’s errors was using “disease” and “disorder” interchangeably while failing to define either. Novella wrote, “ADHD is certainly not a disease. That term should be reserved for entities that involve a discrete pathophysiological condition. But in medicine, there are also clinical syndromes, disorders, and categories of disorders.”

Novella further explained that brain disorders are different than problems with organ systems that rely only on the health of cells and tissue: “Liver disease is largely caused by pathological processes affecting liver cells. However, brain cells also have other layers of complexity to their function, the pattern of connections, and the biochemical processes that underlie brain processing. To add another layer of complexity, part of the function of the brain is to interact with the environment, including other people and society. Because of this, medicine uses the concept of mental disorder to define a clinical entity in which a cluster of signs and symptoms relating to thought, mood, and behavior cause demonstrable harm.”

ADHD specifically is “a disorder of executive function, which is a definable neurological function that localizes to the frontal lobes. Executive function is what enables us to pay attention…and to inhibit behaviors that are not socially appropriate. Medication for ADHD improves function and outcomes and is cost effective.”

Walsh’s piece conspicuously lacked any of the technical terms and explanatory passages contained in Novella’s post. For instance, he wrote that because there is no magic line where the amount of hyperactivity and inattention crosses the threshold from normal to problematic, there is no disorder. That is the continuum fallacy and would be like arguing that because there’s no set number of drinks a person can have per week to go from a casual imbiber to a lush, there are no alcoholics. While not referencing the 30,000 PubMed papers, Walsh did highlight three doctors who agree with him, displaying a cherry-picking acumen that would impress the most robust climate change denier.

Back to Margolis, she wrote that the disorder is a lifetime sentence, but that it can be controlled with diet, accommodations at school, and medication: “I hoped our daughter would respond well to treatment without medication, but she was one of many who needed more help. That is what ADHD medication is: Help. With her medication, she is excelling in school and extracurricular activities, making friends, and has gained self-confidence.” Margolis thus describes her daughter as “thriving,” while Arbour calls her “a zombie.”

 

 

by

“Flag razing” (False flags)

wolfsheep

The term “false flag” refers to the naval warfare tactic of a ship flying a banner other than its battle ensign in hopes of luring enemy ships within striking range. Similar tactics have been used on land, with soldiers dressing in enemy uniforms. In a more generic sense, false flag refers to a government perpetrating an atrocity, then blaming it on another entity, generally an enemy.

They have been happening for a long time. There are conflicting opinions about whether Nero set the fire that burned parts of Rome, then blamed it on Christians. The sinking of the Maine may have been a false flag, though it might have been caused by an internal coal explosion. In either case, when artist Frederic Remington told publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst that there were no hostilities in Cuba to illustrate, Hearst replied, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” The resulting art work was a false flag, albeit a rare one that was perpetrated by a powerful private person rather than the government.

There are other examples. Japan staged a railroad bombing and blamed it on the Chinese to justify its 1931 Manchurian invasion. Later that decade, Nazis dressed in Polish uniforms and set off explosives as a pretext to launch World War II. The CIA’s Operation Gladio was likely responsible for acts of terrorism that the U.S. blamed on Communists. And in the Lavon Affair, Israel staged minor terrorist attacks against Western targets and tried to pin them on Nasser.

So governments and yellow journalists have staged or supported false flag events. While it might be reasonable to think these still occur, there are some people for whom the default position is that any terrorist attack or invasion is a false flag. It is a major flaw in a theory if the conclusion is reached first, then evidence is sought to support it. Especially if contrary information is rejected solely for being contrary.  

Let’s take the 9/11 Truther assertion that no plane hit the Pentagon. Believers base this on there being no clear shot of the impact, just a blurred horizontal image, followed by an explosion one frame later. They also insist that the hole is seemingly being too narrow for an airplane to have passed through it.

However, USA Today reporter Mike Walter witnessed the attack and he reported seeing a plane flying very low, then banking lower still and colliding with the building. Initially, he was a darling of the Truther movement because a couple of European journalists had printed only part of his interview with CNN and made it appear as though he said a missile had hit the Pentagon. In fact, he had made it clear he had seen an airplane, but described its movement as being “like a cruise missile.” Walter made an explanatory video about this, showing the full CNN interview and reiterating his eyewitness account. He included that he saw the wings fold back upon impact and that explained why the hole was the size it was.

The Truthers’ answer to this was that he was lying. In what passed for their evidence, they wrote, “His eyes are darting, which indicates deception,” and “You can tell he’s reading from a script.” While eyewitness accounts are unreliable, it would be supremely unlikely that multiple people would misidentify a plane slamming into the world’s largest office building. But to a Truther, the words of Walter and the others contradicted their favored narrative so the witnesses became part of the plot.

Regulars to conspiracy theory websites pride themselves on continually questioning mainstream accounts of such events, yet seldom extend this scrutiny to claims made by fellow theorists. So they will accept unsubstantiated assertions about prevaricating Pentagon witnesses, but never point out that in 16 years, theorists have yet to produce one person who saw a missile.

Nor do Truthers explain what happened to the crew or passengers listed on the manifest or to the airplane. The call from Barbara Olson to her husband is likewise unexplained. In fact, all Truther points I’ve encountered are in the form of negative evidence. Even if Walter and the rest were lying, even if there was no airplane, even if explosives brought down the three towers in New York, even if Flight 77 passengers are holed up in a bunker, where is one piece of evidence that the Bush administration is responsible?

Since 9/11, nearly every terrorist attack or mass casualty is considered by some conspiracy theorists to be fabricated. They continue to call these false flags, though they are misusing the term. The examples cited so far, from Nero to the World Trade Center, all featured persons being slaughtered and buildings or equipment being destroyed. This is a key point because conspiracy theorists today use the traditional definition of false flag to mean something quite different, specifically that no one was harmed. A false false flag, I suppose. They are not claiming that the Boston Marathon bombing or Orlando nightclub shooting were perpetrated by government agents, they are saying they never happened. In these and similar tragedies, they label as liars the witnesses, victims, reporters, emergency workers, and family members of those slain.

Another crucial difference is that the verified false flags were used as a pretext for invasion. By contrast, the string of mass shootings and bombings that theorists have labeled false flags were followed by no action. The government has not blamed these on an entity they then engage, nor have they commenced with a roundup of undesirables or a confiscation of guns.

On the more extreme sites, it goes beyond insisting that plane disappearances, mass shootings, and bombings were staged. Even train derailments, hostile police encounters, and videos of racists railing in checkout lanes are considered scripted. Anyone with contrary information is part of the plot. Anyone arguing with the conclusions is being paid by the government to do so.

Advocates of these theories are almost always vague as to the reasons this is being done and are hostile about the question even being raised. They can offer nothing more than the government is engaging in psychological warfare on its citizens. Usually no reason is given, though Billy DeMoss speculates that it is to weaken our resistance so that a mass extermination can wipe out two-thirds of humanity, with the survivors herded into FEMA camps. Projections like this always take place in what I call an Eternal Tomorrow. It is always so tantalizingly close, the signs are there and obvious to the woken people, yet it never quite arrives.

These websites feature self-congratulation and the deriding of sheeple and skeptics who can’t see the clear truth. When a photo of hospitalized Oregon shooting hero Chris Mintz was released, theorists pounced on the fact that they didn’t think he looked wounded enough. This caused one of them to fume, “Now they’re just throwing it in our faces, making it so obviously fake. They’re laughing at us.” I suppose he got that last part right.

The most extreme of the extreme sites is nodisinfo.com, in which 100 percent of media accounts are labeled staged events. After a nonfatal collision between a bus and a semitrailer, the website claimed the blood streaming down one of the victim’s faces had no cut from which it was emanating, but had rather been applied as makeup. After the Fort Hood shooting, they described soldiers who had been moved to safety as looking too calm. Later, the neighbor lady of the shooter posed with his picture for a photographer and the website said the fact that she was smiling proved the shooting never happened.  

These are more examples of negative evidence. Because a skeptic cannot describe the precise thought process and actions of anyone in a given tragic situation, it means the theorist is right, no matter how ludicrous or unsubstantiated the claim.

Even possible future events are labeled false flags. There is an annual Army exercise in Indiana that simulates a nuclear dirty bomb being detonated in Indianapolis and at least one website argues this is a precursor to a false flag that will simulate the same.

Similarly, theorists will dig for any instance of a nearby emergency exercise having been held within six months of a shooting or bombing. They consider any training event proof it was rehearsal for a staged event. But military and law enforcement train for contingencies all the time. Training for a bombing’s aftermath in an urban area, followed by an actual bomb 22 days later is an explicable coincidence that requires no coordination of government henchmen, media lackeys, and crisis actors. Speaking of which, in Conspiracy Theory Land, there are 100,000 crisis actors ready to be called on, none of whom are ever identified or outed by their friends, neighbors, or relatives.

Conspiracy theorists rely heavily on anomaly hunting. This is looking for one piece that doesn’t seem to fit or seems contradictory. They scour photos, eyewitnesses’ faces, and reporters’ words, looking for anything that looks inconsistent, which they have a very loose definition of. Any photo that contradicts their claims will be labeled a PhotoShop forgery. Any inconsistency by spokespersons, witnesses, emergency workers, or reporters, no matter how minor, is considered rock solid proof the entire event never happened. Similarly, they consider consistency to be proof it was rehearsed.

One of the more well-known captures made by anomaly hunters is the Umbrella Man at Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963.  The focus is on him, rather than the totality of the Warren Commission report, the autopsy, ballistic evidence, Oswald’s slaying of J.D. Tippit, and Gerald Posner’s book, Case Closed. The umbrella might be a signal to the shooter, heck maybe he’s even a backup assassin – a poison pellet was once delivered via an umbrella after all. But the goal is not usually to prove any of this, it’s just to invite endless speculation, ponder exciting possibilities, cast doubt on the popular idea, and offer self-praise for one’s investigative acumen.

As Steven Novella put it, “Conspiracy theorists assume agency, deliberateness, and sinister motivations in the quirky details of events. When anomalies are inevitably found, it is assumed that they are evidence for a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists tend to ask, ‘What are the odds of a man standing with an open umbrella right next to the president when he was shot?’ They should be asking, ‘What are the odds of anything unusual occurring in any way with any aspect of the JFK assassination?’”

In events as massive as 9/11, there are many thousands of moving pieces, so finding an anomaly or two or even 10 will be easy. A BBC reporter announced Tower 7 had fell when it was still seen standing in the background. The theorist will consider this more consequential than the mounds of intelligence pointing to Osama bin Laden’s involvement, phone calls from passengers and flight attendants describing Islamic terrorists with pepper spray and box cutters, audio of an air traffic controller conversing with Mohamed Atta, terrorist names’ on manifests, images of them passing through security, and airline employees’ accounts of them checking in.

In one supposed anomaly, some Truthers claim the Fight 77 manifest list had an extraordinary number of senior leaders in fields such as military science, aviation, politics, software, and security. Why this collection of relative bigwigs being onboard would matter is never explained. It’s another example of asking questions for the sake of doing so and reflexively challenging what “They” say. Besides, this passenger list is what might be expected on a flight leaving from the hub of the U.S. military and security industries. Truthers offer no comparison flight lists to bolster their contention that Flight 77’s passengers constituted an unusually successful group of flyers. Nor is any tie established between the list and Bush perpetrating the greatest mass slaughter in U.S. history.

Another issue they bring up is to ask how a passport could survive a plane crashing into a tower. Answer: The same way seat cushions did. The same way the mileage card of victim Lisa Frost did. Explosions incinerate some objects and send others hurtling. But Truthers aren’t looking for this answer, or any other. They only intend to sow doubt on what government spokespersons and reporters are telling us.

For proof of this, consider the way hardened conspiracy theorists responded to Edward Snowden. If one was convinced the government was perpetrating misdeeds against its citizens and was being aided by a compliant media, news articles exposing NSA malfeasance would have been a dream. But theorists instead considered Snowden a plant. They are only interested in anything being exposed if they or their fellow theorists are the ones claiming to do so.

One of their favorite mantras is to dismiss mainstream accounts as the “official story.” Except in infrequent instances such as reports by the 9/11 and Warren Commissions, there is no “official story.” It is a manufactured term meant to drive a wedge between our big bad overseers and brave, enterprising truth seekers. And while “official story” is used to describe what government entities are saying, independent journalists, scientists, and amateur detectives often come to the same conclusions. At least according to the Man In Black looking over my shoulder.

by

“Whiteout” (White Genocide Theory)

BLACKCHESS

When my cousin complained about having to press ‘1’ for English, I asked her, “How do you think the Cherokee and Choctaw feel about it?”

The cousin’s us-against-them mentality has been displayed by many others since the election. When the Texas senate passed an anti-gay adoption bill last week, legislators said they were emboldened to do so because the president had endorsed ‘religious liberty,’ which these days is translucent code talk for “license to discriminate.”

Those celebrating this religious liberty refrain from extending the concept to Islam, which has been the subject of more fierce opposition in the last year. The most notable example was Trump’s failed attempt to prevent travel from seven Middle Eastern and African nations. For some, the ban went nowhere near far enough, and in some bigoted corners, the focus on Hispanics and Muslims has caused brown to replace black as the most denigrated skin color.

Ironically, those making these complaints are beneficiaries of the only time in U.S. history that immigrants and their descendants have run the indigenous from their homes, claimed their natural resources, supplanted their religion, dressed them in invaders’ clothes, and implemented a new language. This conquest eventually allowed the interlopers’ descendants to worry about losing their dominance and to grumble about automated telephone options.

For some, it’s just a bitch fest. For others it involves more substantial animosity. There have been thousands of Christian invocations to open U.S. House sessions over the decades, but just one Hindu prayer threw some fundamentalists into apoplectic shock.

Timothy Dailey of the Family Research Council considered the sinister supplication to be responsible for the quaking of Western Civilization. He wrote, “Our founders expected that Christianity – and no other religion – would receive support from the government.” In truth, our founders had expected that no religion would receive government support. Something about “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Following this embrace of alternate truth, Dailey wistfully added, “The U.S. has historically honored the One True God.” That being the one Dailey was told from preschool to believe in. He then added the obligatory Armageddon overtones, finishing with, “Woe be to us on that day when we relegate him to being merely one in the pantheon.” Somehow nearly every universities’ religious studies program has done this for centuries without experiencing boils, lice, or other plagues.

Dailey’s hyperbolic reaction is a microcosm for how entitled majorities respond when they are subjected to rare instances of being treated equally rather than with preference.

Some take their objection to more equitable treatment even further than Dailey. There are racists who think it’s part of a movement to make whites a minority in countries where they are now a majority. Depending on the fervency and cranial capacity of the believer, this may extend to a conviction that there are plans to round up palefaces and eventually exterminate them.

As to who is to blame for this nascent holocaust, the most obvious perpetrators are anyone who resides in or wants to move to the U.S., Canada, or Europe without being white. Other conspirators are those who marry minorities, plus the whites who through action or apathy allow this immigration and miscegenation.

But like most good conspiracies, the bulk of nefariousness is done by shadowy types. In this theory, there is no code talk of Illuminati, Bilderbergers, Rothschilds, Skull & Bones, Bohemian Grove, or international bankers. They’ll just come out and say ‘Jews,’ or an epithet for the same. Unexplained is how the Jews perpetrating this white genocide will escape it since they too are light-skinned.

While whites need to be ushered out, the plot only works if minorities increase their numbers, so a high birth rate among nonwhites is one of the volleys being fired in this stealthy assault. Theorists point out the U.S. had once been 85 percent white, while it is now 63 percent. Reasons for this trend include the high number of Asian tech workers, scant job opportunities in the Third World, and acceptance of war refugees. But believers ignore these factors and instead describe a plot to murder them and their supremacist brethren. They assert that America’s Zionist government (which is 8 percent Jewish) will continue to push white numbers lower until they dwindle to a point where resistance to the Caucasian Catastrophe is futile.

There have been differing definitions of white over the years and in different parts of the world. Spaniards, Slavs, Finns, Jews, Italians, and the Irish have all been considered white or not white depending on who was doing the deciding. For the hard core racists, the defining characteristic is low melanin amounts, although they exclude the Jews for no rational reason. It is presumably an attempt to emulate the Nazis, who presented the Aryan ideal as fit, blonde, blue-eyed, and square-jawed – features noticeably absent among Third Reich leaders. Since there are differing definitions of who is white, it is unclear how broad this genocide net is being cast. Even more blurry is what evidence the theorists have for their position.

Genocide is the attempt to wipe out a group of people, but this isn’t always limited to mass murder. It can include mutilation, torture, forced sterilization and abortion, curtailed liberties, kangaroo courts, kidnappings, the breaking up of families, child conscription, human trafficking, and mandatory repatriation or exile.

Irish blogger Robert Nielson notes that no Western governments or private entities are foisting any of this en masse on whites. To the contrary, many whites continue to enjoy long life expectancy, excellent medical care, and a comfortable standard of living. Someone who is lower middle class in the U.S. would be well-off in parts of Latin and South America.

Further, while the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. has gone up over the last 30 years, that’s true in many countries where being white and a minority are synonymous. Nielson points out that Southwest Asia dominates the list of nations who have the highest percentage of its residents who were born abroad. The UAE has the most at 84 percent and also near the top are Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The only white majority country in the top 10 is Switzerland at 28 percent, and blacks account for just one percent of the Swiss.

This shoots down one of the theorists’ talking points, which is that there is a de facto policy of Africa being for Africans, Asia being for Asians, and Europe and the United States being for anyone. To try and support this, they will ignore the above examples and highlight outlier Japan, whose arduous immigration requirements last year resulted in just 11 applicants being granted citizenship.

When racist conspiracy theorists harp on immigration, they assume the new arrivals are at least a few shades darker than the majority. Yet most immigrants to European countries are whites coming from other European nations. And when the theorists quote the number of emigrating Muslims, they never consider that they might be from Albania, Bosnia, or Croatia.

And despite an alleged influx of foreigners into the United States, the 13.4 percent of residents here who were born abroad is less than what it was in 1910.

A few other numbers work against the notion of white genocide. Whites have the lowest percentage of interracial marriage in U.S. at just seven percent, and it is less than 10 percent in most of Europe. This hardly sounds like the breeding ground (so to speak) for a systemic attempt to eradicate whites through miscegenation. The fact that pursuing this policy would also serve to eradicate other colors never seems to be brought up on Stormfront and similar forums.  

Additionally, the notion that a secret cabal is encouraging whites to have fewer children while telling minorities to crank them out is without corroboration. Theorists point out that in 2011, for the first time, whites accounted for less than 50 percent of U.S. births. But at 49.7 percent, white births were still nearly double the next racial category. This does not suggest a people on the brink of elimination.

That is why projections that have whites being less than 50 percent of the U.S. by 2044 does not portend an approaching Aryan apocalypse. These projections still have whites being by far the most populous group. It would be fine with me if whites ever lost this distinction, if only for the spectacle of seeing Klansmen clamoring for minority rights.

by

“Great white spark” (Cargo cults)

giljet

Many publications have claimed to have news available nowhere else, but the Weekly World News delivered. No other periodical gave us fantabulous headlines like, “Man in Amazon kidnapped by tribe of Al Jolson lookalikes.” Or employed a cranky columnist who complained, “Today’s Christmas toys aren’t dangerous enough!”

But when the paper profiled a tribe of Pacific Islanders that worshipped Don King, it fell short of what reality was offering in terms of being unbelievable. There are genuine cargo cults more bizarre than a fictitious one centered on an unscrupulous boxing promoter.

One such cult is on Vanuatu, an archipelago 3,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. The nation is so remote and obscure that few persons other than geography geeks (such as your author) had heard of it until the TV series Survivor spent a season there.

One might assume that Prince Philip’s announcement this week that he was retiring from public life would be of no concern to those on Vanuatu. But at least for residents of the village of Ionhanen on Tanna island, it is causing significant angst. It means their god won’t be coming home.

These villagers believe the Duke of Edinburgh was born to a mountain spirit on Tanna before floating to a strange, distant land, evidently taking advantage of a disembodied entity’s travel capabilities. Once there, he married an immensely powerful woman. Villagers await this son’s return, not unlike another religion I can think of.

The idea of a floating spirit marrying into wealth, power, and privilege dates to around 1960, but it became associated with Prince Philip when he and Queen Elizabeth II traveled to Vanuatu in 1974, and Ionhanen villagers noticed the extreme deference with which he was treated by politicians.

A local leader with the most excellent moniker Chief Jack paddled a canoe that greeted the royal yacht and he later observed, “I saw him standing on the deck in his white uniform and knew then that he was the true messiah.”

More recently, some villagers were convinced that Cyclone Pam slamming into Vanuatu in 2015 presaged a future visit from Prince Philip, though the announcement from Buckingham Palace this week seems to preclude that. Many persons who would scoff at the notion of linking a cyclone to a potential Royal visit will assert that natural disasters which befall the United States are the result a raging god offering his commentary on gay marriage. Indeed, post hoc reasoning is among the centerpieces of most religions.

Prince Philip worshippers are part of a handful of remaining cargo cults, most of them in the South Pacific. While they date to as far back as the 18th Century, the majority sprang up in World War II, when soldiers and sailors exposed islanders to technology and products far more advanced than anything they ever knew existed. This included matches, mirrors, radios, canned food, soft drinks, and Walkie Talkies, to say nothing of airplanes and automatic weapons. In many cases, the arrival of pale-skinned guests and their accompanying manna seemed consistent with longstanding myths about past wonders and prophecies of a divine return.

For instance, the sails and masts of Capt. James Cook’s ship resembled images of the Hawaiian god Lono. Plus, he arrived of the day of this deity’s annual festival, so Cook was literally treated like a god. On his return trip, however, the masts and sails had been damaged by storms, which greatly enraged the islanders. Cook tried to explain what had happened, but what kind of lame deity is unable to control the weather? Disenchanted believers pummeled Cook with clubs, knives, and rocks.

Conversely, it was the man-god doing the damage when Cortes met the Aztecs. He arrived on the date the Mesoamericans were expecting Quetzalcoatl to return from the Abyss and reclaim his land. Hence, a terrified Montezuma obsequiously gave into every one of the Spaniard’s demands and whims. It did no good, as Cortes eventually slaughtered his worshippers, continuing a ghoulish godly tradition that includes slaying first-born sons and drowning nearly every living being.

When Cook, Cortes, or U.S. service members arrived, islanders were seeing men who were very different from themselves in appearance, dress, and conduct. These unexpected, inexplicable travelers also seemed capable of multitudinous miracles and their arrival seemed to have been forecasted. With all this, the notion that it was supernatural seems understandable. Then, post hoc reasoning caused the belief to strengthen. In the 75 years since American fighters arrived on the islands, some South Pacific nations have seen the construction of airports, universities, and hospitals, none of which their ancestors knew existed 100 years ago. Thus, the prophecy that strange beings were going to arrive and usher in unprecedented prosperity seems fulfilled.

This might seem to be a quaint quality of a simple people who sleep in huts, travel by canoe, and harvest food by hand. Yet it is almost identical to when U.S. Christians consider modern developments to be confirmation of their scriptures. For example, some posters to Matt Walsh’s Facebook page wrote that Earth Day fulfills Romans 1:25 (“They worshipped and served created things rather than the creator.”) Others maintain gay marriage advocates were portended by Isaiah 5:2, which reads, “Woe unto them that call evil good.” Still others cite any strange, though explicable, astronomical features as a vindication of Luke 21:25 (“There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars.”) Pacific Islanders living in primitive conditions and multimillionaire televangelists reveling in tax-free luxury are both manifesting the Forer Effect, where something is deemed valid because it has personal meaning.

When victorious service members left the South Pacific, rudimentary landing strips and ports were built in hopes of enticing the gods to come back. Some Islanders built replica airplanes out of bamboo and leaves, thinking this might attract the real thing. Even 72 years later, some still expect their gods to return. With that duration, it may seem that these folks have had a long wait, but by religion standards, they’re rookies.

by

“Disserves the label” (Food company claims)

COOKDANGER

My usual grocery store has been disappointing me lately. First it stopped carrying Old Spice. I am old enough that my aftershave’s scent should reflect my creeping geriatric status. Then they dispensed with Jewish rye bread. There are a few items where I insist that quality top budgetary concerns and this was among those few. The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread analogy doesn’t work very well here, so I’ll just say I found the Jewish rye right proper. Then the grocery store committed its greatest sin of omission by no longer carrying Peter Pan peanut butter. With the brand’s texture, smoothness, and faint saltiness, I will always be dissatisfied with any other option.

But I needed some PB for the week, so with resignation and despondency, I grabbed some Jif. When I got home, I noticed the jar had one of those annoying non-GMO labels. Toward the end of the ingredient list were soybeans, which is one of nine foods that may be sold in the U.S. after genetic modification. So it’s possible that Jif’s parent company, J.M. Smucker, made a conscious decision to bypass genetically modified soybeans for traditional ones. More likely, however, is that Jif’s ingredients have been the same for the past 30 years and the company chose to add the label to take advantage of consumers’ unjustified fears.

There are other labels on jars, cans, and wrappers that likewise are factually correct, but may be disingenuous, misleading, or instilling unnecessary worry. For instance, you may see ones proclaiming, “No added hormones.” This is relevant on beef, but no chicken or pork can be sold if the animal received hormones, so such labels are redundant and playing on consumers’ naiveté.

Whereas the previous label occasionally has legitimate uses, an “antibiotic-free” proclamation on meat is always superfluous. While farmers may give their livestock antibiotics, a legally-mandated withdrawal period ensures the animals have no antibiotic residue at the time of slaughter.

The most ubiquitous, ostentatiously trumpeted label is “organic.” This designation means more than “overpriced.” Many organic consumers think the label means pesticide-free, but it really means the pesticides may not be synthetic. Even then, there are dozens of exceptions.

Most importantly, whether the pesticide is natural or manmade has no bearing on its safety, toxicity, or effectiveness. And whether they are organic or synthetic, added pesticides constitute little of what we end up consuming. According to farmer and agriculture blogger Michelle Miller, more than 99 percent of the pesticides on our foods occur naturally within the plant. 

Going back to animals, be wary of the “cage-free” label. This is legitimate if applied to eggs, but some unscrupulous food companies decided to slap this label on their poultry meat, piggybacking on the popularity of the description on egg cartons. But again, we are dealing with a redundancy because chickens raised for meat are not caged. They may, however, be confined to a warehouse in crowded, unsafe, unsanitary conditions, so being cage-free is not necessarily synonymous with animal welfare.

Staying in the meat section, we now examine “rBST-free” claims. Bovine somatotropin is a hormone cows produce naturally, while recombinant bovine somatotropin is a synthetic version of this. When given to cows, rBST gives them a little more of a hormone they already have and helps them produce more milk. Milk from a cow that has been treated with rBST has no nutritional difference from milk that comes from a cow not treated. As to the effect on the animals, a 2014 meta-analysis published by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association showed no significant increase in mastitis or other harms.  

“Gluten-free,” as we’ve covered on this blog before, is a pointless distinction for anyone who doesn’t have celiac or a similar condition. Except for those in these categories, going gluten-free is to follow a meaningless dietary fad, and foods so labeled are no more healthy or nutritious than the gluten-filled options. In recent years, the gluten-free label has been added to many foods that have always had this distinction, only now it is supposed to mean something.

Although ethically dubious, the previous examples are all at least true. That is not the case when one sees a “chemical free” label. All matter contains chemicals, indeed that’s what chemistry is, the study of matter. Those who use the label hope those reading it will associate the word “chemical” with Chernobyl, World War I mustard gas, and train wreck spillage.

I try to avoid supporting companies that use the labels we’ve examined. The labels not only prey on unnecessary fears, they carry an implied smearing of hardworking farmers and food scientists. I just hope I never face the dilemma of having to decide what to do if I see a non-GMO label on Peter Pan.

by

“Creative types” (Creationist categories)

DINO FOSSILS

While the conflict between creationism and science is frequently played out on talk shows, in court rooms, and at state school board meetings, there are different branches of creationism and they vary significantly in how much they run counter to science.

The most anti-science of the branches is the one we hear from almost exclusively, and this makes sense. Proponents of these beliefs are the ones whose worldview is most threatened by cosmology, paleontology, biology, and geology, so they are the ones most likely to object to these subjects being presented. They do so loudly and incessantly, and are not content to preach it, they want government agencies and schools to teach it.

While this branch is the only one openly hostile to science, none of the other branches have contributed anything to our understanding of any scientific field. Floating ideas to the fellow-minded at a church coffee is as close as they come to having their ideas peer reviewed. The hypotheses we will examine cannot be evaluated by the Scientific Method, as they are neither testable nor falsifiable.

The most basic distinction is between Old Earth and Young Earth Creationists. The former accept the scientific age for the age of the universe and, depending on their subcategory, may embrace evolution, geology, and anthropology.

Here are the eight primary types of creationists, in descending order of how their views are compatible with science:

FIGURATIVE INTERPRETATION. Here, Adam and Eve are allegories, not people. They are emblematic of humans and our strengths, cooperation, doubts, foibles, and perseverance.

Noah’s ark is about mankind’s fall and redemption, not a literal tale. The talking donkey in Numbers is not a fact but a fable that contains a life lesson. Exodus outlines the relationship between authorities and the governed and is not historical document about Mount Sinai tablets, a burning bush, and Israelites wondering for 40 years in the desert. The figurative approach does get around difficult questions, such as how Israelites could spend those 40 years marching around and camping, without leaving behind one piece of archeological evidence testifying to their wandering journey.

The figurative interpretation does not precisely consider the Bible mythology because the god behind this is still real and is probably the one who inspired the authors. The tales are still considered to serve a divine purpose.

Ancient Jewish religious leaders regularly told tales that were never meant to be taken as literal, but were rather precautionary, instructive, or didactic in nature. They were meant to help readers grow, adapt, and learn. With the figurative interpretation, the Torah and subsequent books are comparable to other ancient Jewish tales and are literary devices with a means to an end.   

One can embrace this position without sacrificing one molecule of scientific literacy. The figurative idea is the one most attractive for a Christian struggling to reconcile their faith with science, or for a scientist interested in adopting or maintaining Christianity.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION. This is the belief that instances of evolution which have been and continue to be observed are guided by the biblical god. The Pope has endorsed this idea and theistic evolution accepts the geologic and biologic records, positing they are the results of divine intervention, done by a god who created and controls our world and its processes.

Theistic evolution allows and embraces scientific research and permits the acceptance of new information. If all creationists were in this camp, there would be very little conflict between them and the scientific community. The latter might find supplementing science with Yahweh no more valid that crediting the Zoroastrian deity, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or pondering that this is all a novel being penned by a supremely advanced Nibiru alien. But since established science is accepted and new discoveries encouraged and celebrated, there is no meaningful dispute.

Additionally, theistic evolutionists are OK with a universe that is 13.7 billion years old because, Ken Ham’s protestations to the contrary, biblical authors never wrote that Earth is 6,000 years old. Some believers arrived at that figure by calculating biblical genealogies, then adding the six creation days and a day of rest to them. Most Young Earth Creationists are content to say “5 to 10,000 years old,” though the especially enterprising Irish archbishop James Ussher arrived at a quite specific creation date of Oct. 23, 4004 BCE, at 6 p.m. Safe to say, he wasn’t a theistic evolutionist.

The theistic evolution category allows a fair amount of leeway. For example, Genesis states Man was created in God’s image, yet none of us know what this deity is supposed to look like. Maybe he resembled a single-celled organism, in which case those organisms being at the lowest level of the Geologic Column would be consistent with Adam being created during the first week.

EVOLUTIONARY CREATIONISM. In this view, Adam and Eve were the first spiritually aware humans. Human creation is not precisely literal, as their predecessors were created by God, then through evolution, the descendants reached a stage where they could speak, comprehend good and evil, grasp the concept of God, and understand divine instruction. This position accepts the geologic and biologic records, but is emphatic there was a literal Adam and Eve, though they came to be in the same way as all early humans.

At this point, there is nothing that specifically rejects science, but we see the first example of being insistent on one instance of Biblical literalism, i.e. the existence of Adam and Eve.

PROGRESSIVE CREATIONISM. While Adam and Eve were literal in the previous category, they were evolved beings. In progressive creationism, they are considered the result of a special creation event. Progressive Creationism accepts the geologic record, and much of the prehistoric biologic record, including the age of dinosaurs. However, Adam and Eve were created separately from other animals. This is where the separation between science and faith becomes noticeably stretched. This category rejects the biological link between early hominids and humans that is evident in the fossil record. It also ignores or rationalizes away the fact that humans and chimps share 98 percent of their DNA.

DAY-AGE CREATIONISM. In this hypothesis, the six creation days are actually six geological epochs. If you don’t slam the door on Jehovah’s Witnesses, they may get around to mentioning this belief, as it is the organization’s official position. For scriptural support, they reference a verse that says, to God, a thousand years is like a day.  

There are some major problems with Day-Age creationism. For one, since the creation account has plants coming before stars, it would require ferns and the like to exist for millions of years with no light source.

Day-Age creationism also stipulates that all land animals were created separately from, and have no descent from, any sea animals. This would leave no answer for amphibians or transitional fossils that have features of both seafaring creatures and terrestrial beasts, like Tiktaalik. The evidence for whales and hippos having common ancestry is rejected, not owing to assessment of new discoveries, but because the Watchtower tract says to do so.

This belief does accept the evidence for the age of the universe and there is no inherent geologic conflict here, but the denial of biology is becoming stronger.

GAP CREATIONISM. This holds that there were 4.5 billion years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This model attempts to marry the age of Earth with Genesis literalism. In between furtive hotel visits, Jimmy Swaggart advocated this model. Gap Creationism states that after God created the heavens and Earth, a VERY long time followed, during which nothing worth being documented occurred.

From a consistent-with-science standpoint, this has the redeeming quality of being OK with astronomy, cosmology, and geology. But whereas day-age creationism begins to deny some evolutionary basics, adherents to this view must completely toss biology aside for the Bible. In this view, living organisms could have come into existence only a few thousand years ago.

At this point, we will move to the Young Earth Creationists. There are only two groups in this camp and they have just one piece of common ground: That there were no astronomical bodies 7,000 years ago.

OMPHALISM. Not all that different from The Matrix, as our world is mostly an illusion. This branch takes its name from the 19th Century book Omphalos, which is  Greek for navel. Omphalism refers to the belief that Adam and Eve had bellybuttons, giving them the false appearance of having gotten here through natural rather than supernatural means.

Adherents accept every scientific measurement regarding the age of Earth and all discoveries of biology, cosmology, and astronomy, with the quite relevant caveat that all discoveries are deceptions and God is merely making living organisms appear evolved or making the universe seem to be 13.7 billion years old.

Scientists will arrive only at the conclusions God wishes them to see. More detailed explanations may include God making the stars with the light already in transit or maybe the stars being God-induced hallucinations. The erosion and upheaval that would seem to explain mountains are instead deceptions and Cosmic Background Radiation is a mirage.  

Some consider it all a test of faith, i.e. God put dinosaur bones there to see if we would believe the paleontologist or the preacher. The Omphalism hypothesis is a form of “Last Thursdayism,” a thought experiment which ponders that everything may have been created a few days ago with all of us having false memories instilled in us.

YOUNG EARTH HARDLINERS. Here we abandon all pretense of anything remotely scientific, reasonable, rational, or evidence-based. Young Earth hardliners  embrace an alternate version of reality which jettisons most known science. They are truly creationists, as they have created an artificial explanation for why the universe and all its inhabitants are 6,000 years old. They have no concern for proof, research, or observation and no use for the Scientific Method or peer review.

Becoming a Young Earth hardliner means abandoning nearly everything mankind has learned about cosmology, geology, biology, paleontology, oceanography, chemistry, astronomy, and anthropology. Only physics might escape unscathed.

Radiometric and carbon dating, dismissed. Speed of light, untrue. Geologic column, doesn’t exist. Written records by ancient Egyptians before, during, and after the Flood, fraudulent. Lucy, archaeopteryx, and Tiktaalik, all misinterpreted or fabricated by scientists.

The only nod to science most of them make occurs when evolution is literally observed, such as in a Petri dish or the case of the Florida lizard whom zoologists documented developing a new toe pad. In such instances, they concede that these changes occurred, but insist that a series of such changes has never, and will never, lead to speciation.

They consider fossils to be flood victims and insist the fossilization process took just 200 years. The Grand Canyon and other geologic features were carved out by the same flood. The Creation Museum features a triceratops wearing a saddle.

The Answers in Genesis mission statement is that no science is correct if it contradicts the Bible. Which is enough to raise the question of why they mess with their laughable attempts at scientific explanations on their website instead of just posting the Bible.

They frequently answer criticism by stating that believers and nonbelievers have different worldviews. While this might be a rare AIG accuracy, it says nothing about which side is promoting scientific truth, and is merely to dismissing dissenting views and evidence with an ad hominem.

Don’t take my word for all this. Here are examples lifted from Young Earth hardliner websites:

Blueletterbible.org on cosmology: “If Scripture says the world is 8,000 years old, then the world is 8,000 years old, no matter what science might say.”

Answers In Genesis on radioactive dating: “No geologists were present when most rocks formed.”

Institute for Creation Research on biology: “Life did not develop by natural processes from inanimate systems but was specially and supernaturally created.”

Discover Institute on abiogenesis: “Studies of the cell reveal vast quantities of biochemical information stored in our DNA in the sequence of nucleotides. No physical or chemical law dictates the order of the nucleotide bases in our DNA, and the sequences are highly improbable and complex.” This is a longwinded way of saying, “God did it.” This appeal to incredulity is one of the logical fallacies most committed by Young Earth hardliners.

While this is by far the most extreme branch, they are also the most committed and are the ones getting tax rebates while practicing religious and sexual orientation discrimination in hiring, and getting tax money to build the Ark Encounter. They are the ones trying to get creationism taught in public school biology class and the ones convincing state school boards to adopt stances that require districts to suggest that evolution, cosmology, and astronomy are not true.

While they hurl much venom at atheists and scientists, anyone in the previous seven creationist categories is labeled a heretic and possibly worse than an unbeliever (keeping in mind what they think of unbelievers). At the Creation Museum, Christians who have a different interpretation of Genesis than Ken Ham are portrayed as the devil in snake form. This serpent delightedly notes that if it can convince someone that the flood was a myth or that dinosaurs came before man, then maybe it can convince them that Christ is not the savior.

While these types can employ the genetic fallacy to dismiss what an atheist or Omphalist says, they run into serious trouble when the Bible contradicts their teachings. In Genesis 1, God makes plants before he makes man, but in Genesis 2, this order is reversed. Your choice, Ham, which of those Biblical accounts is a lie?

by

“Not oil that” (Coconut oil)

COCNURSE

In 1985, Sean Penn was known primarily for two distinctions. One was for being a man who had greatly overachieved in the martial department. The other was for being the impetuous type, a borderline lunatic who attacked photographers with rocks, fired at helicopters which transported them, and who dangled another from a ninth story balcony.

Penn hasn’t completely abandoned his Paparazzi pummeling, but he has four Academy Award nominations, one Oscar victory, and is solidly on the A list, up several letters from where he was 30 years ago. He has branched into directing well-received movies, scored an exclusive interview with the world’s most wanted man, and helped rescue Hurricane Katrina victims. He has achieved a level and breadth of success few would have predicted in the mid-80s.

Also greatly ascending in public image over this time has been coconut oil, which has undergone a transformation from culinary super villain to the latest alleged superfood. But whereas Penn improved his image by being a more willing interview, turning in a captivating performance in Mystic River, and spearheading Haiti earthquake relief, coconut oil is the same substance it was in 1987 when Penn spent a month in jail for punching an extra on set.  

For years its bad reputation was because of its astronomical amount of saturated fat. The oil’s concentration of it is the highest of any food source. In the 1980s, this high content led some to blame coconut oil for heart attacks, so food companies replaced it with partially hydrogenated oils. But it turned out those oils contained trans fat, which became the next demonized food item people clamored to get rid of. So out went the hydrogenated oils, which were replaced, rather uncreatively, by coconut oil. Sort of like when 1962 New York Mets catcher Harry Chiti was traded for himself.

When this switch was made, coconut oil was just considered less awful that hydrogenated oil. But this morphed into it being healthy, which became medicinal, and today is considered a panacea in alternative medicine and anti-Big Pharma circles.

Different proponents credit it with promoting weight loss, preventing heart disease, and arresting diabetes, autism, and herpes. Further, it rejuvenates the skin, promotes oral health, and cures acne. Even this handful of miracles is paltry compared to the list of 101 super amazing stupendous wonderful functions it can serve, according to Joseph Mercola, Dr. Oz, and Wellness Mama.

In this blog’s tradition of soberness and stodginess, let’s take a more measured look at coconut oil. As to what it is, coconut oil is extracted from the edible white inside the fruit’s shell. With regard to its impact on health, saturated fats raise bad cholesterol levels, but depending on the food source, will have different cardiovascular effects. One of the benefits trumpeted by proponents is that coconut oil will reduce the risk of heart disease. But this is iffy at best. Coconut oil’s main saturated fatty acid is lauric acid and some research suggests this substance can raise both good and bad cholesterol. If that’s true, the net heart health benefit is no better than neutral.  

Proponents point to populations in India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Polynesia, all of whom consume copious coconut and who have relatively low incidences of heart conditions. But their diets also include more fish, fruits, and vegetables than most Americans, and genetics could be a factor. An analysis of 21 studies by Nutrition Reviews found no evidence that coconut oil reduces the risk of heart disease.

But even if that’s the case, proponents insist there would still be ample reason to keep consuming the oil. They describe it as a wonder substance that possesses antibacterial, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties, and which can combat HIV, heartburn, and hemorrhoids. Mercola calls it the best cooking choice, compares it to a mother’s milk, and says it boosts immunity. We’ve been through this one before: It is not only impossible to boost a healthy person’s immunity, it is undesirable. An overactive immune system results in autoimmune disorders like lupus and arthritis. The latter is another of the ailments coconut oil allegedly alleviates, so this reminds me of comedian Steven Wright’s fantasy of putting a humidifier and dehumidifier in the same room and letting them fight it out.

Mercola’s partner in slime, Dr. Oz, credits coconut oil with vanquishing viruses, battling bacteria, boosting thyroid function, and writing your résumé. Not wanting to be left out of this hyperbole hoedown, Wellness Mama claims it treats sunburns, athlete’s foot, nasal allergies, insomnia, depression, cellulite, mosquito bites, and lice. To hear this trio tell it, we should all tear out our medicine cabinets and replace them with coconut stands.

Probably the most presumptuous claim is that massive doses of the oil can stop Alzheimer’s disease. This is based mostly on a writer’s anecdote that her afflicted husband could draw a clock better after ingesting large amounts of the super substance. She takes a swing at sounding science-y by proposing that medium-chain triglycerides in the oil boost the liver’s production of ketones, which are the byproducts of fat breakdown, and that this provides an energy source for brain cells to rejuvenate.

However, there are no published human studies to back such claims. It is unknown whether medium-chain triglycerides reduce Alzheimer’s effects. Even if they did, the component responsible for this would need to be isolated, extracted, tested in clinical trials, and dispensed in medicine form. The notion of getting this benefit through continual slurping of coconut oil seems very unlikely and certainly isn’t supported by research.

Harriett Hall, the SkepDoc, did a PubMed search for an Alzheimer’s-coconut oil connection, and found zero results. Meanwhile, Snopes reports there are no published studies confirming the oil has medicinal value.  

There are a few studies that suggest coconut oil fats might lower blood glucose levels in some patients. Unfortunately, the more unscrupulous proponents will take this possible, limited benefit and turn it into a blaring headline about coconut oil curing diabetes and encourage readers to toss their insulin. I’m no Sean Penn, but that makes me want to punch somebody.

by

“Shedding fears” (Vaccine shedding)

vaxgerm

A frequent anti-vax talking point centers on vaccine shedding. Like much of the movement, it turns a kernel of truth into a bushel of baloney.

While shedding can occur with some vaccines, there is danger in only very specific cases, cases in which the danger can be eliminated with simple precautions. Anti-vaxxers transform this into the notion that all vaccinated persons are potentially lethal to any unvaccinated persons they come into contact with.

There are three major problems with this thinking. First, it asserts that vaccinations cause and spread disease without explaining how those diseases could have existed before the vaccines did. Second, an anti-vaxxer should consider this inconsequential since they insist that the likes of measles, polio, and swine flu are nothing to worry about, and perhaps even to be celebrated.

Most importantly, except in rare, specific instances, vaccinated persons cannot infect someone who is dutifully repelling rubella with homeopathic eucalyptus drops. For starters, to be impacting someone else, the vaccinated would need to be shedding an infectious agent, specifically a live virus. They could not be a danger to anyone after being given an inactivated vaccine like polio, hepatitis A, or Whooping Cough.

Such vax facts weren’t about to stand in the way of blogger Cynthia Janak, who warned that selfish pro-vaxxers could spread Whooping Cough to the unvaccinated. Which raises the question of why only the unvaccinated would be at risk from shedding. Anti-vaxxers insist that vaccines aren’t effective and also insist that vaccine shedding spreads disease to nearby persons. If all this was true, the vaccinated should also be infecting others who have been immunized. Further, the one doing the shedding should also be getting sick, as they are hosting the virus and are the one closest to the virus when it sheds. And if shedding claims were true, younger siblings of freshly-vaccinated toddlers should be dying at a rate of hundreds per day.

The inexhaustible Janak has written hundreds of posts promoting anti-vax beliefs and she claims to have done thousands of hours of research. Yet none of those hours were dedicated to learning the relatively simple concept that the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis vaccine contains an inactivated toxin and not a live virus. Also, please note that when an anti-vaxxer references their “research,” they almost invariably mean Internet surfing and exchanging anecdotes with the likeminded. They do not mean conducting laboratory experiments, running controlled tests, overseeing double blind studies, or publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

That is why, for all this alleged research, Janak wrote a column entitled, “Will the vaccinated infect the unvaccinated? That is the question with Whooping cough.” In it, she writes, “Vaccine shedding is the transmission of the virus from a vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person. All these parents and child care workers are going to get the vaccine and then have the potential to infect the unvaccinated child.” That the children could be infected due to their unvaccinated nature never occurs to her.

Again, for it to even be possible to impact someone else, a live virus must be shed, and this does not occur with the Whooping Cough vaccine. Shedding can only happen with live virus vaccines, such as MMR, varicella, and rotavirus. And when this does occur, shedding is not synonymous with transmission. As the name suggests, that would require something being transmitted from one organism to another, and only the tiniest percentage of shedding instances lead to transmission.

Viral shedding is recognized as a reality by pro-vaxxers, and doctors stress that caution should be exercised when the recently vaccinated will be around newborns or persons immunocompromised or pregnant. Special care should be taken to ensure that vulnerable individuals avoid coming into contact with the excrement of the recently immunized persons for two weeks. To recap, in order for shedding to be a danger, it must involve a live virus and the exposed person must be in one of three categories and must come into contact with the immunized individual’s stool within a fortnight. That it needs to occur in these very specific, avoidable circumstances is consistent with the rarity of vaccine shedding being harmful.   

One final crazy kicker to this. Janak wrote a column about the danger that persons vaccinated for chickenpox pose to the unvaccinated, warning the latter could catch the disease through shedding. She later extolled the virtues of intentionally exposing children to the disease at pox parties. So she expresses outrage that adults who refuse the vaccine might catch the disease, then celebrates purposefully passing that vaccine-preventable disease onto children and infecting them with a condition that brings a 1 in 60,000 chance of death.