The Argument Against Arguing Against Homeopathy

In Canada, folks are getting angry about homeopathy. Follow the link to read a rebuttal of a letter to the editor which is a rebuttal of another opinion piece against homeopathy. In the letter, responding to the letter, responding to the article, a Mr Marc Carrier,  makes hay about the psuedoscience of homeopathy. The content is of course, like most anti-pseudoscience retoric, falls upon deaf ears (as does most writing unless someone reads it aloud). More specifically. the author makes many mistakes and does not take into account basic tenants of pseudoscience that would effectively persuade their audience to abandon their ways.

The staff at Boys Books is always surprised by anti-homeopathy rhetoric on several fronts. First, arguments against pseudoscience would be more effective if diluted. The entire response would convince the homeopaths to abandon their ways if you had just one comma. However, since homeopathy is based on diluting poisons that create similar symptoms as the disease, the argument would need to be 'for' the suspension of rational thought, rather than 'against' it. In other words, the context of the comma is important to the cure.

Next is that the best arguments are anecdotal. There is no science behind the homeopathic cures, of course not! Grandma took homeopathic remedies, and it did not work for her! No reason why it would definitely work for you now.  Why, because grandma didn't believe in homeopathy and you do! That's just science! We know it is because we used the exclamation points!

The next step is to explain homeopathy in the context of history. Did you know that Homeopathy was invented because doctors at the time were prescribing poisons? Poisons including lead and strychnine  were used. We don't really know why, maybe because poisons could kill parasites or a dead patient is a cured patient? In fact, doctors of that day did not know about germ theory, surgeons didn't even wash their hands.

Finally is that most anti-homeopathic arguments summarize the homeopathic process. Instead, they should be much more descriptive to allow their readers to fully understand how utterly modern the drug preparation process is compared to even today's chemistry intensive process of modern medicine. Here is a quick summary of what the proper homeopathic label should look like:

1. Find a poison that duplicates symptoms of a disease or something that cures the disease or even sound like it might cure the disease or just a cool name (basically anything, there are no rules).
2. Dilute one part poison to 100 parts of mixing medium (water, alcohol, or milk sugar).
3. Strike the mixing container with a leather strap stuffed with horse hair 5 times.
4. Dilute one part of mixture to 100 parts of of the mixture medium.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there is no possibility of a biological effect from the poison.
6. Price marked up for a lot of money because it has been scientifically proven that when you have a higher price.

The next step is challenge the homeopathic hatters to an experiment. If homeopathy works, prove it! Start with a beer colored with a few drops of green food coloring. Then, using the technique described above, create homeopathic green beer. If by definition a dilution of a poison, and alcohol is a poison, can cure a symptom (in this case intoxication, then a homeopathic beer should make you sober. Because of the green food coloring, it should also make you drunk as an Irishman kissing the Blarney Stone.

There you go! All done. Everyone will know that Homeopathy will soon surpass real medicine and nobody will be under-hydrated again!

Pseudoscience that makes scientists want to pay pseudoscientists a retirement pension

The folks at ion are feeding us more material. Hurrah! This tim, they are mankind things a bit more obvious with "10 Pseudo-Science Theories We'd Like to See Retired Forever" also by Annalee Newitz. Today you get a few spoilers! But please read the article on Io9 (They still seem to be coming from the future, which also means that pseudoscience is still alive and kicking at some non-specific futuristic blog website).

Below are the ten. Sadly many of our favorites are missing, but we are willing to take a scientists pension and retire from our pseudoscientific ways for these gems. We have added our thoughts on the selections, which as you can see, is selected with the scientific rigor of a blogger using a key word search and an ax to grind (what are so many grinding axes and not cutting down trees).

1. "Toxins" - How does this make #1? Everybody knows that the "toxins" are just the tip of the iceberg for a host of hokum.
2. Intelligent Design - Oh, oh, pick on our buddy Ken Ham. To top it all off, I.D. is hardly a Pseudoscience  but actually a plot by Karl 'The Atheist" Rove to get George Bush elected. 
3. Quantum Mysticism - Also known as Quantum Woo, this should have been the top of the list. It is the best of out-there theories. The question is, are our friends at the new age book store both alive and dead before we open the store door and ring the little bell?
4. Homeopathy - This is a good choice too. Especially since it is modern medicine (invented before surgeons washed their hands, germ theory, or penicillin).
5. Polygraphy - Ok, maybe it is steaming pie in a field of boy cows, but the criminals don't know that. Polygraphy is the placebo of crime fighting. Imagine Batman giving homeopathic batarangs! 
6. Baby Genius Programs - This had not occurred to us that someone would put it on their top ten. Yes, perhaps out on a limb unable to hold our weight, but there is a lot of other fruit that is so low hanging, it is in a deep and dark hole in the ground of crazy. Imagine the possibilities of teaching your child to believe in crystal healing or perpetual motion before they are potty trained!
7. Genetic Memory - Scrapping the barrel! The author is obviously confusing this with reincarnation. Speaking of reincarnation, want to go get a burger?
8. The Vaccinations and Autism Hoax - First, anti-vaxers don't think it is a hoax and it cannot be classified as a hoax anyway because incompetent doctors are not purposefully lying to us. The politicians... Well, this is another Republican cause like I.D. isn't it? Besides, the anti-vaxer movement is as dead as the people dying from the diseases that are now spreading through the communities that are not vaccinating.
9. Aliens Built the Ancient World - Everybody knows that aliens didn't build the ancient world. They enslaved the humans to build things like the pyramids and gave us secret knowledge like rope.
10. Phrenology - Who believes in Phrenology? Sure there are a lot of Phrenology heads at Restoration Hardware, but not one psychic that we have ever met practices this ancient art. The last time we heard it mentioned was on the Three Stooges.

Please comment below on your ideas for the pseudoscientist's toolbox. We need more material for the book and maybe a plot suitable for a movies that Oprah is willing to star in.

10 ideas that psuedoscientists wish you would use more

Here at Boys Book of Pseudoscience, we get great ideas from those silly scientists. Scientists are very fond of telling us about how pseudoscientists are perverting science. Case in point is my new source of ideas to help the budding pseudoscience is Io9.

We just found "10 Scientific Ideas That Scientists Wish You Would Stop Misusing" by Annalee Newitz. No spoilers! Go read the article on Io9 (We come from the future).

More on these 10 gems soon(er or later).  Until then, please comment below on your ideas for the pseudoscientist's toolbox. We need more material for the book and maybe a plot suitable for a movies that Oprah is willing to star in.

Katie Couric the Antivaxer or Telling both sides is great pseudoscience

Katie Couric is a practicing pseudoscientist. As a former morning show mavin, she certainly has the qualifications. Her topic recently was the HPV vaccine.

HPV is a vaccine that prevents the  human papillomavirus. HPV is credited as a source for cancer in women. It is also one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. So, if you are looking for a candidate of vaccine that could benefit mankind (and of course womankind) HPV vaccine is a good one.

Back to Dr Katie. The topic of her December 4th, 2013 show was on the HPV vaccine and as she promised in her tweet the day before, "We're hoping to tell both sides so parents can make informed decision." Of course, "tell both sides" is our secret code for pseudoscience. Usually, especially when it comes to vaccines, there isn't ever a legitimate "other side" that is worth pitting against science.

Not saying there isn't another side. All vaccines have a risk. You could be allergic to something in the vaccine preparation, like eggs. Your body is of course going to react to the vaccine and your body will learn to recognize and fight against the virus you are being exposed to. These effects are mild an risks very very very low. According to the CDC, "mild side effects included pain where the shot was given, fever, headache, and nausea." Of course, most of these could in fact be nocebo affects because these are common side effects of similar vaccines.

According to Dr Katie's guests, the anecdotal claims include death and other slightly less worse outcomes. These guests were of course highly trained non-doctors. 

Why is this pseudoscience? Simply, the antivaxer claims are non-science. Like on Dr Katie's show, the people that are affected are not statistically significant, except to the ratings of the TV show that they are guests on. Their claims are also usually not exposed to the light of deep examination by experts. Instead, Katie's producers are trolling for the 'other side' of the story and find grieving families that blame the 'establishment' for harm and conspiracy to do harm.

To illustrate what is happening, let's look at aspirin. Did you know that aspirin kills people? That's right! If you take an aspirin, you have a 1 in 6 chance of death by heart attack. Of course, if you don't take aspirin, your odds are also 1 in 6 chance of death by heart attack. That is because we all have a 1 in 6 chance of death by heart attack. This is also known as death by statistics. 

Same goes for vaccines. If we all have a 1 in 6 chance of death by heart attack, the odds are quite high that after getting a vaccine that you die of a heart attack. It is also easy to prove that not getting a vaccine might be the culprit as dead people rarely get vaccinated. Q.E.D. vaccines cause heart attacks. They also cause 1 in 7 to die of cancer and 1 in 160 to die in a car accident. Of course there is a 100% chance that you will die after taking a vaccine because their is no vaccine for death.

The "other side" to vaccines is of course science. Ever since they were first created, they have had a pretty good track record. They have also eliminated or almost eliminated diseases like Polio and Smallpox. Vaccines, to be effective, need to be given to most people. Take for instance, measles. If enough people don't take the vaccine, you easily get an epidemic. It is even worse in Texas where folks don't cotton to being told what to do. At a Texas mega church and surrounding area, there was an outbreak caused by these folks not getting their vaccines. Of course, those that did, did not get measles, though are in eminent danger of slipping and falling in the tub.

Experiment: Cheat Death

Because 1 in 171 people die from falls, you can cheat death. Lie down and stay down. Note: You have a higher chance of death from other sources like diseases caused by a lack of activity.  

There's Always Another Opinion

Watching the History channel today and the wonderful show, Brad Meltzer's Decoded. Why? Because it is some of the greatest pseudoscience on TV. We must learn from the best!

So, why is this show pseudoscience? One concept: Everybody has an opinion. It is so easy to have an opinion and this show goes out of its way to find the most extreme opinions.  In normal science and historical inquiry, you research and present the evidence that is well tested and confirmed. With opinion, you state your idea and if the evidence does not add up, chalk it up to a conspiracy to hide the truth.

Why base a history show on a set of opinions? Easy, the crazy train is much more fun than plain history.

Let's look at the show on the Statue of Liberty for where they seemed to look more for squirrels with loose nuts than historians. The premiss starts with the statement that there are hidden symbols built into the statue. Of course they did spend about 5 minutes talking with legitimate historians. Nothing exciting. But then they looked for the wacko fringe.

The bizarre circus freaks range from numerologists, someone that believed the statue was the devil, another that believed that the statue represents secret messages to those that would rule the world. Throw in that the artist behind the statue was a freaky mother loving Oedipus sex maniac because he used the face of his mom as inspiration and his girlfriend's body. In our opinion here at Boys Books, the only evidence that added up was the numerologist (they always do).

In the end, the investigators of the Statue of Liberty fond the most important fact, there are a lot of opinions.... Yep, oh and it wasn't the devil, but lucifer (not big L Lucifer, but the little l as in the light bearer.

Science or pseudoscience? Simple way to test: How entertaining was the show? Very entertaining! Must be pseudoscience!

Statue of Liberty. [Internet]. 2011. The History Channel website. Available from: http://www.history.com/shows/brad-meltzers-decoded/episodes/episodes-guide [Accessed 1 Jan 2011].

Placebo of Placebo

Well, I thought we had a little bit of good news to round out the end of the year's pseudoscience news. Basically some scientists tried to see if people knew that they were taking drugs that were fake, would they still work. Glory be, the scheme worked! Here is an article and the paper.

But alas, there is a problem with scientists looking into magical effects. Yep, magical. A pill that does nothing but causes an effect and that is magic, right?

First, credit where credit is due. Orac, a computer best known for his contribution of the Blake's 7 crew, looked close at the paper and saw the flaws. Here is Orac's analysis.

The upshot is that the study unfortunately did what most studies of pseudoscience do, they let the cat out of the bag and that probably skewed the results. First, the advertised ads looking for study participants sounded cool. You always get skewed results when patients think there is something cool going on.  

The second problem was that it was not a double blind study. They either gave the patients placeboes or told the participant to go home and do nothing. A double blind would have had placeboes, a fake placebo (a drug not cleverly labeled 'Placebo' like the one in the study).

Not sure if they should have had people that were told to do nothing.... Seems sort of odd. Back to that cool advert, if you found out you were in the "do nothing" group, wouldn't you go home all depressed and maybe your results would be better than getting a pill bottle labeled 'Placebo' (remember, very cleverly labeled).

Experiment - Placebo Crystals

Time for another great experiment!

1) Head to your favorite purveyor of fine rocks and pick up a few hundred quarts crystals.
2) Create envelopes that will hold the crystal and one of three different notes written thus:

    Note 1: Greetings! You have been selected to take part in an important study. This envelope contains a crystal from a mountain in the Andes near the mystic city of Kolumbunga. It is used as a very powerful placebo. In three days, please send an email to xxxx@xxxx.xxx and tell us if you feel better or worse.

   Note 2: Greetings! You have been selected to take part in an important study. This envelope contains a crystal. It is used as a placebo. In three days, please send an email to xxxx@xxxx.xxx and tell us if you feel better or worse. 

  Note 3: Greetings! You have been selected to take part in an important study. This envelope contains a crystal. In three days, please send an email to xxxx@xxxx.xxx and tell us if you feel better or worse. 

   Note 4: Greetings! You have been selected to take part in an important study. In three days, please send an email to xxxx@xxxx.xxx and tell us if you feel better or worse. 

Put crystals with notes 1, 2 and 3, but nothing in the 4th envelope. 

4) Recruit a few hundred people to run your experiment. If you want to be reasonably random, stand in front of your school, a supermarket, department store or Mickey D's and recruit.

5) Tally your results from the emails and any comments you may have received along with the better or worse indicator. Don't forget to count the numbers of non-respondents as people not saying anything is like someone talking and saying nothing (sounds Buddhist, but trust us, it is important).

Did you get better results for Note 1? We bet you will, so perhaps you should start selling mood enhancing crystals from Kolumbunga.

Commentary: Tarot Cards as a Psychological Tool

Jennifer Marre in her blog, Tarot Cards as a Psychological Tool, posits that Tarot cards are not paranormal, just cards with symbols. That's cool by us. Sure there is a lot of pseudoscience, but stating they are just cards sort of diffuses that. But this blog (about the book) is about pseudoscience. What good would we be without some way to totally rip apart the fact that Tarot is more than just a deck of cards with pictures?

Let's start with Jennifer's premiss: Tarot cards have symbols and thus they cause people to create interpretations based on their interpretation of the symbolism... Oh, and a psychologist/therapist can interpret those interpretations to help a person somehow with therapy based on the interpretations of interpretations.

Now we're talking! That sounds like pseudoscience!

 Sure, I like the core that they are just pictures, but Jennifer may have a problem with basic science. Oh yeah, this is psychology... There is not a lot of science in psychology.

Anyway, here is the flaw: You can't tie any response to a card to root causes. It is just sort of impossible. Worse still, the interpretation of the interpretation depends on the interpreting observers history and assumptions.

Let's take the simple case, say the patient plops down the Death card... The patient's interpretation is based on their life experience and pre-wired assumptions that were built on that experience. Their reaction will be based on too many to count, let alone trace to a single root cause for the interpretation. Their reading might be that they see change, death, loss, or even feel that the therapist is indoctrinating them into the devil's science. Those interpretations are just what comes out, there is no way for sure to understand why.

On the other side, the interpreter, say a therapist, has their own assumptions pre-wired. Their life experience does the same thing to both their focus of observations and their interpretations. For example, if the patient is seeing loss, the therapist could believe there was a recent loss in the patient's life or assume the loss was related to childhood trauma. Or, as would be rather obvious, the idea of loss is just what they learned was the interpretation of the card from a friend, book, movie, Oprah, or combinations.

The bottom line though is that there is no way to run an experiment. You know, that silly nerdy stuff  called the Scientific Method. This is a problem with most psychology. Not that I place psychology into pseudoscience, but it will always be on the edge of full blown testable and provable science. There is just no way to get a repeatable and independently verifiable result form human brains. Too messy! If they weren't messy we wouldn't have all those religions or more than one political party.

Sure this could be a tool. But as a tool it is one of the worst. With a hammer and nail you can fairly accurately  drive a nail into a piece of wood(given a little training of course). There is no way that Tarot could be used to any level of accuracy. It is more like a wet noodle with the nail driving itself from belief –poor metaphor, but I am a result of all my experience to this moment in time.

I guess the danger is in just one word used: Interpretation. The moment we 'interpret' we are on the slippery slope of pseudoscience and the danger of conclusions based on belief rather than reality.

That's the lesson. Want to be a great pseudoscientist, be an interpreter of interpretations.

Experiments for Budding Pseudoscience

Here are a few good experiments for budding Pseudoscientist:

1. Ask people what it would take for them to discard a belief. Then give them what they need and see if they still believe.
2. Compare the IQ of people that believe and not believe in a pseudoscience.
3. Invent a fact and convince people it is real. Then show them it is not real. See how many still believe that the fact is real.

If you have more experiments, let me know!

Pseudoscience And Food!!!!

Jamie Oliver (Naked Chef) has a new show on Sunday (March 26 at 9pm ET on ABC). Sadly this is going to put a dent in a great tradition of pseudoscience in the food labs. You might not think there is pseudoscience in the lab at McDonalds,The Cheesecake Factory, or just about any food manufacturer. I was unaware too, so let us start on a little journey.

I started learning about the great tradition of pseudoscience by reading The End of Over Eating, by David Kessler. It seems that if you look at modern food, from Cheetos to... well the Cheesecake Factory. The book very carefully explains how the combination of sugar, salt, and fat cause our brains (and the well fed brains of experimental rats) are hypnotized into overeating.

Where is the Pseudoscience? I can hear you asking, "They are using rats, that is real science!" Yes, they have science, but they are leaving something out of the equation and that is why food science is usually pseudoscience  - especially when practiced by a food company. The little thing they leave out is the full equation in the cause and effect department.

If you make food really really good, people will eat a lot of food. This is because these scientific frankensteins of salt, sugar, and fat are cheap, and available in quantity. Nobody at the drive up window says you can't order two burgers and supersize the Coke and fries. Simply our brain treats the food like a light weight cocaine causes us to then gain weight.

Here is a great Boys Book experiment: Try to resist a good bowl of m&m's. There is a reward when you get the fatty sugar rolling around your mouth. Feel and hear that goodness packaged in that healthy celery stalk like crunch. Better yet, though branding, you know every m&m tastes like an m&m and has that same reward. You are going to be rewarding before you ever pick one up and when you do, reward! Why not reward yourself with another m&m for being a very perceptive bipedal mammal! Record how many you eat, despite feeling something has hypnotized you.

You should try this experiment with Cheetos or any other snack food, candy, frozen pizza, fast food, etc. Even juice boxes, fresh squeezed, boxed for your convenience, orange juice. Even fruit, if it is the right ripeness and sugar content, or dipped in dark chocolate (white chocolate to add a bit more fat).

The key parameter of this experiment is to put about ten servings in front of you and see how long and how hard it is to not eat it all in one sitting despite your propensity to look and sound like Jaba the Hut.

Back to the pseudoscience before we go. Remember that I said they were leaving out the fact  we will consume such food until we can cram no more in our mouths? Well that is just a part of the non science. You see the other missing info is that thing called nutrition. I also said fat, sugar, and salt. Where is the sugar coming from? When you eat a big mac, where is the sugar? Fries are covered in salt and fat right, not sugar? White Castle isn't sugar coated mini buns of goodness with syrup, right?

Wrong, these are all full of sugar in the form of starch in the bread or potatoes or 'gasp' rice. In fact simple carbohydrates hit your blood stream faster than table sugar! Pick up a simple blood glucose meeter and give it a try. Great fun to watch your blood sugar swing, especially if you are overweight and edging toward diabetes.

So watch Jamie Oliver's show, "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution". He will teach a lot about the missing science that makes up pseudoscience. Read the book, The End of Overeating too.

Pseudoscience Activities at the Night Museum

I'm following up on the marbles of pseudoscience in our last episode.

I emailed the museum to point out that there are great ways to use the pseudoscience marbles in their after school programs. They could avoid looking like rubes for selling pseudoscience in a science museum by actually teaching pseudoscience. Sort of evens it out, right? Can't sell pseudoscience without teaching pseudoscience, right?

Think about it like J. Crew (JCG) or the Gap (GPS). They sell clothes. They don't sell dinosaur toys too. They are about putting cloth on people, not teaching science, so they have no dinosaurs. You have to pair up people and clothes to make the sale. Throw in rocks and old dino bones and people don't get it and shop at that French Target store.

Look at Republicans and the healthcare debate and healthcare reform. Republicans are totally against the healthcare bill. This seems illogical because the Democrats put a bunch of Republican ideas and took out stuff that the Republicans really hatted. The bill even ensures that insurance companies make more money by mandating insurance - making it pro big business! In other words, it is exactly what Republicans wanted. Like pseudoscience in a science museum store, the Republicans can't vote for something that the president or most Democrats appear to like (even though they really don't as you can tell because Michael Moore hates it too).

One more hint... Why haven't the Republicans submitted their own healthcare reform bill? It is obvious, it would look like the Democrat bill and the whole charade would be blown. So you see, like tutus in a Banana Republic, suddenly we have two things that are not like one another (i.e. the creator's signatures on identical bills).

So.... sigh, we were in the museum's store, right? Back to my letter from the museum. Sadly the woman that replied to me could do nothing to remove the cognitive dissonance of shoppers/patrons. That is sad. Poor powerless museum employee, forced to sell pseudoscience marbles in a science museum.... sigh.

But I had an idea. The power block in the museum is its wealthy patrons. They give the money that pays the salaries of powerless museum employees. Not sure where museum store sales go. Perhaps to the 3rd party that runs the store for the museum. Anyway, donors, that's the solution. We could approach them with ideas to teach pseudoscience in the science museum so they can sell their marbles without shame.

Maybe we can go to the museum's board meeting with the plan? Most of the board are donors. Submit a new after school pseudoscience program. All I need now is the program! Any ideas from my young pseudo-scientists?

Any Sufficiently Advanced Science is Pseudoscience

You see it everyday. It is the strongest of arguments. Debaters win every time. What is it? It is simple unashamed denial of logic.

Look at the global warning debate. A graph of CO2 as compared to the average global temperature, the world seems to be warming in lock step with CO2.

The first theories are that CO2, because of its ability to trap more heat as it builds in the atmosphere, it means that the world should indeed warm. End of the argument right?

Ok, here is a little science. CO2, although can cause warming, does not cause a lot of warming. Or at least that is one side of the argument. I can't find much evidence to it being global warmer or a dud.

Back to the data. The data has a correlation between average global temp and CO2. Add in other factors like the Sun and other factors and you still see just a correlation to CO2. So, does it matter that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Not really, because it seems that CO2 makes the world warmer according to the data. How it does it at the specific rate is good science, but rather immaterial to an attempt to reduce atmospheric CO2.

Ok, boring stuff eh? Now the fun part. The facts are easily poked full of holes. Because you can't directly prove CO2 is a greenhouse gas at the current rate of global warming with  repeatable experiments to prove the data, then the global warming must be caused other causes than CO2.

Because we don't know the exact reason, we can say that any other change can cause the same rate of warming. Look at a few things that might also cause global warming at a similar rate to CO2:
1) Growth of lawyers
2) Consumption of dairy products
3) Farming
4) Incidence of nose picking

All of these have grown over time and could, by mathematical gymnastics, be said to cause global warming. Each has grown at a regular pace since the industrial revolution.

Can you disprove that any of these things has no impact on global warming? Of course the rates are not going to exactly follow the world's warming, but that seems a little picky. They grew and the world got hot. Some things we can't explain completely. Life is a mystery and that is no reason for me not to drive an SUV.

Feel better now? Wild speculation makes the science seem like pseudoscience. Of course if the anti-global warmers could argue and examine evidence logically, we would have little room for disagreement. Simply there is no fair argument because one side gets to make up the rules. That is cool and the pseudoscientist's greatest tools.

You don't need to be irrational to win an argument. Just be creative. Dismiss any argument with the fact that there is no 100% proof or undeniable evidence. There is always a margin for error (or margarine if you are buttering them up).


For extra credit, what logical fallacies am I employing? First person to write the correct answer in the comments gets a free copy of the book!

Pseudoscience of Technology Reporting

Take a look at this article:Innovation: What use is a smartbook? - tech - 08 January 2010 - New Scientist This is a great example of Pseudoscience of Technology Reporting. Look for the emotion, opinions, and generalizations. Not to mention the fact that the reporter claimed Las Vegas was in Arizona and not Nevada. Yikes! There is a lesson here.

Good Pseudoscience reporting is useful for slamming things you don't like. The reporter is obviously a poor Luddite. Sadly though, the mistake about geography released the hounds of critics. Read the comments, it is like they let sharks comment on New Scientist!

The other issue with this article is that the reporter is shameless. You need to be sneaky with opinion and make it look science-ish. The key would have been to stalk other people in these booths looking at these eBooks. Just ask each one if they liked these fancy electronic toys. If they have a smirk and a negative reaction (and you are sure your deodorant is up to snuff) then jump into an interview and wait for a juicy negative quote that suits your hidden agenda. If they have a positive reaction, well, no reason to bother your readers.


Pseudoscience is not a walk in the park. You need to work at it to avoid looking like a punter that is pretending to be a reporter. Study hard and read every thing that MacGregor writes as this is exactly the wrong sort of stuff.

Pseudoscience 101: Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) is a goldmine for anyone that wants to create a drug and call it a vitamin, mineral, or other harmlessly looking pill, powder, or liquid.

Misinformation is a hallmark of pseudoscience. The success of hokum is directly proportional to the inflation of your claims. DSHEA basically lets you say just about anything about a supplement. Of course, there are rules. You can't say specific things on the label. You might not even say specific things on your web site. But you can get thousands of your followers to say things about your supplements and what they can do. We have a word for that: Antidotal. There is also another word you might use if it is all a scam: Lies.

The key to all of this is the basis of your claims. Basically you don't need any claims. Just have a good brand name, an ingredient list, and maybe a recommended dosage. There is no reason to say what the ingredients do, that is done on Oprah.

I mentioned branding and that's important. Words like health, cleansing, energy, slimming, and other non-scientific loosey goosey words are perfect. For example: Energy Blend! Great label. Contents could be seaweed or why not a scientific name and a little history of its 'traditional' uses back in ancient times before the scientific method.

I have to cut this article short. I'm going to buy a grinder, some empty capsules, and some seaweed for sushi rolls at the local asian supermarket.

Fair and Balanced Pseudoscience

Why is there so much pseudoscience? One reason might be journalism and debate. Journalism often takes the approach that there are always at least two sides to a story. If someone believes in one thing, there must be someone that disagrees. Each opinion is then explored and the reader is allowed to make a decision.

I was clued into these ideas in part by an excellent paper out at the Discovery Channel web site. I take a slightly different approach had similar concepts. The pseudoscientist needs to use the right research, just not always the right way.

This balanced coverage of an issue is in part meant to reduce the bias of the reporter. This is partially because we might assume that the reported is stupid. There may be some stupid reporters, but actually this is fairly smart. Reporters get paid based on their popularity. The more readers you have, the bigger your income. By showing one or more sides to an issue, the reporter gets readers from both sides.

Balanced coverage also creates content. The other thing reporters get paid for is words. The more words, the better the pay. By having two sides, you get double or more the content. Not only do you get both sides of an issue, but you get extra bonus content from arguments about why the opposing point of view is wrong.

Last but not least is that people arguing is entertaining. You get tension in the writing from the arguments. There is also a lot of creative writing, especially from the pseudoscience side of the fence. Think about it, you get mystics, fantasy, and creative stuff pulled out of the air all the time.

The good news for the pseudoscientist is that as long as there is a scientist to argue with, you can push just about any idea. The only thing you need to do is find someone that disagrees with you.

There are ways you can push pseudoscience without critics, for example Oprah or uTube, but it is usually required to have some type of critic for the traditional media. The reason you want traditional media of course is to get on Oprah or to increase your hit count on uTube.

What if you don't have critics? The simplest is to just find a generic critic. Just look for anyone who labels themselves as a 'skeptic'. Skeptics are rather nondenominational and will argue against anything that does not have a 100 years of scientific inquiry and repeatable experiments.

To utilize a skeptic, start commenting on their blogs and articles. Just contradict them and throw in your idea. The formula to success is to deny whatever they are talking about and then push whatever your pseudoscience idea is and say they probably don't believe in that either. It also helps to call them by a bad name, question parentage, and especially call them close minded. They will usually reply and give the alternative skeptical opinion on your idea.

Once you have a comment from a skeptic, use it. This is especially useful when you can use some part of what they said out of context. For example, if they call you a bad name, just quote that. Makes them look mean and bitter about your success. It is even ok to quote their explanation as to why you are wrong as long as you creatively destroy their argument (please see the earlier post on The Language of Pseudoscience and the sister blog's Ending an Argument.

Looking for examples of balanced reporting? Just google vaccinations, politics, abortion, creationism, or just think about any subject where the discourse includes calling the other guy names or questions parentage.

So, have you been wallowing in self pity because your wacky idea about unicorns curing cancer? Now you have the way forward. Success in pseudoscience isn't about proving you are right, it is about being the other voice in an argument.

Pseudo Political Science

Pseudo Political Science seems to be a new fad. Look at Sarah Palin. Her pseudo-brain-think is absolutely amazing.

Who cares about her politics, it is the pseudoscience that is absolutely breathtaking. Sarah Palin has all the hallmarks of a high and mighty professor of letters in Pseudo Political Science.

What is Pseudo Political Science (PPS for short)? Well, same old stuff, different wrapper. Think sugar pills but substitute fear in everything but undying love of your favorite beliefs.

Sarah's beliefs are so wild and so unproven and indeed, imaginary, she has garnered probably the biggest book rollout since the Antichrist (Glenn Beck) released his last book. When we see such great stuff as this, we have to stand up and salute! Why is this so great? Simply because there is so much paranoia and irrational faith that every trailer park, shack, or Republican has a copy of her book.

This is all the more amazing given that many folks don't even need to (or can't) read the book because all they need to do is hate Democrats. That is so easy because Fox News has the market cornered on calling Democrats Socialists and Nazis. What more can you do?

But that makes it even more amazing. It is like Holy Water, just wave your hand over it with a prayer and it does everything from christen babies to making vampires smoke. Same thing with everything that comes from Sarah.

Everything is irrefutable and true! Even if there is hard evidence (like Grandma still not in the death camp), then there is a conspiracy! Maybe Grandma is just a hologram or the Democrats are poisoning the denture cream this very moment! It has to be true because Sarah is never ever wrong.

But look at Hillary... She is about to become a convert! Hillary and Sarah are going to have coffee! Sarah is going to meet Hitler's #2 and convert Hillary Clinton! Oh my, it is like James Randi believing in the tooth faire. It could be the end of the world when the Earth stops spinning on its axis in horror.

All hail the queen of Pseudo Political Science!

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, don't follow too close, that duck shit is pretty slippery.

Pissing on Homoeopathy

Here is a great Pseudoscientist putting the P in the seudoscience of homeopathy. Better yet, he has created a cure for urination.

Normally I give an essay on how all this works. In this case, I will let the video in the link above speak for itself.

The Chiropractic Hate Society

Yikes, more hate speech against chiropractors. Here are a few references:

Discover Magazine (the worst offender)

Ministry of Truth

DC’s Improbable Science

They are all talking about chiropractic practitioners and a trial going on where this PDF has just being released as proof of chiropractic claims. Of course there is some bad science. They can't help it as chiropractic practice is not known for their double blind studies. You can't, in my opinion, do a double blind study because it involves moving bits of the body around which voids the study.

But really, I am angry at the science geeks and their hate speech. They assume something without a double blind and repeatable results is fraud, stupidity and somehow a crime against humanity. Sorry, there may be a few, but most believe in this and that makes it real to them. It is no different than crystals or homeopathy. At some point the mind causes a belief, no matter how un-defendable, and builds the belief into a perceived fact probably can not be changed by argument or even direct proof.

I like that last little bit. There is no such thing really as belief. In the end belief is a fact to the person that holds the belief.

Don't the pseudoscience haters ever consider placebos? How about side effects of moving around bits of flesh and bone? The problem is that, in the minds of chiropractic practitioners, coincidences add up beliefs to create a perceived reality and that reinforces the odds that a cure will 'manifest' or appear to manifest in relation to spinal manipulations.

There is a lot of science in chiropractic, just no formal science related to what they are claiming. Massage is no different than chiropractic. Is massage pseudoscience? Manipulation manipulates, sorry but that is a physical thing. You can't wiggle your little finger without causing changes to your biology. The effect of having your spine jerked around is not a zero. Even if at a minimum it changes a bit of blood flow and the horrific sound of vertebra popping can shoot endorphins all about. To say there is nothing happening at all with chiropractic therapy is just plain bad science. The anti-chiropractic world should be ashamed of themselves for making just as absurd assumptions that they are complaining about.

A favorite of mine is the claim that chiropractic is better than other methods for back pain. Funny thing is that getting out of bed, driving to the clinic, having someone get you up on a table and pushing stuff around is better than laying in bed. The act of doing all this other stuff is also part of the cure. Sure the moves the guy makes may be hokum, but there is a lot of stuff other than the hokum you can't ignore.

But what of the cost of chiropractic? Isn't that ripping people off? No! There is a placebo effect that has been proven to be more powerful if you raise the cost of care. The only crime is that it is not more expensive and thus more effective!!!! ....ok, you were supposed to laugh at that one.

Chiropractic belief is caused by very old adaptions of the brain. We are wired by surviving in the jungle for millions of years to save energy and stay alive. Jungles will make you dead quick if you take the time for proper science. Tigers don't understand double blind studies.

This is also people making a living or justifying their beliefs which is also related to survival. This is little different than guarding a fruit tree so that your family can survive. Look at chiropractic like cattle farmers burning down the rain forest. You won't get them to stop burning unless you give them alternatives. You also have to convince the farmers that burning is bad and the alternative is better. But even here there are many people involve. The farmer that burns the forest is selling cattle into the rest of the system which relies on the cattle.

People sell and consume the meat. It is an ecosystem that has strategies to defend itself to survive and will protect each link in the chain.

Chiropractic is an ecosystem too. Chiropractic schools rely on the existence of chiropractic clinics. The lawyer of a chiropractor (or his association) relies on the chiropractor as does the owner of the building he practices in, the suppliers of equipment and so on. Even the patient that believes in chiropractic has a dependency and will not shift unless the benefit is greater than the embarrassment and cost of re-believing in something else. It is an ecosystem.

Ok, let's talk ecosystems some more. I hate flies and roaches. Flies sort of have a good niche in the web of life and I am sure there are some legitimate niches for the humble roach. But I hate these pests and they have no value in the local area I inhabit. Sure, if I keel over dead, maybe they have a part in the web O' life, but not while my girlfriend is still there to shuffle me off for proper disposal.

I hate flies. I hate roaches too. They are stupid adaptations of nature. Calling them stupid isn't going to help solve the existence of flies and roaches. As far as I know, short of a laser defense system under every leaf, stone, or the junk in my house, calling them names is not going to eliminate nature's process of adaption that allows these pests to be very successful at being pests. Calling chiropractic stupid is just as stupid as calling flies et al stupid.

Got a solution to eliminate and repurpose flies or chiropractic? Didn't think so.

Got a way to convince someone with a strong belief in something unsupported by pure science? Didn't think so.

Got a way to educate every man woman and child in the practice of critical thinking and enforce its application? Didn't think so.

Curing wacky thinking is like wishing for world peace.

These pseudoscience bigots need to stop ignoring the other side of science and how we make decisions. The human brain is purpose built to believe in crap because that is efficient. The only way you are going to change some of these people is to just show them how their brains came to these beliefs and the aforementioned alternate reality where unscientific hokum is real.

Pseudoscience needs to be rebranded as the study of how people believe and even thrive on bad data, poor logic, and their strong beliefs. Pseudoscience hate speech needs to be banned.

But here is a dose of my own medicine. Why is this hate manifesting in these science geeks? Simply because of the very same weak mind. It is cheaper to call someone a bad name and question their parentage than it is to study persuasion and the brain. Just like race prejudice too, it is an us-verses-them mentality. Defend the family from vermin, especially if they don't have the same beliefs.

It is also about survival. We saw what happened in the Bush era where non-science political appointees gutted science based establishments. Of course the same could be said about the behavior of people when we had forced integration. Night and day in the cause, but the emotion is the same. People are scared that a non-science person will be able to kill science and put the scientifically minded folks out of a job. Sorry science geeks (and I include myself), we are ruleby survival instincts and the brain's need to operate efficiently.

Starting a religion? Hire a martyr!

Let's take a break from the normal voodoo and get religious. According to a new study, the success of a religion is influenced by martyrs. Want to be a success? Somebody has to take one for the team!

An article in New Scientist summarizes a study that has made the sacrificial link between successful religion and its martyrs. Scientist Joseph Henrich, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of British Columbia (Canada, eh?) found that the bigger the danger and the higher the risk that a believer takes, the bigger the payoff for the religion.  

Take the simple one, running into the enemy's sword at full speed with death the only option (crusades). That would be a martyr.  Dying of torture or the death penalty for not converting your religion (inquisition), that too is a martyr. A high risk, low probability, but under the flag of the religion, yep that's a martyr. Even giving all your money to your church is being a martyr. Even dedicating your life to be a priest or nun rather than a Joe Public worshiper can be considered a martyr for the cause.

We are talking about death by choice, poverty by choice, miracles (often preceded by death by choice) and generally falling on your sword. If coming out the other side alive requires either blind luck or a miracle, the supplicant is more committed to his or her mission and thus seen as a poster child for getting on board and believing that fellow's religion. 

The true measure is sincerity. If you are willing to risk death and dismemberment to save a small child from a rabbit rabbit, no big deal. If the rabbit is ten feet tall, spewing carrot and brimstone fire, and generally evil (i.e. red glowing eyes) and certain death to challenge, well that's sincerity! 

Of course it helps to credit your beliefs, guardian angels, and god(s) involved. Simple bravery is a bit pointless. Gotta have mysticism linked to the religion to ring the marter bell. It's in the rule book.

You could look at it this way; It could be the level of bravery and a poor grasp of statistics with maybe a need to prove something, plus that mystic link. Not knocking Jesus, but anyone else that wants to start a religion or get canonized as a saint, they just need some nails. I think it helps to yell something about remembering the Alamo too.

I don't know why, but there is a lot of comparison in the article between Jesus and Superman. Nobody worships Superman. Poor Superman. I think he needs to make more sacrifices to be the martyr. Say becoming human or braving kryptonite to save the girl. Maybe forgo rewards or super hero salary and work for a living as a reporter as a sacrifice to truth and justice. Seems like sacrifice? Not the stuff of religion. Superman is just brave. He does not do this for his god. Sorry kids, Superman is an atheist. 

Is it a mortal sin to bring a Superman comic to Sunday school?

The article has some other good points to consider. Some of these can certainly apply to pseudoscience. 

Sacrifice begets sacrifice. Maybe because people believe the luck of the first guy, it must be safe if you believe hard enough. Given that we would look like a woos, we have to believe that we believe and then prove it through similar acts. Lemmings....  We see that with stupid people tricks, but it goes for religion too. One guy thinks, wow if I do that I'll get a lot of uTube hits. Second guy sees the hits and figures, why not give it a go, that guy survived, right? 

It's like lemmings (or at least the Disney version wherein a bulldozer provided the motivation). If one jumps off the cliff, the others follow. If one guy gives all his money to the cult, others will see the sincerity and do the same. Not bad if you are a cult leader. Get one rube to give away his money to your cult's bank account and then get followers to do the same. No need to drink the cool-aid when you have willing followers that are thirsty. 

The guy in charge also does not need to make the sacrifices. That's right, the cult leader does not need to be the martyr! All you need are the lemmings. Making lemming-aid from lemmings, sort to speak. Just seed one sacrifice by one rube or even a story about a rube and that is enough. It is that one guy that will be an example. Following your instructions to sacrifice only needs to be done by one volunteer, the rest will follow. Why should you sacrifice when it is all about the believers anyway?

Sacrifice of the martyr doesn't even need to be real. Just tell a damn good story about sacrifice. If the story is believable, it must be real. Given the fact we are pre-wired to believe in miracles, it isn't hard to for a good yarn that yields result. 

There is a lot of history for success in religion and martyrs. It is said that the reason Christianity got so popular in the first and second centuries is because the Romans hatted the Christians. Simply they treated them like dirt. They put them into the Coliseum and had them fight lions. These Christians would go to their deaths willingly and with a prayer. These early Christian martyrs had such conviction in their resurrection, that people believed their beliefs. Because they believed so convincingly and with such low odds and little evidence, they were great martyrs. Some, against the odds would survive and credit God. Perhaps proof or perhaps the others that failed did not pray enough, but in ether case, damn good public relations. Combined we get a lot of martyrs. 

Not knocking your religion. Hey, could be true, but you can see by the psychology that martyrs and belief go hand in hand. 

The idea that being a martyr is good is also a key idea. Sacrifice, like I said, begets sacrifice.  Martyrisim is encouraged and promoted as a ticket to heaven in many religions (you know who you are).  I once met a guy that was willing to be burned alive rather that denounce his beliefs. Even if he could tell a white lie and have the chance to convert thousands of others to his religion in secret and have a dozen babies to teach his religion. Martyrism trumps all in his mind. It is the ultimate sacrifice for belief.

We see a bit of this today. Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh. They were both martyrs feeding the beliefs of ATF/FBI/establishment haters. Their acts, if not leading to copycats, lead to deeper belief in their causes. But that's sort of ugly. You can do the same for acupuncture or crystals if the sacrifice is great enough. 

How do you think I should end this blog? What would make you believe in what I have just written? How can I convince you that martyrs are what make people believe in such crazy ideas? Throw yourself on this blog and save the lives around you! Campus Crusade for Martyrs? Sacrifice a lamb, or at least wear a wool sweater in the name of this blog. Of course I am always willing for you to donate all your worldly possessions in my name - or just make our the check to 'cash'.

Tomato Tomata Placebo Nocebo

The world of pseudoscience will never be the same. We had the placebo, but now we have the nocebo. Basically we can think ourselves sick, poor, crazy, or even stupid.

We have always had the ability to say quackery is still viable by calling on placebos. You may not be able to prove why crystals or health magnets work, but you can at least say the placebo effect makes people better. The new age pseudoscientists depend on the magic of the mind to transform a hunk of dirt into miracles.

The news today at the New Scientist is that the opposite affect of placebos has been found. But here is the real punch line, they found it with voodoo.

We are talking about hexes, voodoo dolls, and all sorts of curses. If you believe it will kill you, it is a pretty good chance that your brain will pull a reverse placebo and make you sick enough to die. So, no science that a pin through the Raggedy Ann version of your heart can kill you, but the nocebo effect will kill you just the same.

Things get better. Doctors have been mistakenly prescribing nocebos for hundreds of years without knowing it.

A doctor says you have cancer and three years to live. Odds are, you will die in just about three years. You may not die of cancer, but from the nocebo diagnosis from your doctor. There is in fact documented proof of just such a case. Dr Clifton Meador writes about it in this paper. He also has a book called Symptoms of Unknown Origin: A Medical Odyssey
that addresses voodoo and the beginnings of his theories.

I love to read any book by a real doctor that mentions hexes and voodoo curses. Don't you?

But what does this mean for the professional pseudoscientist? We have science not only for placebos, but for the reality of belief-based imaginary illness. It's true, we can think ourselves into sickness and even death.

A side affect of the nocebo (pun intended) is that hypochondria is real! You do have your imaginary disease, as long as you imagine hard enough. I'd avoid any medical publications just to be safe. You might want to give up watching House or any medical shows from now on because imagination leads to some very bad medical conditions.

For the pseudoscience entrepreneur.... Oh glory be! We have mana from whatever heaven is foretold by your personal religion or agnostic fantasies. Science is on your pseudoscience side and backing up your hokum and quackery. Not only can you sell your nocebo Voodoo Dolls and Voodoo Divorce Hex Books, you can sell the placebo oriented anti-voodoo too.

I'll add one more bit of entrepenureal genius. In exchange for this advice, if you start a company, you need to send me a sizable cut of the profits if you follow this advice. Really, you should send me money. I have a voodoo doll with your name on it. If you don't, well... Like I said, this nocebo stuff really works. Do you really want to take that risk? Either send money or I have a pin with your name on it.

Here is the advise that will make you, and me by definition, rich: You can also sell your charms against the bad diagnosis of doctors! 

Remember the three years to live diagnosis? You can sell anti-hex charms to counteract the doctor's diagnosis predicting the patient's eminent death. The funny thing is that no doctor can be 100% sure of when people will die of a disease. Plus there is a lot of wiggle room. Your anti-doctor charms don't need to exactly work, but they can be an enhancement or insurance against a doctor's own sloppiness.

Wow, I can hear the sound of my happy banker now. Dr tell you that you have three years to live? Why not glue this magnet with a sacred Mayan quartz crystal to your shin bone to break that medical profession curse.

I know you want to read the article and probably tired of my little spoilers. Here is another one. When doctors gave patients placebo drugs that were like the real drugs, patients got side affects just like those of the real thing. Wow, that itchy rash goes away because of the placebo affect, but your liver is failing from the nocebo affect. Nothing comes for free, including imaginary side effects.

Side effects? This is so cool. How can I put this into words... This is cool. Not only can your placebo psuedoscience quackery cure stuff, but it can have nocebo side affects that make your snake oil sing and dance like a poorly researched but expensive Pharmaceutical. 

Why not get rid of the side affects of regular drugs too? Got a queasy stomach from your diabetes medicine? Wear this Hopi charm bag of mouse knuckles and bat's blood around your neck and you'll be right as rain.

There's some downside to this nocebo affect. The law now has a way to convince a jury to convict based on nocebo effect. A curse, hex, and even a less than positive diagnosis by a doctor or placebo side affects can cause damages or mental strife. 

Lawyers can point to a scientific cause and effect relationship. If you shoot someone with a gun, that's murder. If you curse someone to death, and they die by any cause, that's murder too. It is a slippery slope and you know the lawyers want a cut of that action. As

Tomato or tomata, placebo or nocebo, voodoo or hoodoo, it's all pseudoscience. We can now feel confident that real research by real professionals backs up any claim we can imagine, especially when it is related to the mind. Good for the consumer and good for the pseudoscientist. Yes, some bad, but they said that about the atomic bomb and now we have radioactive glow in the dark watch faces, so we can live with the fallout. 

Let me know what you think. That's what the comment section is for. Cursing is ok, but please no curses.

Pseudoscience "Get out jail free!" card

Pseudoscience has often been linked at the hip with religion. But people are creative! That's really what pseudoscience is, creative thinking without the heavy weight of facts acting against you. Sort of like ignoring your cement overshoes pulling you into the inky ocean depths as you ignore the existence of organized crime.

Today I read an article about a cult family who starved an 18 month old child to death for not saying 'amen' at meals. That word, amen, has a lot od pseudoscientific power, or at least we assume so. Certainly not saying it caused the parents to go insane. It is a tragedy and not funny. Death is death and a pointless death of a child is the worst. But here comes the legal pseudoscience:

The mother pleaded guilty on the condition that all charges be dropped if her child was resurrected...

She didn't just make that up. No, the cult thought it through a long time before the police arrived. They had packed the dead child into a suitcase with some moth balls to await the blessed moment. They even traveled with the luggage, but ultimately stored the luggage with a friend, met at a dollar store, in his backyard shed. 

Just to clear the air, according to the cult leader, Queen Antoinette (no kidding and she still has her head), the resurrection has not yet taken place because the cult members have not reached a level of belief sufficient to trigger the event. A hallmark of religious pseudoscience is that you need to really believe. Miracles don't happen on their own.

That's great pseudoscience and the best legal defense all thrown into a blender with a few herbs and spices. Pure genius! But it gets better as pseudoscience of psychology on the side of the law is biting at religion's heels.

The prosecutors  say that this family can not be considered criminally insane. They do not suffer from any delusion or mental disability, they are simply people of faith. They did this on purpose because they were following a religion.  We can't call religions crazy or we are calling most people are crazy. That would be crazy! 

Let's say that a bit differently: You are not insane if your crazy actions are part of your god given right as an American citizen to practice your religion. It's a free speech issue. The caveat of course is that crazyish criminal behavior, religion or not, is still criminal. Worse than that, you can no longer play the crazy card at your trial. 

Isn't this cool? Not only do the criminals use great pseudoscience, but our legal system is on board too. Better yet, the legal system has the trump card. 

Is this the golden age of pseudoscience?