Forget Nessie, Israel’s got a mermaid!
And a Million Dollar Challenge to go with it! The other day I wondered how deep the well of human gullability is. Today, I learn it was a bit deeper than I thought!
According to numerous eyewitnesses, the mythical sea creature looks like a cross between a little girl and a dolphin, and only comes out at sunset. “People are telling us they are sure they have seen the mermaid and they are all independent of each other,” said Natti Zilberman, a local council spokesman.
They’re independent of each other. Well that settles it! A creature out of a Hollywood cartoon must therefore really exist!
Whatever the truth of the tale, it has done wonders for the tourist economy.
Oh ABC when will you learn the abc’s or critical thinking? “Whatever the truth“? Here’s the trugh in simple terms: People are stupid! Period!
Local officials are now offering a cash prize of $1 million for the first tourist to take a photograph of the mermaid.
Heh, local officials are slick. They are guaranteed the price will never be collected and the extra tourist money won’t hurt either. I make a prediction: Just like the JREF’s Million Dollar Challenge, this million dollar challenge will also go uncollected for a long, long, long…..long time!
Aussies Fight Back Against Anti-Vaccine Nonsense
READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT DEPLETED CRANIUM
The anti-vaccine movement is nothing new. The US, the UK, Germany, Canada and many other countries all have their own anti-vaccine activists, working to misinform the public and kill people through preventable infectious disease. In the US, we have Jenny McCarthy, who I may remind everyone, is only well known because she showed everyone her who-who in 1993.
In Australia they have the AVN, or “Australian Vaccine Network.” The Australian Vaccine Network claims to be “pro-choice,” as opposed to “anti-vaccine,” as many other organizations do. They also claim to be empowering people by providing information, although their information ranges from one-sided and misleading facts to outright lies. The biggest anti-vaccine assclown in the Australian anti-vaccine movement is Meryl Dorey. Ms. Dorey makes the standard comments, claiming that vaccines cause autism (they don’t) and that they harm the immune system (they actually stimulate antibody production) and that they’re ineffective.
Click here for a video of the news report that got this started.
But recently there has been a major shift in public opinion in Australia, as a series of events have lead to the AVN getting some well deserved bad press...
What touched this off was a story on Australia’s Channel Seven over the tragic death of Dana McCaffery. Dana was only four weeks old when she caught whooping cough, the disease that would ultimately kill her. This disease was almost eliminated in most of the industrial world decades ago but is making a comeback. At such a young age, Dana had not yet received the vaccination that would have saved her life, and thus was counting on the “herd immunity” of the community to keep her safe and healthy.
I really don’t like the term “herd immunity,” but it’s an accurate way of describing how widespread vaccination can prevent illness, even in those who are not vaccinated. In any population, there will be a few individuals who are not immune to a disease through no fault of their own. Some of these individuals are simply too young to have had the vaccine. Others may have immune system diseases like AIDS. Still others may have received an organ transplant or have an auto-immune disease which requires immune suppression drugs. Yet in such cases, their chances of getting a disease is very low as long as the community has a high enough rate of immunization. For a disease like whooping cough to exist at all in such a community, it must be introduced by an outsider, who must transmit it directly to one of the individuals without the immunity. Even if this happens, the disease will not have a chance to get very far, because there are not enough suitable hosts to sustain the pathogens spread.
One could compare the concept to critical mass in a nuclear reaction. Bellow critical mass, one might get an occasional fission and it may even trigger a second, but it will not create a significant propagation of the effect and the reaction will die out rapidly.
So why didn’t herd immunity protect little Dana McCaffery? It seems that in her region of Australia, the level of vaccination has fallen to the point where the disease can take hold. This is not unique to Australia, as whooping cough has made a comeback in the US, along with diseases like measles. Full blown outbreaks of such diseases have occurred in areas that had not seen them in decades.
There is one thing that sets Australia apart from most other countries, however: the report on the death of Dana McCaffery seems to have touched out an appropriate level of outrage and the AVN has been enduring some very very bad publicity…
Natural News Epic Fail
Natural News posted a completely made up, 100% wrong, lie of an article and it’s “editors” didn’t catch shit. Why am I not surprised? Check this out for lulz:
NaturalNews deeply regrets this unintentional error, and we are brainstorming new ways to put in place tighter fact-checking oversight so that the same mistake does not happen again in the future. We thank all those who have brought this important matter to our attention, and we pledge to increase our efforts to reject stories that contain factual inaccuracies.
For the record, what was factually incorrect about the story (which we confirmed by phone with a clerk of United States District Court of Trenton, New Jersey) is that no such injunction has been filed. Thus, the entire premise of the story was factually incorrect.
Hey I have an idea, how about hiring real journalists and NOT MAKING SHIT UP! I wonder why they picked this specific article to remove? They have a plethora to choose from!
PZ must apologize to Ham-says God
God has commanded PZ Meyers to apologize to Ken Ham for all the shenanigans Meyers and his atheist heathen followers committed during and after their recent visit to the evidence-heavy creation museum. A call to PZ’s representatives went unanswered. A close contact of PZ, speaking in anonymity for fear of reprisals said the following:
The trip to the creation museum was indeed sponsored with dirty money funneled through to PZ from Satan worshiping, blood drinking cults. Dark magic rituals were performed in and around the premises of god’s museum, much of which included dirty group sex, virgin sacrifices and satanic eucharist desecrations. Please don’t leak my name….please they’ll kill me.
No worries Jeff, I won’t!
My e-mail to the NCI – A follow up
I recently send an e-mail to the NCI criticizing them about their apparent support of acupuncture as a viable alternative for cancer patients. I received the following reply from “staff” at NCI.
Thank you for your e-mail to Dr. John E. Niederhuber, Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), regarding NCI information on acupuncture. We think you may be referring to the “PDQ(r) Complementary and Alternative Medicine Summary for Patients on Acupuncture,” which can be found at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/Patient on the Internet. We appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts and concerns with us. We have forwarded your comments to NCI staff responsible for this summary.
We also want to make you aware of the health professional version of this summary, which can be found at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/HealthProfessional on the Internet. This summary provides comprehensive, peer-reviewed, evidence-based information about the use of acupuncture as a treatment for cancer.
Thank you for writing.
National Cancer Institute
To point out the obvious, I was not satisfied at all with this reply. So I send a reply of my own. Next both replies will be set up in letter form and mailed to the director of the NCI’s attention. Please follow suit and send e-mails of your own.
Dear NCI Staff,
Thank you very much for your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to write back regarding my concerns. I am not sure from your reply though, if the message was forwarded to Dr. Niederhuber, as was my wish, or not. Can you clarify that for me? I intend to reproduce my e-mail in letter format and mail it to Dr. Niederhuber if you are unable to do this.
I was only partially referring to the “Summary for Patients” in my e-mail. Actually, the blog entry I linked to is referring to the Q&A section which can be found at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/patient/45.cdr#Section_45. This is the section most people doing a simple search are more likely to stumble upon, and the one that the “Summary for Patients” page links to.
I am glad to see that you have a professional version of this summary for the health care professionals. Nevertheless, I am less worried about health care professionals, who ought to be aware of the science and research, than I am about the patients and the overall positive overview the NCI gives acupuncture on the patient information section. I reiterate that the scientific consensus with regards to acupuncture is fairly unambiguous and that consensus should be prominently displayed in you website, especially in the patient Q&A section. As I already expressed, the opposite, unfortunately is true in this case.
Furthermore I find the health care professional summary quite unsatisfactory as well. For example, the Human/Clinical Studies page refers to many studies, most of whom were conducted in China. The lack of significant studies from other countries, such as the USA where according to the NCI’s website acupuncture has been practiced for over 200 years, is a major red flag in and of itself. Nevertheless, when looking at Table 2, you immediately see that the studies 1 & 2 are listed as having no control group. Study 4 is listed as possibly having sham. When I follow the link to Pubmed it turns out this one had no control group either. Sham acupuncture is not mentioned in the abstract at all, in fact it seems pretty clear the second group got conventional treatment alone. Same goes for your study #5. Leaving aside issues of credibility when all studies are coming out of one place, this casts huge doubts on the validity of these studies. In fact this is how the abstract of study 5 partially reads: “observed with double blind method. Forty patients were divided randomly into two groups, 20 for each. One group treated with acupuncture and the other one for control.” The method of the “control” is not mentioned, leading one to believe they simply did not apply anything to the second group, a non-control mechanism that does nothing to help the researches in separating real effects from placebo.
This is the sort of studies that the NCI is basing their statements on? I think the NCI’s duty is not only to report, that’s what the 10:00 o’clock news are for, credulous, unquestioning reporting, but to comment and take a stance. This issue is not one where political correctness trumps science and the evidence. The public has higher expectations of established institutions such as the NCI, and we expect such institutions to hold themselves to even higher standards. Sadly, it appears that someone made a mistake at the NCI in this case. I, and many others, are still waiting to hear about corrective actions to be taken, to properly inform the public, especially the sick ones in our midst, such as my father, about the best evidence based options available to them,and steer them away from unproven modalities, based on pre-scientific magical thinking and philosophies that do nothing but waste their limited time and money.
Please forward this e-mail exchange to Dr. Niederhuber as I am sure he would be just as disturbed, if not more,as I am about this issue.
Thank you very much
How deep is the well of human superstition?
Deep enough for throngs to worship a magic turtle.
The Prince of Wales is not a scientist…obviously
As if we needed more proof that the prince of Wales has a completely science-free and evidence-free mind, here comes his reaction to the latest study on organic foods, the one that found that the organic foods were not superior to conventional foods from a nutritional point of view. So what does the good prince do with the evidence? Why refuse to accept it of course!
“This study hasn’t changed His Royal Highness’s views one bit,” one of the Prince’s friends tells me. “Charles thinks it’s ludicrous to suggest that vegetables treated with chemicals or meat raised with antibiotics can be as good for you as proper food.”
I don’t like it therefore it cannot be true! Typical true-believer attitude. Reality is “ludicrous” so I reject it! I don’t care what the reality is, my make believe version is what I cling to! How can such a study not change ones views “one bit”? You must live in a completely evidence-free, logical thinking-free, reality-free world for that to make even the slightest bit of sense. What does this constant refusal to face reality say about ones ability to think through such issues? Aren’t Britons glad these titles are just for show, and these folks aren’t really running their country? I know I would be if I were a Briton!
The hereditary peer questions the validity of the FSA’s comprehensive study. “It’s a very poor piece of work,” he claims. “It seems that there will be a rebuttal from scientists around the world. It’s very disappointing. I thought the FSA had got over this anti-organic stance by now. It seems not.”
Of course, the “there’s definitive evidence right around the corner” attitude. The true believer is not convinced by the existing evidence because he is convinced that evidence for his side of the story is surely coming. Almost time now! I am sure that you see the faulty thinking processes in play here. Evidence is evidence! You do not refuse evidence you don’t like out of hope that evidence you like will come your way. Either you will accept evidence, wherever it leads, or you will reject evidence, no matter it’s conclusions. You cannot pick and choose which evidence to accept, and you definitely have no grounds in reason and reality to reject existing evidence in favor of non-existing evidence. That is the definition of sloppy, poor, illogical thinking!
Furthermore, why this piece of work is very poor is not elaborated by the prince. One can only assume he thinks it is poor because he does not like the conclusion. That assumption is only reinforced by his subsequent ad hominem on the FSA and their supposed “anti-organic stance”. If the good prince has any valid critiques of the study, he should voice them. These ad-hominems are a bit pathetic, and one would think below of person of his stature.
He adds: “Our position is the science says organic food has nutritional benefits. I was a government minister for nearly five years and I’m really surprised at the behaviour of both the scientists and the FSA. They confused opinion with science.”
Oh, I think you are the ones that confuse opinion with science! See in science one rebuts a finding with scientific arguments and facts. Does it sound like this is what the good prince, and his people, are doing? Or does it sound more like name calling and refusal to accept a reasonable conclusion?
The prince of Wales and his people clearly do not understand the scientific process. It is unfortunate that their voice is heard by some many, simply because they are in a position of power/prominence. How many will use a quick, sloppy, argument from authority and continue to refuse reality, based solely on the prince’s, pseudoscientific attitudes and opinions?
Complaint against anti-vaccination group
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT 6 MINUTES
A militant anti-vaccination group is the subject of an official complaint to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, alleging that it is endangering children’s health by acting as a de facto health care provider and offering misleading advice.
The Australian Vaccination Network, which is given a high profile by the media in urging parents not to have their children immunised, should be prohibited from making unsubstantiated health claims says the Australian Skeptics group.
In a complaint to the commission, a supporter of the Australian Skeptics, Ken McLeod, says the AVN is engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct with the intent of persuading parents not to vaccinate their children, and this is in breach of the Health Care Complaints Act.
AVN president Meryl Dorey has rejected the claims, saying that she operates an information service, and that the Health Care Complaints Commission has no jurisdiction over the NSW-based network.
Skepquote of the day
And where would awards shows be unless many of the winners didn’t hold their statues and plaques up and vow that some dead relative is watching, “wherever they are.” (They always look skyward, as though modern astrophysics has delineated some region of space as the definitive location of heaven. I broke up with a woman when she found Jamie Foxx’s waving his Oscar at his dead grandmother “touching.”)
I get mail too – somebody wants to hook up with me
I got this e-mail today. It does not appear to be related to the blog (come on where are you angry e-mailers?) but I thought I’d share as I find it amuzing:
HelloHow are you today? I hope you are fine.If so thank be to God almighty.My name is Rose Timbo,26 years from Sierra Loene in West Africa.I am single girl looking for honest and nice person. Somebody who care and fear God whom i can partner with .I don’t care about your colour or ethnicity.I would like to know you more,most especially what you like and what you dislike.I’m sending you this beautiful mail, with a wish for much happiness.I am looking forward to hear from you.Love from,
Rose.
Dear Rose,I am fine today, thank you for asking. I hope this entry finds you in good health as well. I regret to inform you that the “almighty” god had nothing to do with my well being. You sound like an interesting person, but I don’t think we’d be a good match. Besides the fact that I am married, I also do not fear god or care for him. I am honest and nice though, to people who deserve it. My dislikes should be fairly obvious from my blog. My likes are too many and too varied to be discussed in writing. Thank you for your happiness wishes, I wish you the same.
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