Bach Flower Remedies

Recently we adopted my neighbor's Blue Heeler. We named her Tyche (tie-kee) after the Greek goddess of luck and prosperity since she's now the luckiest dog alive. The neighbors just called her Baby Girl, they never really named her.

To make a long story short, she was left outside 24/7/365 in the rain/heat/freezing cold, to be neglected and lonely. She's the sweetest dog, so loving and smart. The neighbors had her for a year outside, so she's 2 now and has never been housetrained. She's had to fight for every scrap of food. So she's a bit of a handful.

For the past couple of months, she had been escaping her chain and visiting in the mornings. I would go outside and play with her with my other two dogs. They all got along very well. I have  a chocolate lab mix (Koku) and a Siberian Husky (Stazi). Stazi is a very dominant alpha dog. When Tyche came over, she was submissive and my dogs played very well with her.

So here's what's so interesting. When the boy said I could finally have Tyche, he just let her loose. I had no leash so I coaxed her to our yard. And instantly she was ferocious, and so was Stazi! How did they know that she was suddenly part of the family?

Now, she's not fixed (we're going to have that taken care of in a couple of weeks), so that might be part of the problem. But it's been very stressful. We're working on potty training. But Tyche's aggressiveness with Stazi is a real issue. Stazi didn't really fight back at first, and ended up with a big scratch on her ear. The last time Tyche got in Stazi's face, Stazi fought back and it was pretty scary.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I made a comment about Stazi's scratched ear on Facebook and I was told by someone to get Bach Flower Pet Rescue Remedy to fix the problem completely. Apparently it had been a "lifesaver" to this person with her 3 cats during a cross-country move.

This got my hackles up because I have a "no woo" policy on Facebook (and in person). But I know the woman meant well so I thanked her for the advice and said I'd rather have a science-based solution to my problem. I did not try to change her mind, I simply said thanks and I might look into it, but that I wasn't interested if it wasn't science-based.

She and her boyfriend then gave me a hard time. This is what their argument boiled down to:

•  Herbs were the only medicine until people started making synthetic ones (Appeal to Tradition, I think*)


• Some vets in the American Veterinary Medical Assoc. apparently recommend Rescue Remedy (Appeal to Authority, probably a small minority who never read the actual studies)


• I can complain to a shrink if I won't take BFRs (Bach Flower Remedies) and they can give me something to calm me - science based (as if that's evil or I should be ashamed of a chemical imbalance in my brain!?) 

All Suffering Soon to End!

Recently the Jehovah's Witnesses gave Skeptics with a K's Mike Hall a tract that was titled All Suffering Soon to End. It basically claimed that suffering is increasing because this is an experiment by God to see if we can be better off on our own, or if we were better off under God's rule.

You can listen to episode 51 of their podcast. It basically starts at 26:50. I highly recommend it as they make a lot of excellent points.

Of course, suffering was introduced because Adam and Eve ate the apple which was because God gave us free will. According to the tract, suffering is increasing lately, but is soon to end. This is what it said regarding the past century:

• the worst suffering ever


• millions murdered during the haulocaust


• over 100 million slaughered in wars (Mike adds that most of those were religious)


• crime and violence are rampant


• drug abuse is epidemic


• STDs continue to spread


• tens of millions die each year of hunger and disease


• family life and moral values have broken down everywhere


• no human government has the answers to these problems. not one of them has overcome aging, sickness and death

Of course they have no data to back up these bold assertions.

The tract then says,  "All the evidence shows us that we are nearing the end of man's tragic experiment in independence from God. It has been clearly demonstrated that rulership from humans apart from God can never succeed. Only God's rulership can bring peace, happiness, perfect health and everlasting life."

47:56 - But there was a study published in the Journal of Religion and Society in 2005 titled "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in Prosperous Democracies" by Gregory S. Paul.

Here are some highlights:

• positive correlation between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality is remarkable


• lifespans tend to decrease as religiosity rises


• rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain 3-600 times higher in the US than in less theistic pro-evolution secular developed democracies


• increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief, and negative correlation with increasing nontheism and acceptance of evolution. Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates are therefore contradicted by quantitative data


• in general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in prosperous democracies


• none of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high level of measurable societal dysfunction

Gregory S. Paul stated in the paper that it is "not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health".

He authored  a followup paper in 2009 titled "The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions" in the Evolutionary Psychology Journal. (pdf) which found "high religiosity is not universal to human populations, and it is actually inversely related to a wide range of socio-economic indicators representing the health of modern democracies."

Here is one result from the paper: "The uniquely low cumulative PRVSS score for the U.S. of 0.9 demonstrates that it is the least secular nation among those sampled, with Ireland the next most religious. At the other end of the scale some nations approach and exceed a score of 9. For the purposes of this comparative investigation the U.S. is characterized as religious, the rest of the 1st world nations as secular to varying degrees. Creationist opinion correlates strongly positively with the overall level of religiosity when the U.S. is excluded and even more so when it is included."

Recently I posted on HDC's Facebook page that Pope John Paul's blood was sent to Mexico so that people could venerate it and hopefully end the violent crime that has increased over there. This 2009 report addresses the issue of violent crime, specifically murders. It finds that the US, which as stated above is the most religious 1st world nation, has extremely high murder rates. The lowest murder rate levels are found among the most secular democracies. Mexico wasn't included in the study but is a highly religious nation, I believe one of the most Catholic in the world. And its level of crime and violence is also very high.

Phil Zuckerman wrote Society without God in 2009. Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhart wrote Sacred and Secular in 2004. Both had similar conclusions.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I read awhile ago that what it looks like is that with uncertainty comes superstitious thinking. So if you feel out of control you get more superstitious behavior. This is correlated with higher religiosity, which is why the US is so odd. It is highly religious but prosperous while most other prosperous 1st world countries are more secular. But the US seems to have a high level of uncertainty for people. It doesn't give people a sense of stability. If I can remember where I saw the studies that showed this I will add them here. If you know of them, please do leave a comment with links.

Where do you live in the world? How secular is your nation? How prosperous?

Defining the Nature of God

As you know, I’m an atheist. Actually you could also call me a polyatheist because there are tens of thousands of gods I don’t believe in. But there is one god in particular that most of us allude to when we use the big “A” word. We mean Jehovah, Yahweh, THE LORD, the god of Abraham, Jesus’ dad, the god of the bible.

This god does triple duty for the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. But who is he? How can we define him?

I’ve found that if you ask 10 people about God, you will get 14 different answers. Even believers will contradict themselves when they define the god they worship.

But if we distill it down, what do we get? What is the essence of this supposedly supreme deity?

First let’s look and see what God calls himself in his book. In Exodus you can find the following:

• God is cryptic: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14) – Isn’t that what Popeye used to say?


• The second of the 10 commandments: You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. (Exodus 20:5) – to the fourth generation! How spiteful!


• God’s name is Jealous: Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14) -

God is often defined by his attributes:

• Unchanging – if God is unchanging then you can look at the old testament to get a good picture of his heinous character. It’s not very flattering. He’s barbaric, cruel and murderous.


• Perfect – and yet there is nothing perfect about anything that is attributed to him. Isn’t that telling?


• Omnipotent – If he’s all powerful why doesn’t he just fix some of his millions and trillions of mistakes by humane means? Why does he let such suffering continue? Why won’t he heal innocent children of birth defects, at least? Why won’t he do anything at all to help his creation?


• Omniscient – Even in the bible he doesn’t really know everything. There are several instances where he is surprised by what is going on. And knowing everything but not doing anything about it is not really very good, is it?


• Omnipresent – Again, there’s no evidence of this. If God is here with me now, it certainly isn’t tangible in any meaningful way.


• Loving – this is the one I get the most from Christians. What is the evidence? Certainly not from “the good book”. Just read it in its entirety and count up how many people God murdered, not to mention the innocent animals that he insisted be slaughtered and roasted in his name to purge people so they could be acceptable to this hateful deity. If you look at God today, again, there is no evidence that he is loving. I can’t think of anything. What you do find is people being good to each other. Why not use Occam’s Razor and look at the most logical reason for human altruism. As an evolutionary advantage? As a cultural adaptation? Do we really need to add a supernatural element? I find it dehumanizing to thank God when a human does something heroic. Thank the person, not the invisible sky daddy.


• Jealous – see below. He calls himself jealous. If he were perfect, he really wouldn’t need to be jealous.


• Angry – see below. He is the epitome of angry. If he were perfect he wouldn’t be angry.


• Murderous – So if you count up all the people in the bible that God murders, you get approximately 24,634,205. If you count up all the people in the bible that Satan kills you get 60. 

The Great Prayer Experiment

I was told by a religious friend of mine recently that I had nothing to lose by reaching out to God and praying. If there's no God (which is my position, as you know), then saying a prayer does nothing but take up a minute or two of my time. But if God exists (and of course, she means her Abrahamic god), then I have everything to gain, because her god is a god of Love.

After thinking about it for awhile, I had to agree with her. There really is nothing to lose by praying. As a skeptic, sometimes you have to do research. So I thought I'd do an experiment with God.

Here is how I did it. First, she supplied me with a prayer by a former atheist who, once he said this, found God reaching out to him. So it (anecdotally) worked once already. Unfortunately his prayer would have been untrue for me.

Here it is as he said it originally:

Dear God,

I know (because I can prove it with the certainty that a geometer can prove opposite angles are equal) that you do not exist. Nevertheless, as a scholar I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case.

If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you or you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me. The former argues you are not beneficent, the latter not omnipotent - in either case, unworthy of worship. If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter,

John Wright

First, in my view, John is wrong. As we just discussed in the comments of a previous article, there are atheists who feel we can "know" God doesn't exist. I'm not one of them. I come from the standpoint that you can't prove a negative (and the burden of proof lies on the person making the positive claim, so you don't have to)  Anyway, I can't say the first line. And I think he is weak in his request. He sets it up so that God can be any kind of confirmation bias (a pet peeve of mine). So I rewrote it a bit differently.

Some of his second paragraph is pretty good so I used it. Here is the prayer I came up with:

Spectrum of Theistic Probability

Recently on my FB page, I mentioned that I guess I'm an agnostic atheist. I really don't like the term though, but out of that short scale, it's the best fit for me. I was then told about Richard Dawkin's Spectrum of Theistic Probability which I had never heard of, since I haven't read The God Delusion yet.

This scale is really interesting so I thought I'd share it with you in case you live under a rock like I do. Dawkins says that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. Is it? I thought a hypothesis was an idea that could be tested. How can we test for a god? Anyway, here is a spectrum of probabilities between two extremes of certainty which are represented by seven milestones along the way.

Here are the seven milestones.

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."


2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."


3. Agnostic leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."


4. Completely impartial agnostic. Exactly 50 per cent.  "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."


5. Agnostic leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."


6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero.  "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."


7. Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung 'knows' there is one."

I think, like Dawkins, if you are an atheist who values evidence, you would avoid labeling yourself a 7. Dawkins considers himself to be a 6 and I am comfortable with calling myself a De facto atheist as well.

Because, after all, I am an atheist based on lack of evidence of gods. If there were verifiable, repeatable evidence from a god (and I could prove it wasn't hallucinations, delusions, insanity, etc), and everyone saw God, well, it would have to be pretty substantial, but if there were extraordinary evidence that was repeatable and verifiable, then I guess I'd have to change my mind.

Where do you fall on the scale? Why? And what would it take for you to change your mind?

Exploring the Historicity of the Bible and Jesus

I think I met Nicholas Bruzzese on Facebook, but now I can't remember. Not that it matters as much as the fact that I now call him a friend. Awhile ago he and his friends down in Melbourne Australia started a podcast called The Skeptic's Testament. As you know, I have a thing for podcasts because I can do mundane tasks while learning about new things from interesting people.

And Nicholas and his friends are very interesting. They tackle the bible from a scholarly perspective and I always learn something from every episode.

One thing that seems to be a big controversy is the historicity of Jesus. Did he exist? Before I heard the Skeptic's Testament, I had met another biblical scholar who told me that the consensus among the people who study biblical history is that he did. But he never really explained.

I used to believe that Jesus didn't exist. I know a lot of atheists hold to this belief, and while I don't have the tools to prove them wrong, when it comes to issues that I am not an expert in (most things, actually) I look to see what the consensus is, as that's a pretty good starting point. What do most experts say? We all have to do this in different areas of our lives. That's the nature of being interdependent as social creatures. I defer to my husband when it comes to cars and mechanical things, I listen to my doctor (and maybe get a second opinion) because she knows more than me about the human body, etc. We get to stand on the shoulders of giants.

So after listening to all of the episodes of The Skeptic's Testament, I asked Nicholas if he would mind answering some questions about this issue that is so contentious among atheists, yet pretty much agreed upon by scholars. The following are my initial questions and Nicholas' answers. This is part 1 of 2.

Q: Please introduce yourself. What are your credentials in talking about the bible?

Even though I grew up a Christian attending Church with my grandma as a youngster, it wasn’t until my teens that I began to take religion seriously, which began my fundamental literal approach to the Bible. If nothing else all that Bible reading and apologetic research built endurance. I am half way through a formal degree in Divinity, so in other words I haven’t any credentials worth talking about. Some may find it strange, an atheist taking ministry courses which are a part of MDiv, the only two points I will make about this are many of these subjects are interesting in their own right and many would be utterly surprised at just how skeptical such a course can be. It is so rigid in its skepticism, the disconnect we see between pastor and parishioner on biblical fundamentals, such as ‘who are the authors of the four canonical Gospels’ becomes bewilderingly odd. So I hope to bridge the gap among atheists and Christians alike.

Q: In conversations and in listening to your podcast, I've learned that you agree with the critical scholarly consensus that Jesus existed. Can you explain?

Next Month I'm 'Overdosing'

On February 5 at 5:23 pm in Morgantown, WV, I am going to 'overdose', along with a group of my WV Skeptics friends, on homeopathy. I found a supplier who can get me a bottle of 200c! I don't even know what it's supposed to 'treat'. It doesn't matter. I mean, how strong is that?! 200c? Holy moses, I'll be dead in an instant! Or will I? There'll be video so you'll have to stay tuned to see if I live to blog another day.

My group, WV Skeptics, has joined the 10:23 Campaign, a global protest against alternative therapies like homeopathy. We think doctors and pharmacists should sell medical treatments that actually work.

Here is our press release. We sent it out to all the local media. So far I don't think anyone has picked up the story:

Consumers in the United States stage homeopathic 'overdose'

Consumer rights activists across America have today announced their intention to take a mass homeopathic 'overdose' next month, as part of a major global protest against the alternative remedies.

Protestors in Morgantown, WV will swallow huge ‘doses’ of homeopathic pills and preparations at 5:23pm on February 5th 2011, in a bid to raise public awareness of the fact that homeopathic 'remedies' are ineffective - putting pressure on pharmacists and healthcare providers to ensure that products sold as medical treatments actually work.

Timothy Nelms, MD, spokesman for the group, said: “Most people aren't aware that homeopathic pills are not 'herbal' or 'natural' – even homeopaths agree the pills actually contain nothing but sugar and water.

It is fraudulent for anyone to claim there are active ingredients in these preparations. My recommendation is the use of the best current, scientific, evidence-based approach to illness - homeopathy fails to meet this standard.”

The demonstration is being organized by WV Skeptics [1] as part of the 10:23 Campaign [2] - a global protest against the homeopathic remedies originating in the United Kingdom. Similar events will be taking place in dozens of countries around the world, with protests announced in Germany, Hungary, Australia and Canada.

A Disconnect

I noticed something a few minutes ago that I'd like to share with you. Now I know this might seem extremely obvious, but I just got a real glimpse of the cavernous disconnect between how atheists and believers see God and the universe.

As you know, I am a skeptical atheist. I feel that science is the best way for us to understand the universe. It's not perfect but it's the best tool we have. And it's self-correcting, which is quite necessary since humans do science and we make mistakes and have biases, etc. One of the main reasons I am an atheist is that there is no evidence of any gods. In fact, there is zero evidence in all the universe of anything supernatural. It's that simple.

I have noticed in talking to religious people that they come at things from a very different perspective, worlds apart from where atheists are. From what I gather, they see God as Love. They rely heavily on Confirmation Bias so that everything that is good goes in the God column and everything that is bad goes into the Free Will/God works in mysterious ways column. It's very simplistic. And the system reinforces itself all the time. And it's based on emotions and feelings and faith, not on reason. So it feels good.

People who are religious and/or superstitious come from the worldview that there is a supernatural component to the world. Using confirmation bias as well as not understanding that improbable things happen every day all over the world (it's just statistics - not my strong point, so feel free to comment with more information on this), they believe they see evidence of the supernatural in their lives. Somehow they even extrapolate this to include something that there is also no evidence for, an afterlife, the continuation of consciousness after death. (at this point, we can't prove or disprove the afterlife since we can't test for it, but so far there's no good evidence for it) (edit: the burden of proof is on the believers to prove that there is an afterlife, since you can't prove a negative.)

Of course, this is faulty reasoning, but it's understandable how most people would fall into this trap.

Atheists read holy books in their entirety and see the god of these books as hateful, cruel, jealous and very much made in man's image.

Religious people read the parts of their holy books that give them the message they are looking for, then carefully interpret that into what they want it to say. This is classic Cherry-Picking.

When atheists and scientists don't understand something, we try to find a way to figure it out. We investigate, explore, observe, experiment. We understand our perceptions and memories are faulty so we look for answers to our questions through these methods.

When believers don't understand something they cop out and just say, "well then God did it." They aren't curious in this area. This is devastatingly limiting to the advancement of our species, science and our understanding of the world.

These are just a few glaring examples. What other ways do religious people and atheists have wildly opposing worldviews?

Homeopathic 'Overdosers' Announce Global Challenge

Consumer rights activists worldwide are being challenged to participate in a global 'overdose' on homeopathic pills, in order to raise public awareness that the remedies are in fact worthless.

The '10:23 Challenge', scheduled to culminate worldwide in February 2011, is a follow-up to the protest staged by the 10:23 Campaign in the UK, which saw almost 400 demonstrators take to the streets across UK to voice their concern at the sales of the pills in leading pharmacy 'Boots', and the support for such 'remedies' on the NHS.

Michael Marshall of the 10:23 Campaign explained the plans for 2011: "This year has been a great year in the UK for raising awareness of homeopathy – with doctors, pharmacists, politicians and – above all – members of the public speaking out against this discredited 'treatment'.

"However, the case against homeopathy extends far beyond the UK - all around the world, people are being told that homeopathy is a valid form of treatment, and often with tragic consequences. It's a global problem, and it requires global action.

"This is why we're announcing the 10:23 Challenge for 2011 - we want to show global unity by gathering protesters from more than 10 countries, and more than 23 cities. Our aim is to have more than 1023 activists publicly gathering over the weekend of 5th-6th February, to make a statement: Homeopathy - There's Nothing In It.

“Of course, safety is our number one concern – not all homeopathy is prepared as honestly and cleanly as the manufacturers state, and can include real ingredients which could be potentially dangerous. With this in mind we urge anyone wishing to get involved to prepare their own homeopathic remedies, or contact the 10:23 Campaign for more information (contact@1023.org.uk)”.

Resisting Woo

As you know, I've been an atheist for about 10 years or so, and a skeptic for about 2 or 3 years. While I found it easy to give up religion (in fact it was a relief once I realized I wasn't going to literally be struck by lightning for calling myself an atheist), I found it took longer to realize I needed to be skeptical about other things as well.

The hardest thing for me to give up was superstition. Deep down, I was afraid something bad would happen if I didn't knock on wood when I said certain things, or that I would be jinxed if I said something positive at the wrong time. It was crazy! I finally had to just force myself to do a basic experiment. I made myself not do the superstitious action and waited to see if there were negative consequences. Rinse, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Look at the results. Shabam, no ill effects!

I still have the urge to knock on wood though. But I never do anymore. Thank g... Science!

It's funny how ingrained  superstitions are. I recently messed up my neck and back. Instead of going to the doctor I tried everything I could think of to fix it myself. It only got worse. I finally went today and will start physical therapy on Monday along with some mild medications.

Why was it so hard to go, though? Why did I wait 3 weeks, in which I was completely miserable? Ok, so I have an irrational fear of doctors and dentists. That's probably a big part of it. But also because I thought I could do it on my own. When I started thinking about turning to woo, I realized I was really desperate and finally went to the doctor. That's progress, isn't it? Three years ago I definitely would have been popping every supplement I could think of and going to a chiropractor, or even an acupuncturist.

Thanks to all the skeptics in my life, I now know about the lack of scientific evidence of those practices. Now, knowing that acupuncture is equivalent to a placebo isn't good enough for me. I'd rather just go straight for real medicine, based on real scientific evidence.

Tips For A Skeptical Outlook

Here are a few points on how to have a skeptical outlook. These come from The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. They're just snippets from some of their older episodes that I thought were worth sharing.

To avoid the ego blow of admitting you were wrong, adopt this point of view:

"My opinions are dependent upon the existing evidence. I could be wrong. If new evidence comes out I'll happily change my opinion to correspond to it."
~
Later, they sum it up a bit differently:

Practice science and skepticism: Attach yourself to the process, not the conclusion. The process has to be valid, has to be scientific, has to be legitimate. Don't be emotionally invested in the conclusion. As long as the process is valid, it leads wherever it leads.

That means if new information comes up, or if someone shows that a different logic is more appropriate, then you can happily change your conclusion because you have no attachment to it.

It's just that you have to get the process right.

That's science in a nutshell. Science is a process. It's about the process, not about the conclusion.

Pseudoscience begins with the conclusion, then they pervert the process. They warp the process to continue to match their forgone conclusion. It can seem very logical and reasonable. It's still not science.
~

This applies to all areas of thought, from science and pseudoscience to religion, politics and just the world in general. If you're attached to your beliefs and ideas, that's dogma. The secret is to be attached to the truth and let it take you where it leads, and always be open to change your mind if new and compelling evidence comes to light.

In this way, learning new things is a wonderful adventure, it's fun and exciting. When you're close-minded and set on your narrow world view, you then have to lie to yourself and others to make your limiting belief make sense to you. You have to close out the real world to keep the little bubble of dogma around you intact. It's not very much fun. You're constantly threatened by new facts and information that threaten you.

Then again, a lot of us have Sacred Cows. A sacred cow is some area in your life that can't be criticized. It could be a person, an institution, a belief, an area of belief, or a custom.

What are your Sacred Cows? Why have you made them immune to criticism? What would help you to hold them up to the light of reason?

More Groovy Science 6

Big Bear Solar Observatory have the New Solar Telescope (NST) which took the picture you see of our sun. This is the most detailed picture of a sunspot ever taken in visible light. The resolution of the telescope is just 50 miles of the sun's surface. Science and technology are amazingly cool. The NST should help researchers better understand the complexities of solar weather and its impact on the space climate in our neighborhood of the solar system. Found Here.

• Generation X More Loyal to Religion


• Drink Water to Curb Weight Gain? Clinical Trial Confirms Effectiveness of Simple Appetite Control Method


• Capacity for Exercise Can Be Inherited: Finding Suggests Pharmaceutical Drugs  Can Be Used to Alter Activity Levels in Humans


• Do-Gooders Get Voted Off Island First: People Don't Really Like Unselfish Colleagues


• 'Charitable' Behavior Found in Bacteria


• Attention, Couch Potatoes! Walking Boosts Brain Connectivity, Function


• Starvation Keeps Sleep-Deprived Fly Brain Sharp


• Eating Berries May Activate the Brain's Natural Housekeeper for Healthy Aging


• Roots of Gamblers' Fallacies and Other Superstitions: Causes of Seemingly Irrational Human Decision-Making

People Trust Peers, Not Science

This is depressing, but not surprising, I guess. Three psychological studies have come out recently all saying about the same thing. People trust their peers and tend to distrust authority (the government) and scientific information.

I heard about this on The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, episode 254, from May 26th. If you want to listen to Dr. Steven Novella talk about the three studies, start around the 23:30 minute mark. This segment goes to about 35:20, but the whole episode is good, of course.

The attitudes of parents toward the MMR vaccine and autism: The study concluded that parents had a significant bias toward believing information that they heard from other parents. The parents were mostly affected by their peers, and did not seem to be affected at all by what the scientific evidence said, and they seemed to inherently distrust information that came from the government. Not a surprising result.

Raising a general level of scientific literacy would be the best thing we could do to help this mess we're in. My fear is that people are so anti-science and anti-intelligence these days that I don't know how we could go about it, that people aren't interested in learning anything that goes against their narrow world views. Another thing we could do (as recommended by Steven) is to change regulation so that it's rational and evidence-based, not based on public opinion.

What Level Of Woo Would Make Someone Undateable?

Here is a question for you. What level of woo would make someone undateable? What about unfriendable? Do you have a limit that you've drawn in your life or do you have a lot of woo woo people around you that you interact with? How do you get on with them? Do you find it difficult? Do you argue with them or are you silent about your woo disbelief?

Woo can be defined as anything supernatural, irrational or lacking in evidence. So it would include religion and any kind of pseudoscience.

On a side note, is there anything that could be defined as woo that you still believe in? If so, why?

For me, I've somehow whittled down my friend list from all woo-lovers to all skeptical atheists. I didn't do this deliberately, but I guess with my skeptical talk and constant questioning (not aggressively, but I really did question all the woo I previously embraced), my woo-loving friends all went their separate ways and avoided me within months of when my quest for knowledge began.

I didn't have many friends for awhile but then found the Morgantown Atheists where I found several people that have become good friends. Also, having HDC has let me meet new people who were rather like-minded as well.

With extended family, I still have to deal with woo, both religious and supernatural. They know Butch (my awesome husband) and I are die-hard atheists so we have come to an unspoken agreement that we don't talk about religion. Or politics just to be safe and have nice dinners together. :P

I think I'm lucky in most respects. My skeptical atheist friends keep things lively by being smart and reason-based (most of the time, we're not perfect, of course). And my extended family gives me an occasional glimpse into woo-land so I get to see what the majority of people are dealing with and believing. It's enough.

Justice Late Is Better Than None At All

The AP has an article titled Britain bans doctor who linked autism to vaccine.

This is great news! My first question is why it took Britain so long to make such a move. My second concern is that he will just come back over here where he is worshiped by idiots like McCarthy and her ilk. And my third concern is people will still worship him and continue to avoid getting their children properly vaccinated, causing suffering and even death for innocent kids everywhere.

LONDON — The doctor whose research linking autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella influenced millions of parents to refuse the shot for their children was banned Monday from practicing medicine in his native Britain.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study was discredited — but vaccination rates have never fully recovered and he continues to enjoy a vocal following, helped in the U.S. by endorsements from celebrities like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy.

"That is Andrew Wakefield's legacy," said Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "The hospitalizations and deaths of children from measles who could have easily avoided the disease."

Wakefield's discredited theories had a tremendous impact in the U.S., Offit said, adding: "He gave heft to the notion that vaccines in general cause autism."

In Britain, Wakefield's research led to a huge decline in the number of children receiving the MMR vaccine: from 95 percent in 1995 — enough to prevent measles outbreaks — to 50 percent in parts of London in the early 2000s. Rates have begun to recover, though not enough to prevent outbreaks. In 2006, a 13-year-old boy became the first person to die from measles in Britain in 14 years.

"The false suggestion of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine has done untold damage to the UK vaccination program," said Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. "Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that it is safe."

The Secret Is Still Bullshit

The Secret, which is all about the Law of Attraction (not a real law, or even real), is still bullshit. But Elizabeth found a great video from Australia that will make you laugh. It explains how The Secret works. It's about 7 minutes long:



Notice how in the demo clips it's always about some materialistic thing like a bike or a necklace? How shallow and self-serving! Why don't all believers in this stupid lie wish for world peace or clean drinking water for everyone? Or everyone to be disease free? Instead they have to have a new Shiny. Pathetic!

Oh, and see the waves of rays coming out of the peoples' heads? That doesn't happen. That's a special effect. So when you wish for something your thoughts don't actually leave your head. Just in case you were wondering. Don't believe me? Ask a neuroscientist. They have proof your thoughts don't leave your head by magic (they only leave your head when you speak, write something down or perform an action based on those thoughts)

Oh OH! And when you ask for something, then believe it's already yours, there's no invisible man in the sky that says to you, "Your wish is my command." You know that, right? The Universe doesn't have a log of every time you wish for that new Ferrari. It doesn't wait for the wish requests to reach 1,000 before it has it shipped to you. (Don't move your house because it will get delivered to your old address! LOL!)

Other posts about The Secret:

• The Law Of Attraction - And The Secret - Are Bullshit


• The Secret Divides


• The Secret Divides Part 2

Information IS Beautiful!

Stumbling around the interwebs, I found a site that I think you might love. It's called Information is Beautiful. David McCandless takes all kinds of data and ideas and visualizes it in appealing ways.

The one I found that I thought was amazing was Snake Oil?: Scientific evidence for popular health supplements. (That link takes you to the interactive version. See the static version here.) On the side is a show me button that flies out a list of  uses and types of supplements. Choose what you're interested in to filter the results. The bigger the bubble, the more popular the supplement is. The higher on the chart, the more evidence there is that it works. Notice how many bubbles are below the Worth It line. Remember, the supplements are only good for the conditions listed inside the bubble, which you can see by hovering over it.

What David says about the evidence:

We only considered large, human, randomized placebo-controlled trials in our data scrape – wherever possible. No animal trials. No cell studies. Many of the health claims made by the $23 billion supplements industry are based on non-human trials. We wanted to cut through that.

This piece was doggedly researched by myself, and researchers Pearl Doughty-White and Alexia Wdowski. We looked at the abstracts of over 1500 studies on PubMed (run by US National Library Of Medicine) and Cochrane.org (which hosts meta-studies of scientific research). It took us several months to seek out the evidence – or lack of.

The information is generated from a Google Doc, so when new research comes out it can be easily updated. Very cool indeed. The data has web addresses to the source of the research so you can see it for yourself. It's not just anecdotal evidence.

David also has a chart on caffeine and calories. He even shows how much exercise it will take to work off that large iced mocha you had for breakfast.

He does two interesting charts about politics. The Left vs the Right. A world version and an American version. These are chock full of information.

His 2012 chart is also great. The left describes the believers, the right describes the skeptics, with information refuting what the believers say. Sources are listed at the bottom, and are available in a Google Doc.

His climate change chart shows global warming deniers vs the scientific consensus.

He has many more on his site as well. That's just a few of my favorites.

Answering Paul's Questions

A person named Paul commented on HDC on GMNightmare's deconversion story and I thought they were interesting questions. Both Johnny and GMNightmare already gave long answers, also worth noting, instead of letting it get lost in comments. And I added my 2 cents on at the bottom. :)



Here is Paul's comment:

I have a couple of questions that I would like answered, and you seem like the type to answer questions. First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang? And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

I just have these questions, and no one can really answer them, except with some lame thing like “It just goes on and on”. And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily.

But what about our consciousness? It seems to me that consciousness is somewhat of a mystery in and of itself. Scientists can make a body, and they can put blood and oxygen in it, but yet they can’t make it live? So, if a consciousness isn’t something like a body, something that decomposes, what happens when the consciousness dies? Does it really just cease to exist? I can’t even imagine not existing. It just seems so foreign, to not exist.

Lastly, I don’t really get the term “gnostic atheist”. From what I’ve read, gnostics claim to “know” something, that other people don’t. So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?

First, here is Johnny's reply:

I’m sure GMN will have a response; but I just feel the desire to chime in.

2012 Doomsday Fast Approaches!

OMG, yo! Hide the good silver! Run for your lives! The Mayans say the world will end December 21, 2012 and that's only 2 years and a month away! Whatever will we do?!

Of course the Mayans themselves didn't survive till 2012, so maybe they aren't the best group to ask about such things. :P

Recently a friend of mine mentioned the 2012 phenomenon as if it were true. Unfortunately I didn't have the hard facts at my disposal so I told him it's not going to happen and left it at that. But I thought I'd look up some more information so when your mother starts talking about the end of the world, you will have some facts to back you up.

Lucky for me, NASA and Wikipedia have pages to explain where the concept came from and what scientific basis there is for it (none, thank you very much).

Some people seem to love the idea of predicting cataclysmic events and the destruction of the world. Of course, since we're still here, so far they have been wrong every time. That's something in itself to consider.

NASA explains it all very succinctly in FAQ form:

Q: Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
A: Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Atheists, It's Time to Stand Up to Jesus

By Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, Comment Is Free.

Civility has its uses, but atheists should not be afraid to mock faith to undermine religious power.