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“Lagers and ails” (Alcoholics Anonymous)

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My name is Wayne and I’m a blogger. Today’s post will be on Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m qualified to tackle the topic, as I’ve done my share of both drinking and stopping. In my mid-20s, I drank like an alcoholic fish. Then I decided enough with the lush lifestyle and went three years with very little consumption. A second round of sustained liver pounding followed, followed by moderate imbibing, and then the light drinking I now do.

Per AA, this gradual path should have been impossible. Persons should not be able to transition in and out like that. Once drinking becomes a problem, it is for life. AA has an all-or-nothing approach, which is problematic because not everyone has the problem to the same degree, for the same reason, or is experiencing it in the same circumstance. AA also insists that the Biblical god be invoked, which is flawed because not all alcoholics are Christian. Incorporating biblical teachings and a leaning on a network of fellow believers will work for some drunks but not all.

AA literature states, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.” It is affirming the consequent to say that if someone follows the path they will be cured and then use failures as evidence the person didn’t follow the path.

Few people jump on Facebook to announce, “AA did me no good, I’m hungover as we write, and that’s been me every day this week.” Similarly, celebrities highlight when they’ve beaten the bottle but not when it has landed a counterpunch. As such, people are usually only exposed to the successes and this makes it seem like it works. It would be like hearing war stories and concluding that battle is safe because all the people talking about it survived.

Gabrielle Glaser wrote a book highlighting AA flaws and criticisms of it were primarily the logical fallacies of appealing to consequences and ad hominem. “When my book came out, dozens of Alcoholics Anonymous members said that because I had challenged AA’s claim of a 75 percent success rate, I would hurt or even kill people by discouraging attendance at meetings,” she wrote, “And a few insisted I must be an alcoholic in denial.”

This is consistent with the judgmental, absolute, our way or the heathen highway approach employed by AA. It also mirrors historical American attitudes toward alcohol. Beer was quaffed on the Mayflower, including by school-age children since no potable water was onboard. The beverage was then embraced by these earliest immigrants, who showed ingenuity by using pumpkins to brew beer when the usual malt was unavailable. However, this welcoming mindset gave way to a puritanical throttling that forbid all pleasures, including drink. Similarly, the alcohol-infused jazz and blues era was ushered aside for Prohibition.

AA continues with this no-middle-ground mentality, hammering attendees with the mantra of, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” But I quit when I wanted to and this strategy has many other successful adherents. In 1992, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism polled 4,500 persons who had been dependent on alcohol at some point. One-third who had treatment were still lushes, while one quarter of those who had received no treatment were. So quitting on your own was 30 percent more successful than seeking treatment.

University of New Mexico psychologists perused several controlled studies on alcoholism and concluded the best bet was an impromptu encounter between a patient and health-care worker in a standard medical environment. For example, a physician performing a routine physical on a 37-year-old who has two decades of sustained drinking behind him, may tell the patient, “You’d best lay off if you want to have a functioning liver two years from now.” And the patient does just that.

There are many reasons people decide to reduce or eliminate their drinking. They may realize they cannot continue their college ways if they want to be a successful young professional. They may be hit with the magnitude of parenthood and know that rolling on the floor with slurred speech and peppery language sets a poor example. They may get away with an instance of drunk driving and resolve to never play this motorized version of Russian Roulette again.

Meanwhile, an analysis of methods published  in The Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches ranks AA just 38th out of 48 methods. A Cochrane systematic review confirmed the effectiveness of brief interventions, while another Cochrane review found no evidence that AA works.

While the fault lies with the approach, AA participants are made to feel like they are to blame if backsliding occurs. If they drink again, it’s because they failed to follow the steps. Compounding the problem is that AA paints itself as the lone solution, so if you lose that, you have no more hope.

The first AA step is to concede powerlessness, when a better strategy would be to equip problem drinkers with the tools and means to succeed. And again, a substantial drawback is that half the steps reference the Christian god, which is going to be irrelevant and off-putting to those who follow another religion or no religion. This also highlights the error trying to incorporate faith into a medical issue. If a heart surgeon, optometrist, or neurologist told you the solution would be found with “a greater power,” “turning your will over to God,” or having him “remove character defects,” you would, I hope, seek another provider. But a patient trying this approach with AA will be told they are in denial. After all this, it’s no wonder they want a drink.

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“Rash register” (Sex offender hysteria)

 

CHAINGANG

I’ve always been intrigued by common misconceptions. Even 200 years after Frankenstein was published, many persons still envision the titular character as a monster instead of its creator. Probably even more common is the belief that the Catholic Church considers the Immaculate Conception to be Jesus being born to a virgin when it instead means the Church considers Mary to have been immune from Original Sin.

These misconceptions are innocuous, but there is another one that causes harm. This is the presumption that sex offenders are the most incessant and insatiable criminals. It is regularly stated that the recidivism rate of these offenders is the highest of all crimes. Politicians parrot it and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy put the number at “80 percent” when writing his majority opinion that allowed an exception to the Constitution’s ex post facto clause. Rep. Mark Foley one-upped the justice by claiming 90 percent commit the crime again. 90 percent sounds whopping, but is instead a whopper.

The truth is much different. So different that sex offenders have the second lowest recidivism rate, after murderers. This is one of those topics that’s hard to articulate because “sex offender” is the nails-on-chalkboard crime, where the mere mention of the deed gets people riled and vengeful.  

These emotions and false numbers have been used to justify a number of Constitutionally-dubious restrictions and punishments. This has included compelling admission of crimes that would seem violate the Fifth Amendment, retroactive registration that violate ex post facto protections, and post-sentence civil commitments that seem inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.

While I keep my civil liberties credentials polished, my aim here is not do quibble over the Constitutional rights of rapists. It is to point out that the numbers which are used to justify these restrictions are wrong and that in the process, harmless persons are ensnared.

Kennedy’s number came not from FBI statistics, but from a 1986 Psychology Today article he had read. The prison counselor who offered 80 percent gave no supporting documentation, and this number is far different from available statistics. Yet it is being used to justify draconian laws and is continuing to mislead the public three decades later. Kennedy’s erroneous description of a “frightening and high” recidivism rate had been quoted in 91 judicial opinions.

However, “Sex offenders are among the least likely criminals to recidivate,” wrote psychologist Timothy Fortney in the journal Sexual Offender Treatment. The numbers support Fortney’s assessment.

Reason cited a 2003 Justice Department study of 9,700 sex offenders, which found that just five percent were arrested for new sex crimes within three years of release. Two meta-analyses of studies involving 29,000 sex offenders found a recidivism rate of 14 percent after four to six years, and the numbers were 24 percent after 15 years.

This is less than other crimes, yet an assumption of recidivism is what drives mandatory minimum sentences, indefinite civil confinement, lifelong registration, residence and presence restrictions, employment bans, and passport and driver licenses that conspicuously declare the holder to be a monster.

When wrenching emotions are involved, laws are hastily passed without the usual hearings, expert testimony, or gathering of relevant information. Len Bias’ death prompted an emergency meeting of House members, after which Democrat William Hughes called for a mandatory five-year prison sentence for possessing 20 grams of crack with intent to distribute. This was an arbitrary number with no reason to think this amount of crack or resultant prison time was appropriate. Republicans countered with five grams because it was less than 20. There was no logic to any of this, it was just a moral panic played out in halls of Congress.

Speaking of which, laws named after people are usually a giveaway that they were passed in a haphazard manner without thought of consequence. Megan’s Law, for instance, created a publicly-accessible registry of those deemed sex offenders.

This created false feelings of safety and of having done something constructive. But about 90 percent of persons arrested for sex crimes are first-time offenders who would not be on any registries. Also missing will be any serial child molesters who have yet to be caught. And more than 90 percent of such crimes are committed not by strangers, but by family members and friends.

Moreover, registries sometimes serve as a vigilante’s MapQuest. Michael Mullen used a registry to find and kill two men, while Lawrence Trant failed in his attempt to do the same. William Elliot and Joseph Gray were murdered by Stephen Marshall, who was hunting his next victim when he was cornered by law enforcement officers and committed suicide.

Gray had raped a child, while Elliott at 19 had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. Had this encounter taken place three weeks later, it would have been legal, yet Elliott and Gray ended up on the same list. Indeed, besides false recidivism assumptions, the other major flaw in this hysteria is that the registries leave the mild and meek indistinguishable from the depraved and dangerous.

In Illinois, a 14-year-old girl stepped in front of motorist Fitzroy Barnaby. After stopping, Barnaby stepped out of his vehicle and lectured her about safety. Because he grabbed her arm while doing so, Barnaby was convicted of attempted kidnapping of a minor and is on a sex offender registery for life.

A similar permanent punishment forced a Georgia nursing home resident to move, then do so again when bus stops were added to verboten locations. She had been convicted of performing fellatio on a 15-year-old boy when she was 17.

Also on the Registry of the Reviled is 16-year-old Matthew Bandy, who was convicted of providing harmful material to a minors for showing Playboy issue to fellow high schoolers.  Bandy told Fox News, “I have to stay away from children. I cannot be around any area where there might be minors, including the mall, or the movies, or restaurants. To go to church I have to have written consent from our priest I have to sit in a pew without children.”

We know Bandy’s name because anything deemed a sex crime is an exception to laws that seal juvenile records. About one-fourth were under 14 when they did whatever they did that got them on the list, and at least one was only 10.

In 39 states, it matters not whether the crime was a pedophile digitally penetrating a 3-year-old or two teenagers having consensual relations. Just 11 of those states have Romeo & Juliet exceptions that negate registration requirements if the age difference is less than four years. Until about 25 years ago, some states had gender-specific statutory rape laws. In one beyond-absurd case, a 16-year-old California boy was convicted and spent three years on probation for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend. If he lives somewhere that, thanks to the Kennedy-authored ruling mandates retroactive registration, his movement is restricted for life.

According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for adult prostitution and 13 mandate registration for taking a piss outside. In Texas, sex with your first cousin or adopted sibling will get you on the same type of list that features Jerry Sandusky.

These registries are similar to the public stocks in Colonial America except it never ends and the results can be deadly. Even if not fatal, being on the list means employment, residence, and movement restrictions. The length from prohibited locations is measured as the crow flies, so even if the 1,000-foot journey includes an impassible river or highway divider with no pedestrian path, the restriction remains firm. In some cities, the restrictions are so encompassing they leave literally no place for someone on the registry to live or be. And even when the criminal has committed a genuinely bad act, these punishments hinder them from turning around their lives.

Beyond that, a person’s threat level is the same whether they reside 950 from a school or 1,050. A related shortcoming is that persons seldom commit crimes in their home. These laws are as ineffective as would be one that prevented Charles Keating from living within 1,000 feet of a Savings & Loan.

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“Micro-fish” (Macroevolution denial)

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The position of anti-Darwinians is, ironically, an evolving one. Tennessee infamously banned the teaching of human evolution in public schools, resulting in the John Scopes conviction that was overturned. That law and those like it remained on the books until the Supreme Court struck them down in 1968.

With this defeat, politically-active creationists tried a new tactic of calling for equal time. This is a sound notion when there are genuinely competing ideas, such as what exist in string theory, the makeup of dark matter, and the rate of the universe’s expansion. And creationism fits nicely into comparative religion and philosophy classes. But it lacks the hallmarks of science, as it is unfalsifiable and untestable. Evolution, by contrast, can potentially be falsified every time there is a geologic dig. The field would be turned upside down if a mallard fossil were found alongside fossils of 3-billion-year-old amoebas in the Geologic Column. It can also be tested, which is what’s happening in Richard Lenski’s ongoing e. coli experiment at Michigan State. There are mountains of scientific data relating to evolution and none that pertain to creation. That, along with public school creationism being considered an endorsement of religion, led the Supreme Court to strike down equal time attempts in 1987.

Because that ruling noted Louisiana was attempting to promote a specific religion, creationists rebranded themselves as Intelligent Design advocates. Their new argument was that organisms’ complexity and axiomatic signs of design meant this all had to have been guided by a higher power, but that this could be any god, goddess, or unknown force. This was a disingenuous absurdity that no one believed. The façade was so transparent that the Discovery Institute’s publication outlining this nouveau strategy had Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on its cover. This attempt to squeeze Genesis through the back door of public schools was shot down by another Supreme Court ruling in 2005.

The next tactic was the fraudulently-named Louisiana Science Education Act, which called for “supplemental” material to be used. This was intended to give ostensible legal cover for teachers who violated the Supreme Court rulings. The act mentioned evolution and climate change as allegedly “controversial ideas.” Climate change was added so that something besides evolution would be mentioned and the law wouldn’t solely reference religion. It also helped that climate change is the other prominent area in which cultural conservatives most soundly reject the science. There is no reason for such laws, as all sides are presented when there is genuine controversy, such as with aforementioned string theory and dark matter.  

This latest gimmick is on shaky legal ground at best, but has yet to be challenged in court. A substantial problem is that organizations like the ACLU or the Freedom From Religion Foundation are usually deemed to have insufficient standing to sue in such cases. A parent or student usually must be the one to do so, and most Louisiana teens and adults are just fine with the Abrahamic god being promoted with tax dollars. To be challenged, there would have to be a parent or student willing to risk the ostracism, abuse, threats, and physical attacks that would likely be foisted upon them.

Creationists also show nimbleness outside the political arena. When On the Origin of Species was first printed, there was apoplectic shock from some members of the religious community. Preachers unleashed a torrent of outrage on this unspeakable blasphemy. How dare there be any challenge to the first chapter of Genesis! God created all animals in their present form and that’s that.

But then biologists began seeing confirmation of Darwin’s ideas. Biological populations were changing over time, they were adapting to their environment, and they were keeping genetic mutations that proved advantageous. This included camouflage, slighter build in birds that allowed for faster migration, and even aesthetic changes that made them more appealing to potential mates. Allele frequencies consistent with genetic mutations and natural selection were documented. Single-cell microorganisms were seen mutating in a manner that increased chances of long-term survival. Biologists became increasingly aware of endemic species and began mapping branches of common descent based on fossil records and comparative biology. Evolution was and continues to be observed. If wanting to see it in action in a Petri dish, click here.

Faced with literally seeing evolution occurring, creationists had four choices. They could mimic R.E.M. and lose their religion. They could dismiss the observed evolution as Satanic trickery, a tact favored by Theodore Shoebat and U.S. Rep. Paul Broun. They could embrace the science but insist that God is its source, which is done by biologist blogger Kelsey Luoma. Or they could concoct a haphazard ad hoc hypothesis that tries to drive a wedge between microevolution and macroevolution. This final option will be our focus for the rest of this post.

The idea is that small changes are acceptable but not big ones. For example, the extinct lizard hylonomus may have adapted to its environment by evolving a more efficient toe pad, but a very long series of such changes could not have led to humans. In fact, creationists draw the line at the lizard’s ancestors ever becoming any other species, though they don’t quite define what that means. Answers in Genesis writes that the ability to breed is probably a defining characteristic, but clarifies that there may be exceptions, so they give themselves cover either way.

In truth, there is no microevolution or macroevolution. There is only evolution, the change in inherited characteristics of biological populations over time. Luoma wrote, “The only difference between micro and macroevolution is scope. When enough micro changes accumulate, a population will eventually lose its ability to interbreed with other members of its species. At this point, we say that macroevolution has occurred. Random mutation and natural selection cause both micro and macro evolution. There are no invisible boundaries that prevent organisms from evolving into new species. It just takes time.”

The counter idea started with Frank Marsh in 1941, following his creative interpretation of Hebrew texts. He deduced that God had created “kinds,” a term that neither he nor his likeminded creationists have ever bothered to define. This leaves ample room for interpretation, but as much as I can tell, they base it on appearance and the ability to breed. They also seem to allude to “kind” being very roughly comparable to the biological category of Family. The only steadfast rule is that humans are the only animals allowed to occupy their “kind.” Despite sharing 22 of 23 chromosome pairs with chimpanzees and having an almost identical bone structure to other apes, people get their own category, owing to creationists’ special pleading, desperation, and arrogance.

Marsh called this new pseudoscience field baraminology. Baraminologists have never drawn up a tree or diagram to explain how it works, so it’s a guess which “kind” each animal should be placed in. But it seems to rely mostly on similar features. For example, they would consider all horses to be of one kind, and this would likely include donkeys and zebras. But while these equines might be somewhat similar in appearance to a giraffe and have an even vaguer resemblance to a hippopotamus, it is unlikely that the baraminologist would put these other animals in the same “kind” as horses. That would be getting terrifyingly close to Darwinism.

For 25 years, Marsh had the baraminology field to himself, but it picked up adherents when the idea of fitting 10 million creatures and their 15-month food and water supply on an oversized ship seemed untenable. By saying that each fortunate duo that boarded Noah’s ark is the ancestor of 10,000 different types of animals, the amount of space needed is greatly reduced.

One example of how this works is to put all cats in one kind. This leads to an incredible irony. Folks who mostly reject evolution will enthusiastically embrace a hyper version of it in which two felines who stepped off Noah’s ark 5,000 years ago are the ancestors of all tigers, jaguars, pumas, lions, bobcats, lynxes, ocelots cheetahs, panthers, cougars, saber-toothed cats, and your pet calico Fluffy. While evolution this fast could occur with artificial selection – it did with dogs – applying it to natural selection would require assuming it takes place exponentially faster than it does. It also means ignoring the fossil record and the worldwide distribution of big cats. For instance, it does not explain how panthers would have gotten from Turkey to Brazil.

Some theories have small gaps in them. By contrast, baraminology is a gaping, sucking hole with a tiny amount of theory thrown in. Those who created, expanded, and defended the field have never defined it, quantified it, explained it, nor offered any illustrations, graphs, trees, or publications that would demonstrate how it works or help anyone make sense of it.

At the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Jerry Coyne, biology professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. He says macroevolution is supported by embryonic forms, the fossil record, and “dead genes.”

Mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish are all in their own biologic class, but look so similar before birth that it sometimes takes experts to tell them apart. Also, traits of one animal may be present in the embryonic state of a separate animal, even across classes. For example, human embryos have gill slits that disappear before birth. This implies common ancestry with fish and as the branch split, different traits were either further evolved or became vestigial. In another example, whales have a pelvis remnant that is pointless for aquatic travel but which would have served their land-roving ancestors well.

Besides these clues, there is also the fossil record. Coyne wrote, “We have transitional forms between fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and birds, reptiles and mammals, and between early apelike ancestors and modern humans.”

It’s not just a matter of what, the when is also important. Again, per Dr. Coyne: “Those transitional forms just happen to occur at the proper time in the fossil record. Mammal-like reptiles – the transitional forms between reptiles and early mammals – occur in the sediments after reptiles were already around for a while, but before easily-recognizable mammals come on the scene. It’s not just that they look intermediate, but that they lived at the right time for demonstrating a true evolutionary transition.”

Then we have “dead genes,” Coyne’s term for stretches of DNA that don’t produce a product, but are largely identical to working genes in other species. “These are likewise evidence for distant ancestry between ‘kinds,’” Coyne wrote.

Examples he cited included humans having three dead genes for egg-yolk proteins, which are still active in our distant cousins of the reptilian and avian persuasions. In another instance, whales and other cetaceans have hundreds of dead olfactory-receptor genes, which implies a terrestrial origin for these ocean-dwelling mammals. These genes are active in deer and even the most desperate baraminologist would not put Bambi and Willy in the same kind.

Creationists demand being able to see molecules-to-man evolution in real time and when this is not possible, they will declare this a “gotcha” moment. But just as DNA is better evidence than an eyewitness during a trial, we can see macroevolution in the form of transitions between fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, reptiles and birds, and ground-bound mammals and whales.

The attempt to bridge the vastly disparate ideas in Genesis and On the Origin of Species is called theistic evolution. It has few fans among either biologists or creationists, particularly the Young Earth subset. But I would like to acknowledge Luoma, the theistic evolutionist I quoted earlier in the post.

First, she  wrote that macroevolution has been observed in three instances involving finches, mice, and flies. In these cases, separate breeds branched off and within a few years, the resultant organisms were incapable of breeding with the original population.

Second, Luoma has a biology degree from a legitimate institution and accepts scientific evidence without first checking to see if it squares with Genesis. She is content to credit God with “perhaps creating and sustaining the process by which new species are created.” This is a superfluous addition that lacks any evidence, but it sure beats science denial. She accepts the science, promotes the science, and calls for only science to be taught in biology class.  

Luoma describes herself as “an evangelical Christian and student of biology who is very interested in resolving the conflict between faith and science.” There is no conflict, as that requires two hostile parties. The assault is unilateral. No scientists or skeptics are trying to force churches to teach Darwin. The only aggression comes from creationists and politicians who try to get their religion and science denial taught in taxpayer-funded schools.

While a literal reading of Genesis cannot comport with biology and astronomy, Luoma would gladly teach biology on Friday, then worship God on Sunday. If creationists would follow her lead, the issue would be resolved.

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“Aging glacially” (Anti-aging treatments)

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Our society respects the elderly but worships youth. As such, there exist many products that purport to arrest the aging process. But 51 leading aging research experts concluded unequivocally that none of them work, even a little.

They come in many forms. Starting alphabetically, antioxidant supplements are touted as being able to eliminate the production of free radicals and, by extension, slow a person’s aging.

As we sometimes see in pseudoscience, marketers will incorporate a grain of truth in their shaker of hooey. For an antioxidant is indeed a molecule that prevents the oxidation of other molecules, and said oxidation will produce cell-damaging free radicals. That’s why regularly eating fruits high in antioxidants is a wise lifestyle choice that may well reduce the risk of some cancers, macular degeneration, and other medical misfortunes. But there is no science to support the idea that antioxidant supplements will do this or slow the aging process.

A more invasive anti-aging idea is hormone treatments, which aim to replenish the body’s supply of estrogen, testosterone, or human growth hormone. Experiments with senior men have shown that declines in muscle mass and skin elasticity can be slowed in the short term with HGH replacement, while estrogen replacement may benefit some postmenopausal women. However, the men suffered from excess bone growth and carpal tunnel syndrome, while the elderly female patients showed increased risk of breast cancer and blood clots. But whatever rewards and risks come with the treatments, the team of 51 specialists stated that, “Hormone replacement therapy has a place in the treatment of specific age-associated disorders, but evidence that it affects the rate of aging is lacking.”

Then we have a large assortment of supplement mixtures. Unlike proponents of the previous products, most mixture advocates don’t pretend to be embracing scientific principles. Rather, they pride themselves on being in on a secret and getting one over on Big Science, Big Ag, and Big Pharma. Dr. Harriet Hall, the SkepDoc, notes that, “A typical example is Seanol Longevity Plus, which contains brown seaweed extract, resveratrol, iodine, and vitamin D. There have been no clinical studies of the product, and there is no evidence that the ingredients affect aging either singly or in combination.”

Hall also came across a couple of especially comical anti-aging postulations. She found an online chiropractors debate about whether the spine could be manipulated into a perfect alignment that would guarantee immortality. Then we have the most idiosyncratic method, which belongs to self-described futurist Ray Kurzweil. He thinks science will conquer disease, aging, and death by the time he is 120. He plans to make it that long through a regimen of gobbling 250 supplement pills daily at specified times, all of which are washed down with 10 glasses of alkaline water, 10 cups of green tea, and red wine. This is complemented by a weekly IV vitamin infusion. I’ll have my toddler check in on him in 2065 and see how he’s doing.

Many plays, films, novels, poems, paintings, and songs address death. These works of art deal with such themes as confronting one’s mortality, the impact on those left behind, and whether death makes life pointless or gives it its meaning.

Dispensing with such passions, death is the cessation of biological functions that sustain an organism. Whether one is a fruit fly whose day of birth and death are the same, or the 10,000-year old aspen tree in which the flying insect lands, death looms for all plants and animals. It is the invariable consequence of living.

The death process goes something like this. When cells divide, errors are made in copying DNA. As the mitochondria in cells generate the energy that sustains us, they also produce free radicals that do damage. Radiation and other environmental factors inflict further perniciousness by causing mutations. Repair mechanisms can limit the damage, but not eliminate it. Eventually the damage reaches an irreparable point. Strictly speaking, no one dies of old age. Instead, tissues, cells, organs, or other biological components malfunction or are left vulnerable to disease. Aging and death are byproducts of the genetic processes that keep us alive.

While there are no products to slow aging or stop death, scientific advances have given those in the developed world an average lifespan of 78, more than double what it was a century ago. The great irony is that those advances – antibiotics, vaccines, Germ Theory, sanitation, food production methods – are cited by those hawking and using anti-aging products as the reasons for the increase in heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, and cancer.

But they have it backwards. These conditions are not caused by vaccine ingredients, GMOs, chemtrails, gluten, Wi-Fi, fluoridated water, aspartame, or damaged chakras. They are increasing because scientific advances allow more people to live long enough to acquire these afflictions or to sell bogus products to prevent them.

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“Pipe dream” (Baigong Pipes)

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When I had time for such pursuits, I taught myself Tibetan and became reasonably fluent. With no one to speak it with, the ability waned, but I may brush up again if I ever make it to Delingha, a village tucked in a basin below the Himalayan foothills. Outside Delingha rests Mount Baigong and, more specifically, the Baigong Pipes. The Pipes were touted as an Out of Place Artifact (Oopart), which are seemingly modern or even futuristic objects in ancient surroundings, anachronisms that, for a while anyway, evade attempts to explain them.

Inside the mountain are hollow rusty tubes, ranging in size from needle-like to a coconut’s circumference. They run from deep inside the mountain and snake their way to a lake about 10 school bus lengths away. Many are uniform in size and seem to have been placed there deliberately. They are deeply embedded into the mountain’s walls and floor, enough so that humans could not have constructed them that way.

Combine all this with imagination and desire, and some have concluded a species with advanced metallurgical skills came from beyond the solar system to build the Baigong Pipes. That was the conclusion of author Bai Yu following his 1996 visit to the site. He further deduced that the flat open terrain nearby would be ideal for an alien landing site. There was yet another tantalizing twist to the tale. The first scientists to examine the Pipes determined they were composed of eight percent unknown materials and into this information vacuum was plugged the notion of that this eight percent represented alien technology or minerals.

Then scientists from the China Seismological Bureau examined the Oopart using a technique to determine how long it’s been since a crystalline mineral was either heated or exposed to sunlight. The result showed that if these were indeed iron pipes that had been smelted, they were made 150,000 years ago. Humans traipsed into the region 120,000 years later, so this served as a kneejerk confirmation of the alien species sewer system speculation.

Ooparts will infrequently excite Young Earth Creationists, such as when a hammer embedded in Cretaceous lime rock was presented as proof the layer was millions of years younger than those gosh darn secular geologists thought. Mostly, however, Oopart enthusiasts are limited to fans of ancient aliens or long-lost advanced civilizations.

A more terrestrial hypothesis of the Pipes offered that they were fossilized tree root casts, with the roots transforming to soil and then to rock. Experiments confirmed that the pipes contained organic plant material and even microscopic tree rings. As to how they got inside a cave where trees would not grow, scientists concluded that the basin was once a vast lake and over many millennia, floods filled it with debris that included these fossils.

Brian Dunning at Skeptoid further explained, “Fissures could have been washed full of iron-rich sediment during floods. Combined with water and the presence of hydrogen sulfide gas, the sediment could have eventually hardened into the rusty metallic pipe-like structures of iron pyrite found today.”

So the Pipes were never part of an alien sewer, but rather the result of Earth science in action. As usual, reality was intriguing enough. And it turns out that there is at least one other place on Earth with such distinctive pipes and they had been discovered earlier than those at Mount Baigong. They were first found by geologists, not E.T. enthusiasts, so there never was an alien angle ascribed to them.

Writing in the Journal of Sedimentary Research in the early 1990s, the researchers reported they had found fossilized tree casts in Louisiana soil. These cylindrical structures were dated to about 85,000 years ago and their chemical composition depended on where and when they formed. The results were metallic structures, almost identical to the Baigong Pipes. So that’s either the explanation or it’s proof the alien plumbers opened a second location.

 

 

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“See Spot Ruin” (Terrorist detection)

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I have been fortunate to do extensive international travel and am doubly fortuitous to have received almost nothing in the way of scrutiny when doing so. About 10 visa applications have been approved posthaste and I am almost never stopped for additional questioning following a couple of standard queries at passport control.

I have been briefly held up twice. The first time was in Australia and may have been due to my bizarre clothing choice. I left from Hawaii in June and had forgotten about seasons being switched beneath the equator. I showed up in the winter sporting shorts and a T-shirt and this unintended eccentricity may have raised alarm. The other occasion came while returning to the United States from South Korea when there was a minor issue with my wife’s permanent resident card. We were ushered into a cramped room of five dozen travelers, the two of us being the only non-Muslims. We weren’t even there long enough to sit down before our problem was resolved and we left behind others who had been waiting for hours.

Having pale skin does not always guarantee such harassment-free travel. In one horror story, college student Nicholas George missed his flight while being harangued for five hours by angry FBI agents who wanted to know if he approved of the Sept. 11 attacks. George had been plotting to teach himself Arabic and was caught traveling with language flashcards. TSA agents were going through his luggage because he had been selected for a further screening by behavior-detection agents. There are 3,000 such agents in 161 U.S. airports, and they are part of the SPOT and FAST programs that aim to root out threats to airliners and passengers.  

The George fiasco was a public display of failure, but how much good do these programs do otherwise? Is it possible to tell through observation if someone is being deceptive or planning a lethal attack?

The science behind such notions is scant. One 2009 report found that TSA agents’ ability in this area was no better than deciding it with a coin toss. Meanwhile, JASON, a group of top scientists that advise the U.S. government, has stated: “No scientific evidence exists to support the detection or inference of future behavior, including intent.” Finally, a 2008 GAO report found that the SPOT failed to “validate a scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers.” The report reviewed more than 400 studies and concluded that “the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is no better than chance.”

SPOT, which stands for “Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques,” relies on the methods of Paul Ekman, a former psychology professor at the University of California Medical School. In the 1970s, Ekman co-developed a system for analyzing human facial expressions and he has since extrapolated this into a method for allegedly detecting emotions and deception. He puts particular emphasis on small changes like pursed lips or raised eyebrows. Ekman claims that, with training, the technique’s success rate will hover near 100 percent. However, he says he does not submit for peer review since those papers could be read by scientists in Syria, Iran, and China, who might pass the knowledge onto terrorists. I’ve seen plenty of excuses for refusing to submit for peer review but this is the first time I’ve encountered a rationale of being concerned about a kinesics expert-suicide bomber alliance in the Damascus and Great Wall vicinities. 

And this means that the reasoning behind his claims cannot be examined by subject matter experts. But even without being able to dissect the specifics, scientists and psychologists express serious doubts about the abilities Ekman attributes to his techniques.

In an article for Nature, Sharon Weinberger interviewed psychology professor Maria Hartwig, who told her, “The human face very obviously displays emotion, but linking those displays to deception is a leap of gargantuan dimensions not supported by scientific evidence.”

In fact, SPOT’s methods have never been subjected to controlled scientific tests. Even how such a test would be conducted is unclear. Double blind studies are the standard, but in this case, that would seemingly require the incorporation of real terrorists to see if TSA agents could identify them at a greater rate than they could placebo bombers. A more realistic option might be to have a liar and a truth-teller present their tales to a TSA subject in a controlled situation. For instance, one person could eat a cookie and the other not, then both say that they didn’t. However, in such a case, the fabricator would be less stressed than would be an aspiring kamikaze hijacker, while the person being tested would be under less pressure than at their job since the price for being wrong is astronomically higher in an airport than in a laboratory.

Besides these issues, there is the predictable racial element. Whites, 63 percent of the population, are just 20 percent of those are stopped as a result of SPOT techniques. And whoever is being stopped, it’s not resulting in more terrorist arrests. While plots are foiled all the time, it happens before the conspirators reach the airport or when X-rays detect explosives.

While SPOT relies on trying to decipher facial clues, FAST (Future Attribute Screening Technology) aims to pick up on measurable body changes. The goal is to bring Minority Report law enforcement to airports by pegging terrorists before they strike.

The system measures heart rate, perspiration, and facial temperature, while a high resolution camera is employed to detect furtive eye movements, facial expression, and body movements. There’s even an audio recorder that detects pitch change in voices.

The problem is that, like polygraphs, these implements measure physiological changes but are unable to detect hostile intent. Persons can be under stress in an airport because their business proposal flopped, they missed a flight, their sister is dying, they are jetlagged, or any number of other reasons. Such stressors can set off FAST detectors and make the person a suspect. By contrast, a sociopath who truly believes he will be in glory beside Allah in four hours might by completely at peace and exhibit no alarming symptoms.

In the SPOT program’s first four years, behavior-detection officers referred 232,000 people for additional screening, of which 1,710 were arrested. This success rate of .7 percent seems mighty inefficient, but if a thousand Richard Reids and Khalid Sheik Mohammeds are captured, it’s worth it, right? Well, that’s not usually not who’s being apprehended. The overwhelming majority of those arrests were either drug-related or were for outstanding warrants on non-terror charges.

It is good fortune and good law enforcement that snuffs out terrorism. Reid was stopped because rain and/or perspiration soaked his shoe bomb, while Mohammed was captured by Pakistani security officials who used traditional special operations techniques, surveillance, and a SWAT-like raid.

TSA agents have a thankless job. They are viewed as obnoxious, pedantic, and authoritarian, yet if a terrorist slips through, they are crucified for not having those distinctions in greater quantity. Further, they are being asked to do something that they are inadequately equipped to execute. X-rays, metal detectors, and pat downs will reveal implements of destruction and agents are efficient at rooting those out. But SPOT techniques and FAST technology will not reveal intent, which at least partly explains while Reid’s shoes made it on the airplane while George’s flashcards did not.

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“All I got was this lousy T-shirt story” (Windshield urban legend)

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Traditionally, urban legends came from an unknown source and were passed from one credulous listener to the next. Whether it was the $50 Porsche sold by a spurned spouse or a little girl embedded in the grill of a drunk driver who was unaware of his deceased passenger, there was never a name, place, or time associated with the stories, nor were such details requested.  

But today a legend may have a known starting point and might be followed with requests for proof. Conversely, it can be heard by millions of listeners within hours instead of years.

All this came together last week when a teenage Facebook poster wrote about finding a wadded-up shirt wrapped around her wiper and pinned to her car’s windshield. Ashley Hardacre found this out of place fashion piece after finishing work at Genesee Valley Mall in Flint, Mich. She promptly drove away, then warned others.

“There were two cars near me and one was running so I immediately felt uneasy and knew I couldn’t get out to get it off,” she wrote. “I knew better than to remove the shirt with cars around me so I drove over to a place where I was safe and got the shirt off.”

It would be hard to imagine a more mundane occurrence than a nearby running car in a mall parking lot. Yet, combined with the anomalous shirt, stories she had heard, and a heightened sense of either awareness or paranoia, the vehicle became part of a criminal plot with her at the center. 

Hence, the city most known for its wretched water supply was thrust back into the spotlight, with Hardacre’s post being shared nearly 100,000 times. She told CBS News her mother had warned her about criminal ploys to lure women out of their cars. “A lot of people think it is fake or it won’t happen to them,” she said. “But you can never be too safe.”

Never being too safe is a mindset that has resulted in products that protect cell phone users from brain cancer even though cell phone emissions are easily in the safe part of the EMF spectrum. It has also resulted in criminal charges for parents who let their children play in the park.

Several commenters joined Hardacre in her overreaction. A typical response was by John F, who posted, “This is a common practice for criminals who are either looking to carjack someone and unfortunately there are plenty of these type stories in bigger cities and young woman HAVE been abducted, raped and/or murdered using this type of situation.”

More often than not, police contribute to the panic, but in this case, Flint Township detective Brad Wangler downplayed the danger. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” he said. “There have been no other incidences like this. It’s unknown as to what or why or who did this.”

Still, from now on, when Hardacre goes to her car after working until close, she will do so accompanied by mall security or police. There’s nothing wrong with added protection, but a shirt on a windshield is not a sound impetus for this beefed-up security. The overwhelming majority of assaults, rapes, and abductions are managed without enlisting the aid of a flannel fashion piece that is competing with a flyer for windshield space.

Some media sources conflated Hardacre’s story with a report from a verified sex trafficking victim. Snopes wrote that these reports made no effort to differentiate the gang rape victim’s account from the unrelated windshield caper. Some of the more irresponsible even quoted law enforcement officers who described the wrapped shirt as standard part of human trafficking.

Far from being normal procedure for conspiratorial kidnappers, the shirt turned out to be a prank, though clearly a very lame one. Not exactly on par with getting opposing fans to use placards to unknowingly announce, “WE SUCK.” Police interviewed the two men who placed the shirt and the derelict duo said they were shocked some persons found human trafficking overtones in it. Also, surveillance video shows they left an hour before Hardacre found the shirt, meaning they were not in the running car that had increased her panic.

Another difference between urban legends or yore and today is that sometimes, such as in this case, they can come to a neat, tidy close. I just wish the running automobile had been a clown car.

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“Clean up your fact” (Panera Bread)

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My only trip to Panera was four years ago. Think I may have had some kind of salad and pasta dish, but whatever it was, I was, according to the chain’s advertising, consuming “clean food.”

But this term is a marketing gimmick that carries no legal or culinary meaning. CEO Ron Shaich said that his company has completed “removal of all artificial flavors, preservatives, sweeteners, and colors from artificial sources.”

But nothing about this means that the food is any healthier. Natural is not necessarily good and artificial is not synonymous with harmful. Still, the latest Panera commercial self-righteously asks, “When did mixing food with nonfood become acceptable?” But this isn’t what happens with artificial additives are used. Nor is very much food today genuinely natural. It has been cross-bred and refined by farmers and scientists for 10,000 years, giving Panera, Arby’s, and home chefs access to options that are more durable, tasty, and nutritious.

Panera’s fabricated definition of clean food is “Food as it should be, with no artificial flavors, preservatives, sweetening, or colors.” The commercial making this pronouncement features a syringe-like object being injected into a tomato, a deliberate misrepresentation of how additives are employed in food production. The actual process involves identifying and removing genes with desirable traits, then placing them in a petri dish where they are incorporated into a plant genome. It is not the dangerous experiment with your oatmeal and organs that Panera is insinuating.

Besides fallaciously appealing to nature, the company website also pays homage to antiquity:  “Chances are good that your grandparents or great-grandparents never talked about eating clean. Instead, they just did eat clean, because clean food—food that’s simple, natural, unprocessed, and whole—was, well, all food.”

In truth, very little if any of the food that was eaten in these gastrological glory days was natural or unprocessed. The food eaten then had been taken out of its natural state millenniums before and was continuing to be improved. And short of acquiring it from a garden or local farmer’s market, your grandparents’ food likely underwent some type of processing. Drying, cooling, freezing, boiling, salting, smoking, pickling, fermenting, Pasteurizing, canning, jellying, and sugaring are all means of unnatural food preservation or processing that have been around for centuries. As to the “whole food” claim, I’m not sure what Panera is talking about, and I doubt it does either.  

The company also plays on chemophobia. Here’s what executive John Taylor had to say: “If I go to my pantry to grab ingredients to make salad dressing, I don’t want to reach for potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate.” And one of its commercials shows a laboratory where colorful liquids are added to test tubes, resulting in a strawberry – another deliberate misrepresentation of how preservatives, sweeteners, and colorings are added.

The preservatives inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi, and are used to prevent oxidation.  They reduce the risk of foodborne infections, decrease microbial spoilage, and preserve a food’s freshness and nutritional value. That sodium nitrite and potassium hydrogen sulfite that are in your chili mac are there for a good reason.  

The whole spectacle leaves the normally mild-mannered Kevin Folta fuming. The University of Florida horticulturist considers the Panera campaign a character assassination of the farmers and agricultural scientists whose mission is to give the world a safe, reliable food supply.

“At a time when all of our affluent-world food is produced with tremendous care and regulation, and 21,000 people will die today from lack of nutrition, it is disgusting to see safe food demonized. Every calorie represents tremendous time, labor, fuel, water, fertilizer, and crop protection that is safe, affordable, and abundant.”

By highlighting its so-called “clean” food, Panera implies that other food is unclean, dirty, unhealthy, and inferior. But Folta writes that there is no inherent danger in artificial additives, and in fact, they are used precisely because they make a food tastier, more nutritious, more aromatic, more colorful, and resistant to drought and pests. Also, Folta said the chemical makeup of an artificial additive and its natural counterpart can be the same: “Many additives are identical to natural flavor compounds, they are just produced in more efficient ways.” 

As to the horrors that Panera wishes to shield us from, Folta writes that, “Preservatives are trace compounds that retard spoilage, maintain product quality, and retain color and texture. They slow the degradation that begins immediately after fruits and vegetables are picked. Meats and dairy products begin a similar path and all become hosts to bacteria and fungi that participate in the breakdown process and may pose threats to human health. The addition of safe, reliable preservatives means food is of higher quality.”

The focus, then, should be on the right kind of food, not whether it contains artificial additives. A diet high in fruits, vegetables, and legumes, is preferable to one favoring preservative-free pizza, French fries, and ice cream.

Panera will gladly serve their customers spinach that contains formaldehyde, an ingredient in embalming fluid. And this is perfectly fine. But it highlights something Panera would prefer you not know: That the same chemical can be used safely and efficiently in multiple products.

So when they warn about azodicarbonamide in another chain’s food, they are engaged in fact-resistant fearmongering. They rely on the multisyllabic nature of the additive to instill worry even though the chemical is merely a dough conditioner that improves bread’s texture and elasticity. In short, it safely makes for a better loaf.  

Panera also gloats of not serving food without potassium sorbate, which it says, “can also be used in personal care products. Instead, we use clean ingredients like rosemary extract and cultured sugar to maintain freshness.”

Statements like this rely on most diners being unaware that potassium sorbate occurs naturally in edible plants. Moreover, it prevents the growth of microorganisms that can make the product go bad and cause the consumer to painfully regurgitate clean food.

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“Get Into the Grove” (Bohemian Club)

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While many conspiracy theories and pseudoscience concepts are about notions not proven to exist, such as the Illuminati, Nibiru, or chupacabra, others are verified but misrepresented. These include Rothschilds, Bilderbergers, and today’s topic, the Bohemian Grove. This locale is where members of the Bohemian Club meet. The Club is a men-only group of extreme status and includes leaders in politics, banking, arts, science, and business. The Club was formed during the Gold Rush and was meant to bring together the top artists and scientists.

Today, Grove members meet yearly for three weeks near San Francisco to take a break from their extreme high-pressure jobs. Their motto, “Weaving spiders come not here,” refers to the stipulation that no work business can be discussed at the Grove.

Some detractors insist Grove members use the meeting to try and control interest rates, drive technology stocks up or down, and impact who might be the next presidential candidates. When titans of various industries meet, they may discuss such matters, but this would be no reason to criticize the Grove, any more than it would be to lambaste Augusta National, New York’s finest eatery, or a Leer jet speeding to the Azores if these topics were broached in these locations.

Certainly, these matters are discussed by the powerful in some places, and that could include the Grove. But for the stuff that might get Kyrie Irving excited, we need to move onto the rumors about Sleestak overlords, sex slave dungeons, and mock human sacrifices to Moloch.

For such tales, we are mostly limited to supposed insider reports that are impossible to either corroborate or dispute. This applies whether it’s relatively mundane Wall Street strategizing, the more bizarre worship of a Canaanite demigod in the contemporary Bay Area, or a highly implausible race of master lizards.

Among the few outsiders who have been allowed in were staff members from the relatively short-lived dry humor satirical magazine Spy. They were able to grab some photos of cloaked figures burning a coffin on an altar in the shadow of a large cement owl. It was explained that this was called the Cremation of Care Ceremony, and it symbolized that these giant men’s worries can be buried for a few weeks. As to the owl, it represents knowledge.

Spy writer Philip Wiess concluded the shindig was like any other male bonding ritual, just with a much more powerful clientele than what one finds at fishing holes, sports bars, or hardware stores.

As to how Moloch plays into this, he doesn’t. Canaanites, according to the Bible, sacrificed their children to this demigod, who was portrayed as possessing a human’s body and bull’s head. Brian Dunning at Skeptoid reported, “As far as I can tell, any connection between the demigod Moloch and the Bohemians is simply made up by people who are so desperately trying to find something to dislike about them.”

However, another standard claim about the Grove is true, with a substantial caveat. It is technically accurate that the Manhattan Project was planned there. Dr. Edward Teller was a club member and he reserved the Grove to hold a key planning meeting about the Project. No other members were present and it was not a Bohemian Club undertaking. Detractors don’t mention these parts and leave the unspoken implication that the Club controls weapons of mass destruction and can wipe out millions if the genocidal whim hits.

Such believers include Alex Jones, who is convinced the Grove is where many malevolent matters manifest. However, he usually lacks specifics and he always lacks proof.

More specificity is offered on Jesus_is_savior.com. This website is mostly a series of disjointed Bible verses, most of them without an accompanying explanation as to their relevance to Bohemian Grove. It also features an extreme close up of the one dollar bill and proposes that a part of the upper right corner reveals an owl. To me, it looks more like a random design that apophenia and strong desire to believe can turn into an owl. It more resembles an eagle or hawk if determined to get an ornithological connection out of it, but it doesn’t really appear to be anything. Even if it was an owl put there at the behest of the Bohemian Club, there is no explanation about why this would matter.

Meanwhile, Cathy O’Brian wrote a first-hand account about allegedly being captive at the Grove. Despite being held as a sex slave in an underground dungeon by the world’s most evil and powerful men, she never messes with the details of her miraculous escape. She did, however, relate that the Bohemian Club agenda was solely to implement the New World Order by means of mind control.

This combination of unlimited power, no conscience, and many decades of existence render the portrait O’Brian makes of Grove members a highly impractical one.

Rush Limbaugh related that when he was starting out in the late 1980s, members of the John Birch Society approached him about membership. He was flattered by the attention and the initial overtures were full of the usual conservative talking points, so it seemed to be a good match. But then Society members began talking of secret cabals and ruthless and powerful men out to inflict assorted misdeeds and evils on the world. The claims became more bizarre, and Limbaugh questioned why, if these shadowy men were so powerful and evil, why were some of them dying without their goals being met or even attempted? He got no good answer and the final straw was when John Birchers told him William Buckley was a communist.

Bilderbergers, Illuminati, and Rothschilds are all said to have the means and ability to carry out their nefarious plots, yet nothing happens, even after centuries of opportunity.

Similarly, Bohemian Grove members are said to have evil that is matched only by their wealth and power. Yet, after 170 years of existence, this unlimited power and ruthlessness has yet to produce a New World Order, a one-world government, or the enslavement of large swaths of the populace for Grove members’ labor and amusement.

That’s what allows us to be dismissive of claims the like of Henry Mankow. Unbothered by procuring any evidence, Mankow asserts that Grove members engage in Satanic rituals that may even include human sacrifice. His threshold for proof is so low that he quotes from the Learned Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For a more modern source, he quotes an anonymous Las Vegas woman who proposes that some Club members belong to an alien reptilian species that occupy humans a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She describes these literal leaping lizards as “a fourth-dimension race that have three hearts, shift shapes, and develop human feelings from devouring human flesh and blood.”

While respecting his source, Mankow thinks Grove members are Satanists rather than reptilians. What kind of false dilemma nonsense is that? Maybe they’re both.

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“Mental hygienist” (Natural hygiene)

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Natural hygiene is a philosophy of eliminating doctors, medicine, shots, and anything one has learned about anatomy.

Adherents insists that the body has the ability to heal itself. To some degree, this is true. Our immune system fights off germs and flushes toxins from the body. When one has a fever, it’s not caused by a infection, but is actually the body trying to fry the viral invader. And our natural defenses also fend off more serious diseases that could leave us gravely ill for weeks or kill us. Paul Knoepfler, who identifies himself as the world’s only stem-cell researching podcaster, writes that most of us get cancer all the time, but the cells normally destroy themselves when this happens.

While anyone can appreciate our bodies having such abilities, believers in natural hygiene extrapolate these into superhero powers and think that nearly any disease or injury can be cured with just the right diet and the body’s recuperative attributes. Fortunately for their sake, these people are hypocritical when it comes the sudden onset of life-threatening conditions and they respond to heart attacks by trusting those in an emergency room, not a chat room.

Other than that, natural hygiene advocates feel that the only way the body can be healed is with nutrition and for it to be left to its own devices. The first tenet is that eating “incompatible” foods together will cause illness, and that this must be countered by eating foods that belong together. This has no support from any science or study.

As to the body having hidden E.T.-like abilities to heal, Brian Dunning at Skeptoid used this example: “If you have an infected wound, natural hygiene suggests that a shot of penicillin will actually make things worse. When a practitioner of natural hygiene cuts his finger and sees it heal, he attributes this to his natural hygiene lifestyle. Really this is just the body’s normal process. If he’d put on some Neosporin and a Band-Aid, it probably would have healed quicker and with less risk of infection.”

A cut finger is one thing, cancer is quite another. Yet natural hygienists treat this much more serious issue the same as the scraped digit. Patients incorporating natural hygiene employ nothing more than fasting and the occasional “acceptable” food. The body will then magically do the rest.

I am unaware of anyone ever conquering cancer with this tactic, but there are rare occasions when persons experience spontaneous cures from the disease and which doctors cannot explain. These instances are then touted as proof of natural hygiene’s efficiency. But cancer predates cancer treatments, so if doing nothing worked, cancer would never have become a big deal.

A brochure from the American Natural Hygiene Society calls fasting “the most favorable condition under which an ailing body can purify and repair itself. During a fast the body’s recuperative forces are marshaled and all its energies are directed toward the recharging of the nervous system, the elimination of toxic accumulations, and the repair and rejuvenation of tissue.”

Results show otherwise. Six persons in five years died while undergoing fasting treatment at Shelton’s Health School, an institution dedicated to natural hygiene. For such reasons, it would be unethical to conduct a study in which some of the patients were not treated with genuine medicine. So to gauge the effectiveness of natural hygiene, let’s look at history instead.

Anti-doctor types are anachronisms who should have lived in the 19th Century when the country could have used such a movement. Treatments at the time included trepanation, bleeding, forced vomiting, and leeches. If the sickness didn’t get you, the cure just might.

Prior to Germ Theory and vaccine science, illness was thought to be caused by disturbances to either the blood, phlegm, or bile, and the idea was to restore those humors to balance.

But with vaccines, improved sanitation, and Germ Theory, the average life span has doubled in 100 years. In the same time, the infant mortality rate has gone down more than 90 percent and instances of women dying in childbirth has gone down 99 percent. These days, if you can make it to preschool, there’s a good chance you’ll see your great-grandchildren.

Besides history and statistics, we can also look at those who unwittingly practice natural hygiene. Natives in the Nicobar and Andaman Islands and similar locales have no access to modern medicine, no physicians, no surgeons, no hospitals, are never immunized, and have a health care plan that is limited to whatever shrubs their witch doctor unearths.

Their life expectancy is 34 years, less than half what those in advanced civilizations enjoy. Tribe members who make it past early childhood will live to be about 60. But with no modern birthing practices, inoculations, or well-baby checkups, the first six years are the most vulnerable.

By contrast, modern Western practitioners of natural hygiene only start the habit as healthy adults. They likely have been vaccinated and received other medical care that freed them from various ailments and conditions.

They sometimes use statistical trickery to try and prove their lifestyle is working. The average lifespan in the U.S. is 77. However, this includes those who die as newborns or grade schoolers. Someone who is 50 and keeps themselves in decent shape will likely live past 77. If that person also happens to be a natural hygiene practitioner, they might gleefully note on their 78th birthday that their lifestyle choice has worked. In truth, it is only evidence that an unnatural hygiene regimen of vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical advances greatly increased their chance of making it through childhood.