UnrepentantSinner
A post by Alan Smithee
I just finished this, it's nearly 5:30am and I'm just going to cut and paste it here. I plan on tidying it up a bit before I submit it to the local paper. (The indents don't seem to work)
-----------------------------------------------------------
I recently had the pleasure of attending a conference of skeptics hosted by the James “The Amazing” Randi Educational Foundation in Florida. Mr. Randi is perhaps best known for his many exposes of Uri Geller on the Tonight Show or his $1,000,000 paranormal challenge. The conference, called “The Amazing Meeting,” had speakers who discussed many of the issues facing not just the skeptical movement, but American society in general.
The issues discussed, from homeopathy to Planet X, could adversely effect everything from the education of our children to the very lives of our loved ones. As a society we must strive to be more critical in our thinking with regard to claims made by others. From telemarketing scams that merely effect our checkbooks to fraudulent health claims that could kill us, this country needs a healthy dose of skepticism.
Military and Police
One of the speakers, LTC Hal Bidlack, USAF gave a presentation on The Need for Standards in The War On Terrorism. One standard of utmost importance for the military, police and we civilians is skepticism. Col. Bidlack pointed that out by sharing stories of police departments buying painters masks that the sellers claimed would protect from chemical and biological agents and applicants for half million dollar grants from the DoD to study chemical detectors that were little more than dressed up divining rods.
Doesn’t the purchasing process require rigorous testing you might ask? If we look to the case of the Quadro Tracker device, the answer is apparently no. In the mid-90s schools and police agencies spent from $1000-$8000 apiece for Quadro Trackers that supposedly would find guns, drugs or explosives just by pointing it at suspected areas. The device turned out to be about $2 worth of plastic, wires and lights.
Homeopathy, Herbals and Faith Healers
Snake oil and patent medicine salesmen are not relegated to creaky horse drawn carts on dusty streets of the old west. They can be found at health and nutrition stores, in advertisements and infomercials and on religious broadcasting. The use of this quackery as “medicine” can cure your wallet of excess dollars – if you’re lucky.
Homeopathy is basically the dilution of supposedly curative substances until the solution is in the range of 1 part per million or less. One main tenet of homeopathy is that the more a substance is diluted the more powerful it’s effects. When asked how a treatment so diluted that none of the original substance remains in solution works, homeopaths invoke ambiguous terms like “vibrations” or “chemical memory.” If you want discount homeopathy, try some tap water and the placebo effect, the efficacy is about the same.
If you watch TV or listen to the radio you are bound to have encountered ads for herbal treatments that supposedly do everything from help you lose weight to cause certain body parts to get bigger. While further testing may some day vindicate the claims of herbalists, the latest results are not good. A recent National Institutes of Health study showed that there was no difference between St. John’s Wort and a placebo, while news wires carried the findings that ephedra, while only 1 percent of herbals used, accounted for 64 percent of adverse reactions called into poison control centers. We all need to remember that just because something is “natural” it doesn’t mean it’s effective or safe.
After the most recent Dateline expose of Benny Hinn, I’m astounded that anyone even takes him seriously any more. I’m sure the families of those profiled who thought they were healed by him (all were dead within a few months) take Hinn and his claims of healing very seriously. Hinn of course isn’t the only high profile faith healer, but he is one with a well-documented body count of failures filling America’s cemeteries. There’s nothing wrong with going to a healing revival or praying for a miracle cure, but please, don’t stop the treatment protocols prescribed by your physician.
Planet X
End Of The World theories tend to be from a secular or a religious bent. Secular world ending scenarios include catastrophic environmental changes, nuclear war or impacts by astronomic bodies. One of the strangest of the latter is Planet X. Supposedly a neutron star is on it’s way to Earth in May 2003 to wreak carnage, flip the Earth on it’s axis and destroy 95% of human life.
At the Amazing Meeting and on his Bad Astronomer web site, Dr. Phillip Plait, PhD of Sonoma State University fully debunks the claims of the Planet X proponents in easily grasped layman’s terms. One might be tempted to ask if it’s so obvious that Planet X doesn’t exist and won’t be ending life as we know it shortly after Tax Day, then why make a big deal of it? Dr. Plait answered that question with the last slide of his PowerPoint presentation - in 1997, Marshall Applewhite convinced 38 others to commit suicide with him so they could catch a ride on a UFO following comet Hale-Bopp. The same thing could occur as the due date for Planet X nears.
There are many other issues I could go into like UFO abductions, Psychics and Spirit Mediums, Young Earth Creationism, and Satanic Ritual Abuse, but for the sake of space, I’ll leave them for the reader to investigate. That is my whole purpose for writing this piece. If you believe in any of the above topics, I hope you’ll at least use a critical eye in examining the claims made by advocates and practitioners. Please keep in mind that “You never know, it might be true,” is not evidence in support of these claims.
If you’ll allow me one bit of irony, I’ll summarize my request for scientific and rational investigation of the world around us with an ancient Roman platitude – Caveat Emptor.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I recently had the pleasure of attending a conference of skeptics hosted by the James “The Amazing” Randi Educational Foundation in Florida. Mr. Randi is perhaps best known for his many exposes of Uri Geller on the Tonight Show or his $1,000,000 paranormal challenge. The conference, called “The Amazing Meeting,” had speakers who discussed many of the issues facing not just the skeptical movement, but American society in general.
The issues discussed, from homeopathy to Planet X, could adversely effect everything from the education of our children to the very lives of our loved ones. As a society we must strive to be more critical in our thinking with regard to claims made by others. From telemarketing scams that merely effect our checkbooks to fraudulent health claims that could kill us, this country needs a healthy dose of skepticism.
Military and Police
One of the speakers, LTC Hal Bidlack, USAF gave a presentation on The Need for Standards in The War On Terrorism. One standard of utmost importance for the military, police and we civilians is skepticism. Col. Bidlack pointed that out by sharing stories of police departments buying painters masks that the sellers claimed would protect from chemical and biological agents and applicants for half million dollar grants from the DoD to study chemical detectors that were little more than dressed up divining rods.
Doesn’t the purchasing process require rigorous testing you might ask? If we look to the case of the Quadro Tracker device, the answer is apparently no. In the mid-90s schools and police agencies spent from $1000-$8000 apiece for Quadro Trackers that supposedly would find guns, drugs or explosives just by pointing it at suspected areas. The device turned out to be about $2 worth of plastic, wires and lights.
Homeopathy, Herbals and Faith Healers
Snake oil and patent medicine salesmen are not relegated to creaky horse drawn carts on dusty streets of the old west. They can be found at health and nutrition stores, in advertisements and infomercials and on religious broadcasting. The use of this quackery as “medicine” can cure your wallet of excess dollars – if you’re lucky.
Homeopathy is basically the dilution of supposedly curative substances until the solution is in the range of 1 part per million or less. One main tenet of homeopathy is that the more a substance is diluted the more powerful it’s effects. When asked how a treatment so diluted that none of the original substance remains in solution works, homeopaths invoke ambiguous terms like “vibrations” or “chemical memory.” If you want discount homeopathy, try some tap water and the placebo effect, the efficacy is about the same.
If you watch TV or listen to the radio you are bound to have encountered ads for herbal treatments that supposedly do everything from help you lose weight to cause certain body parts to get bigger. While further testing may some day vindicate the claims of herbalists, the latest results are not good. A recent National Institutes of Health study showed that there was no difference between St. John’s Wort and a placebo, while news wires carried the findings that ephedra, while only 1 percent of herbals used, accounted for 64 percent of adverse reactions called into poison control centers. We all need to remember that just because something is “natural” it doesn’t mean it’s effective or safe.
After the most recent Dateline expose of Benny Hinn, I’m astounded that anyone even takes him seriously any more. I’m sure the families of those profiled who thought they were healed by him (all were dead within a few months) take Hinn and his claims of healing very seriously. Hinn of course isn’t the only high profile faith healer, but he is one with a well-documented body count of failures filling America’s cemeteries. There’s nothing wrong with going to a healing revival or praying for a miracle cure, but please, don’t stop the treatment protocols prescribed by your physician.
Planet X
End Of The World theories tend to be from a secular or a religious bent. Secular world ending scenarios include catastrophic environmental changes, nuclear war or impacts by astronomic bodies. One of the strangest of the latter is Planet X. Supposedly a neutron star is on it’s way to Earth in May 2003 to wreak carnage, flip the Earth on it’s axis and destroy 95% of human life.
At the Amazing Meeting and on his Bad Astronomer web site, Dr. Phillip Plait, PhD of Sonoma State University fully debunks the claims of the Planet X proponents in easily grasped layman’s terms. One might be tempted to ask if it’s so obvious that Planet X doesn’t exist and won’t be ending life as we know it shortly after Tax Day, then why make a big deal of it? Dr. Plait answered that question with the last slide of his PowerPoint presentation - in 1997, Marshall Applewhite convinced 38 others to commit suicide with him so they could catch a ride on a UFO following comet Hale-Bopp. The same thing could occur as the due date for Planet X nears.
There are many other issues I could go into like UFO abductions, Psychics and Spirit Mediums, Young Earth Creationism, and Satanic Ritual Abuse, but for the sake of space, I’ll leave them for the reader to investigate. That is my whole purpose for writing this piece. If you believe in any of the above topics, I hope you’ll at least use a critical eye in examining the claims made by advocates and practitioners. Please keep in mind that “You never know, it might be true,” is not evidence in support of these claims.
If you’ll allow me one bit of irony, I’ll summarize my request for scientific and rational investigation of the world around us with an ancient Roman platitude – Caveat Emptor.
