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Reader Drew Vics directs our attention to the latest miracle to capture the attention of the terminally naïve, to be seen at tinyurl.com/ya4nhd.
Thought you might be interested in a miracle stump recently found in Passaic, New Jersey. Multitudes have been gathering and praying before the stump. They bring flowers, scented candles, and cash. The stump has been adorned and wrapped in priestly garb.
I'm amazed, and somewhat saddened by the sheer ignorance.
At a dump site near an old factory with broken windows, hundreds of votive candles from the local supermarket, flowers, bills, and coins, are piled up near a hacked tree stump. This has suddenly become a sacred place, since some visitors say they can see the Virgin Mary’s face in the exposed surface of the stump. How they recognize this woman, is hard to say, since no known image of her exists – save a couple from subway tunnels and various items of clothing, I’m told. Others – not so religiously-inspired, I’m sure – might just as well see Donald Duck or an erotic Rorschach image there...
Ah, but this is now not just a regular old stump, folks. As you can see in the photo, it presently wears a silver crown, is garbed in handmade white Peruvian vestments, and stands in a manger engulfed in flowers. The local business owners, ever eager to be noted as devout worshipers of this divine woman, have rebricked the alcove, and installed lighting and fence posts. A large mural is planned as well, said one of the businessmen. Passaic residents from a range of countries in addition to Mexico – Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Poland among them – are in regular attendance on the stump, to see to its needs. A little crown-polishing or robe-ironing, perhaps…
A woman stopped by to give thanks to the stump for a recent checkup that found no further signs of the leukemia that once afflicted her; whether she received any medical attention that might have brought about this fact, was not asked. None of her doctors, to our knowledge, have been seen wearing even a brass crown…
Ignorance rules…
A reader – who wisely wishes to be anonymous – has forwarded to us a 21-minute video about the police in Clearwater, Florida, that I hope all our readers will view. It’s to be found at tinyurl.com/ymh8aa. It may not stay there very long, since the Church of Scientology is wealthy and powerful enough to easily have it taken down; download and save it. I direct your particular attention to the sequence found from 6:54 to 11:10 – for as clear a piece of evidence of official police malfeasance as can be found.
Reader “Eric in Ottawa” tells us:
’Twas the week before Christmas, when under the door,
Appeared a booklet on inanity, and more!
[Okay, so I am not a writer].
My partner and I live in Ottawa, Ontario [Canada]. Recently, upon arriving home, we found a 103-page booklet that had been slipped under our door. It was the December 2006 edition, Volume 22, Number 4, of Tone. What is Tone you may ask? Well, according to the tag line, it is “A forum for the consciousness-raising community in the Ottawa area.” More specifically, it is 103 pages full of cr*p. I cannot provide a full list of the ads and articles contained inside, but I can give you a taste:
Sacred Sounds offers “Vibrational Healing Energy” through sound, crystal & color tools and modalities. This service provider specializes in crystal singing bowls for meditation, healing and restoration.
Someone by the name of Donna Levasseur tells us she is a “Certified Body Talk Practitioner.” (I have no idea what that is and I have no interest to investigate her website).
An article by one Jo-Ann L. Tremblay assures me that I am my “greatest gift.” [Well, that’s a relief].
Another article informs us that someone by the name of Yvette Marie-Claire Guy has a spirit guide. We are further told that this was confirmed in 1986 when she was tested in Phoenix, Arizona by “world-famous” Janet McClure. Ms. Guy scored a perfect 100% in detecting injuries thanks to her ability to see one’s Etheric Body Energy Field.
There is an ad announcing a fun event for kids where they will be able to meet their angel friends.
Ms. Caroline Markolin, Ph.D., posted an ad for something called New German Medicine. The ad assures us that “German medical doctor Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer is the first to offer scientific proof that what we commonly call a disease [not my emphasis] is not caused by a malfunctioning organism but rather the result of a natural survival program [again, emphasis not mine]…”
One of the very few full color ads is for a product called Essiac®, from Renaissance, the “Original Herbal Formula,” which is “World Renowned Since 1922.” This product promises to provide us with full “Immune System Support.” But the makers of this product warn us to “Beware of Counterfeits.” I’ll do that, including theirs.
Dr. G. Dessureault, dentist, assures us she runs “A Health Centre Mercury-free Practice” and a “Holistic approach with a detox program and Biocompatibility test.”
[I’m running out of steam … not to mention patience]
A list of features follows: Silk Chakra Scarves: A fashionable way to heal, The Science of Unleashing the Power Within You, Yoga for Your Personal Finances, NLP, Oxygen spas, Biofeedback, Vibrational Essences, Thinology, The Grail Message, Algonquin Shamans, Intuitive Readings, Chatting with spirits, Numerology, Alignment with 5th Dimensional Consciousness, etc., etc.
It just keeps going on and on and on.
A short moment of hope came when I spotted an article titled: “Why People Don’t Make Sense.” That moment of hope was quickly trampled to death when the writer, a Ms. Patricia Wall, tells us the reason we are so screwy is because we are blocking our intuition, short-circuiting our extrasensory perceptions, and not accessing our spiritual guides. She warns parents not to disable their children’s natural gifts in these areas.
Eric, I’d seal up that slot under your door, if I were you. The assortment of drivel you outline above is typical of the opportunists who pursue uninformed, naïve, juvenile, victims by this means.
The Union of Concerned Scientists [UCS] has issued a statement signed by 52 Nobel laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients, and almost 200 members of the National Academies of Science and other leading academics – some 10,600 from all 50 states – calling for the restoration of scientific integrity to federal policy-making guidelines. The announcement came in answer to dozens of recent allegations involving censorship and political interference in federal science. Dr. Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of the UCS's Scientific Integrity Program, said:
From airborne bacteria to Ground Zero, science continues to be misrepresented for political gain. The new Congress should enact meaningful reforms so decisions within federal scientific agencies and advisory committees are based on objective and unbiased science.
The integrity-of-science statement was first released in February of 2004. The new version of the UCS statement details censorship and political interference in federal science on issues as diverse as air quality, childhood lead poisoning, and prescription drug safety, as well as documentation connecting high-level political appointees at the Department of Interior to the manipulation and distortion of numerous scientific documents to prevent the protection of six different species under the Endangered Species Act. Dr. Grifo, again:
The scientist statement makes clear that while science is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input should be objective and impartial. Sustained protest from scientists, individual Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and the nation's leading editorial pages has not been enough to make the abuse of science stop.
To read the official statement, to see the signatories grouped by state, and to read the A to Z Guide to Examples of Political Interference in Science, go to www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity.
In response to the item last week at www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/121506russell.html#i2, many readers chimed in. First, Kurt Aubuchon:
I would like to respond to Frank Kmiec's comments on chiropractic. I am neither a physician nor a chiropractor, but I am married to one (the physician) and under the care of the other (the chiropractor).
My physician wife and my personal doctor both tell me that there is some good evidence to support the claim that chiropractic is effective for certain kinds of back pain, such as that brought on by my condition, sacroiliitis. I have just begun seeing the chiropractor for treatment of this condition. I remain skeptical, but I am willing to be convinced.
The chiropractor has been professional and has laid out a seemingly realistic treatment plan. If he can keep me from being hobbled by pain when the condition flares up every month or so, I will happily give him credit for changing my mind.
However, the claim that a chiropractor "must complete more medical training than what is required to become an MD" stretches credulity. I gather from a brief internet search that, depending on the state, a chiropractor must complete either two or four years of undergraduate work, followed by four years of chiropractic college, the last year of which is hands-on training. A physician, on the other hand, must complete four years of undergraduate work, four years of medical school, at least four years of residency, and often two to four more years of fellowship. True, quantity does not always translate to quality. But saying a chiropractor has more diagnostic training than an MD? Come on. I've heard this fatuous claim before, and it always annoys me.
Chiropractors are probably very good physical therapists. But doctors they ain't. And when they claim that they can treat your allergies, diabetes, or gout by manipulating your back, they jump right off the rails. I love the expression, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." I only get wound up over chiropractors when they claim their toolbox is much larger than it really is. In contrast, my wife, after 15 years of training, is quick to admit when she isn't competent to handle a problem outside her very focused area of expertise. I guess the more education you have, the more you realize how little you know.
On a mostly unrelated note, a chiropractor friend of mine once tried to get me to take some kind of herbal remedy for a cold. I tried to refuse politely by saying that I was already taking medicine for it and was concerned about possible interactions between the two. She said, "But this is all natural!" I replied, "So is ricin." She didn't know what ricin was, so the statement didn't have the impact I was going for. Now, when I hear someone say "It's all natural!," I respond, "So is anthrax." That usually kills the conversation.
Thanks for a great site and for giving my brain a lot of exercise over the years.
I trust that Kurt will keep us informed of his progress with the chiropractic care he is receiving. Remember Kurt, just "feeling better" is not conclusive evidence...
Reader Susan Duberstein writes:
I'm a third-year medical student, and I cheerfully admit I know little or nothing about what is required for a chiropractic degree. However, the notion that a chiropractor is more qualified than a medical doctor to diagnose, let alone treat medical problems, is so silly it almost defies argument.
Someone with muscle cramps may have a serious cardiac problem? Well, sure. You, sir, must know a whole lot you didn't know this time last year about cardiac problems. Cardiac problems can present as almost anything. Is what the sister means that she plans, if someone comes in with muscle cramps, instead of offering them chiropractic manipulation that she intends to run enzymes, do an EKG and send the patient for a stress test? If so, she should go to med school.
I don't know what she means by "taking the medical board exams." Is she talking about the USMLE Step 1/2/3 and Clinical Skills exams? These are tests we take at accredited US and foreign med schools at various points (after 2nd year you take Step 1, after 3rd year you take Step 2 and Step 2 CS, etc.) or is she talking about the boards that clinicians take to become "board-certified"? They are vastly different things.
The notion that med students do not train in diagnostic skills is ludicrous at best. I have never taken a specific "class" in diagnostic skills, so I can't give you a number of credits. Classroom training at my school in diagnostic skills per se is under the rubric of "Essentials of Clinical Medicine," which constitutes 20% of the class time and credit of both the first and second (pre-clinical) years. It includes diagnostics (we took the national shelf exam in physical diagnostics at the end of second year at my school and I scored in the 86th percentile – most schools do not give this exam until after the medicine rotation in 3rd or 4th year, so my school must be doing something right). It is impossible to estimate what percentage of third and fourth year goes into diagnostics, since we are on the wards, but that's pretty much what we do. And this, of course, doesn't take into account the 3 to 5 years in residency, with fellowship years to follow if you intend to specialize.
I'm sure you will hear from a lot of people with a lot of opinions about this. I personally don't care if she is going to use the title “doctor” or if she likes to think she's had as much medical training as an MD. But if she wants to treat cardiac patients, I would respectfully suggest that she take the DO (doctor of osteopathy – they do study the manipulations, but are otherwise similar to MDs and do the same residencies we do) and go into medicine, not chiropractic.
Law students get tired of greedy lawyer stereotypes, engineering students get sick of geek jokes, and med students get fed to the teeth with this notion that "doctors don't know everything" and that practically anyone else knows just as well how to do our job. Of course we don't know everything. I begin to think that the problem is that we admit as much! But at least my training is not based on the notion that cracking your neck can cure your heart disease. (Harrumph, snort.) Yes, that's a straw man argument. This kind of thing just annoys me too much.
Reader Steven J. Schiff, O.D., in Manalapan, New Jersey, adds:
In today's Swift, you quoted a reader who wrote of his sister:
I was surprised to learn that in order to become a chiropractor (in Minnesota) she must complete more medical training than what is required to become an MD and as she will be required to pass medical board exams she will have the title of Doctor.
He is certainly not correct in these assertions. A chiropractor does not receive "medical" training, she receives training in "chiropractic," which overlaps, but does not duplicate, medicine. She will not have to pass "medical board exams," but rather chiropractic board exams, which are a different thing entirely. Yes, she will have the title "Doctor," but will not be a medical doctor nor have the practicing and prescribing privileges of a medical doctor. Here is a link to a page showing the requirements for practicing chiropractic in Minnesota: www.mn-chiroboard.state.mn.us/lic_reg_1.htm.
Here's a page comparing chiropractic training with that of medical doctors (see section F for a direct comparison): www.chirobase.org/05RB/AHCPR/03.html
Chiropractic training is nowhere near as long, nor as rigorous, as medical training, and the prerequisites are much lower. In addition, as you indicate in your commentary, the history of chiropractic shows that it lacks a scientific basis.
Dr. Schiff, we thank you for your references to informative sites re this matter – though I suspect that most readers will not have that much interest in the subject. I am personally very much concerned about it, which is why I’ve devoted so much attention to it. Other readers have reminded me that Quackwatch’s Dr. Steve Barrett covers the subject very well at www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chiro.html or at www.chirobase.org. You should refer to "Chiropractic Education."
Be seated, go to www.johnellis.com and be convulsed. This is an excellent example of how misinformed, ignorant, and simply wrong a man can be… It says that the data was published “for information only,” but since there’s no information there, the actual purpose must be to separate the naïve and the desperate from their money. Hey! This guy could make himself an easy million bucks via the JREF, if he wished to, but he doesn’t seem to want the money…
But he does want your money. He’ll ship you a gallon of his “energized” water for $30, plus $6.60 for the special Lexan bottle – to hold in all that energy, you see! – plus another $30 for shipping. That’s only $66.60 a gallon, folks, and if you’re not scared by the numerology, order it! That comes to $8.33 a pint, but it’s energized, so drink up!
Reader Duncan Rosie, in South Africa, enlightens us further on our item last week about “medium” Helen Duncan. It turns out that news she revealed – she said – by contact with the spirit of a seaman aboard the H.M.S. Barham, might have been far more easily available simply through newsreels and the media. Duncan sends us an account of the Barham’s tragic demise by a nephew of one of the lost sailors, from which we extract:
A letter from my uncle's commanding officer, dated December 8, 1941, asked that the information be kept confidential until an official announcement had been made.
This news blackout caused Mrs. Helen Duncan to be put on trial at the Old Bailey in 1944 in the country's last witchcraft trial. She was a medium and had held a séance in 1941 which featured the spirit of a dead sailor from the Barham who apparently uttered “My ship has sunk” before the Admiralty had announced her loss.
Could we conclude, from this information, that “mediums” are sometimes prone to mischief…?
(I use here a term that is originally from showbiz. To “bomb” means to fail totally, to receive no acceptance, to self-destruct before an audience. Strangely, though as a verb it denotes “absolutely failing” in American usage, in UK showbiz slang, it denotes having a success! We may apply the American usage here.)
Reader Al Campagna of Candia, New Hampshire – among many others – has sent us to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRc4LkBRjIc to see Sylvia Browne in action. Says Al,
As usual it's the Montel Williams Show with that fraud Sylvia Browne. She really blows this "communication" with the dead. The only thing worse than a fraud, is a poor fraud. When the woman says that they never found her boyfriend, Sylvia jumps right to a prediction that proves to be totally wrong.
Her last statement though, is incredibly insightful. Given just a few facts to work with, that the woman's boyfriend was in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attack, and that no trace of him has ever been found, she is able to "divine" that her boyfriend has gone to... "the other side."
Amazing, isn't it?
What’s equally reprehensible about such fraudulent behavior, Al, is Montel Williams’ feverish attempt to save this gaffe of Sylvia’s. He won’t stop having her on his show to deceive his audiences, but he’ll make excuses for her, apparently without any embarrassment. As I’ve said before, Williams is a well-educated, intelligent person. He knows exactly what Sylvia Browne is doing, he must recognize the damage it does to those who trust him, yet he repeatedly invites her back again, ignoring all those facts. Mr. Williams – for all his medals, an Emmy award, and other honors – fails in one subject: ethics. Quoting from his own website:
Montel believes each person should take responsibility for his own actions.
Let’s see that belief expressed on your program, Montel…
Reader David Richardson directs us to an excellent source of information coming from the incredible Google folks. It’s at books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html, and David tells us some of the ins and outs…
Most people seem to be unaware that access to the project is available NOW. The number of books already available is ENORMOUS, yet few people seem to know the TRICK to finding them. Here is that trick…
If you go to the Google Books main page http://books.google.com/ be sure to select "Full view books" under the search box. This is NOT the default! If you do not select "Full view books," you will get lots of "hits" from your searches, but few of them will be full-text public-domain books that can be read online. Now, if we search for "henry david thoreau," we will see a very large list of books by or about Henry David Thoreau. A scanned image of every page in the book is available in PDF format. Pretty amazing!
You can download the entire book (at no cost) in PDF format by clicking the "Download" button in the upper right region. Or, you can simply browse the contents of the book by scrolling or by clicking the "Contents" portion in the rightmost window. You can also search the text of the book using the "Search in this book" box at the right.
If you want to refine your book searches, you will want to go to the "Advanced Book Search" page. From the main page http://books.google.com/ click the words "Advanced Book Search" just to the right of the "Search Books" button. HERE AGAIN, you will need to select "Full view books" instead of "All books" if you want books in the public domain!
From this page, you will be able to conduct searches by author, title, date, etc.
David has provided our readers with a powerful and new way of accessing data, and I’m sure we are grateful for his notification. I’ve used it, and it’s been very useful to me…
For a definitive examination of the “Lifewave” scam we covered at www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120106dumb.html#i4, go to www.worldwidescam.info/lwresearch2.htm and see a complete – and damning – report, or be satisfied with this – in my opinion, very restrained – summary:
We were told that Lifewave would be releasing a great deal of NEW research to support their claims for their nanotechnology patches.
In reality, of eleven documents currently posted on the Lifewave web site, one study is not available at all and the other ten are all old research and studies completed prior to 2006.
Two of these studies have been exposed as illegal and unauthorized frauds. The others either contain statistically insignificant data and results, or are fatally flawed by lack of proper protocol and independent controls, done by biased researchers and skewed by incomplete data and analysis.
The research presented does nothing to validate Dr. David Schmidt’s theories, technology, or inventions. Affiliates and customers should be embarrassed that after five years on the market, all that Lifewave has to offer as their very best research are outdated, unprofessional and incomplete studies such as these.
At www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120106dumb.html#i3 we discussed what I believe to be a very unwise decision by a leading center of learning. Reader Frank Collins, of Port Melbourne, Australia, comments:
I am a regular reader of SWIFT and was astonished to see the story about this supposed study. Monash is a respected university and advertises itself as one of the best in the world; at http://www.monash.edu.au/ we read, "Monash is 'well under way' in becoming one of the best universities in the world according to an independent audit of the University." Subsequent to your story, I sent the following email to the PhD supervisor Dr. Jane, but have not received a response:
Dr Jane,
Are you aware that all research conducted so far by competent researchers that has been subjected to proper scientific peer review, has not yielded one instance of the existence of the paranormal that has not or cannot be explained by a perfectly reasonable and rational non-paranormal means?
Are you also aware that the James Randi Educational Foundation offers one million dollars US for any provable incidence of such a phenomenon? You may be the first to take it in spite of many claims having been made and all found to be unsustainable.
Personally, I am horrified that an Australian university would even consider wasting its money and time on such a venture into mystical nonsense and possibly (or more likely probably) damage its good reputation in science and academia.
I found an academic, a physicist, whose interest includes the paranormal. I sent the following email but, again, no response:
Dear Professor Osborne,
I write to you after discovering that a PhD aspirant in the Monash Education faculty is surveying people's “paranormal” experience on-line for the purpose of her PhD thesis.
I subsequently searched the Monash site for anyone who may have “paranormal” as an academic interest and found your name. Are you aware of this study? The link is: www.monash.edu.au/news/newsline/story/1074 and the page is entitled "Spooky survey to identify people's paranormal experiences."
I am sure that you are more than aware that no “paranormal” behavior or activities have ever been recorded that would give any veracity to the assertion that they exist. On the contrary, many efforts have failed to find any evidence and the James Randi Educational Foundation does offer US $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate any such activity.
The purpose of my email is to alert you to this study. The academics conducting the study appear to erroneously assume that because some people experience something they cannot understand, it must be supernatural. Given that their background is not in the science area, they may not fully understand the natural world in a way a physicist does, and your expertise may be beneficial in giving some much needed guidance.
I must admit to being shocked to find that Monash, with its prestigious status in science, was indulging in a study such as this. Even the wording suggests acceptance of paranormal as verifiable. Their international online survey, “The Nature, Incidence and Impact of Spontaneous Paranormal Experiences,” seeks to gather information about people's experiences of paranormal events that defy scientific explanation.
Today, Wednesday, I rang the Media Communications unit and spoke to a Renée Barnes, who informed me that there are thousands of studies being done in the university; that is the job of a university. When I questioned the seeming non-scientific nature of the study in that it assumed the paranormal existed, I was politely told that this was only my opinion.
Up until I saw this story, I always thought these woo-woo studies happened only in less enlightened countries (and maybe the US) but not Australia. Now a university like Monash, with a strong tradition of science, is indulging in this nonsense. Even the way the study is being conducted, is flawed. What is happening to this great country? Anyway, off my soapbox…
Any light you can throw on this through promulgation in the SWIFT would be appreciated. I hope others will be alerted to this incursion into unreason.
In this gift-giving season, we frequently have the problem of suitable choices to make for special persons. Surely this next item will serve you well. You can fulfill the wishes of any of your friends or relatives who are quite bereft of common sense and rationality, by snapping up this offer from Wiley Brooks, Breatharian and founder of the Breatharian Institute of America. Breatharians are those nut-cases who imagine that they don’t have to eat… He offers a workshop at breatharian.com/initiationworkshops.html.
To do the workshops you must travel to southern Utah for 5 days. The workshop includes a visit to Earth Prime in the 5th Dimension in your physical body if you are ready. You will also learn how to become a permanent resident and/or retire in this beautiful world. The process starts at an initial costs [sic] as low as $100,000.00 US. NO REFUNDS. This special offer will last only until Jan 1, 2007. All workshop applicants must be pre-qualified by the Breatharian Institute.
Lest you hurry to take advantage of this limited offer, you should know that Wiley has a somewhat tricky description of his Breatharian life. He specifies that he “has been a Breatharian for some 30 years,” and that a Breatharian “is a person who can, under the proper conditions, live with or without eating physical food.” To quote the robot from Lost In Space, “Danger, Will Robinson!” Expressions like, “some 30 years” and “under the proper conditions” are escape-hatches that Wiley might slip through, if he were to be tested – and tests could very easily be done, of course.
Wiley tells us that back in 1981 he appeared on the "That’s Incredible" TV show demonstrating his strength by lifting 1100 lbs of weights, nearly 10 times his own body weight, and he says he is still able to lift 600 to 900 lbs of weight. Yes, with the right leverage, I can do that, too. He says he sleeps 1 to 7 hours a week “when in a non-polluted environment” – there’s that tricky wording again! His website tells us that for the last few years, Wiley has been teaching “Empowered Ascension” to a very few pre-qualified applicants; I believe that pre-qualification involves a close examination of their bank-accounts…
In any case, please have an enjoyable holiday, stay sober and safe, and I’ll have one more assault on your patience before 2007 arrives!
This just in! We're happy to report that Tory from the Mythbusters will be joining us along with Adam at The Amaz!ng Meeting 5! Tory is not only a Mythbuster, but also a master model maker working on such features as Star Wars I, Terminator III, and his own short "Sand Troopers." More on Tory can be found at dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/meet/meet_05.html.
There is still time to register at www.amazingmeeting.com, but don't delay! Hotel rates expire on Decemer 27th!
