Miscellanea Agnostica

One of the pitfalls inherent in setting public policy according to metaphysical beliefs, is that not only can you screw things up unintentionally, you can thereafter be unable to correct that screw-up, because doing so would run afoul of the metaphysics itself. A great example of this that was recently exposed, was reported recently by CNN:

s many as one in eight teens in the United States may take a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they’re married before having sex. But do such pledges work? Are pledge takers more likely than other teens to delay sexual activity?

According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, pledge takers are as likely to have sex before marriage as other teens who are also religious, but don’t take the pledge. However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.

While it’s great to teach that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy — because, in fact, it is! — robbing kids of any knowledge of contraception hamstrings them in the event they choose to violate that principle … and that appears to be as likely among pledge-takers as among others. You end up, ironically, with more unintended pregnancies than you would have otherwise!

The problem is that the hyperreligious fundamentalist Christian beliefs that are the foundation of “abstinence-only” sex education, prevents this failing from being corrected. It is taken as axiomatic that teaching contraception is never acceptable … and this remains the case even if not teaching it turns out to be counter-productive!

I can think of few clearer examples of religionazi lunacy, than this.

Following my earlier blog entry today on the same topic …

The power of vitamins to accomplish miracles is widely touted in the US. While it is true that they are essential nutrients, a deficiency of which can lead to a wide variety of health problems, including diseases like scurvy and rickets, the fact is that vitamins are not miracle workers. The more they are studied, the less it appears they can do; for example, there’s this report from U.S. News & World Report:

Selenium, vitamin E and vitamin C won’t prevent men from getting prostate cancer.

In findings that were released early because of the public health implications, the results of two large randomized, controlled clinical trials showed the supplements failed to provide a cancer-prevention benefit, despite past findings that seemed to indicate great promise — particularly for selenium. Both studies were expected to be published in the Jan. 7 print issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Our results showed no evidence of benefit from selenium and vitamin E on prostate cancer and other cancers,” said the lead author of one of the studies, Dr. Scott Lippman, a professor of medicine in the division of cancer medicine at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.

This is not the only lesson conveyed in this USN&WR story; it goes on to point out:

These studies are just the latest in a long list of recent research that’s been discounting the use of individual vitamins and supplements for chemoprevention. Other recent studies have suggested that vitamins, B, C, D, E, folic acid and calcium taken alone, or in various combinations, aren’t effective for cancer prevention.

I have no doubt that essential nutrients such as vitamins enhance health and may even fend off disease. The problem here is “‘magic bullet’ thinking,” or the tendency to view one in particular as being the single best way to fend off or cure an illness. Somehow I doubt human biochemistry is as simple as that. It’s more likely that there is a complex interplay among nutrients which is more effective, but one that’s too complex to be able to isolate down to a single most-efficacious substance. Nonetheless, many people believe it is this simple, and I doubt the series of studies this article refers to will change people’s minds about that.

The mass media once again dutifully follow and relay, as if it were true, the “alternative medicine” narrative, trumpeting how often people resort to alternative or “complementary” remedies (I guess this was a slow news day, huh?):

Many Americans turning to unconventional medicine

About four in 10 U.S. adults and one in nine children are turning to unconventional medical approaches for chronic pain and other health problems, health officials said on Wednesday. …

About 38 percent of adults used some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, compared to 36 percent in 2002, the last time the government tracked at the matter.

For the first time, the survey looked at use of such medicine by children under age 18, finding that about 12 percent used it, officials said. The reasons included back pain, colds, anxiety, stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the survey.

Folks, this is not proof that alternative or complementary medicine works. Just because people do something, or believe something is true, does not grant it veracity. To believe this is known in Latin as argumentum ad populum, and in English by various names, such as appeal to popularity, bandwagon fallacy, argument by consensus, or authority of the many. Whatever name you give it, it’s wrong. Once upon a time most of humanity believed the earth was the center of a cosmos only a few thousand miles in diameter, with the sun, moon, etc. revolving around it. All of those people turned out to have been wrong.

In a similar way, that lots of Americans resort to questionable remedies, does not mean they actually work. It just means that lots of people think they work. Big difference.

The Reuters story continues:

Overall, the most common category of complementary and alternative medicine used was natural products such as herbal medicines and certain other types of dietary supplements other than vitamins and minerals.

The problem with this is that, it turns out a lot of these herbal remedies don’t work! The more studies are done on them, the more we find out out how useless they are. Here are some stories showing how this is the case:

Echinacea unproven to have value as cold treatment

Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Reduce Dementia Risk, Study Shows

Saw Palmetto No Better Than Placebo For Enlarged Prostate

… and many more, all available by Googling “<herb name> effectiveness”

In fact, I will have more to say about the effectiveness of dietary supplements in my next blog entry …

Religiosity has cost another life, this time that of an infant, as Fox News reports:

A young East Texas couple was arraigned Wednesday on capital murder charges accusing them of beating the woman’s 1-year-old daughter to get rid of “the demons.”

Authorities said that the child was also bitten more than 20 times.

Blaine Milam, 19, and Jessica Carson, 18, remained jailed Wednesday in lieu of a $2 million bond for each.

They were arrested Tuesday after Rusk County Sheriff’s deputies responding to a 911 call found 13-month-old Amora Bain Carson beaten. Investigators think the couple used a hammer to “beat the demons out” of Amora, Carson’s daughter.

It’s unfortunate this happened in Texas, because as I blogged back in June, that state has a “religious exemption” notion in its laws that permit people to harm others, so long as it’s done during a religious ceremony. The court in this case asked for a very high bond, however, this does not mean this case will not somehow “go away” once the hubbub dies down and the Texas authorities can cook up some excuse about how “religious freedom” must be preserved at all costs — even that of a baby’s life! — and after all, the haven’t the parents suffered enough already?

Let’s hear it for Texas, the Buckle of the Bobble Bayelt.

The new Visitors’ Center in the US Capitol just opened. Normally such occasions are when Congressmen congratulate each other over the completion of yet another massive boondoggle project and make long speeches about how great they are the country is. But Jim DeMint, Theocrat GOP Senator from Bibleland South Carolina, chose this grand occasion instead to whine and pout like a brat:

Delete Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) from the list of admirers of the new Capitol Visitor Center.

DeMint issued a statement Tuesday criticizing the new facility for “omitting the history of faith.” DeMint noted that the new tourist spot ignored his request to include the phrase “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Waah waah waah. Grow the hell up, Senator, and stop using your office to proselytize. Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s undignified for a US Senator to whine?

What DeMint and other theocrats do not understand — or else they understand, but choose to deny — is that the oft-said crap about the United States being “a Christian nation” is simply not true. And no amount of motto-izing or bellyaching over the Pledge of Allegiance can change that. The historical record is clear; continued denial by the forces of the Religious Right only make them look more juvenile than they already do.

Enough already.

The widely-exalted Dalai Lama, considered one of the wisest people in the world, has come up with a solution to human ills. It’s a solution one might expect of him — given his personal history and vocation — but I’m not sure how realistic this advice is. If everyone followed the Dalai Lama’s advice, humanity would be doomed — not saved — because that advice is not to have sex:

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and “more freedom.”

“Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication,” the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator.

He said conjugal life caused “too much ups and downs.

“Naturally as a human being … some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make comprehension that those couples always full of trouble. And in some cases there is suicide, murder cases,” the Dalai Lama said.

He said the “consolation” in celibacy is that although “we miss something, but at the same time, compare whole life, it’s better, more independence, more freedom.”

Celibacy as a spiritual ideal is widely observed, and in more places than just in Tibetan Buddhism … many Greco-Roman mystics, such as the Pythagoreans, had ascetic and celibate lifestyles. Christianity itself adopted something of a celibacy ethic early in its history, as found in the New Testament:

For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it. (Matthew 19:12)

Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. (1 Corinthians 1:7)

However, becoming a eunuch or remaining celibate was never an expectation of all Christians, as Paul acknowledges later, himself:

But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:7-8)

So celibacy — while still viewed as a kind of ideal spiritual state — has never been a requirement, even in otherwise-furiously doctrinaire Christianity.

Yet the Dalai Lama never acknowledges this, and happily declares it to be a universal goal.

As I said, this is not unexpected, since the Dalai Lama was raised a monk from the age of 2 and knows no other life. For him, sex perhaps truly is optional. Aside from his travels and public-speaking, he was raised in, and remains in, isolation. Which only exemplifies how “out-of-touch” with reality he is — through no fault of his own.

As an aside, the manner in which he was selected for his exalted spiritual (and political) office is a curious and somewhat hilarious tale. After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama (Thubten Gyatso) in 1933, monks followed various omens throughout the land, in search of his successor. (The Dalai Lama at any given moment is believed to be the reincarnation of the first Dalai Lama, Gendun Drup, who was the reincarnation of Chenresig, a bodhisattva or an “enlightened” soul who could ascend to Nirvana but chooses, out of compassion for others, to reincarnate and guide the unascended masses). These monks found a house in a village which matched one that a monk had seen in a vision; inside was a two-year-old Lhamo Thondup, who — upon seeing some of the most recent Dalai Lama’s things that the monks had brought with them — exclaimed “That’s mine!”

The rest, as they say, is history.

When I first heard this story, I found it difficult not to laugh. This is no way to select a nation’s sovereign (which the Dalai Lama was, prior to the PRC’s invasion and annexation of Tibet in the 1950s)! It reminds me far too much of this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Can you imagine a similar dialog being played out in Tibet? Instead of, “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government,” you’d have, “Little kids claiming ownership of trinkets is no basis for choosing the Fount of All Buddhist Wisdom!”) If by chance you’ve never seen it before, this movie scene is available on YouTube.

At any rate, if everyone followed the Dalai Lama’s advice, I suppose contention among human beings would end … because within a generation there would be no more human beings to contend with one another! It’s not a solution to a problem, any more than amputating a limb is the way to heal one if it breaks.

A little over a month ago I blogged about the UK Royal Society’s director of education, Michael Reiss, demanding creationism teaching in science classrooms. I wondered, then, what might have been going through the guy’s head. It turns out that in addition to his scientific degrees, Reiss is an Anglican priest — so my question was answered!

He resigned within a few days, claiming that he was misunderstood, and that he was talking about how to address creationism if a student brought it up in class. While he did discuss such a scenario in his remarks, and he later claimed to believe that creationism is not appropriate in a science classroom, his initial remarks included the following sentence:

I feel that creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view.

Reiss’s problem, of course, is that — scientifically speaking — creationism is most assuredly a “misconception.” Whether or not it’s a worldview, is irrelevant, in light of that.

Reiss’s remarks and his subsequent resignation are controversial in Britain’s science world. There are some who think his position reasonable and that he should not have been fired for it. He also has vehement critics. A sampling of the matter:

A defender of Professor Reiss’ position on the BBC radio I heard argued that the creation myth was a metaphor, not to be taken literally. Hence scientists should not be so touchy. A critic could argue, however that if that were the case then that is exactly why the teacher should indeed to refer the pupil to poetry, drama or religious studies where parables as metaphor are appropriate. The problem is that as soon as you bring it into a science lesson you risk confusing science and parable. This is not helped by creationists who insist that the creation myth is not a parable but true and should at the very least be taught as a valid theory alongside evolution. This then makes a mockery of science.

That, of course, is the real problem here. If we were talking about a kid who — say — denies the reality of gravity, that’s easily addressed in science class, by explaining the workings of gravity and devising an experiment to show that it works.

But if a kid says, “Mah preacherman dun tol’ me we ain’t no apes, ’cause the Bobble dun says so,” there is really no way for a science teacher to address and debunk this … because nothing the teacher says or does can do so! The kid’s preacherman has pre-empted any possible scientific response, by convincing the child to take the literal word of the Bible over anything and everything else — including valid, time-tested science. It is, in short, a game that the science teacher cannot win.

What’s more, the science teacher’s failure would only become further “evidence” of creationism’s truth, in the eyes of the child. (There are, in fact, already apocryphal stories of believers demolishing atheist teachers, which are — in spite of their known apocryphal nature — used among other believers as “evidence” of the intellectual bankruptcy of atheism. So don’t think this cannot happen.)

Yes, creationism teaching is an insidious force in the lives of the world’s youngsters. Its goal is not only to indoctrinate them in certain metaphysical beliefs, but also to cheat them of the possibility of ever learning the truth. In short … it’s evil.

It sounds unbelievable, but the latest advocate for teaching creationism in public-school science classrooms is Michael Reiss, who is director of education for one of the western world’s great bulwarks of science, the Royal Society. He wrote in the (UK) Guardian:

Teachers need to accommodate the differing world views of students from Jewish, Christian or Muslim backgrounds — which means openly discussing creationism and intelligent design as alternatives to evolutionary theory

Reiss’s justification for this is, in a word, bizarre:

Evolution and cosmology are understood by many to be a religious issue because they can be seen to contradict the accounts of origins of life and the universe described in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Scriptures. The issue seems like an ongoing dispute that has science and religion battling to support the credibility of their explanations.

I feel that creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view.

Reiss is saying that because the religionazis of the world have defined evolution and cosmology as being their purview — merely by virtue of their holding metaphysical beliefs about them — that we are required to capitulate to this claim and allow their metaphysics to creep into science in return.

This is simply wrong, however. I’m well aware that believers truly consider themselves somehow “credentialed” as authorities on these subjects for the sole reason that they believe themselves to have such credentials … but they are not, in fact, so credentialed. It is therefore not in any way appropriate to act as though they have such credentials. Only scientists possessing the credentials to do so — and educators trained in science — are capable of deciding what is or isn’t science. Shoving creationism into public-school classrooms simply indulges believers’ mistaken, arrogant claim of possessing scientific credentials, and does nothing to correct the problem.

The answer to clearing up the minds of the young is not to allow the “forces of darkness,” to reimpose medieval thinking on humanity. No, the answer is, instead, to tell believers that their “faith” is not sufficient to allow them to determine what is or isn’t science — and if they don’t like it, well, too bad, no one said they had to like it.

Lastly, I agree with Reiss that creationism is a worldview … but that is precisely why it cannot be mixed with science. There are lots of worldviews, not all of them deserve a hearing in science classrooms. That the earth is flat, not spherical, is a worldview that a few, even today, hold to — but it should not be taught as science. I do not expect Reiss would propose the flat-earth notion to be taught in science classrooms … so why he would want creationism there, I have no idea.

It’s fashionable these days to knock conventional medicine (also known by the adjectives “western,” “occidental,” or “allopathic” — I think a better description is “evidence-based”). People love to spout tired canards like “it doesn’t treat the whole person,” as if that makes any sense … ever seen a conventional doctor cure a broken leg by amputating it, knitting the bone together, then reattaching it? “Alternative” medicine is supposed to be “better” because it’s “ancient,” as if age were a credential. It’s not … infections were deadly, even if treated with poultices, blood-letting, or other “ancient” remedies, for millennia until conventional medicine discovered antibiotics. And people love to whine about how toxic pharmaceuticals are, how the side-effects are so horrible, etc.

Well, I’ve got news for some of you. A lot of those “natural” medicines are just as dangerous, if not moreso! In particular, ayurvedic remedies have been found to be toxic:

Ayurvedic medicines — herbal mixtures dating back thousands of years in India and increasingly popular in the West — are frequently contaminated with lead, mercury or arsenic, according to a study published today.

A fifth of the nearly 200 concoctions tested contained levels of the toxic metals that, if taken at the maximum recommended doses, would surpass California’s safety guidelines.

Dr. Robert Saper, a Boston University professor of family medicine who led the study, said the findings should spur the Food and Drug Administration to start clamping down on the largely unregulated world of pills, herbs and powders classified as dietary supplements.

“It shouldn’t be me trying to figure this out,” Saper said.

Ayurveda is a traditional Indian practice that takes a holistic approach to wellness, employing herbal medicine, meditation and exercise to promote good health. It exists alongside modern medicine in India, with its own network of clinics, hospitals and colleges serving hundreds of millions of patients.

It has spread to the U.S. and Europe with the migration of South Asians around the world and been popularized by figures such as bestselling author Deepak Chopra.

Pardon me if I pass on these wonderfully natural, “holistic” medicines. And remember … poison ivy is “all natural” too, but I doubt you’d want to rub it on a wound.

One of the examples of “the media being the message” is the annual release of the Farmers’ Almanac predictions of the coming winter. The mass media treat this as a story worthy of being reported. This is in spite of the fact that the Almanac’s predictions are — in the words of magician-comedians Penn & Teller — bullshit. Yet like so many other outlets, the Hartford Courant dutifully and helpfully informs us:

People worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers’ Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S.

“Numb’s the word,” says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance.

The almanac’s 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder-than-average temperatures this winter, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.

Unfortunately the people who publish the Almanac either cannot or will not divulge their prediction method. But fortunately, we can test their predictions’ accuracy … and they fail. Meteorologists have taken on the Farmers’ Almanac (and the similarly-named and similarly-themed Old Farmer’s Almanac, which is in the same business of spewing baseless weather predictions) and have found them to be — well — unimpressive might be the kindest assessment.

Some of their predictions are too vague to be testable … others have been shown to be downright wrong. The bottom line is that the Almanac’s claim of 80 to 85 percent accuracy is exactly and only that — a claim. They can claim to be able to flap their arms and fly to the moon, too, but that wouldn’t be any more correct.

Oh, and that the Almanac has been in print for so many years, also does not give it veracity. Lots of things are old but that doesn’t make them right.

The Courant article obligingly consults an NOAA meteorologist on the matter, who also obligingly

wouldn’t comment specifically on the almanac’s ability to forecast the weather two years from now, but said it’s generally impossible to come up with accurate forecasts more than a week in advance.

It would have been nice if the NOAA scientist had been a little more forceful and stated the truth more clearly and succinctly: “The Almanac is bullshit!” But I guess someone in government can’t afford to be undiplomatic. The Courant wraps up its advertisement for story on the Almanac by giving it a fashionable “green” endorsement:

If there’s a theme to this year’s almanac, it’s environmental awareness, frugality and living a sustainable life. There are articles on water conservation, gas-sipping motor scooters, natural cures and preventions for colds and other illnesses, and on growing food without a yard.

Sorry but I don’t buy bullshit, even if it meets the politically-correct standard of being “green.”