. . SOCIETY

Vol. 31, No 3. September 2011 Steve Novella’s BS detector + SensaSlim the TGA & Me Interview

Australian Skeptics . www.skeptics.com.au

Skeptic_Cover_Mar11.indd 1 13/09/11 10:26 AM The Skeptic September 11

Skeptical Groups in

Australian Skeptics Inc – Eran Segev Queensland Skeptics Association Inc – Bob Bruce www.skeptics.com.au PO Box 3480, Norman Park QLD 4170 PO Box 20, Beecroft, NSW 2119 Tel: (07) 3255 0499 Mob: 0419 778 308 [email protected] Tel: 02 8094 1894; Mob: 0432 713 195; Fax: (02) 8088 4735 Hear Bob on 4BC Panel - 9-10pm Tuesdays [email protected] Meeting with guest speaker on the last Monday of every month Skeptics in the Pub – 6pm first Thursday of each at the Red Brick Hotel, 81 Annerley Road, South Brisbane. Dinner month at the Mezz Bar, Coronation Hotel, Park St in the city from 6pm, speaker at 7.30pm. (meeting upstairs) Dinner meetings are held on a regular basis. Annual Skeptics Convention: November 19 - Bookings online or Canberra Skeptics – Michael O’Rourke & Pierre Le Count contact [email protected] NOTE: May be booked out PO Box 555, Civic Square ACT 2608 http://www.canberraskeptics.org.au Tel: 0417 253 044 [email protected] (general inquiries), [email protected] (Canberra Skeptics in the Pub). Hunter Skeptics Inc – John Turner Monthly talks usually take place on the 13th of each month at Tel: (02) 4959 6286 [email protected] the Innovations Theatre at the ANU. Dates and topics are subject to change. Canberra Skeptics in the Pub gather at 1pm on the Meetings are held upstairs at The Cricketers Arms Hotel, Cooks third Sunday of each month at King O’Malleys Pub in Civic. For Hill (Newcastle) on the first Monday of each even-numbered up-to-date details, visit our web site at: www.meetup.com/ month, commencing 7.00pm, with a guest speaker on an SocialSkepticsCanberra/ interesting topic. Visitors welcome. For further information visit our website www.hunterskeptics.com.au or contact the secretary at: [email protected] Skeptics SA – Laurie Eddie 52B Miller St Unley, SA 5061 Tel: (08) 8272 5881 [email protected] Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc – Terry Kelly GPO Box 5166, VIC 3001 Thinking and Drinking - Skeptics in the Pub, on the third Friday of every month. Contact [email protected] Tel: 1 800 666 996 [email protected] www.meetup.com/Thinking-and-Drinking-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/ Skeptics’ Café – Third Monday of every month, with guest calendar/10205558 or http://tinyurl.com/loqdrt speaker. La Notte, 140 Lygon St. Meal from 6pm, speaker at 8pm sharp. More details on our web site www.skeptics.com.au/vic WA Skeptics – Dr John Happs PO Box 466, Subiaco, WA 6904 Tel: (08) 9448 8458 [email protected] All meetings start at 7:30 pm at Grace Vaughan House, Borderline Skeptics Inc – Russell Kelly 227 Stubbs Terrace, Shenton Park PO Box 17, Mitta Mitta, Victoria 3701 Further details of all our meetings and speakers are on our Tel: (02) 6072 3632 [email protected] website at www.undeceivingourselves.com Meetings are held quarterly on second Tuesday at Albury/ Wodonga on pre-announced dates and venues. Australian Skeptics in Tasmania – Leyon Parker PO Box 582, North Hobart TAS 7002 Gold Coast Skeptics – Lilian Derrick Tel: 03 6238 2834 BH, 0418 128713 [email protected] PO Box 8348, GCMC Bundall, QLD 9726 Skeptics in the Pub - 2nd Monday each month, 6.30pm, Ball and Tel: (07) 5593 1882; Fax: (07) 5593 2776 Chain restaurant, Salamanca Place, Hobart [email protected] Contact Lilian to find out news of more events. Darwin Skeptics – Brian de Kretser Tel: (08) 8927 4533 [email protected] Volume 31 • No 3 • September11 Contents

REPORTS

TGA action and inaction 7 8 Tim Mendham Hear & loafing at TAM 9 8 7 Martin Hadley

FEATURES

The BS detector 11 Steve Novella The SensaSlim Saga 16 Ken Harvey 20 Leo Igwe interview 20 11 Tim Mendham 16 36 ARTICLES How Mud Sticks 26 Ullrich Ecker & Stephen Lewandowsky How I became a skeptic 29 John Smyrk Success of vaccination 30 Ian Gust 29 30 The newer broom 35 26 Elliot Birch The miracle of Calanda 36 42 Biodynamic wine 40 48 Brian Miller Two cultures redux 42 Helen Dale Not wasting water 48 Rob Holmes 40 REGULARS Editorial 4 53 Around the Traps 5 Puzzles page 19 column 39 The logical place 41 What goes around 46 46 Book reviews 53 Letters 60 EDITORIAL From the Editor

The need for information common dilemma facing Skeptics others, those who are not so familiar Ais how to present information with the topic, and need a good and to the public, and especially to those simple exposition on it. Ian’s article is who might be leaning toward belief just that – it may very well have much in unproven and disproven concepts. information of interest to Skeptics, but ISSN 0726-9897 Whether its belief in UFOs and it also makes an excellent hand-out that Quarterly Journal of , cults or , there is can be used to give the ‘target market’ Australian Skeptics Inc a duty and desire of Skeptics to inform an overview of all the major issues that (ABN 90 613 095 379) people, however ‘dickishlessly’ – of the that might not be available elsewhere. Editor scientifically-based evidence regarding Brochures on this subject handed out Tim Mendham any suspect practice or belief system. in doctors’ surgeries are very useful, but Finding such information should often limited to the technical issues in Editorial Board not be that difficult. Searching the a fairly formal way. Ian’s article, again to Steve Roberts net will give a plethora of sources and me, is a great supplement to that – it is Eran Segev documents that will fill the purpose. It easy reading, and it covers the issues in Martin Hadley will also bring up a plethora of less- enough depth to serve any reader in the Barry Williams than-scientific comments and articles, general public. some of which are ill informed, some of The various Skeptic groups website Design Services which are stupid and some of which are have much of this sort of information. Nova Consulting P/L downright dangerous. But I think we need more. All correspondence to: We modestly pride ourselves on the Too often Skeptics are accused of Australian Skeptics Inc information in this journal. As editor, preaching to the converted. But our PO Box 20 I’ve always aimed to have a spread of outreach to the public is often limited Beecroft NSW 2119 information in each issue covering to the opportunities that present Australia different topics and often disparate styles. themselves – press, radio and TV You need only look at a selection of interviews and invited articles. In these, Contact details articles in this issue to see what I mean. those who take part try to present a Tel: +61 (0)2 8094 1894 The interview with Leo Igwe looks at reasoned and reasonable argument, Mob: +61 (0)432 713 195 activism and in Africa, tinged but it’s not always easy. Fax: +61 (0)2 8088 4735 with a view on international influence As a recent example, on a Seven [email protected] and cooperation between Skeptical Network Sunrise program, Peter www.skeptics.com.au groups. The short piece by Elliot Birch Bowditch, well-known Ratbag and of the Young Australian Skeptics looks former president of Australian Skeptics, The Skeptic is published four times at the use of social media by Skeptics and Bill Chalker (probably the most per year by Australian Skeptics Inc. (and not without a sense of humour on reasonable and approachable person Views and opinions expressed in articles the history and the limitations on past in the UFO believer field in Australia), and letters in The Skeptic are those of methods of communication.) And Prof were given about a minute each to the authors, and are not necessarily Ian Gust gives what is, in my opinion, respond to some plainly ridiculous those of Australian Skeptics Inc. an excellent overview of the background UFO claims. Both Peter and Bill were Articles may be reprinted with and issues with vaccination and the anti- understandably peeved. permission and with due acknowledge- vaccination movement. Those sorts of opportunities are often ment to The Skeptic. The inclusion of this last article needs annoying and unproductive. A waste All effort is made to ensure correct a little more comment, I believe. To of time. Therefore it is important for us acknowledgement of all contributions. man of our readers, what Ian is saying to present factual and to a certain extent We are happy to update credit when so may be well understood. The history detailed information in a more proactive informed. of vaccination, the troubles with side way. It should not preach, it should effects, and the dangers of the anti- not demean, but it should be readily Editorial submission deadline vaxers are known to them, in no small there in response to any query that for the next issue: amounts. But, as above, what we do might arise. . October 15, 2011 need is information we can give to - Tim Mendham, editor 4 NEWS The Skeptic September 11 Around the traps ... health

Spinal manipulators – NSW in May, but the council dismissed Griffith Uni rejects one in, one out the claim that Weiner was guilty of false homeopathy link advertising or that he was exploiting the Two alternative health practitioners public’s ignorance of medical research. Griffith University, having recently – one a leading chiropractor who had In a letter to Cunningham, the launched a candidate malaria publically taken a stance against council said it had “considered that Dr to protect against all known strains vaccination, and another calling Weiner was entitled to put his opinion of the deadly disease, has definitively himself a ‘spino-migrainologist’ - faced forward and that this was not in breach rejected any link between the vaccine tribunals by official bodies recently, of the code”. and homeopathy. with the result that the case against the Cunningham told Australian Doctor: Claims made on the website of anti-vaxer was dismissed and the other “If these are Mr Weiner’ personal homeopathy spruiker Homeopathy Plus spinal manipulator was deregistered for opinions, then he’s entitled to them. said that the vaccine was an example of three years. But he’s meant to be a registered health homeopathy. Nimrod Weiner runs Newtown professional. I’m bewildered by the “Our candidate vaccine is not Community in Sydney council’s decision.” related to homeopathy in any way,” and is a board member of the NSW Meanwhile, a qualified GP who says Professor Michael F Good, chair branch of the Chiropractors’ Association treated patients suffering depression of the National Health & Medical of Australia (he was previously listed and panic attacks with a controversial Research Council, and chairman of the as vice-president). He was accused of spinal manipulation technique failed in Spinal Cord Injury Network, Institute promoting anti-vaccination messages via his bid to have a three-year suspension for Glycomics at Griffith University. his website and during public seminars. overturned. “Our approach is science-based.” (See a report on one of his seminars by Again according to Australian In the press release on the launch, Skeptics vice-president Doctor, Richard Gorman told the the university announced the opening in The Skeptic, 31:1, p16.) Medical Tribunal of NSW that of the Institute’s new Laboratory of The Australian Doctormagazine “conventional general practice is inferior, for the Developing World, published a recording of a seminar, incompetent and involves the lowest as well as the launch of PlasProtecT™ and an article by Paul Smith referred common denominator. … It is my “whereby ultra-low doses of whole to some of Weiner’s comments, such as sincere opinion that orthodox medical malaria parasites are ‘put to sleep’ SIDS was “in many cases, vaccination practitioners potentially injure patients using a unique chemical treatment”. ”, some vaccines included “a at every consultation. This is because “The sleeping parasite is then scraping” of aborted human foetuses, they do not recognise, as a result of injected in very small doses and we a claim that homeopathic vaccines inferior training, the existence of the have observed very strong immune were a safer option than conventional traumatic cervical spine syndrome.” responses that can protect from ones, and a page on his website entitled In one instance, Gorman used the multiple strains and species of the “Vaccinations: 18 reasons to Just Say technique on a 25-year-old patient with parasite, thus potentially overcoming No”. These claims raised a storm, even developmental delay, depression and the major hurdle to developing a among the chiropractic profession. suicidal tendencies. He was accused of vaccine.” Australian Doctor quoted Phillip not giving proper information to the Homeopathy Plus, run by Donato, chair of the Chiropractic Board patient that would enable him to reach homeopath Fran Sheffield who of Australia, who said that chiropractors an informed decision. Gorman said “It’s herself is linked to the Australian had a duty under the profession’s code silly to be fumbling around, worrying [anti]Vaccination Network, instantly of conduct to provide up-to-date, about whether he got consent, when jumped on the announcement to claim evidence-based information. there has been such a good result.” that “Once again, this is homeopathy “It appeared at the very least [Weiner] The tribunal found that Gorman’s – an approach homeopaths have used is misinformed and may be providing conduct amounted to unsatisfactory successfully for malaria protection and misleading information to the public.” professional conduct and professional prevention for centuries.” Donato urged people to make formal misconduct, saying he did not have Prof Good completely rejected this complaints over any concerns they sufficient physical or mental capacity, claim, adding that “Let me assure you might have. knowledge and/or skill to practise that I am no supporter of homeopathy. A complaint by Melbourne spinal . He was deregistered by the As Chairman of NHMRC I can also surgeon Dr John Cunningham went tribunal and ordered not to reapply for assure you that NHMRC does not before the Chiropractic Council of registration for another three years. support homeopathy.” 5 NEWS

Griffith Uni rejects GPs split over CAM registration homeopathy link The prospect of naturopaths and Continued... herbalists gaining formal registration with the Australian Health Practitioner But Homeopathy Plus doesn’t Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is stop at claims of spurious links causing consternation among GPs, between homeopathy and true with just over half of participants in science. Its website tells readers how a Medical Observer poll saying they “homeopathy’s ability to protect favoured the move. doesn’t just stop at malaria”. While it was a small poll made up of They can “Learn how it is also being 94 web poll votes, 61 per cent believed Formal registration, Brooks used for: the two groups should be registered by said, would help “weed out” • Dengue fever in Brazil AHPRA. unprofessional and substandard • Meningococcal disease in Brazil The Observer says “The poll comes practitioners while regulating • Dengue fever in Colombo amid an ongoing consultation by the education and ethical standards. • Japanese encephalitis in India Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory But some GPs voiced concern • Leptospirosis in Cuba, and Council on the need to better regulate that such a move would send the • Animal diseases such as kennel unregistered health practitioners. wrong message. cough and bovine mastitis.” Options for the introduction of The Observerquotes Dr Alistair Australian Skeptics supports voluntary or statutory codes of Vickery, professor of general the use of in the conduct for unregistered health practice at the University of Western development of such useful and professionals have been put forward in Australia, who said that until there practical medical treatments as that a consultation paper.” was greater evidence supporting the developed at Griffith University. It The Australian Naturopathic efficacy of naturopathic and herbalist seems a shame, then, that others Practitioners Association chair Chris treatments, formal registration have no restraint in claiming such Brooks said the proposed codes did would give these professions too developments as their own, when not go far enough and registration was much recognition. they are decidedly not! needed, The Observer noted.

Teachers Health teaches woo intelligence to restore balance and health to neurological and In a worrying gesture toward a physiological function.” profession concerned with education • : “Reflex points, which and critical thinking, the NSW Teachers relate to all parts of the body, can Federation’s Teachers Health Fund be found in the feet, hands, face has given a ringing endorsement to and ears. These points respond to unproven and disproven alternative Statements made in the publication pressure, stimulating the body’s health practices, without any caveats endorsing such practices are extremely own natural healing process. The or suggestions there might be serious credulous and verge on the ridiculous. body starts progressively clearing doubts about them. For instance: blockages, and re-establishing and Nicole Lestal, the editor of the Fund’s • : “When healthy, an balancing flows.” Health Matters publication, says in her abundant supply of qi or ‘life energy’ We contacted the Teachers Health editorial in the Winter 2011 issue of flows through the body’s meridians Fund in July – as did others - asking the publication that “It’s good to know – a network of invisible channels for an indication the Fund had done that your Teachers Health Fund Extras through the body.” any assessment on these practices, and products afford you coverage for a range • Homeopathy: “Its effectiveness has that its “unquestioning endorsement of alternative therapies to help you to been clearly established by over 200 is based on more than an unbridled combat those awful winter bugs, and years of clinical experience.” (and childlike) enthusiasm for practices feelings of general ill health.” • Kinesiology: “... identifies the that are more fitting for a new age The practices covered by the fund elements that prevent the body’s organisation than one devoted to the include acupuncture, Alexander natural internal energies from teaching profession”. technique, , Chinese accessing life enhancing potential We are still waiting for their response. herbal medicine, homeopathy, within the individual. ... it works This topic will be the subject of kinesiology and reflexology. with the body’s innate healing further research by Australian Skeptics. 6 REPORT Health The Skeptic September 11 TGA - Action & Inaction The National Audit Office has labelled the TGA as a poor Advisory Committee on the Safety of (ACSOM), which drew the communicator, and the TGA suggests stronger labels. review panel’s attention to the lack of public awareness of the uncertainties he Therapeutic Goods accordingly. Consumers and health of medicine safety in the early post- TAdministration (TGA) is practitioners have as much interest in registration period for medicines reportedly considering what was therapeutic goods as the industry that requiring a risk management plan. described in The Age newspaper as a produces and markets those goods.” ACSOM proposed that a new “radical option of requiring alternative Quoted in The Australian newspaper, risk communication scheme be medicines to contain an ‘untested’ former Commonwealth ombudsman introduced to alert consumers and disclaimer on their labels”. and head of the inquiry, Prof Dennis health practitioners to the level of risk The TGA is the body that is tasked Pearce, said “Even among health in the early post-market period. The with establishing and maintaining a industry people, they seemed to find scheme would be similar to the United “national system of controls relating to it easier to get information from the Kingdom’s ‘black triangle’ alert system. the quality, safety, efficacy and timely US Food and Drug Administration “Health professionals would be availability of therapeutic goods”. website than to find out things that are particularly encouraged to report adverse It was suggested that this move would happening within the TGA.” events that appeared to be related to be in response to people’s expectation The review was looking at the TGA’s drugs with the early post-marketing that anything registered by the TGA has level of communication, not how – or symbol,” ACSOM said. been tested and is as efficacious (or non- whether - it actually undertakes reviews However, “while panel members dangerous) as the manufacturers claim. of medical products and devices, though agreed with the concept of an ‘early A spokesman for the TGA said the this has been the subject of much post-marketing risk communication move was under “active consideration”. criticism in the past. Recommendations scheme’, some members are opposed to The Age’s story on this possible case therefore concentrated on ways to the use of the United Kingdom’s black of TGA activism follows closely on improve its online presence, information triangle as they interpreted it as being an Australian National Audit Office on its members and activities, principles ‘sinister’, and not as a cautionary symbol review into the transparency of the of consultation, etc. to raise awareness of a product’s recent TGA that found the organisation has However, many of the submissions approval. However, the symbol (or a been conservative in its actions and to the review did mention the TGA’s variant) is used, or is to be introduced, that it could do a lot more to keep the approach to testing products. in other European countries.” public informed of its deliberations and This might have been reflected in Submissions to the review included processes. the review panel’s executive summary, those from Australian Skeptics Inc “It was apparent that the expectations which suggests that “the TGA should vice-president Rachael Dunlop and the of the public are not being met and adopt a pro-active stance to many Victorian Skeptics. there is more the TGA can do,” the issues relating to therapeutic goods A submission to the review from the review’s report says. “The decision to that are of concern to the public Complementary Healthcare Council establish the review reflects community that it serves. It should move away of Australia said that CHCA “does concern about the lack of information from the conservative approach that not support disclosure of product made available by the TGA.” has characterised its actions in the information in relation to ingredients/ One area that was raised in the past and recognise that it formulas as this encroaches ANAO’s recommendations was the has a duty to collaborate on commercial-in-confidence TGA’s work with stakeholders “to with stakeholders to create details. The complementary improve labelling and packaging a culture in which the medicine industry already requirements to educate and assist community has confidence struggles with the lack of consumers and health practitioners to in the therapeutic goods the exclusivity/data protection make informed decisions about the TGA regulates.” available impacting on quality use of therapeutic goods”. While it wasn’t competitiveness and With a suggestion that the TGA was specifically recommended, innovation in the market. serving the industry rather than end- the possibility of symbols The CHC believes publicly users, the report says that “It is necessary on labels to indicate risk disclosing additional product for the TGA to recognise that it serves levels was raised by some information would not multiple stakeholders and that it must submissions to the review, benefit consumers but lessen adapt its communication strategies including by the TGA’s own the forces of competition.” . 703 REPORT Events

Hear & loafing in Las Vegas

Martin Hadley reports on the downs and ups of visiting TAM.

he question is: why go to The a football field. Bars and restaurants on TAmazing Meeting? the other side are almost too distant to First the bad news. You are down make out. The sensations are physical roughly $2000 which gets you to coolness but visual warmth. A soothing Las Vegas by cattle-class. After flying twilight of golden beams from above through the day and a shortened night, meet the glows and flickers of countless you wake up to the previous day again. poker machines. No daylight, or Eventually you are welcomed by a daytime, or time of any kind is to be typical afternoon temperature of about discerned. Unless you are right next to 42oC. The registration fee of $425 lets a machine paying out, or a noisy craps you sit in a big auditorium for three table, there are no jarring noises – just a days; the optional workshops cost thousand whirs and alluring chimes. extra. And you haven’t yet paid for a Randi has picked a good spot. room or played a game of blackjack. It was designed to attract families. It is ’s annual gathering Let the parents gamble; let the kids of some of the world’s most prominent compete at something. What are those skeptics and their keenest followers – kids dragging around in those weird 1652 of them this time. It takes place wheelies? Bowling balls destined for one in the massive and splendid South of the 64 alleys in use for a tournament. Point Casino, a plush and sparkling Those cowgirls and their horses would monument to human frailties. be heading for the indoor arena, big Fortunately for the owners, the place is enough for 4600 people around the big enough to fit in a lot of other people edge. Two days later it became a BMX more inclined to gamble than the track. Meanwhile, somewhere there sensible skeptics. was room for hundreds of little martial If you have led a sheltered life and artists to have at each other, under the never been to a big casino, the arrival benign supervision of Chuck Norris. here is a memorable experience. From The general opulence extends to the numbing heat, you pass through the huge area made available for us Top The South Point Casino, host to TAM 9 and two sets of doors onto the red and gold skeptics. Technically things went very a “monument to human frailties”. carpet of a wide entrance area. A few well. Down each side of the room, Above “A soothing twilight of golden beams more metres and you are at the edge of reproductions of the presenters shone from above meets the glows and flickers of a gaming room that seems bigger than from massive screens, the sound so countless poker machines.” 8 The Skeptic September 11

clear that an infectiously excited exploration, which was Randi, sounded as if he were right a reminder of how such beside me. And any inveterate fidgeter discoveries can be as amazing would appreciate a place big enough as any human experience to sneak in and out of without causing of the real world, while disturbance. demanding human virtue The organisers aim to meet the at its highest - patience and expectations of an audience that has occasionally great courage. travelled far. Less than three per cent However, it is sobering of the guests call the area ‘home’. The to see astronomy as an area rest of us came from 47 States of the where so much was achieved Union, plus 17 other countries. That under the pressures of meant lots of fascinating people to talk warfare, or peacetime fear of to between presentations. Many of attack. Is that what it takes to our American cousins find themselves divert enough funds towards the only skeptic in their community space work and away from or family, so TAM is important both retail-therapy or wasteful intellectually and socially for them as economic bubbles that burn one of the few opportunities during years of savings? the year to get together with like- Gay gave a heartfelt minded people. talk on this issue in the light of recent funding SPEAKING OF SPEAKERS cuts to NASA. When she So who was the pick of the podium? was growing up, it was With so many outstanding individuals the discoveries made by speaking, overall adjectives are difficult to NASA which inspired her choose. Impressive? Of course. And also to become an astronomer. awe-inspiring, authoritative, captivating, She questioned what there provocative … the list goes on. will be to inspire the next What is the collective noun for generation if science and people like James Randi, Neil deGrasse space exploration are scaled Tyson, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, back. , Carol Tavris, Pamela On a similar note, the Gay, Richard Wiseman and Richard charismatic Tyson spoke Dawkins? Add another thirteen passionately about the key presenters, then fifty panellists decline in scientific output and assistants, all marshalled with in the US and Canada over great discipline and aplomb by (the the past 10 years, compared incomparable) , plus twenty with that of China, Japan one exhibitors (including the Australian and Europe which has been Skeptics) and a free vaccination clinic rising, and Brazil, which now (courtesy of the Skepchicks) and you has its own space program. end up with a program that is so full and He pointed out that the varied that it is not humanly possible to money spent on bailing out see and do everything. financial institutions in the What you get from a cornucopia like GFC amounted to more TAM will be different for each of us. than has been spent on I suppose it depends upon what you NASA in its entire 50 year didn’t already know and what you were existence. primed to notice. I’ll suggest a couple of the ‘Science Guy’, common threads. as he is affectionately known, From top to bottom: The headline this year was “TAM a former student of Carl Richard Dawkins gesticulates; Sadie Crabtree smiles; Pamela Gay makes a point; Carol Tavris is open-handed; Bill Nye 9 from Outer Space”, so the anchor Sagan, brought the focus tests the water; and Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela topic was astronomy and space. Phil back to Earth by looking at Gay and Lawrence Krauss enjoy a little panel-beating. Plait moderated a panel with Bill Nye, the atmosphere from space Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela Gay and and how frighteningly thin Lawrence Krauss on the future of space it is. He made the point that 039 REPORT Events

Hear & Loafing by definition. As many presenters in Las Vegas demonstrated, the first step towards Continued... getting attention from the wider community it is wrong to say that human beings is for us to appear to cannot influence climate when so many be friendly and well- of us consume so much. Instead, we adjusted. should do more with less. As an example, The communica- he spoke about his prototype Solar Sail. tions director from With this technology, it is possible to JREF, Sadie Crabtree, send probes into space at a fraction of had some excellent Neil deGrasse Tyson meets fans with the cost. advice on this topic. stars in their eyes. Even Richard Dawkins abandoned If skeptics want to religion for once and spoke about his change hearts and minds, we have to AND THEN THERE WAS ... upcoming book for children, The Magic approach people in a way that resonates There were plenty of other gems of Reality. In keeping with the theme with them. As she said, “Don’t tell about all sorts of things. Our personal of TAM, he talked about the chapter people you want to raise their taxes; tell favourite was this, passed on by entitled Are We Alone?, which examines them you want to fix their potholes.” Eugenie Scott (and known as Gibson’s how alien life forms might evolve. These insights were augmented by the law): “For every PhD, there is an equal Skeptical activism and impressive Carol Tavris, who spoke later and opposite PhD.”That added up to communicating skepticism were also that day about cognitive dissonance and three days of presentations plus a day common themes and in this area the how conflict and argument entrenches of workshops, plus evening shows, all presentations and panel discussions people in their own position, however offered in an atmosphere of talent and complemented the optional workshops. wrong that position might be. generosity. Entry to Penn Jillette and Canadian Desiree As usual, the NoGodBand was by donation. At Schell ran an excellent medical matters midnight were served the traditional workshop on how to A recurring sub-text: also featured on bacon and doughnuts. Penn on vocals create and manage a “ the program. and bass guitar turned Viva Las Vegas grassroots skeptical as skeptics, we are only as into slow blues, reminding us of the campaign and good as the skepticism we led a panel darker lyrics: “All those hopes down the followed up with a apply to ourselves. with David drain … If you see it once, you’ll never presentation on what ” Gorski, Harriet be the same again”. skeptics can learn Hall, Kimball If all that is not sounding like a full from activism in other Atwood, Mark diary, remember that in Vegas, the social movements. The creator of Surly- Crislip, Rachael Dunlop and Ginger possible extra-curricular activities are Ramics, Amy Davis Roth, led a panel Campbell discussing placebo medicine. legion. I was reminded of ‘the way of with Elyse Anders, Richard Saunders, Recent research shows that the so- things’ in Melbourne, when I saw one Jennifer McCreight, Justin Trottier and called placebo effect is in fact a purely of our eminent Victorian members Maria Walters talking about recent perceptual response which takes heading off to the range for a little skeptical campaigns and what made place only in the brain of the subject. pistol work and Uzi practice. Different them successful. Accordingly, practitioners of alternative strokes for different folks, as they say. medicine cannot use the placebo I’d go to TAM again because they THOUGHTS ON DICKISHNESS response to claim that what they do have the talent to succeed in their I noted a recurring sub-text along these actually heals their patients. objectives; and their objectives are lines: as skeptics we are only as good as On a lighter note, the Skeptics worthy, as described by JREF President the skepticism we apply to ourselves. Guide to the Universe crew did two D J Grothe: “TAM Las Vegas 2011 This includes asking the question live tapings of their podcast. Jamy Ian is a vacation from unreason, a time “How much genuine enquiry have you Swiss led an hilarious retrospective to celebrate skepticism and critical embarked upon as to why the other discussion with James Randi, Banachek thinking, a conference for planning person believes what they believe?” and Michael Edwards about Project and organising the growing skeptics Just as no Christian will convert me Alpha in which magicians Banachek movement. It is a time to debate and by calling me too proud for God, and Edwards posed as psychics and learn and make new friends.” what blogger will react positively to managed to infiltrate a paranormal If you can afford to make your life abuse from a skeptic? To outsiders, research laboratory, utterly confounding more interesting, then consider next we are spoilsports and curmudgeons, the researchers. year’s TAM. It’s definitely worth it. . 10 FEATURE Skepticism The Skeptic September 11

The

BS DETECTOR Knowing what’s true and what’s not – what we politely call BS – can be a matter of seeking the evidence. Steve Novella also points out there are key indicators that should raise red flags with anyone.

eople get confronted all kinds of to be BS in the end. Pclaims. I see patients every day who There is a process we go come to me and they say “What do you through. And I would like think about this?” to demystify it a little bit. And these are the people who are You start with a very coming to a physician and asking basic question – “How questions, which is probably the tip extraordinary is the claim of the iceberg. The people who aren’t you’re being confronted asking their physicians these questions with? That doesn’t are the ones we really ought to get to. determine if it’s true or There is a good process I go through not. A lot of people when confronted with a new claim think that a priori to test to see if it’s BS. It’s not always skeptics give things obvious. Sometimes people ask me the ‘sniff’ test and if about the latest vitamin to cure cancer it seems out of the – Ok, that’s probably BS. ordinary then that And then there are the ones that, means it’s BS. at first blush, you can’t really know But no, it just if it’s legitimate or not. It may sound iffy, you’re not really sure what the mechanism might be. I’ve heard of “transcranial magnetic stimulation for migraines”. That sounds a little odd, but it actually turns out to be BS Detector a perfectly reasonable treatment or a hypothesis – it’s not yet proven, but e How extraordinary are the claims? we’ll see. When I first heard about e How many different conditions are claimed to be treated by one modality? “Botox for migraines” I thought e What is the mechanism? someone’s trying to make money there. e What is the plausibility? But now it’s FDA approved and the e Is the treatment generally accepted or promoted by a single individual or research is actually fairly robust. a group? So raising the red flag or activating e Are there claims for a conspiracy of suppression? your BS detector doesn’t mean it’s going 0311 FEATURE Skepticism

The BS Detector It’s what I call ‘indication creep’, which true. Homeopathy always comes to happens sometimes I think naively mind when you talk about extreme Continued... and sometimes deliberately. If you’re implausibility. a practitioner using a modality and Another question is whether the you’re using confirmation bias and the treatment is generally accepted or means you’d want to think about it just placebo effect and use psychological promoted by a single individual or a a little bit more than something that factors to convince yourself as well as group? seems fairly straightforward. your patient or client that it works, Treatments that work tend to spread The next question is, “How many then you know what, it’s going to over time. The science is generally a different conditions are treated by seem to work for anything. I’ve had transparent process. There are multiple the same modality?” Now, aspirin practitioners who have told me this different organisations involved in is pretty good for a lot of different – “This is indicated for this one use, the decision-making process as to things. You can treat pain, and fever, but I’ve found it’s good for all sorts of what works and what doesn’t work. and inflammation, and you can reduce things.” Of course you did, because you Not just individual researchers but your risk of heart attack and strokes, take any placebo effect as confirmation universities and regulatory agencies and maybe other things. But they all that it works. So if that’s your process, and professional organisations and feedback to a very common mechanism then you are going to come to the multiple different and allied professions of inhibiting prostaglandins – we know conclusion that it works for everything. that are working together. When how that pathway works in several That’s what indication creep is. something works, people will use it. different ways. Aspirin is the Swiss There is also the fact that the more It will be published in the literature, army knife of medicine. It is really very things it works for – or that it’s claimed people will read the literature, they’ll useful for a lot of things. to work for – the more customers you do follow-up research. There’s a process But when people tell you that have, so there’s an element of market and a community at work in deciding their treatment works for 20 different creep as well. collectively that something works. conditions, all of which are very It’s always nice to have a But if the community hasn’t gone different in their underlying cause, mechanism. You don’t need to know through this collective process then that should make you more skeptical. the mechanism, you can prove with a it’s unlikely you’re going to have It doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it’s just high degree of confidence that drug A something that is likely to work. You that your BS detector is getting a little works for disease B without knowing have to at least ask yourself, why hasn’t over to the right. how it works. But then, that means it been vetted by the scientific medical One of the recent things we’ve the bar gets set a little bit higher, we community. encountered is ear lights – you shine a need to know that it really does work. Often what you hear is that light in your ear and it treats all kind of Of course, there’s “not knowing the there’s some kind of conspiracy, Big different conditions. The brain balance mechanism” and “there’s no possible Pharma or some other vague group is another one. Sometimes the way they way this could of conspirators. get away with saying their treatment work”. So we might Doctors are hiding treats ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s, not know exactly “ If you can invent the the cure. Whatever whatever ails you mentally, is that they the biochemical fake cause for a host of it is, it’s just that essentially invent one fake underlying pathway that a the proponent is cause for all of these disparate diseases. certain drug for diseases, then of course being persecuted; Like, all of these brain problems example might be your one treatment can they’re individually are an imbalance between the right exerting a biological being persecuted. hemisphere and the left hemisphere. effect that we’re address all of those. ” Whenever you Nope, that’s not true. They just made measuring, but that start to hear that that up. In fact, that’s a 50 year old doesn’t mean that made-up debunked claim. the magical hologram in the plastic on being woven to explain why “this is the But if you can invent the fake cause your wrist is going to cure arthritis in only clinic in the world to offer this for a host of diseases, then of course your knees. That doesn’t mean that, one lone maverick doctor’s treatment”, your one treatment can address all because we don’t know the mechanism, then you’re being sold a bill of goods. of those. The ultimate manifestation that that’s on an equal footing. There’s That’s a way of hiding from this glaring of that is someone like Hulda Clark a false equivalent that’s often put problem that science is a community who claimed that all human disease forward. transparent effort that happens in is caused by a liver fluke. So if you But there is a difference between not the peer review literature. It’s not treat the liver fluke, then you can cure knowing and knowing that it’s highly this rather quaint concept of a lone whatever ails you – except for the thing implausible, that we would need to maverick toiling away. that killed her, apparently. rewrite the physics textbooks and the I mean, how would you even do So beware of that, it’s very common. biology textbooks if these claims were that? That may be the place in the 12 The Skeptic September 11

modern scientific era where you might Prize in Science & Medicine, so he’s Even just to find it is still challenging generate ideas, but you can’t go through got to be legitimate. for me. the whole process of showing that a That was brilliant marketing on If I’m looking up a topic that’s not treatment, especially a complicated Hammesfahr’s part. It really worked. in my narrow area of expertise it’s often treatment, is safe and effective for a For the average person who was challenging for me to know how to disease unless you have gone through a looking for a treatment, and he was find the evidence I’m looking for. In fairly elaborate process and there’s been telling them what they wanted to hear, fact, it’s often the second round, when replication etc. that was all they needed to hear. I find something close to it, that I If there’s a reasonable question you It takes five minutes on Google to have to read just to find the terms I’m could ask about a treatment or you’re figure out this has to be a lie. supposed to search on. Once you hit being met with “there’s a conspiracy Offshore clinics are always a red flag those terms that’s when you start to get against it”, then that’s a huge red flag. as well. I think isn’t it obvious by now the real evidence you’re looking for. Some more things to think about. that if you have But it’s good to to go to Tijuana know, generally THE INSTITUTE OF BOB to get something “ It’s amazing to me how speaking, what This is the guy who says he’s discovered mysterious injected these people are able to kinds of evidence this all by himself, he has a lone clinic, into your butt there are out there there’s no other place in the world that it’s probably wiggle out of their clashes and how we think where you can get this or he has a not a legitimate with regulation by getting about them. franchise, and often these are tied to treatment. (I joke grassroots support. The lowest level fairly grandiose claims for authority or about that, but ” of evidence is the expertise. Tijuana’s apparently anecdote – “I took My favourite example is of one a common location.) this and I feel better”. neurologist who I investigated called There’s a reason why they’re just We know that anecdotes are all but William Hammesfahr. [Hammesfahr outside the reach of regulatory worthless. The late Barry Beyerstein was involved in the famous Terry agencies and that’s because they [former professor of psychology at Schiavo euthanasia case in Florida want to be just outside the reach of Simon Fraser University in British in 2002.] He claimed that he was regulatory agencies. They don’t want Columbia] said that anecdotes lead nominated for the Nobel Prize in to be regulated. The ones that are in people to conclusions they wish to be Science & Medicine. That was his countries like Australia or the UK or true, not to conclusions that actually claim, which has to be a lie because the USA that do have somewhat robust are true. Which means that anecdotes Nobel Committee does not release the regulatory agencies, they will often are worse than useless; they actually names of who’s nominated for 50 years. clash with them. lead you to the wrong conclusion – So unless he was nominated when he My experience is mainly in the they are deceptive, they are misleading. was three, that can’t be true; he can’t US, but it’s amazing to me how We use them in medicine as a way know if he was nominated for a Prize. I these people are able to wriggle out of generating hypotheses, not a way of also thought it was curious that he was of their clashes with regulation by testing hypotheses. I mentioned Botox nominated for a Nobel Prize in Science getting grassroots support from their and migraine before - that originally when he had never actually published patients. They’ll get chummy with local was an anecdote. A plastic surgeon any science. politicians and media personalities, noted that patients he was treating I wrote a critical article about him they’ll bring pressure to bear on the with Botox were coming back to on and over the years I’ve regulatory health agencies. And it him and saying “Hey, I haven’t had a received dozens of emails from patients works. The fact they get out of these migraine since I saw you three months or prospective patients and that’s the problems always blows my mind. ago, and I used to get migraines two one thing that every single person cites: Essentially, we’re being failed by the or three times a week.” But that was this guy was nominated for a Nobel institutions that should be shutting the beginning of the process. It was these people down. seven or eight years later, after many The Institute of Bob increasingly rigorous trials, that we a SHOW ME THE PROOF decided this actually works. e Promotes a single a individual The final arbiter of course is the If you’re using anecdotes to justify e Treatments only available in one clinic evidence. a treatment, that’s a marker of or franchise But this is where it gets really tricky. . e Grandiose claims of authority, expertise The process takes a lot of experience But then there’s a lot of published e Offshore and if you’re a layperson you’re data that’s very preliminary, and most e Clashes with regulatory/professional probably going to need expert advice. published data is wrong for that reason. organisations It takes years and years to know how to At the end of the day, if you go back think your way through the literature. and analyse the literature, you use 13 FEATURE Skepticism

The BS Detector This is a tricky one; this is where I see trials because they’re not placebo- a lot of deception. Using preclinical controlled. They can get the positive Continued... data – data from a test tube looking results that they want. And then they at chemicals or proteins or whatever make efficacy claims based on those – and jumping from that to clinical trials. This is deceptive; I mean, this claims means that the preliminary is fraud. They’re using the research aThe Evidence clinical evidence is mostly wrong. Back incorrectly. And it’s hard to imagine up three or four steps, even before that they’re not doing it deliberately e Quality of evidence – anecdote a animal tests but preclinical data, and or at least with a profound intellectual preliminary rigorous systematic review then try to extrapolate from that all dishonesty because the people who are e Transparency the way to a net clinical outcome. It’s a doing this really should know better. e Appropriateness (right type of evidence thousand to one against you’re going to The other thing they do is to sell -preclinical vs clinical make the right extrapolation. specific claims but on non-specific -observational vs experimental Pharmaceutical companies know effects. For instance, if you give -efficacy vs pragmatic this; they study hundreds of things somebody a massage and then claim e Specific vs non-specific effects before they get one product to market. it’s the ingredient in the oil you use Hopefully they’ll do that before they go that made them feel better. But you bankrupt; some don’t. probably didn’t compare that with a a question you pretty much know You see that all the time in the regular massage without the magic for certain what the answer is, and promotion of dubious treatments. They ingredient in the oil. you find that most of the literature trump some basic science study and published on that question has been then speculate wildly about the clinical wrong for the last ten or twenty years applications. aWhat Do the Critics Say because of the inherent biases in the There are also differences between e BS – detector shortcut research, etc. observational and experimental data. e Seek out critical information The purpose of preliminary research Observational is a good way of looking e Where does the consensus lie, if there is is to tell us how to do the rigorous at what’s happening in the real world one? research and and generating not how to treat hypotheses etc, patients based “ There’s a lot of but not really good There’s a recent homeopathy on a preliminary published data that’s very for testing efficacy, study where they said “It’s the conclusion. for testing to see if homeopathic consultation that works, Using rigorous preliminary, and most something works, not the homeopathic drug. Therefore research, where published data is wrong because you can’t homeopathy works.” No, therefore there’s double control for variables. talking to patients works, it makes them blind, placebo- for that reason. ” You have to be feel better. But talking to patients is a controlled, careful about what non-specific thing, and you can’t make a multi-centre, kinds of evidence are specific conclusion based upon that. randomised and especially multiple being presented there. Then, find out what the critics say. trials, now we’re talking. We’re at the And then there’s the difference No matter what the claim is, I want point where we can actually start to between efficacy research and to know what the other side is saying. make some reliable clinical claims. And pragmatic research. Pragmatic research Until you’ve done that, you don’t have beyond that are systematic reviews of is about “what happens when we use a complete picture. It doesn’t matter that rigorous evidence. this treatment in the real world?” versus how compelling a case may seem. That’s always what I go for first. an efficacy trial which is placebo- That’s the thing you always have If I get a question, let me go right to controlled and where you try to control to realise. You do enough work, and the systematic reviews and see what for variables. you cherry pick, you can put together the bottom line is. Then I can sort of Interestingly, in homeopathy and a story, you can make anything seem backfill and look at the research that’s acupuncture and a lot of the alternative really compelling, and you can make going into those systematic reviews. medicine research, they’re starting to any case you want if you are willing to If you start to see a consensus on the do pragmatic studies instead of efficacy comb through the research and pull systematic reviews on a question then I out the data that you want. feel pretty confident that we’re there. I don’t feel I have my mind wrapped Anything less than that, our track aActivism around any question until I have record is just bad. Your conclusions are e Don’t be a ‘shruggie’ thoroughly explored what the other not going to be really reliable. e Your friendly neighbourhood skeptic points of view are, what the critics have But how appropriate is the evidence. to say. 14 The Skeptic September 11

DON’T BE SHY appropriate. But I get a lot of emails These things happen because of the Finally, I’ll say to you what Kirk said from people who say “My family was silence of the people who should know to the ‘evil Spock’, the one with the going down the road to woo, but I better. goatee: “In every revolution there is pulled them back to reality because I But if there’s one thing I want you to one man with a vision.” had the information, and I wasn’t afraid walk away with, it is to not be silent in My analogy to that is that in every to tell them what I thought.” that situation. . group, in every hospital, in every You plant the seed. social group, there’s one skeptic The opposite of that is what we call who knows that the emperor has no a ‘shruggie’, someone who doesn’t want Editor’s note:This article is a transcript clothes. And the question is, are you to get involved and doesn’t think they of a talk presented at TAM Australia going to be that skeptic and say “You should speak up, and doesn’t see the 2010. know what, that guy is naked, he’s harm. not wearing any clothes. You guys Don’t be a shruggie, be an activist. all know it and may be afraid to say All that really means is just be the it because of political correctness or person who understands this is BS and About the author: you may be so bamboozled by the BS. who can ask the right question, who Dr Steve Novella is the But you know what, this treatment is isn’t afraid to point out what should be host and producer of bullshit. And it doesn’t work and it’s obvious. the Skeptics’ Guide to not scientific.” Complain when you need to the Universe podcast, You can be nice about it, you can complain. If you’re working in an academic clinical be professional and objective about a place which is bringing in an neurologist at Yale it. You don’t have to be an arse or, to anti-vaccinationist to talk to your University School of use ’s term, you don’t have corporation or whatever, complain. Medicine, and president and co-founder of the New to be a dick. Context is everything; be Provide the counter-information. England Skeptical Society.

15 FEATURE Legal Issues The SensaSlim Saga Ken Harvey lays out the history (so far) of his fight with SensaSlim, the law and the way the complaints system works, or doesn’t work.

n March 18, 2011 I submitted (Australia) Pty Ltd, titled, “Notice of Above Author Dr Ken Harvey, as SensaSlim Omy first complaint about Intention to Commence Proceedings”. would like to see him. (Photo by Mal Vickers) the promotion of SensaSlim to This, and subsequent communications appropriate authorities; the Complaint from SensaSlim Australia, threatened about SensaSlim due to Therapeutic Resolution Panel (CRP) who hear legal action against AusPharm and Goods Regulations 1990 42ZCAJ (2): complaints about alleged breaches myself. This was initially aimed at “If, after a complaint has been made of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising removing the material on AusPharmList, to the Panel, a proceeding begins in a Code 2007, the Therapeutic Goods but subsequently (after AusPharm court about the subject matter of the Administration (TGA), who administer complied) it was threatening both my complaint, the Panel cannot deal with the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and the university and me with legal action the complaint until the proceeding is Australian Competition and Consumer unless my complaint was withdrawn. finally disposed of.” Commission who administer the My university could not be joined in SensaSlim subsequently sent out a Competition and Consumer Act 2010. the threatened legal action because the newsletter to its members which stated: This complaint, and at least seven conditions of my Adjunct appointment “This defamation action, which could others, alleged that the promotion of were clear: “During the period of be in the courts for a year or two or SensaSlim on the internet, TV and in this appointment you will receive no even longer, basically gives an iron shops breached numerous sections of remuneration from La Trobe University. clad protection that nobody can raise the above regulations. Nothing in this offer creates or implies a complaint against SensaSlim to the My initial complaint had been an employment relationship between CRP and hurt us. worked up with the help of several you and the University.” “There are nine complaints that pharmacists. In addition, specific I declined to withdraw my were received in a three day period two promotion was directed at pharmacists complaint. Whereupon, on April 19, weeks ago. These were not complaints to encourage them to stock and sell 2011 a ‘statement of claim’ was issued by members of the public, but clever this product. Thus, on March 31, 2011 against me in the NSW Supreme legal crafted arguments by people acting AusPharm.net.au published a brief Court, alleging that my complaint was on behalf of our competitors and big but accurate account of the complaint defamatory and claiming “general and pharmaceutical companies. These are detailing concerns about the claims punitive damages for libel in the sum of the same people who have written to made. $800,000.00”, plus costs. the CHC [Complementary HealthCare Later that day both AusPharm and This action had the effect of stopping Council] to delay and hinder our I received a letter from the SensaSlim the CRP from all complaints progress and having our advertisements 16 The Skeptic September 11

approved ... and they also wrote to the advertisement lacked the necessary pre- interest to have the case dismissed TGA. approval number. Despite SensaSlim’s immediately so that the CRP could “But let me say this. We will not objection, the CRP decided to hear consider the eight to nine complaints allow their dirty tactics defeat us. We this complaint on the grounds that this currently suspended in the queue. had a very big win this week with the technical issue was not the subject of On July 27, 2011 the Federal Court determination by the CRP that they court proceedings. ordered SensaSlim to publish a notice cannot adjudicate on any matters On June 14, 2011 the defamation on its web site including a statement pertaining to SensaSlim.” case was heard by McCallum J. at the that they had: “falsely representing that My own lawyers filed a notice of NSW Supreme Court. Orders made the Sensaslim Solution was the subject motion in the NSW Supreme Court included that the plaintiff (SensaSlim) of a large worldwide clinical trial when seeking orders to have the SensaSlim pay the defendants’ costs to-date; that in fact no such trial was conducted” claim struck out and the proceedings the plaintiff could file an amended and “falsely representing that Dr dismissed because they disclosed no statement of claim (as requested) Capehorn, an obesity specialist, gave reasonable cause for the action. In on or before 1 July 2011, and that unqualified support to the effectiveness addition, my lawyers asked for an order the proceedings be stood over to the of the Sensaslim Solution and the that the plaintiff pay the defendants’ defamation list on 15 August 2011 purported clinical trials”. costs. but the parties had liberty to relist Meanwhile, my lawyers wrote to The story broke in the media on proceedings in the defamation list on the SensaSlim administrator’s lawyers May 16, 2011 on Norman Swan’s ABC 11 July 2011. asking that the proceedings against me Radio Health Report. Subsequently, On June 16, 2011 in response be dismissed; an offer that remained media coverage has been extensive (see to submissions by the Australian open until 5:00 pm on August 2, the appendix). Competition & Consumer 2011. No response was received by On May 21, the medical research Commission, Jacobson that time; hence the case director of SensaSlim, Dr Matthew J. ordered that the was listed again for the Capehorn, announced he had resigned. Commonwealth Bank NSW Supreme Court on He stated that: “Despite requests, I account of SensaSlim August 15, 2011. have never seen evidence of the original be frozen. SensaSlim’s On August 4, 2011 clinical trial, and it has never been lawyers (Kennedys) the CRP wrote to the published in a peer reviewed medical then withdrew TGA with respect to the journal. Therefore, the White Paper from the case. The SensaSlim advertisement [which SensaSlim claimed proved the Age newspaper published in the Sunday benefits of the product based on the subsequently reported Mail on June 5, 2011. supposed study of over 11,000 people] that the research used The CRP noted that holds no scientific relevance, until that as the basis for the no response had been original trial is published. product’s marketing received to the request “It has not been published at appeared to have been to withdraw the the European Congress of Obesity fabricated. advertisement; the CRP in Istanbul as suggested recently” On June 30, 2011 recommended that the and “video interviews were put on an external administrator was appointed TGA order compliance and also cancel the SensaSlim website, without my to take over the company. the listing of the goods under Section approval or opportunity to review the A revised statement of claim was not 30 of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. content” (email from Dr Capehorn sent submitted by SensaSlim by the final On August 15, 2011 the defence to the Australian SensaSlim franchisees date allowed by McCallum J. (July 1, motion to have the case struck out available on request). 2011). My lawyers then applied again and costs awarded was granted by However, the SensaSlim Australia to have the case finally stuck out (and Nicholas J. in the NSW Supreme web site continued to feature Dr costs awarded) at the next defamation Court. Ironically this would appear to Capehorn. [Editor’s note: As of August list scheduled for July 11, 2011. be a pyrrhic victory as the liquidator 18, the SensaSlim site, moved to a .com However, on July 10, 2011, a letter has said there is no money to award address, is still online and still has the arrived from the lawyers (ERA Legal) costs (and there are also many other video of Dr Capehorn’s endorsement.] of the newly appointed SensaSlim claimants)! In addition, the SensaSlim “Where administrator arguing that the hearing On August 11, 2011 a new to buy” web page listed numerous should be adjourned until August 15, defamation claim was filed in the Australian pharmacies. On June 5, 2011 on the grounds that they had had Queensland Supreme Court by 2011 SensaSlim published another insufficient time to consider the matter. Peter O’Brien (previous director of advertisement for its product in the At the July 11, 2011 hearing Nicholas SensaSlim (Australia) Pty Ltd), this Sunday Mail newspaper. This resulted J. agreed to this request despite defence time for $1,075,000.00. Hence, round in another complaint because the counsel arguing that it was in the public two of this saga now commences. 0317 FEATURE Legal Issues

SensaSlim Saga lawyers and senior counsel will be Australian. June 18, 2011. of order of $40,000; this includes a Harvey K. SensaSlim and me: how criticism of Continued... discount applied because of the public a weight-loss spray landed me in court. The interest nature of the case. Indeed, at Conversation. June 20, 2011 one stage their advice was to roll over, Julia Medew. Whistleblower slams delays in spray KEY ISSUES AND LESSONS wave my legs in the air and withdraw case. The Age. June 20, 2011. There are a number of lessons that need my complaints on the grounds that Federal Court of Australia. Australian Competition and to be drawn from the saga to-date. continuing to defend this action would Consumer Commission v Sensaslim Australia Pty Ltd Firstly, one might have hoped that be unaffordable. Fortunately, due to CAN 140 333 133 & Anor. File: NSD940/2011 Orders: university trained health professionals, the heart-warming moral and financial June 16, 2011. such as Dr Capehorn and numerous support of many friends and colleagues, Jane McCredie. Law shuts down criticisms. MJA Australian pharmacists, would have I was able to see this case through to a Insight, June 20, 2011. recognised snake oil when they saw it; successful conclusion. In this regard, I Editorial. Slim chance of protection for dieters. The but perhaps the return on investment should particularly like to thank Eran Age. June 21, 2011. offered was more compelling? Segev, president of Australian Skeptics, Karina Bray and Andy Kollmorgen. SensaSlim puts Second, one might have expected for organising financial support and TGA on hold. CHOICE. June 21, 2011. that the TGA would have responded to supporting me in court. The media Ian McIlwraith and Julia Medew. Dodgy websites previous calls to look more rigorously at also played a crucial role by providing push diet spray. The Age. June 22, 2011. complementary medicines before they extensive publicity of this ongoing Australian Skeptics. ACCC investigates SensaSlim. are listed on the Australian Register of saga. This response by civil society June 22, 2011. Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). This would sends a strong message to companies Cameron Stewart, Ian Kerridge. SensaSlim goes have saved many people - franchisees, contemplating similar tactics against SLAPP, public interest crusader cops a legal whack. stockists and consumers - from losing complainants; the publicity will be The Conversation. June 22, 2011. large amounts of money on SensaSlim. counter-productive and these cases will Martin Hadley. SensaSlim, the ACCC and Dr Ken Third, on receipt of well documented be fought to a successful conclusion. . Harvey. June 23, 2011. complaints, surely the TGA should have Justin Armsden. Slim spray probe continues. ACA. rapidly de-listed this product from the About the author: June 23, 2011. ARTG using the power it has under Dr Ken Harvey is Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Leigh Dayton. ACCC takes ‘dietary aid’ supplier to section 30 of the Therapeutic Goods Act, Public Health, La Trobe University. http://medreach. court. The Australian. June 25, 2011. 1989? This would have made continued com.au Jo McFarlane. Obesity guru paid £10,000 to promote sales illegal. ‘fake test’ diet spray Sensaslim. Daily Mail UK. Ironically, the TGA has yet to APPENDIX - MEDIA COVERAGE July 3, 2011 formally respond to complaints about A version of this list with full hyperlinks Jonathan Holmes. Anyone SensaStunt? ABC TV Media this product that were sent to it direct. is available on request. Watch. July 4, 2011. Perhaps the Pan Pharmaceutical class Joel Werner. Regulation of complementary medicines. Leigh Dayton. Weight-loss nasal spray saga shows up action, which cost the taxpayer tens of ABC Radio Health Report. May 16, 2011. watchdog. The Australian. July 9, 2011. millions of dollars, has made the TGA Ken Harvey. Diet pills need weightier regulation. MJA Ian McIlwraith. SensaSlim: watch as dollars just melt more cautious about taking such action? Insight. May 16, 2011. away. The Age. July 11, 2011. Regardless, until penalties available Melissa Sweet. More fire for the TGA over complemen- Ian McIlwraith and Julia Medew. Conman Foster for unethical promotion of therapeutic tary medicines regulation. Croaky. May 24, 2011. linked to dodgy diet spray. The Age. July 16, 2011. goods are greater than the financial Australian Skeptics. Ken Harvey taken to court. May Leonie Lamont. Watchdog bid to ban conman. The returns from such behaviour it is unlikely 31, 2011. Age. July 21, 2011. that some sponsors will be deterred. Justin Armsden. Slim spray scandal. ACA. June 1, 2011. Australian Skeptics. Ken Harvey and Sensaslim – the Fourth, Therapeutic Goods Melissa Sweet. Doctor who complained to regulator bills come in. July 24, 2011. Federal Court of Australia. Regulations 1990 42ZCAJ (2) needs to about weight loss product is sued for libel. BMJ. June Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v be repealed; it clearly encourages strategic 13, 2011. Sensaslim Australia Pty Ltd (Administrator Appointed) litigation against public participation John Dixon. Beware the lure of new treatments. MJA ACN 140 333 133 & Ors. File: NSD1163/2011. Orders. (SLAPP) writs by suspending Insight. June 14, 2011. July 27, 2011. investigation of the complaint while Marron L. Public health advocate in court as Julia Medew. Authorities move to dump conman’s the litigation plays out in the courts. In SensaSlim flexes legal weight. Crikey. June 14, 2011. weight-loss spray from market. The Age. August 9, 2011. addition, there is need for national anti- Australian Skeptics. Update on Ken Harvey law suit. Julia Medew. Diet group sues critic second time. The SLAPP legislation to be introduced that June 17, 2011. Age. August 16, 2011. will protect whistle-blowers. Louise Hall. Diet-aid firm’s law suit halts review of its Leigh Dayton. Public health physician Dr Ken Harvey Finally, this case shows that the ‘outlandish’ ads. SMH. June 17, 2011. faces (another) lawsuit. The Australian. August 16, financial cost of defending a defamation Leigh Dayton, Disputed remedy in the dock: a 2011. action is now out of reach of the average defamation case highlights the need to tighten ACCC news release. ACCC takes contempt action individual. The final cost of engaging regulation of complementary medicines. The against Sensaslim director. August 16, 2011. 18 PUZZLES The Skeptic September 11

ACROSS Brain testers 1. Spirited version of the mains I’m involved with. (7) CRYPTIC CROSSWORD no 11 4. The Lion of Africa is the Inspector eneralG we have been waiting for. (3,4) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Nervous mannerism times 99. (3) 9. The last saurian found in erraT Incognita. (11) 10. Emotional transmissions go in six billion directions. (5) 8 9 11. Alien and French! (2) 12. Timeless law on public sculpture. (6) 10 11 12 14. I have my doubts about cousin piss. (10) 13 15. A half might like more. (4) 18. Aliens could be found with knotted ties. (4) 14 15 16 19. Cut fruit is something you look forward to. (10) 17 22. Prisoner of war added to the Queen’s prerogatives. (6) 18 19 20 24. It’s the art society of the Sun God. (2) 21 25. Poster would be Nip if it weren’t across. (5) 27. Can you ever find a copper to put a hole in pins and 22 23 24 25 needles? (11) 26 28. Or back I go for the king. (3) 27 28 29. To sleep perchance rated MO. (2,5) 30. 4 across a father I can be. (7)

29 30

Tim Mendham + Steve Roberts DOWN 1. Are campaigners’ Biblical books around for DR BOB’S TRIVIA QUESTIONS one saint? (9) 2. Seductive demon found in young America. (7) 1. Among Jesus and his 12 Apostles, who was the treasurer? 3. Yes, tourism can be wrong, but it’s difficult to know why? (10) 2. Why did Sir Isaac Newton hang around in brothels 4. My part in the legend. (4) and bars? 5. Outside broadcast was dead flat. (6) 6. A very big soldier ant. (5) 3. When Norwegian bureaucrats on Spitsbergen complained 7. Follow the measure, follow the litigation. (5) to head office in Oslo about mice in their office, what 9. Attack like donkey sick! (6) type of cheese were they told to use in the mouse traps? 13. In a UN club, one for old printings. (10) 16. From the start, you make a nice point. (9) 4. What is the derivation of the Japanese word intoray 17. Pathetic creature the French nun wears. (6) meaning “scaffolding”? 20. Eastern mystical version is primarily a brown deception. (7) 21. Euros a way to lift interest. (6) 5. What proportion of the criminal acts in Enid Blyton’s 22. Stargazer looks like knotted hair but sounds Noddy books are committed by the Golliwogs? like a dish. (5) Answers on page 62 23. Tightened and hurt. (5) 26. Lowlife adds 100 to the total. (4)

0319 FEATURE Interview Darkest

Windfarm in SouthPoint Ka Lae-Ka’u, Hawaii Africa Photo by Donnie MacGowan activist, and for his efforts in highlighting and trying to counter such activities, he and his family have been arrested, beaten and suffered death threats. Leo was the founder of the Nigerian Skeptics Society (though that is not active for now), and at one stage he was director of the Committee for Scientific Inquiry for . Currently he works fulltime for the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) as their representative in West and Southern Africa. He also represents IHEU on the African Congress for Human Rights. Tim Mendham interviews orn in 1970, Leo Igwe has been During an extended lecture tour Leo Igwe on the desperate Ba continual and determined of Australia, in which he visited campaigner for human rights and a every capital (bar Darwin) over a state of life and liberty in humanist and skeptical approach in three week period. His presentations Nigeria. Nigeria, a country which is highly covered what were often the most religious, encompassing Christianity, disturbing aspects of human nature Islam and a strong underpinning and religion, and he was greeted with of animism. Across his own and rapt attention and much concern for neighbouring countries he’s seen him and the state of human rights in corruption, , religious Africa. intolerance, cruelty and abuse of the He spoke with The Skeptic about poor and handicapped, sometimes his life and activities, and his running Top : Leo Igwe takes a break from fighting the including murder and ritual sacrifice. up against religious intolerance, forces of evil and ignorance in Africa with a He regularly addresses conferences superstition, fear and witchcraft. little sight-seeing during his Australian and international meetings on the tour - nine cities in 21 days, numerous pres- subjects of and religious Tell us about your background. entations and a plethora of media interviews bigotry and power. He is the ultimate (including this one). example of a humanist/skeptical I was born into a Catholic 20 The Skeptic September 11

a kind of academic undertone to my attitudes to disappear, like a pack of studies. cards. As I was growing up there were When I was in the seminary I used so many different religious and to stay away from church. They used superstitious beliefs and teachings, and to go to church six times a day to pray. I used to wonder why my people used It was boring. And I wasn’t going to to believe things like that. church to pray, but you needed to go to There’s a tradition there that you church to go to classes, to eat and what shouldn’t question things. They’re you did next day. also not convinced by any As a protest, I said that, if there is lack of evidence. So as God, that God should hear my prayer. I was growing up I If I said protect me, then he should had a tendency to protect me. So I went to church saying get into areas that the same prayer. So I thought, I don’t when I was told need to go to church today, God will something was protect me. Then, I wouldn’t go to forbidden I’d church for two days – God would try to find a protect me for two days. So I stayed Windfarm in SouthPoint Ka Lae-Ka’u, Hawaii way to get into away from church; I stayed away from Photo by Donnie MacGowan it and find out prayers because I thought, why must why it was. I go to a special place to pray? God Sometimes will hear my prayer and protect me family, one it has landed throughout this week. That should be that was and me into enough. still is deeply trouble. I almost I was just toying with the whole superstitious. got drowned in idea. My educational a swimming pool For me, the realisation that the background was because I was told I God-idea was empty was a propelling training in seminaries for shouldn’t go in to the deep force. I asked myself, what am I 12 years. My father sent me there - I end. I saw people going in there and I doing here? There was no way I could didn’t go out of my own volition. My didn’t know how to swim. So I always make it as a priest because I would be parents thought that the seminary had this feeling that, when I was told preaching this thing without being schools had a better education “Don’t go in there”, my feeling was convinced. system. It was designed to turn out “What is there?” So I had serious priests, but you know that many I had this curiosity, I doubts. But there people who go there do not end up was inquisitive. “ When I was in the was no space being priests. Therefore I seminary, they used to go to express that At a point I decided I was not couldn’t just believe doubt. So I just going to be a priest because I didn’t anything. I was to church six times a day to felt that the best find the Catholic teaching very trying to find out for pray. It was boring. way was to leave convincing. In my high school days myself. ” them. at the seminary, I studied philosophy But I grew up I announced and a few months of theology. It in a family where that I was going was the theology that put me off my father was very authoritative and to live on my own. And that was completely because it was in contrast I went to an authoritarian school, so challenging, because I come from a with the philosophical outlook. what I did was I would suspend my deeply religious society, so I had to The dogma and beliefs ... some of own personal doubts and I kept them go from the south-east where I was them were outright nonsense to to myself. I just watched, taking in born and relocated to the south-west. me. I decided that it would just be what they said. That gave me a level ground for me miserable for me to continue, so I waited for my independence, to relaunch my life along my own I made up my mind to leave the when I would live on my own, and convictions. seminary. I was looking forward to that time. I thought that the best way not I didn’t have a specific moment This was particularly when I was doing to feel so miserable and lonely was when a skeptical attitude suddenly philosophy. to start something like a humanist or dawned on me. I’d always been Because I had these questioning rationalist group, and use that to look curious as much as I can recall. My feelings for a very long time, it was for like minds with whom I could father was a teacher and there was not difficult for these [superstitious] socialise. I knew I was having a hard 2103 FEATURE Interview Darkest Africa Continued...

time meeting people because when you want to make a friend, the first question they ask you is which church do you attend? Then because you don’t have a church you become a target for preaching and professional evangelism. They want to invite you to their church. I founded the humanist and [in Nigeria], and since then I’ve been fully involved. I was really encouraged by the humanist tradition of the Renaissance and I felt that maybe I could give it a shot to, sort of, push some sort of African Renaissance using the humanist/ rationalist outlook. That was the key to my inspiration. Leo Igwe meets an interested local at Healesville Sactuary, Victoria But of course it was in the Photo by Mal Vickers minority. I knew that. But I had this deep conviction that much of what we succeeded in supplanting the local gods People are compelled to be are told on the supernatural nonsense by replacing them with the Christian tolerant because of the diverse was out of ignorance and fear. And I ‘god’. Christian denominations. But if you see that every day. I see that around me But our people did not abandon say you don’t belong to any, there’s an through all the days. the traditional gods. What happened antagonism toward you. was that they dismantled the shrines, But I was able to gradually make There were no humanist or physically but not mentally. They my parents understand. You could skeptical movements in Nigeria before retained it intellectually even if not make a choice. My father was born an you? physically. animist, but converted to a Catholic. That was in much of the southern It was his own decision. He decided There were individual humanists. part of the country. In the northern to do it. So I was able to make them I read about some people who tried part, we had Islam. And they too understand that, maybe I was brought to set up a humanist movement. But replaced the traditional gods. In some up as a Catholic but I might decide to by the time I set up my groups there areas of the north you still have some be a humanist. It was the same thing were no humanists or skeptics in the Christians, but there was confrontation – switch from one religion to a non- country. between the two. Islam was already in religion. place when the Christian missionaries I was able to convince them, even Describe the religious setup in arrived, so they were hostile to the though they felt I was travelling a very Nigeria. There are Muslims and missionaries. dangerous path. Christians; the Christians tend to be That kind of rivalry still remains I could be assaulted, I could be Catholics? in my country today. They fight from persecuted, I could be killed. And, of time to time – physical violence. course, when I was having troubles People have lived in Nigeria for so In the south, there is some level of here and there, some of them were many years, across many centuries, and tolerance because of the fact that there telling me: “I think I told you. You most people were animist believers, are so many denominations. There is were taking a risk; it was committing and you have what you call tribal competition among them. But they suicide. You can’t change society.” community gods. We have our own will also have different strongholds. In community god in my village. Not in the south, where I come from, that’s a When you talk about the dangers my tribe, I’m talking about my village. Catholic stronghold. In the other parts, of humanism, here you might lose a few But when the Christian we have the Methodists, Anglicans, friends. In Nigeria, there can be a lot missionaries came, they eventually which dominate. more serious dangers. 22 The Skeptic September 11

I lost all of my friends. So it was What are your activities? ... killed in the name of witchcraft and like starting my life all over again. You in the name of ritual sacrifice. can’t go to people’s homes and introduce We always try to take advantage of yourself. I had a neighbour, he told me everything. If there is an educational It’s very common and overt? that he liked me 95 per cent, but he conference we go there to talk about hated me 5 per cent. And that 5 per the values of scientific thinking and Yes, witchcraft accusation is very cent is because I said there is no god. critical thinking. If there is a women’s common; maltreatment in the name According to him, the 5 per cent conference, we talk about how religion of witchcraft is also very common. hatred has poisoned the 95 per cent. and superstition and tradition are But what happens is that it is always They suggest someone with no god hampering the rights of women. If difficult to measure or to track it down. has no moral ground, and they’ll give there’s something that involves children, When most people in Nigeria grow someone else high moral ground, even we talk about the literature and talk old, they grow old into poverty, and if they’re a criminal. about how to think critically. they need the support of the younger But this is a hard sell, so we generation. One way to punish any When you had moved, you were always look for an opportunity in the member of a family who is suspected of living on your own, having trouble mainstream to get people to understand witchcraft is to withdraw the support meeting people, what were you doing? the importance of humanist, skeptical system. And that is why the witchcraft What was your job? and rational thinking. accusers always target the vulnerable, One of the things we do is organise the ones who need support. I was teaching in primary schools. conferences, like the one this September There are cases of children being Virtually all of the schools were with a national conference. This driven out. There are many ways of controlled by Pentecostal Christians. conference is not strictly humanist, as punishing people because you suspect It was like I needed to do this work to we get skeptics, free thinkers, anyone that they have magical powers and feed myself, so I focused on my job but who is critically oriented. they are using these powers against didn’t discuss religion or free-thinking. Another thing we do is we you. Or you are interpreting your own They knew I wasn’t the prayer type, run campaigns. In Nigeria, as I’ve misfortune as people are after you and but I never told them I was an atheist said, people are very superstitious, are trying to use whatever magical otherwise they would throw me out of Unfortunately, we do not get through power against you and against your the school. to them. Many of the funding agencies progress. I wasn’t paid enough at the school, in Africa are controlled by pastors or Let me tell you this story. When I so I asked a friend of mine who worked imams. So we don’t usually get funds to was ten years old, two of my cousins in a hospital if there were any jobs, and prosecute our campaigns. The funding came to our house and beat my father he told me that, “You know, you don’t we get is from the IHEU, which is very into a coma. My father later told me have a very attractive profile.” I was small compared to that the cousins unemployable by virtue of my personal the enormity of the wanted to use philosophy. task. So our challenge “ The witchcraft accusers my mother for I was gradually trying to get an is to get a really always target the ritual sacrifice. opportunity to start some sort of effective campaign. They had been movement and develop it in such a way But nonetheless vulnerable, the ones who to a witchdoctor that I could express my views and I we still have our need support. and wanted could be free! campaigns. ” to invoke my The day I was confirmed as a paid They include mother because humanist worker was the happiest day campaigns against witchcraft accusation they believed that once a witchdoctor of my life. For the first time I thought I and witchcraft-related abuse. has invoked someone they can stab that could now write anything. Witchcraft accusation is a major person or do anything they want to do. The International Humanist problem. They’re actually a death A friend told my father that and Ethical Union wanted to have sentence. People accused of witchcraft two of my cousins wanted to use representatives in different countries can disappear at any time, particularly my mother for this ritual. But they and they wanted the IHEU to have when the person is from the vulnerable failed, the process backfired and they a status at the African Commission. segment of the population – women, fainted at the witchdoctor’s place. The That was the thing that really made children, the aged, people with superstitious belief is that if you want them want to have a representative disabilities. Immediately there is some to kill someone through voodoo and in Africa. In fact, there are two of us. kind of association with witchcraft you miss it, then the voodoo gets back There’s one in East Africa and there’s I saw it when I was growing up, to you. I don’t know how it works, me in West and Southern Africa. I was when I was asking questions “why?”. but that is the belief that is killing my the first to be appointed. There are And I didn’t see any reason for it. And I people and killing people across Africa. none in northern Africa. saw many people in my community die My father went and confronted the 23 FEATURE Interview

Below: All of these children have been accused a line of distinction between a dark age of witchcraft, abandoned by their families and and enlightenment and what I’m doing Darkest Africa left to wander the streets. is pushing the boundaries … pushing it forward. Continued... If I die and don’t achieve it, then so be it. But I will do my best, whenever brother of the cousins, and said you I’m allowed. want to eliminate the life of my wife. So the man told the cousins and they With the areas that you deal with, went to my father and insisted he tell witchcraft and sacrifice etc, you’re them who had informed on them. My dealing with life and death issues. father refused. So they locked him in a When you look at the issues that we room and beat him. deal with in Australia, do they seem I was traumatised by this; I was ten trivial to you? years old. It was shocking to look at my father bruised They do not. We have the and beaten. What was same problems. You have the their reason? Superstition anti-vaccination movement, and nothing more. we have the same thing in Two years ago, in our own way. my community, a high When I read The Skeptic, school boy beheaded a I draw inspiration. I get more man. This isn’t something refreshed; I get my activist I read in a newspaper, ‘machinery’ lubricated. this happened a few When I read what you are kilometres from my doing in critical thinking, house. You go to see I get inspired. When I read a witchdoctor, and he what you are doing in the might say the spirits need area of psychics, some of the some sort of sacrifice. methods you are using give Go and get the head of me additional tools to tackle someone in your family. what we call witchdoctors or It could be your mother, prophets and prophetesses, it could be your father, it could be your I’m not talking about solving all faith healers. children. So this boy went to his uncle the problems of the world. I’m not even Some of the things we need to and told him to go to the forest. He talking about all the . But be skeptical activists is we need the cut off his head. He took the head to if we can help someone get out of jail confidence to challenge these people. the witchdoctor, and he told the boy who might otherwise be there for years. So reading The Skeptic is like that it wasn’t the head of an old person nourishing me. That’s what I get. that the spirits wanted; that was not But with animism underlying so It may not be with the specifics. It appropriate. And that was how the much of the religion and culture in nourishes me with the substance … head of the man was found, because your country, can you ever solve the the substance of skepticism. So that is the boy dropped it somewhere. problems facing you? You can take some why, when I get my copy, that’s what I’m deeply convinced that this is women out of jail, but can you change I carry around. There may be a story, driven by fear and ignorance. If I can the whole attitude? this happened in Canberra … but you make some difference in the lives of look at the issues, it’s all about dogma, some people, then I would be very I tell people I cannot make it’s all about blind faith, it’s all about happy. So that is why, working for messianic pronouncements - “I have someone spreading nonsense, and it’s the humanist movement today gives come to change the world”. But I’ve all about someone trying to get away me a lot of joy. Particularly as people read histories of other countries. And with fraudulent claims. are coming to realise how people are I think, if Europe can get to where it suffering as the result of blind faith and is today, then there is some hope for It’s very flattering saying you the result of dogma. Africa. are inspired by us. But we are We are having some results. In That is why I ask myself, where do inspired by what you do. What do Malawi we got three women released I want our effort to be channelled. Is it you think we can learn from what from jail who were wrongly accused of toward enlightenment or toward a dark you’re doing in Nigeria? What can murder using witchcraft. age? Now I have succeeded in drawing you teach us? 24 The Skeptic September 11

What I tell friends, in other parts inspired by what you’re doing. forward. But there are people who have of the world is that, because of limited I got to know a humanist in not even started taking these steps. resources, we concentrate on what’s Zambia by reading the Australian Can we have some sort of skeptical happening within the shores of our own Humanist. solidarity and global outlook? People country. But it is important that we I have donated skeptical material who feel they could make donations, devote some of our time to finding out and Australian Skeptics magazines let them make donations to support what is happening in other countries. which some groups in Africa have a group. A small donation of a few This is the mistake people have found useful, and many people file hundred dollars can help organise a made over the years. The say, oh chapters and sections on critical meeting on a campus and distribute this doesn’t matter, don’t worry, it’s thinking. those materials. That was how religion Africa. But Africans, for one reason Some of the things you read and in Africa spread. If there is anything or another, Africans come to live in take for granted are precious for others you can do to support skeptical Australia. Or Australians, for one in some areas. We use them to sow the activism and look beyond your borders, reason or another, come to live in seeds. If you don’t need your copies, they should do it. Who knows, the Africa. Today, the world, they call it a you can give them to us. Out of the James Randi of global village. Any skeptic movement hundreds of people, maybe one per tomorrow may come must be a global skeptic movement. cent may read it and get inspired from Africa. . In other words, skeptics must be ready I know that you have your not only to confront the challenges challenges, and that the forces of in their own country, but they must dogma and gullibility will always be About the interviwer: understand the challenges in other troubling the skeptical outlook. I Tim Mendham is executive places. And we should also understand am saying this, you are making some officer and editor with that somebody somewhere might be progress, you are going some steps Australian Skeptics Inc.

LEO AND ME

ormer Skeptic editor and executive officer Barry Williams overcome with admiration for Leo’s courage and tenacity, F reminisces on his first ‘meeting’ with Leo Igwe, and how even in the face of threats to his life. he introduced him to the Skeptical community: Now, as a result of Leo Igwe’s highly successful tour of Australia, I have had the great pleasure of finally meeting a It must have been eight or nine years ago, while I was man whom I have long regarded as a friend. Long may he still editing this journal, that I received a letter bearing a prosper in his endeavours. Nigerian postmark. Of course, it was Barry Williams not uncommon for people back then to receive letters with Nigerian stamps, but this one was very different in that it did not offer me millions of dollars for the use of my bank account. It was from a young man named Leo Igwe who had formed a Nigerian Skeptics group and was keen to get in touch with fellow Skeptics throughout the world. So taken was I with his story that we began a correspondence that culminated in Leo becoming a regular contributor to The Skeptic. His many articles painted a picture of the difficulties (and very real dangers) inherent in taking a responsibly skeptical position in a country and continent where the every-day acceptance of scientific explanations of natural phenomena are not as well rooted as they are here. As our relationship advanced, I became more and more 25 ARTICLE Irrationality How Mud Sticks Despite the best intentions and the best evidence, misinformation can have ongoing implications. Ullrich Ecker and Stephan Lewandowsky ask how we can reduce them ... if we can.

n the lead-up to the 2001 Australian Despite the fact that these retractions Ifederal election, there were claims that were clearly and widely communicated asylum seekers on a boat off Christmas in the media, many people continue to Island had thrown their own children believe these untruths. For example, a overboard in an attempt to secure recent CNN poll found that about one “forced rescue” and entry into Australia1. in four US citizens continues to believe In the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq the false claims that Obama was born invasion, then US vice-president Dick outside the US9. In 2003, over 20 per Cheney said there was “no doubt” that cent of US citizens continued to believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass that weapons of mass destruction had destruction; that there was “no doubt” been found in, or even used by, Iraq10. that he was amassing them to use Many people, especially in Australia, against his enemies2. continue to believe that man-made In recent years, a group known as the global warming is not an issue of ‘birthers’ has claimed that US President concern11. Barack Obama was born outside the Obviously, if we base our decisions United States3 - which would make him and actions on incorrect information, ineligible to be President. these decisions and actions can turn In 2008, Adjunct Professor Bob out to be wrong, too. The consequences Carter claimed that global warming had can be severe. Politicians can be stopped in 19984. re-elected or dropped for the wrong What do these publically made reasons, careers and relationships can be claims have in common? They all destroyed by false accusations, countries turned out to be false. can be invaded and many civilians An Australian Senate committee killed, safeguarding actions against concluded after extensive investigation threats such as climate change12 can be that no children had been thrown delayed. overboard but that people were in the Why does this happen? And perhaps water because the vessel had sunk1. more importantly, can we prevent this Months of intense search failed to find from happening? any weapons of mass destruction in In psychology, these effects are Iraq after the 2003 invasion5. Hawaiian called “continued influence of officials and the White House have misinformation”13. People continue released Obama’s birth certificate, to rely on misinformation even after proving he was born in the United the misinformation is clearly retracted States6. Carter’s claims about global or corrected. When people receive a warming have been refuted7; virtually piece of seemingly valid information every science academy in the world now and are then told it is actually considers ongoing anthropogenic global false, they continue to rely on this warming a fact8, and the first decade of misinformation. Alas, this even happens the 21st century has been the hottest on when they believe, understand, and record. later remember the retraction. 26 The Skeptic September 11

To a degree, a person’s susceptibility to such misinformation effects depends on the topic and the person’s related pre-existing attitudes and beliefs: Conservatives are more likely How Mud Sticks to believe in misinformation about asylum seekers such as the ‘children overboard’ claims14. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe the birthers’ claims as well as the Iraq-related claims9,10. Free-market ideologists are more likely to deny anthropogenic global warming15,16. In fact, people with very strong beliefs are very good at cherry-picking the data that fits their beliefs (and ignoring evidence that does not, even when it is overwhelming)7. People tend to protect their beliefs and worldviews because violations of strong beliefs are so sometimes we prefer an incorrect and paint but by arson - reduces conceived as threats to one’s identity. model of the world to an incomplete the effect13. This is because the However, the effects of model of the world. alternative can fill the gap left behind misinformation also occur with Making matters even worse, this by the retraction. But again, often completely neutral information and effect has proven difficult to eliminate. an alternative does not eliminate the independently of its emotionality17. Repeating incorrect information effects of the false claims19. In addition, For example, when people learn increases its effects. So if you hear false a plausible alternative is, unfortunately, in a laboratory experiment that a information repeatedly, it will have a not always available. When you find hypothetical warehouse fire was caused stronger effect on your reasoning, and that John did not kill Jane, you may by negligently stored gas cylinders repetition leads to belief. Unfortunately, not have an alternative suspect. and oil paints, and this information is the repetition of a retraction does Warning people explicitly and telling then retracted, people may correctly not seem to have the same effect. In them all about the effect also reduces respond to the question “what caused addition to the fact that headlines are misinformation effects but does not the fire?” with “I don’t know, they first often published on the front page in eliminate them19. This is because it thought gas and paint, but that was bold font, while a possible retraction makes people more careful and they not true.” But a few minutes later they two days later lands on page 17 in start to strategically monitor their may respond to small print, repeating reasoning. Therefore, juries should be the more indirect the retraction will informed that, sometimes, inadmissible question “what Children should be told reduce the effects of evidence is introduced into a trial that caused the black “ misinformation only may mislead them. Children should smoke?” with about the resilience of to a certain degree. be told about the resilience of false “the oil paints”13. false information in their In fact, even if the information in their media education. This is like media education. misinformation is This seems particularly important learning that ” given only once, in the days of and Twitter, John killed Jane, repeating the where information is disseminated then finding out retraction three times quickly, widely, and without the that John didn’t, acknowledging the does not eliminate its effects18. So if fact checks that proper journalists fact that he is innocent, but nonetheless people are told only once that John should always perform. (Of course, telling your friends not to trust John. killed Jane, their attitude towards John the positive side of Twitter is that As the saying goes, mud sticks. will still be affected by this accusation sometimes the truth gets put out there But why? even if they are then told three times before it can be twisted or censored.) When we listen to unfolding news that he was actually innocent. Finally, raising suspicion about the events, we build a mental model of So is there anything that can be source of the misinformation helps the event. Whenever a piece of event done to eliminate people’s reliance on alleviate its effects. For example, information is retracted, it leaves misinformation? people who were suspicious about behind a gap in our model, a gap in Giving people a plausible alternative the official reasons for the 2003 Iraq our understanding of the world. It - for example, that the fire was not invasion – namely, the search for seems as if people don’t like these gaps, caused by negligent storage of gas weapons of mass destruction - were 27 ARTICLE Irrationality

How Mud Sticks Continued...

better at distinguishing between trustworthy news reports concerning war events on the one hand, and false, retracted reports of events on the other20. Similarly, learning that some prominent climate change deniers, such as outgoing Australian Senator Minchin, also long denied the adverse health effects of tobacco21,22 may make people more suspicious of all their claims involving scientific issues. In general, a healthy sense of skepticism makes you better at telling the right from the wrong. 4. Carter, R. M. (2008). Knock, knock: where toward Australian asylum seekers: False So next time you hear someone is the evidence for dangerous human- beliefs, nationalism, and self-esteem. explain how and why something has caused global warming? Economic Australian Journal of Psychology, 57, happened, make sure you critically Analysis & Policy, 38, 177-202. 148-160. question their motives, because in the 5. The New York Times (2003). The elusive 15. Heath, Y., & Gifford, R. (2006). Free- long run this skepticism will lead to Iraqi Weapons. Retrieved from http:// market ideology and environmental a more accurate understanding of the www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/opinion/ degradation: The case of belief in global world23. . the-elusive-iraqi-weapons.html. climate change. Environment and 6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/ Behavior, 38, 48-71. About the authors: blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas- 16. Kahan, D. M. (2010). Fixing the commu- Dr Ullrich Ecker is an long-form-birth-certificate nications failure. Nature, 463, 296-297. assistant professor at the 7. http://theconversation.edu.au/bob- 17. Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., & Apai, University of Western carters-climate-counter-consensus-is-an- J. (2011). Terrorists brought down the Australia’s School alternate-reality-1553 plane!—No, actually it was a technical of Psychology and a 8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_ fault: Processing corrections of emotive Postdoctoral Fellow of the opinion_on_climate_change information. Quarterly Journal of Australian Research Council. 9. Travis, S. (2010). CNN Poll: Quarter Experimental Psychology, 64, 283-310. doubt Obama was born in U.S. Retrieved 18. Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Swire, Dr Stephan Lewandowsky from: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn. B., & Chang, D. (2011). Misinformation is a Winthrop professor com/2010/08/04/cnn-poll-quarter- in memory: Effects of the encoding at the University of doubt-president-was-born-in-u-s. strength and strength of retraction. Western Australia’s School 10. Kull, S., Ramsay, C., & Lewis, E. (2004). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, of Psychology and a Misperceptions, the media, and the Iraq 570-578. professorial fellow of the War. Political Science Quarterly, 118, 19. Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., & Tang, Australian Research Council. 569-598. D. T. W. (2010). Explicit warnings reduce For more information, visit 11. Hanson, F. (2009). Australia and the but do not eliminate the continued http://www.cogsciwa.com. world: Public opinion and foreign policy. influence of misinformation. Memory & Sydney, NSW: Lowy Institute. Available Cognition, 38, 1087-1100. References at http://www.lowyinstitute.org/ 20. Lewandowsky, S., Stritzke, W. G. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_ Publication.asp?pid=1148. K., Oberauer, K., & Morales, M. Overboard_Affair 12. http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/ (2005). Memory for fact, fiction, and 2. Lewis, C., & Reading-Smith, M. (2008). 13. Johnson, H. M., & Seifert, C. M. (1994). misinformation: The Iraq War 2003. False pretenses. Retrieved from Sources of the continued influence Psychological Science, 16, 190-195. http://projects.publicintegrity.org/ effect: When misinformation in memory 21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_ WarCard/. Originally published by affects later inferences. Journal of Minchin http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ Experimental Psychology: Learning, 22. Oreskes, N., & Conway, A. M. (2010). releases/2002/08/20020826.html (link no Memory, and Cognition, 20, 1420-1436. Merchants of Doubt. New York: longer active). 14. Pedersen, A., Attwell, J., & Heveli, D. Bloomsbury Press. 3. http://www.birthers.org/ (2007). Prediction of negative attitudes 23. http://www.skepticalscience.com 28 ARTICLE How I Became A Skeptic The Skeptic September 11 Conversion on the Road to Wherever

am often asked how, given a decade In a new feature of The Skeptic, we plan to publish regular Iin church schools, I became a skeptic. input from Skeptics – leading or otherwise – on how they Curiously it was the church in general (and the Marist sect in particular) that became a skeptic, presuming they weren’t born that way. actively encouraged me to question all We kick off with this anecdote from John Smyrk. beliefs that had no scientific foundation, including all the belief-systems they M: You know very well, the eucharist words, change without any evidence of hold so dear. is [a fragment of] the [human] body of change. So there! One of the many (often pointless Christ. P: So aren’t you now asking me to and usually quite tedious) discussions P: OK, so what about the scientific accept an hypothesis without evidence? that took place in religious instruction test? Wouldn’t that reveal a eucharist M: Yes, that’s right. It’s called faith and classes will illustrate my to be nothing more if you don’t have it you go to hell. point. The topic centred than unleavened bread? P: But can’t I accept that walking under on a question from one Therefore it can’t be of ladders brings bad luck - as an act of of the class about why human origin. Therefore faith - and thus avoid hell? the church was opposed this “body of Christ thing” M: No you can’t! to superstitious beliefs. is a superstition. Therefore P: Why not? Today we would tend to we cannot accept it as M: We have already been through call them “paranormal” correct. Therefore we must this, because it fails a scientific test of rather than “superstitious”. act as if the eucharist is hypothesis. Following is pretty much nothing more than bread. P: That all sounds perfectly reasonable, the dialogue that ensued: M: While it is true that but now what about the … M (member of the a scientific test would Marist sect): Boys, it is show the eucharist to be I began to realise, even then, that very easy to confirm that unleavened bread, your one could get very tired and very old superstition is nonsense. conclusion is wrong and before this discussion would come to P (Pupil): How? therefore the hypothesis - that the a satisfactory - or indeed any sort of - M: All you have to do is [wait for it ...] substance you are examining is human conclusion. . scientifically test the hypothesis that the flesh - is correct! superstition is right. P: Uhhhhh! How come? Editor’s Note: Contributions to this P: What does that mean? M: Because priests have a wonderful column are invited, but no promises are M: If the evidence doesn’t support the power. When they say special words and offered that every submission will be hypothesis, it must be rejected. There wave their arms in a particular way over published – no doubt there are as many is no evidence that walking under a piece of bread [during the ceremony anecdotes on becoming a skeptic as there ladders brings bad luck, so we must called the mass] transubstantiation are members. reject the claim that it does and, more happens. This not only converts bread importantly, behave as if it doesn’t. into flesh, but it also causes wine to be About the author: P: That all sounds perfectly reasonable, converted into human blood. John Smyrk is a visiting fellow in the School but now what about the eucharist? [Buggered if I’m ever going to touch of Management, Marketing and International What is it? another drop of Victorian Durif, Business at the Australian [At this point the pupil was skating especially the cleanskins!] National University. He on dangerously thin ice, because the P: What the kcuf [or whatever the is also principal of Sigma merest hint of a challenge to Catholic equivalent expression was in the 1950s] Management Science, a dogma would immediately result in a is transubstantiation? project management and severe caning, which the Marists had M: Transubstantiation is the change of process improvement developed into a particularly sadistic one substance - unleavened bread/wine consultancy. John spoke at and degrading form of ritualistic child - into another - human flesh/blood - TAM Oz on management abuse.] but without changing its form. In other pseudoscience. 2903 ARTICLE Medicine

The Invisible Success of Vaccination

Ian Gust lays out the lthough vaccines are among the most Mass immunisation has been such Aeffective of all medical interventions, an important factor in the decline in history, the outcomes, and have had a profound impact on child mortality in the developing world human health, as Bob Dylan, who that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and the real situation of astonishingly turned 70 this year, reminds have pledged US$10 billion from their vaccination in the world us, “the times they are a changing”. Foundation to make this the ‘Decade of As Edward Jenner predicted nearly Vaccines’. today … and how times 200 years ago, widespread immunisation Despite all of this, most of the three has resulted in the eradication of million people who owe their lives to are changing. smallpox, with polio, which currently vaccines each year are unaware of it: causes less than 150 cases per year while immunisation is as important (mainly in Pakistan, the Congo and as oxygen, it is just as invisible. Today, Chad) likely to follow soon. many people in the industrialised world In the developed world, immunisa- don’t believe that vaccines are really tion has had dramatic effect on morbid- necessary, while others doubt that ity, mortality and health care costs. In they are safe or effective or claim that the US, it has recently been estimated immunisation is unnatural. that immunisation of each birth cohort These views are not confined to the prevents some 20 million episodes of poorly educated. Some years ago I came disease and 42,000 , with a total home from work to find my wife, who saving of around US$69 billion. is a doctor, distraught having found that In the developing world, the World our daughter’s partner had persuaded Heath Organisation’s Expanded Program my daughter and several of her closest Top: Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox for Immunisation provides services to friends not to have their babies vaccine and the ‘Father of immunology’ more than 80 per cent of children, a far immunised. better coverage than other key health This situation, which incidentally Right: Vaccination programs in Africa - better interventions, such as routine antenatal ended well for the children involved, coverage than antenatal care, provision of clean care, provision of clean water, sanitation caused me to reflect on how things have water, sanitation and bed nets. or bed nets. changed in my lifetime. 30 The Skeptic September 11

VACCINATION IN SOCIETY year would result in about 500,000 By the age of 30, most notified cases, tens of thousands of people of my generation hospitalisations from respiratory and had been immunised about neurological complications, and several once a decade. thousand deaths. These days, many I have no recollection doctors graduate without having seen of my first encounter, a case, let alone any of the sequelae. receiving the so-called The absence of a disease from the Triple Antigen, a community is sometimes equated with combination vaccine which the absence of risk, people wrongly protects against diphtheria, assuming that if the disease is absent, whooping cough and the organism causing it has somehow tetanus, as a baby. But disappeared. as a teenager in the 1950s I have a very clear recollection of standing in of research-based pharmaceutical a long queue at the St Kilda Town Hall companies and commanding premium to receive the Salk polio vaccine. prices. Being mantoux positive, I missed For viral diseases, the developments out on the BCG vaccine against TB which revolutionised the production and received my final shot - TAB, the of vaccines were the development combined typhoid, paratyphoid A of penicillin which, when added to and B vaccine - in the late 1960s just streptomycin, made it possible to before joining the MV English Star in maintain living cells in culture for weeks Tasmania to travel to Europe as a ship’s at a time, and fermentation technology doctor. This was memorable because which enabled the production of viruses it caused significant swelling at the and some components at industrial scale. injection site and made me feel terrible My parents needed little for a day or so. encouragement to have their children All of these vaccines were produced at immunised. Born in Europe at the turn the government-owned Commonwealth of the last century, they had both lost Serum Laboratories. family members from infectious diseases. Compare my experience with that Later, they nursed my older sister of my grandchildren who, by the through a severe attack of diphtheria and time they are teenagers (even without both of us through the big four: , travelling overseas), will have received German measles, mumps and chicken an additional 12 vaccines, none of pox. which (with the possible exception of My father’s friend, Alan Marshall, influenza) will have been produced who wrote the inspiring book I Can locally. Jump Puddles, was a The post-War These days, many constant reminder of This is rarely the case. Usually, period has been “ the threat posed by the causative organisms either extraordinarily doctors graduate without paralytic poliomyelitis. persist in the environment or are productive for having seen a case of Our daughter’s readily reintroduced, so that when the vaccine generation has immunisation rates decline, epidemics industry. Driven measles. ” had none of occur. by access to new these experiences. One of the most dramatic examples technology and greater appreciation Widespread use of vaccines has reduced of this was the re-emergence of epidemic of the health and economic benefits the incidence of many previously diphtheria in the Russian Federation. of immunisation, many new vaccines common childhood diseases to such an After the collapse of the Soviet Union, have been developed and some existing extent that modern parents are largely the local vaccine manufacturer was vaccines improved or combined. unaware of their threat. unable to pay its staff and production During this process vaccines have When I was a student, measles was ceased. Between 1991 and 1996, a moved from being high volume, low known to be a serious disease with massive outbreak of a disease that had margin products largely produced important human and economic been well-controlled for two decades by governments to differentiated consequences. In the US, prior to took place, with more than 140,000 products, produced by a handful licensing of measles vaccine, a typical cases and 4000 deaths. 31 ARTICLE Medicine

The Invisible Left: Andrew Wakefield, debarred, dis- Success of graced and a ‘martyr’ to the cause. Vaccinations Below: Jenny MCarthy and former partner Jm Carrey - anti-vaccination campaigners Continued... and supporters of Wakefield.

Below right: 1800s Watchtower cartoon, REACTIONS AND REACTIONS concerned that the cowpox vaccine will While familiarity with the disease and turn us all into cows. their sequelae makes the risk benefit equation of immunisation easy, we shouldn’t be surprised that in the government-owned facilities, which absence of such experience, some were lightly regulated and used dated parents focus on the potential risks of technology. Not surprisingly, the quality immunisation alone. and potency of some vaccines varied Globally, the majority of from batch to batch. serious adverse reactions following In the 1960s, a series of serious immunisation today occur in the vaccine-related events, caused by developing world, and are a result of production errors by producers in a programmatic errors, such as using the variety of countries, were documented. wrong diluents to reconstitute a freeze- The most dramatic of these was the dried vaccine, leaving a multidose vial Cutter incident, when a batch of open at room temperature for so long Salk polio vaccine produced by the that it becomes contaminated, or reuse Cutter Laboratories of California, of contaminated syringes. was inadequately inactivated. When While this is the cause of most administered to 120,000 children, the problems, vaccines are not perfect. batch resulted in 56 cases of polio and The early five deaths, and an vaccines against The medical profes- additional 113 cases rabies and Japanese “ and five further purchaser of the products. B encephalitis sion is not without its own deaths in family As a result of this contraction in (which were share of the blame members and close the private and public sectors, the produced in the ” contacts. number of manufacturers supplying brains of new born These events developing world markets fell from mice) produced neurological disease in caused widespread concern, leading 17 to five. Alarmed at possibly some recipients. to the resignation of several key destroying an industry which fulfils The first lives measles vaccine figures, litigation and the creation or an important public health function, produced in the 1960s caused rash strengthening of national regulatory many governments enacted ‘no and fever in a significant number of agencies (FDA, EMEA, TGA) to fault compensation’ schemes, which children because the Edmonston B provide strict oversight of the sector. provided compensation and long term strain of the virus was not sufficiently As a consequence of increased care for anyone seriously damaged attenuated. compliance costs, the low profitability by immunisation, provided that The Sabin oral polio vaccine, which of vaccines which were sold for cents the damage was not caused by the is no longer used in the developed or a few dollars per dose, and a rise negligence of the manufacturer. world, caused paralysis in 1 in one in litigation claims, many private Vaccines are now among the most million to 1 in three million recipients, sector manufacturers simple ceased highly-regulated products, with every because of mutations which restored production. step in the production process, from the virus’ virulence. As manufacture of modern vaccines sourcing of ingredients to testing of the Even the highly attenuated and requires large, long term investments final product, defined and documented. highly purified vaccines which are and a high tolerance for risk, most Each step in the production process, available today sometimes cause local or government-owned production even the methods used to clean general side effects, although these are facilities in the industrialised world equipment, is validated and challenged, generally mild. Production of refined, were closed, privatised or sold, and the manufacturer needs to highly purified vaccines is a relatively which also solved the problem of the provide evidence that their process is recent phenomenon. Until the 1970s, government being simultaneously reproducible from batch to batch. many vaccines were produced by the producer, regulator and major Finally, when a new vaccine is 32 The Skeptic September 11

developed, its safety and efficacy must be by WHO. As many children in India articulate and has the support of one of evaluated in at least 50,000 individuals die early in life at the time vaccines are the most influential people in American before it is approved for licensing. given, it is not surprising that sometimes public life, Oprah Winfrey. While both Regulatory authorities often insist deaths occur following immunisation. Stewart and McCarthy clearly enjoy the that manufacturers and public health A rapid and independent review found public attention, I have no doubt that agencies collect additional data once the that the deaths were unrelated to their views are genuine. product goes into general use so that immunisation, but the damage had By contrast, Andrew Wakefield, rare adverse events can be detected. been done. Public confidence in the who first drew attention to a possible Increased regulation and the demand program was so damaged that the Indian link between measles vaccine and for products which are highly defined government replaced the quadrivalent autism, has been found not only to has not only had an impact on the vaccine, which was designed to simplify have falsified data but to have benefited number of manufacturers of vaccines, the administration process, with a financially from a relationship with but how long the process takes (often trivalent and monovalent vaccine, lawyers representing damaged children, 15-20 years) and the final cost of the containing the same four components and to have potentially benefited from vaccines, which are now typically priced at a significant programmatic and his interest in an alternative vaccine. from US$20-50 a dose. economic cost. Although now debarred in the UK, he But the medical profession is not still has many supporters who simply THE ANTI-VAX MOVEMENT without its own share of the blame. refuse to acknowledge the evidence and We now have the curious paradox In the 1970s, Prof Gordon Stewart, believe that he is the victim of a giant that, while we have never had a better a personable and articulate Scottish conspiracy. opportunity to protect our grandchildren epidemiologist, persuaded a generation against a wide range of diseases with of British mothers that whooping WHAT TO DO products of remarkable quality, many cough vaccine was associated with We must remember that concerns about in the public regard the benefits of brain damage, which it is not. This immunisation are not new. In the early immunisation as matter for debate. led to a dramatic fall in immunisation 1800s, when vaccination was becoming Much of the information provided rates (from 81 per cent to 31 per cent), popular in Britain, the Watchtower by those opposed to immunisation which was followed by two major published a cartoon of immunised is based on anecdotal data, temporal epidemics and a number of deaths. subjects turning into cows. associations and misrepresentation. It It took more than a decade for the In combating the views of the anti- strikes a chord among people who do immunisation rate to recover. immunisation groups, both education not have the time or the expertise to In the US, with its focus on and the attitudes and beliefs of health review the data because it plays on fears celebrities, the leading anti- care workers are critical. and prejudices. immunisation advocate is Jenny Cuba, which has one of the highest There is an inbuilt tendency to McCarthy, an ex model and actor, immunisation rates in the world, ascribe a causative relationship to events who is the mother of an autistic child not only produces its own vaccines, that are temporally related and seek whose condition she attributes to but begins education on the value of an answer to serious illnesses whose immunisation. McCarthy is attractive, vaccines in primary school and repeats aetiology remains unknown, especially if the antecedent event is sponsored by government. Little surprise that recent vaccine scares sought to implicate immunisation as a cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), autism and multiple sclerosis. When you add to this any distrust of the medical profession and the motives of the pharmaceutical industry, you have a dangerous mix easily inflamed by a media with a voracious appetite for controversy. A photo library image of babies skewered on a needle accompanied a story in Tehelka, India’s leading weekly news magazine earlier this year, following the deaths of several children shortly after they had received a new 4-component vaccine recommended 33 ARTICLE Medicine

The Invisible NOW AVAILABLE Success of Vaccinations ! Continued... THETAM AMAZ OZ DVDNG! the message frequently to students and parents throughout life. Thefun , frolic and fascination of In every country, the attitudes and enthusiasm of doctors and nurses to TAM Australia 2010 immunisation is critically important. the largest Skeptical event ever held in Australia Although this can be achieved by education alone, incentives to achieve certain targets have proved helpful. Finally, public health authorities have learnt that they need to market the benefits of immunisation to the general discs population in the same way a company might market a new labour-saving device using simple clear messages, and 8 devote particular attention to clusters of people who are currently resisting the message. More While government-funded than campaigns promoting the benefits of 24 immunisation have sometimes been uninspiring, the recent Australian hours! campaign for measles vaccine and the UK campaigns for HPV vaccine have been spectacular examples of what can be achieved. It’s just like you were there There are no easy solutions. While technology may eventually enable us (and even if you were there, you’ll still want a copy) to administer a variety of vaccines in a single encounter, retaining Available now from the Skeptics shop public confidence in the benefits of immunisation and maintaining high priced + $7p+h coverage rates remains a continuing $80 challenge. . ... a stunning array of skeptical plus T-shirts Editor’s note: This paper was first delivered – all available through the Skeptics shop to the 13th Meeting of the Greek-Australian Medical-Legal society in May 2011.

About the author: Professor Ian D. Gust, AO, is an Australian Skeptics Logo (Unisex) TAM Australia (Ladies) SGU Down Under Logo Skeptics Logo (Ladies) medical virologist. Since his ‘retirement’ in 2000, Note: Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, Dr ’s he has been appointed a presentation could not be included on the DVD. Professorial Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the www.skeptics.com.au/shop University of Melbourne. 34 ARTICLE Young Australian Skeptics The Skeptic September 11

Facebooks, Meet-Ups, Twitters, YouTubes, wikis, online forums, Flickrs, drop boxes, and the more recent ones that have come on the scene since I wrote this article. a And yes, some (most?) of what’s on newer those media is trivial or inane. And some of it is used by the ‘other side’ for their nefarious purposes. But never before have skeptics felt less isolated and more able and willing to come out of their caves and declare to the world, yes, I’m a skeptic, and broom I’m mad as heck. Elliot Birch describes the changes in skeptical And this is a good thing. For every skeptic who talks to other communication and communities that have turned skeptics on a weekly, daily, hourly basis, the an isolated bunch of misfits into a bold movement. word spreads further and wider and faster. Faster and more widely than a quarterly magazine or an occasional dinner could do. nce upon a time, way back in the bearded ones, was the way it was. In If anything happens in the skeptical or Omists of the last century, skeptics the days before the internet thing, the askeptical world, we know about it hid in caves and gnawed on the bones of communication was limited among within seconds, and we are already doing wayward astrologers and UFOnuts. These the skeptical fraternity. Apart from the something about it before the world has sad and pathetic creatures dared not come magazine, there was the occasional dinner got out of bed. out in daylight least their true identities (few of those were in pubs, as they are For example, Dr Ken Harvey’s battles be revealed and they were forced to now), there was an annual convention with the litigious SensaSlim became widely admit, with sobs and special pleading, and ... . Well, that was about it. Those known thanks to digital media. As soon that, yes, they were skeptics, and yes, they who lived in outlying areas like Broken as the shits hit the fan, we knew about were sorry, and yes, they wouldn’t do it Hill, Kalgoorlie and Craigieburn didn’t it, a fund to support Ken’s legal bills was again in public. even get the social events. launched and, when pledges were called in, Then along came CSICOP in the US Which is why the Skeptics invented more than $13,000 was raised within 12 and the Australian Skeptics in Australia social media. hours (so our editor tells me). (and a few others here and there). And And it was good. Traditional media and snail mail pledge they brought gifts of magazines, and In the last, say, ten years there has drives could never have achieved this. coaxed the skeptics out of their hiding been a blossoming of skepticism that has And this is what we have taken places and allowed them to take their paralleled a similar if more numerous advantage of, and what we must continue rightful place, somewhere slightly below blossoming in . Practitioners to take advantage of. This technology is used-car salesmen and above journalists are actually bold enough to speak their not a fad, or a toy, or reserved for the geeks and politicians. minds, confront the evil, and wear T-shirts and trendy dilettantes and youth of the Because, you see, skeptics were not that defiantly declare their allegiance and world. That may have been the way it was popular. They were spoil sports. They attitude. seen a decade ago, before its true impact upset the applecarts in their attempts to And a lot of this has been because of and import was or could be known. But find the rotten apples. And they scared the net, the online community and the these days it is bread and butter stuff. It’s the children with their denials of Easter various ways that people can contact each the not-so-new and better (and additional) bunnies, tooth fairies, Santa and God. It other these days; ways that go beyond way to spread the word. was definitely the philosophy that dared a quarterly journal and the occasional And it is good. not speak its name. appearance on a local radio program. And to the five or six of you who are So it wasn’t surprising if these skeptics Not to knock the quarterly journal not already doing so, I say you should try crawled back into their caves, only to – an unwise action in these pages. The it one day. Your cave come out once a quarter to get their copy quarterly journal plays an important will never be the same of The Skeptic magazine and their four- role in spreading information, providing again. . times-a-year dose of critical thinking and a central meeting place for ideas and rationality. Skeptics were lonely, alone research, and giving skeptics a sense of and frightened. (Well, not frightened unified identity. But it is not alone in the About the author perhaps, but certainly wary of ruining a task of spreading the skeptical word. Elliot Birch is the creator of good dinner party.) We have text and SMS, we have the Young Australian Skeptics, This, we are told by the old grey- websites, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, www.youngausskeptics.com 0335 ARTICLE Miracles Not A eg to Stand On Brian Denning assesses the Miracle of Calanda, the amputee was a familiar face in town. At last he decided to return home. only example of God going out on a limb. He rode a donkey all the way to his parents’ home in Calanda, where he’d favourite question asked by the tibia. Quickly, his uncle drove him grown up. His family was overjoyed to A skeptics, when confronted with to the hospital at Valencia. The story, as see him, but since he couldn’t work, stories of miraculous religious healings, recorded, says that Pellicer stayed in the he spent a couple of weeks riding is to ask “Why doesn’t God heal Valencia hospital for five days, until it his donkey to neighbouring villages amputees?” The answer? He did, once. was decided that he needed better help begging. And then one night, it It happened in Spain in 1640, than they could provide. Pellicer was happened. when a young man’s injured leg was sent, on foot, with a broken leg, to the A travelling soldier was spending amputated. Two and a half years later, larger hospital in Zaragoza, a journey the night in Pellicer’s own room, so his leg was miraculously restored. which took him 50 days. Pellicer took a bedroll on the floor in It’s become known as the Miracle of Once he arrived in Zaragoza, his parents’ bedroom. In the morning, Calanda, and it’s perhaps one of the feverish and ill, doctors found his leg his parents saw not one, but two feet best documented of miracles. The to be gangrenous and in a grievous protruding from the end of the short faithful have hard evidence to back it state. Pellicer’s right leg was amputated blanket! They excitedly woke their son, up, and the skeptics have no answer. “four fingers below the knee” and who was as surprised as anyone, and Was the event truly miraculous and it was buried in a special plot at the the news quickly spread throughout unexplainable? Maybe it was; but let’s hospital. He stayed in the hospital for the village that the young amputee had take a hard look at what’s actually several months, and was provided with been miraculously healed. known, and see if we can uncover the a wooden leg and a crutch. He then An examination of the leg revealed most likely explanation. applied to the church authorities at the it was the same leg he’d always had. It Miguel Juan Pellicer, a strapping Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in bore a scar from where a cyst had been young fellow about 20 years old, was Zaragoza for authorisation to make a excised when he was a child, two scars working at his uncle’s farm in the living as a beggar, which made by thorns, and another from a village of Castellón in 1637. was granted. Pellicer lived dog bite on his calf. Most notable was A mule-drawn cart ran in Zaragoza for two years, a scar where the cart wheel had crushed over his leg, attending mass daily at the his tibia. The leg was said to appear thin fracturing Basilica, and accepting alms and atrophied, but within a few days he from the citizenry. was using it normally. The pious young As the story spread, it drew in the curious and the official. A few days after the miraculous restoration, a delegation Leftt The house in consisting of a priest, a vicar, and the Calanda where the local royal notary came to Calanda to one-time amputee see for themselves and to prepare an Miguel Juan Pellicer official record of the event. They took lived, and where he statements from witnesses and carefully miraculously found a documented Pellicer’s story. new leg. Two months later, a trial was opened The Skeptic September 11

in Zaragoza where more than 100 Below How it was pictured at the time: “Gosh evidence. And there is one thing that people testified that they had known golly, he’s got a new leg. Well I’ll be damned!” jumps out. It’s a giant, gaping hole. Pellicer with only one leg, whereas now In case you haven’t fallen into it yet, he had two. Ten months later, or seen any large buildings or the archbishop rendered a verdict 747s get swallowed up in this Not A eg that the restoration of the leg was hole, I’ll point it out: There are canonised as a true miracle. Since no documentation or witness that date, skeptics have no longer accounts confirming his leg was to been able to charge that God does ever gone. not heal amputees. But what about all those The most authoritative work witnesses who knew him with on the Miracle of Calanda is the one leg? Allow me to offer an 1998 book Il Miracolo by Catholic alternative version of what might scholar Vittorio Messori which have happened, that requires Stand n identifies and records the pieces no miraculous intervention, O of written evidence collected by and is still consistent with all the delegation, and which survive the documentary evidence we today. These are: have. Pellicer’s leg was broken • Documentation of Miguel Juan in the accident as witnessed and Pellicer’s baptism, confirming reported, but like most broken that he was a real person. legs, did not develop gangrene. • Registration of Pellicer’s His uncle took him to the hospital admittance to the hospital at at Valencia (a documented event), Valencia. where he spent five days - during • The delegation’s original which his uncle presumably went notarised report of the back to his farm - and his broken statements collected in leg was set. Calanda, including statements The next 50 days he spent by people who saw him come convalescing as his leg mended. to town with one leg and wake Unable to work during this time, up with two. he was forced to earn a living as a • A certified and notarised copy beggar, and found that the broken of the original minutes of the leg did wonders for the collection trial at Zaragoza, including of alms. Once his leg was sound, many statements of people who he reasoned that if a broken leg knew Pellicer as a one-legged was good, a missing leg would be beggar. suffered, gangrene may take from even better. He bound his right foreleg There are also many other documents 48 to 72 hours to set in, and once it up behind his thigh, got a hold of a that do not necessarily support the does, you’re gone from sepsis in as wooden leg, and travelled to Zaragoza, miracle claim, but that support other little as a few hours. Nobody lives 55 home of the great Basilica - someplace parts of the story; for example, proof days with a gangrenous injury. If his where he wasn’t known. For two years, that other people named in the story skin was not broken, or if any breaks the young Pellicer enjoyed the relative exist, proof that after the miracle healed cleanly, it is still possible that financial success of panhandling among Pellicer was invited to the royal court the wound could have developed the Basilica’s devotees as an amputee in Madrid, and books and other internal gas gangrene weeks, months, with a sad story. publications retelling the event. or even years later. But the appearance Eventually he made it back home If we accept that these documents of gas gangrene is inconsistent with to Calanda, where his plans were are indeed legitimate, and I think we the condition allegedly reported by accidentally foiled when the existence can, is there any wiggle room left? Do the doctors, which was “phlegmonous of his complete, sound leg was revealed the documents consist of proof that a and gangrenous”, meaning open and when his parents saw his feet sticking miraculous restoration of an amputated wet, and “black”. Without an actual out of his blanket. At that point, the limb occurred? examination, we can’t say for certain miracle story was a perfect cover. Many, Medically, Pellicer’s story is that Pellicer’s story is impossible; but many people had known him as the improbable, but not impossible. 55 the version of the story that’s been man with one leg, and now everyone days after the injury, he said, his leg was reported raises a huge medical red flag. could quite plainly see that he had two. amputated due to advanced gangrene. This red flag is sufficient to prompt a There was no way he could lose. In a crushing injury like the one he closer examination of the documented I’m not accusing Miguel Juan Pellicer 37 ARTICLE Miracles

Not a Leg to had never been amputated. Although comes into play: The most likely this lack of a buried leg is often put explanation is the one that requires the Stand on forth as evidence that the story is fewest new assumptions. true, it is actually a lack of evidence of We can’t say that the Miracle of Continued... anything. Calanda is not genuine, and we can’t We have evidence that he was prove that Miguel Juan Pellicer’s leg of being a fraud, but I am pointing admitted to the hospital in Valencia was not miraculously restored. But we out that there is a far more probable with his uncle. We have notarised first- can say that the evidence we have falls alternative explanation. Faking hand statements that a scar was visible short, and is perfectly consistent with blindness, infirmity, poverty, and all on his leg where he had been injured no miracle having taken place. . manner of ailments is hardly unheard by the mule cart. We have numerous of among beggars. It is now, and has statements that he was well known in been for millennia, a pillar of the Zaragoza as a one-legged beggar. All Editor’s note: This article is a transcript profession. the evidence supports Pellicer being of an episode of Skeptoid (episode #247, Note that no evidence exists that a beggar with a popular and time- March 01, 2011). It is used with his leg was ever amputated - or that he honoured gimmick who was caught, permission and is copyrighted to the author. was even treated at all - at the hospital not with his hand in the cookie jar, in Zaragoza other than his own word. but with his feet out of the blanket. It About the author: He named three doctors there, but for is only through the introduction of a Brian Dunning is a some reason there is no record of their new assumption, that of the existence computer scientist, and host having been interviewed by either the of unprecedented supernatural and producer of the award- delegation or the trial. The trial did intervention, that the alternative winning podcast, Skeptoid: find that no leg was buried where he explanation of a miraculous restoration Critical Analysis of Pop said it was at the hospital, but this is be found consistent with this same Phenomena (www.skeptoid. exactly what we’d expect to find if it evidence. This is where Occam’s Razor com).

38 REGULARS Horoscope The Skeptic September 11 Your Stars: SEPTEMBER 2011 With our Astrologer Dr Duarf Ekaf Jr

Aries: 19 April-13 May You are extremely gullible. Ophiuchus: 30 November -17 December You don’t exist.

Taurus: Sagittarius: 14 May-19 June You are extremely 18 Dec-18 January gullible. You are extremely gullible.

Gemini: 20 June-20 July You are extremely gullible. Capricorn: 19 January -15 Febuary You are extremely gullible. Virgo: 16 September-30 October You are extremely gullible.

Cancer: 21 July-9 August You are extremely gullible. Aquarius: 16 Febuary-11 March You are extremely good looking, but Libra: 31 October-22 November nonetheless extremely gullible. You are extremely gullible.

Leo: 10 August-15 September You are extremely gullible. Pisces: 12 March-18 April You are extremely gullible.. Scorpio: 23 November- 29 November You are extremely gullible.

39 ARTICLE Pseudoscience

Brian Miller discovers that the wines may be earthy but the language is lunar “B iodynamics produces wines that WINE NOT make you think more clearly This thought-provoking ” announcement was made by a winemaker recently in the press. He continued: “With biodynamic wine you are tasting all of the cosmos distilled down into one spot”. All of it. In his novel, The Information, Martin Amis said of the cosmos: “It would seem that the universe is thirty billion light years across, and every inch of it would kill us if we went there. This is the position of the universe with regard to human life.” So decanting biodynamic wine is recommended. The crust will be mostly dark matter anyway. Biodynamicists glow with good intentions but, unchecked, their language can drift from earthbound common sense into esoteric eco- babble. Organics and biodynamics tend to blur, perhaps intentionally, but there are distinctions. Organic agriculture is entry-level ecology; it involves muck, mulch, manure and the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi. Composting Disease and is as potentially lethal as it conversion and now advocates is comforting; celebrity gardeners is entirely natural. biodynamism with the evangelical gambol in the stuff and it woos worms. Biodynamics demands a further zeal of a Thermomix demonstrator on On the other hand, there is a reason leap of faith, and into one. It grafts heat. He wrote: “We carry within us why potting-mix comes astrology to oenology and involves an archetypal idea of wine as a natural with a warning-label rites, rituals, calendars, cow-pats and product of the earth ... We carry, urging you to don face- a founder who believed that eating too, a little deeper down, a remnant mask and gloves. It’s potatoes causes journalism. True. awareness of wine’s ancient cultural called Legionnaires’ Rudolf Steiner was the cryptic, mystic and spiritual significance … We like to inventor of Anthroposophy, which was believe that the wine we drink has not easy for him to say. He never actually been buggered around with too much.” practised farming but that did not stop That’s fine, and finely written, as him from authoritatively addressing long as reality has not been buggered agriculture and giving birth to around with too much either. biodynamics. He also expressed some Natural? Well, not quite. There is odious opinions about spirituality little that’s natural about a vineyard, and skin colour, and he wasn’t be it biodynamic or businesslike. talking about grape skins. Grape vines in nature do not line up One wine writer, who used in regimented rows, nor trim their to be as funny as Woody Allen own trunks. Their natural inclination used to be, underwent a consummate is not to make hooch for humans. It’s 40 The Skeptic September 11

to climb trees, seek sunlight and make be more open about the involuntary baby vines. We severely subvert that involvement of animals in the natural endeavour by annually offing alchemy. The excuse that “the cow was the Logical Place their offspring and drinking their dead when we got here” - also known Faulty Generalisations blood. as the ivory smugglers’ defence - won’t The media often report a common fallacy There is even less that’s natural about wash with vegans. known as Faulty Generalisation. Other wine. Grapes in the wild do not change Biodynamicists idolise the Moon, terms for this include false generalisation, into Grange. They turn into new a remote rock that knows nothing of hasty generalisation, over-generalisation, vines or sour grapes. Wine is a much liquids, lunacy, months or Mondays, unscientific conclusion and even manipulated beverage and is no more and does not discriminate between superstition. For simplicity, this fallacy may ‘natural’ than raw-milk cheese, brown sea and land, water, wine or world be divided into two sub-fallacies – false sugar or Brazilian blondes. events. Its strongest physical influence generalisation and over-generalisation. Neither is there anything natural is when we can’t see it, at the new In a false generalisation, the premises about the biodynamic practice of moon, and only then because it has of an argument are weakly related to its cramming cow poo into a cow’s horn. the intense clout of the Sun’s gravity conclusion but do not sufficiently justify Left to their own devices, cattle tend behind it. Some life-forms evolved the conclusion. For example, a person not to do that. The concept may be to take advantage of the incidental, might argue: “I don’t believe that smoking cosmic, but it is far from intuitive and comparatively small and strictly causes cancer, because my uncle Bert you wonder about the first person coastal tidal pull, including sardines, smoked like a chimney and yet he lived caught doing it behind the barn. soldier crabs, sea-turtles and real- until aged 93.” Conclusions are drawn It is true that the Earth is a estate agents. But grape-vines are about an entire population from too profound source of natural power ocean-ambivalent at best and equally small a sample of the population – in and elemental energy. If once-living immune to the moon. That serene this case, one. Contrast this with the tens of thousands of smokers (plus control organic matter is buried underground Stiltonic sphere sends us down three samples) who were used in the scientific for a period of time, and the planet is things - weakly reflected sunlight, very epidemiological studies that conclusively allowed to exert its natural influence, faint gravity and inspiration for lame established the causal link between free from human interference, you song-lyrics. smoking and cancer. So, the person end up with … petroleum. And coal. But apart from that, and apart committing this fallacy is giving more A build-up of bird droppings will from the occasional shocker, many weight to a personal anecdote than the mutate into nitrate, and supernaturally biodynamic winemakers make fine findings of science. into superphosphate. Some refining is wines and most would not know In an over-generalisation, conclusions required, just as organic wine is refined how not to. And that factor alone are drawn from an apparent trend to the to make organic brandy. may be more important than all the entire population. For example, if there The significance of the spirituality moonshine combined. are a couple of tragic road crashes on I cannot speak for, and neither can So I tracked down a Pinot Noir a weekend in which several people are anyone else without a board, but made by the winemaker quoted at the killed, a police officer might say at a press the cultural influence is approaching beginning of this article and shared it conference that drivers are becoming cult status. A bunch of winemakers with a friend. By the end of the bottle more careless. A sample of one weekend’s are now manically biodynamic, dozens - as mystical as this must sound - we road crashes is no evidence of any such are dabbling and fellow travellers are were definitely thinking more clearly. trend; in fact, the long term trend is that ‘in conversion’, which means they are Or we thought we were. . the annual road toll is decreasing. converting to biodynamism about as In technical logic terms, these are fallacies quickly as I’m converting to celibacy. Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted of defective induction, where the argument Self interest also plays its part. A from Winestate magazine with typically takes the following form: cosmic connection enhances your permission. Premise: The proportion Q of the chances of selling wine to a holistic sample has attribute A. About the author: new market-segment of caring, sharing, Conclusion: Therefore, the proportion Q environmentally-conscious, new-age Brian Miller is a fellow traveller of Australian of the population has attribute A. Statistical customers. Like British and German Skeptics, was cast methods are used to calculate the supermarket chains. as Devils’ Advocate necessary sample size before conclusions Biodynamic vignerons would be at Taste Australia’s can validly be drawn about a population. difficult to dislike even if you wanted biodynamics debate and For example, a random sample in excess of to, and are invariably charming, as the Devil by some 1000 people is used in opinion polling, and disarming and as well-meaning as attendees. Brian works even then there is a stated error margin in water-diviners - unless you are a stag, with several Australian the order of plus or minus two per cent. a steer or a sheep, and value your wineries, biodynamic and - by Tim Harding bonce and your bladder. They could scientific. 4103 ARTICLE Skepticism TheTwo Cultures Redux Are skepticism and atheism heading in different directions, at loggerheads over definition and diversity? Helen Dale looks at the discussions, the arguments and the politics.

n May 7, 1959, British Ophysicist and novelist C.P. Snow delivered an influential Rede Lecture at Cambridge University. His lecture concerned the intellectual division between the and the humanities, and contained the following famous passage: “I remember [mathematician] G.H. Hardy once remarking to me in mild puzzlement, some time in the 1930s, ‘Have you noticed how the word “intellectual” is used nowadays. There seems to be a new definition which certainly doesn’t include Rutherford or Eddington or Dirac or Adrian or me? It does seem rather odd, don’t y’know.’ “A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional S culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at A the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of ‘Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s’? “I now believe that if I had asked an 42 The Skeptic September 11

even simpler question - such as, ‘What Jesus, yes? Atheists reject supernatural argument for the existence of gods is do you mean by mass, or acceleration’, explanations for things, yes? They an excellent argument for polytheism which is the scientific equivalent of demand evidence for extraordinary or and henotheism, because it does not The saying, ‘Can you read?’ - not more than miraculous claims, right? assume omnipotence or omniscience or Two Cultures one in ten of the highly educated would Well, ish… Part of the conflict omnibenevolence. It is a bad argument have felt that I was speaking the same between the two related ideas has for monotheism, because as soon as language. So the great edifice of modern its origins in what biologist Athena it is applied to monotheism, it runs physics goes up, and the majority of the Andreadis calls”‘the narcissism of small smack dab into the ‘Problem of Evil’. cleverest people in the western world differences”, but part of it is also to do For this reason, Finnis doesn’t make Redux have about as much insight into it as with an intellectual division of labour. use of it in his scholarship. That struck their neolithic ancestors would have This division of labour tends, I think, me as excellent thinking, even though had.” to have its origins in what position one it was about something that cannot be Snow’s lecture caused a sensation, adopted first, often as a child. In my demonstrated one way or the other. In and its title entered the language. case, I can’t remember whether I began other words, not all non-testable claims There is still, I think, considerable to be skeptical or atheistic first, although are bad or useless. evidence that his observation holds I do know that from the beginning my This intellectual division of labour today, too. In Snow’s time, most disquiet with religion was not based on meant that historically, skepticism scientists were literate and cultured its factual assertions, but its social effects. steered away from tackling religion enough to be able to comment When it made claims that were then ‘head on’, so to speak. Many of the with at least moderate intelligence enacted into law, and that law produced founding fathers and mothers of the on aspects of the humanities; the destructive outcomes, I rejected it. skeptical movement were deists (one ignorance flowed only one way. These This is very much a skeptical style of thinks of everyone from Adam Smith days, unfortunately, it is obvious that rejection. When religion makes testable to Mary Wollstonecraft to Harry many scientists are as ignorant of claims, then those claims should be put Houdini), although of course there the most basic information outside to the proof. If they are found wanting, were atheists, like David Hume and their own discipline as were the then the people who hold them - if they Lucretius. humanities academics when Snow are intellectually honest - should give Atheists were often interested in was writing his lecture. I particularly them up. the social effects of religion, thereby notice this when it comes to the ‘third My skepticism did not (and does keeping themselves on the skeptical side discipline’ of law, which is neither not) involve arguing over proofs of of the equation, although even then science nor humanities but borrows the existence or non-existence of there were difficulties. Some atheists bits from both, as well as from moral God: neither claim is falsifiable in the allowed themselves to be diverted into philosophy. Both scientists and same way that assertions about the attacking all religion (and religious humanities scholars, for instance, social effect of morality as enacted believers) as an undifferentiated lump. often fall into the trap of believing into law are falsifiable, or accounts of Many have tied atheism to political that the solution to some social ill is the miraculous (if progressivism, to ‘pass a law’. properly formulated) forgetting that All that is by the by, however, for are falsifiable. “ We became known for some of Richard the simple reason that a version of the Of course, bad sitting around laughing Dawkins’ Two Cultures arises whenever there is a arguments for most powerful difference in perspective and attitude, the supernatural at people who believed in arguments in The even when the relevant people agree are often Bigfoot and UFOs. This is God Delusion on many other points. Indeed, one pseudoscientific, but unfortunate. came from US manifestation of the Two Cultures of as Richard Dawkins ” Republican interest to me is that which has arisen found out when Barry Goldwater. between skeptics and atheists. theologians and philosophers had a go Meanwhile, some skeptics became so Regular readers of my blog may be at him over his arguments against the focussed on dealing with pseudoscience curious and a bit nonplussed at this existence of God in The God Delusion, and claims for the miraculous that point, partly because I don’t write arguments for the existence of God (or they abandoned even outcomes- about skepticism as often as I ought Gods) are not pseudoscientific. They’re based religious critique, leading to a (so failing to live up to my blog’s just not testable. situation where we became known for name, skepticlawyer), and partly They can, however, be ranked sitting around laughing at people who because you may perceive that there qua arguments, which is, I think, a believed in Bigfoot and UFOs. This isn’t a huge amount of difference useful exercise. It was John Finnis, a is unfortunate, because traditional between the two. Skeptics are skeptical Catholic jurisprudential scholar (and skepticism had (and has) important about supernatural claims, right? one of my tutors at Oxford) who contributions to make to scientific Everything from Bigfoot to Zombie pointed out to me that Aristotle’s literacy. The efforts of skeptics the 43 ARTICLE Skepticism

world over in debunking the claims recuse the subject from inquiry, it’s a The Two made by the anti-vaccination crowd reason to reject it.” Cultures Redux are vital (as in, life-saving), and However, another virtue of skeptical something we do very well. thinking about the outcomes attached Continued... The intellectual differences between to different religious beliefs and atheism and skepticism have been traditions (rather than theorising about forced into the open of late in large the existence of God) is the capacity to part because the former has grown draw meaningful distinctions between at the expense of the latter, but also religions. Quakers (the historic contributed to exponential growth in leaders, along with the pantheistic the latter. The atheists (attracted by Stoics, of abolitionism) are different the writings of the aforementioned from Catholics, and both of these are Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, different from various Islamic groups, Ophelia Benson and others) want to and so on. What they believe has contribute to skepticism as well, and different social effects. are left wondering at the reluctance However, it’s become clear to me among many skeptics to use their (very that many of the new participants considerable) intellectual weapons on in organised skepticism and atheism religion. hold to canards of their own, and They have a point, but not every these beliefs are just as vulnerable to point. Let me explain. skeptical enquiry as UFOs or Zombie G.K. Chesterton once observed Jesus (there is a broad strap of social that, for many people, an end to belief constructivism in much modern in God meant the start of believing feminism, for example, and that really in anything. Organised skepticism does cry out for skepticism). They also stands athwart this process (you don’t get to remake skepticism in their know, exchanging Jesus for crystals) own political image, for the simple and doesn’t just reason that many yell ‘Stop’. It political claims provides methods “ The moment skepticism are like religious for interrogating and atheism become cosy claims: they, too, claims, and helps are empirical, to ensure that communities of left-liberals and ought to people who have then both movements will be subjected to abandoned one form have lost their way. skeptical enquiry. of pseudoscience ” This is one point don’t get taken in that noted skeptic by another. Skeptics are foolish if they Daniel Loxton makes with some force: attempt to fence off their skepticism (Skepticblog, “The Surprising Twists of from making religious critiques, a TAM 9’s Diversity Panel”): point P.Z. Myers makes on his blog “Grothe spoke up on that Pharyngula – “Atheism is an essential historical theme, emphasizing that part of skepticism”: while movements may change, “I can understand turning away it is important to begin with an A from purely philosophical abstractions understanding of the work done so that have no weight in the real far - the mistakes made, the lessons world: skeptics will not be able to won, and the history of things we’ve quantitatively resolve the number of done right. For decades, skepticism angels that can dance on the head has very deliberately worked to stay of a pin. But faith has real world close to what it does best: tackling consequences, and the metaphysical empirical questions in the realm of claim that a god is dispensing pseudoscience and the paranormal, information by undetectable means and (as the other side of this same to a chosen few on earth, which coin) promoting scientific literacy.” is certainly a common claim in This empirical focus has allowed Christianity, should have effects that the skeptical community - old and could be measured, and that they don’t white and bearded as it may have have such effects is not a reason to been - to enjoy other kinds of diversity. 44 The Skeptic September 11

If political ideology is not a topic concern about religious power. for our movement, then anarchists, “In other words, I support a libertarians, liberals, and conservatives diversity of viewpoints, not a diversity can happily share the same big tent. per se of views. A group of skeptics If science-based skepticism is neutral isn’t made stronger because some about non-scientific moral values, then people diverge from the norm because the community can embrace people they believe they have an army of who hold a wide range of perspectives small fairies to do their bidding, but on values issues - on the environment, it is strengthened by improving the on public schools, on nuclear power, number of women and people of on same-sex marriage, on taxation, gun colour who can speak to communities control, the military, veganism, and so who aren’t currently being reached.” on. It’s a sort of paradox: the wider the I’m afraid this is the beginning scope of skepticism, the less diverse its of totalitarian thinking. If Marcotte community becomes. thinks that diversity of skin colour I wouldn’t go as far as Loxton: or disability or gender trumps claims about the badness of gay intellectual diversity, then there are marriage or abortion or gun control or many fine churches she can no doubt nuclear power are typically empirical join. Churches (with a few notable claims, and can be scrutinised in the exceptions) are generally pretty good same way that claims about ESP or at making sure the people in the pews Bigfoot or the social effects of Islam on are all the colours of the rainbow, and women can be scrutinised. However, typically do a nice job of disabled the moment both skepticism and access. Oh, and they have plenty of atheism become cosy communities women members, too, as opposed to of left-liberals, failing to interrogate skepticism and atheism, which are still left-liberal claims in the same way that male-dominated. religious and pseudoscientific claims Diversity, I’m afraid, is not a per se are interrogated, then both movements good. It’s only an instrumental good. will have lost their way, utterly. If it were a per se good, then we’d all That this could one day come about have to change our view of Islam PDQ: is evidenced by statements like the the annual Hajj in Mecca is the most following (from Amanda Marcotte, diverse gathering of humanity on the Pandagon, “Diversity, skepticsm and planet. I’m hoping that’s not the sort of atheism” and in response to Daniel argument Marcotte wants to make. Loxton above): In sum: skepticism is a cast of mind, “In other words, the kind of and when done properly, it can ‘diversity’ he supports is one where a be used to consider and examine bunch of well-off, older white men religious, political and scientific can enjoy talking about the silliness claims. While religion should not of Bigfoot without having to bother be walled off from scrutiny, the with those political concerns that are cosy assumptions of politics ought unavoidable when people who get not to be protected either. . the shit end of the stick - women, non-white people, poorer people, disabled people, gay people - get Editor’s note:This article is involved. There are many flavours of reprinted from Helen Dale’s blog, white-dude-whose-privilege-shields- skepticlawyer, with permission. S him-from-having-to-be-politicals, but those darn diverse people are forever being political because they don’t have an option to ignore oppression that About the author: directly affects them. Personally, I’m Helen Dale is an Australian far more concerned about a group lawyer living in Edinburgh. that’s politically diverse only because A graduate of Oxford and they all live in the same bubble than Queensland University, one that’s got racial and gender she blogs at http:// diversity because everyone has a shared skepticlawyer.com.au/ 45 REGULARS

The cycle of life PLAYING WITH NUMBERS Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (1447 Bookkeepers – magicians – witches - – 1517) was an Italian mathematician and scientists. And so it goes, the almost Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now inevitable realisation that all knowledge known as accounting. In 1494, his book Summa de is connected and connectable. arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità was published in Venice.It was a synthesis of the mathematical knowledge of his time and contained the first printed work on algebra written in the vernacular. It is also notable for PLAYING WITH SCIENCE including the first published description of the method Islam’s ‘Golden Age’ between of bookkeeping that Venetian merchants used during the 7th and 15th centuries was as much the Italian Renaissance, known as the double-entry noted for its scientific achievements as for accounting system. He described the use of journals its religious fears. During this time, Indian, and ledgers, and warned that a person should not Iranian and especially Greek knowledge was go to sleep until the debits equalled translated into Arabic, with such translations the credits. becoming a wellspring for scientific advances by scientists with diverse ethnicities – Persians, Arabs, Berbers, Moors and Turks, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sabians, Zoroastrians and the non-religious. Scientific achievements at this time encompassed a wide range of subject areas, most notably mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, alchemy and chemistry, cosmology, ophthalmology, geography and cartography, sociology and psychology. And there are traces from at What goes around ... least the 12th century in the Islamic world of double-entry PLAYING WITH THE DEVIL bookkeeping. In Christianity and Islam, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy and to be viewed as evil. During the European Late Medieval/Early Suleiman the Modern period, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch, and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. It was believed Magnificent that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the presided over Devil and his secret army of witches. Some Muslim practitioners Islam’s ‘golden of witchcraft believe that they may seek the help of the Jinn in age’ and magic. The practice of seeking help from the jinn is prohibited its greatest and regarded the same as seeking help from a devil. The jinn are mentioned frequently in the Koran, empire. including a surah (chapter) entitled Sūrat al-Jinn.

46 The Skeptic September 11

PLAYING WITH CARDS In 1496, he wrote De viribus quantitatis, a treatise on mathematics and magic. It contains the first reference to card tricks as well as guidance on how to juggle, eat fire and make coins dance. It is the first work to note that Leonardo was left-handed. The book is divided into three sections: mathematical problems; puzzles and tricks; and a collection of proverbs and verses. The book has been described as the “foundation of modern magic and numerical puzzles”, but it was never published and sat in the archives of the University of Bologna, seen only by a small number of scholars since the Middle Ages. The book was rediscovered after Pacioli taught Leonardo David Singmaster, a mathematician, came across a reference da Vinci mathematics. It’s to it in a 19th century manuscript. An English transla- tion was published for the first time in 2007. thought da Vinci designed chess pieces for Pacioli

PLAYING WITH MINDS The term ‘magic’ is etymologically derived from the Latin word magi, a term that was used to refer to Zoroastrians. Performances we would now recognise as conjuring have probably been practiced throughout history. The same level of ingenuity that was used to produce famous ancient deceptions such as the Trojan Horse would also have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating in money games, since time immemorial. They were also What goes around ... used by the practitioners of various religions and cults from ancient times onwards to frighten uneducated PLAYING WITH FIRE people into obedience or turn them into adherents. However, the profession of the illusionist What is deemed the first textbook on magic gained strength only in the 18th century, was published in 1584. Written by Reginald Scot, and has enjoyed several popular The Discoverie of Witchcraft was actually an attempt to vogues since. show that witches did not exist by exposing how apparently miraculous feats of magic were done. The term ‘witch’ was not exclusively negative in meaning, and could also indicate Zoroastrianism says: The purpose cunning folk. Folk magicians throughout Europe were viewed ambivalently, capable of harming and healing, which could of humankind, like that of all other lead to their being accused as witches in the negative sense. creation, is to sustain the truth These accusations included contacts with fairies, spirits or (‘asa’). This occurs through active the dead, out-of-body experiences, travelling through participation in life and the exercise an ‘other-world’, processions of the dead or feasts of constructive thoughts, words and presided over by a female divinity who teaches magic and gives prophecies, deeds. and sorcery. Source: Wikipedia, except where noted

47 ARTICLE Ecoscience WasteNot Public ignorance, pseudoscience and political timidity (WaterCorp) states that we are currently looking at a deficit of 63GL have continually fought against wastewater recycling for the 2011-12 summer season if we don’t cut back on consumption. If in Australia. Rob Holmes investigates the ‘yuck factor’. no rain this winter, the dams will no longer be a source of water supply until astewater is needlessly and a resource for potable water is that, we can get some decent rain; simple Wexpensively discharged into as water consumption increases with as that. 114GL of wastewater could the near shore marine environment population size, so does the amount provide about 81GL of high purity when it could be recovered for potable of wastewater generated. Rather than recycled water5. And nearly as bad, we water supply. But the only barrier to creating a problem of how to get rid of take nutrients from the soil for food, achieving a sensible and scientifically more and more of this stuff, we need then discharge these into the ocean as a rational outcome is public scientific to treat it as a precious resource. pollutant. We need to recycle nutrients ignorance. The consequences of dumping just as much as we do water. Unbelievably, Perth, where I live, untreated sewage into the ocean has been facing diminishing rainfall are well understood2. To avoid the REVERSE OSMOSIS since the 1970s, while a most obvious environmental impacts, wastewater is Reverse osmosis (RO) is a process and immediate solution has been put through an expensive purification whereby water is forced under high studiously avoided in any public process to allow ocean discharge. pressure through extremely fine discussion whatsoever. At the same Primary treatment removes the membranes to produce water of time, proposals are canvassed by State majority of solids and secondary higher quality. RO technology extends parliamentarians for a canal to bring treatment further reduces pathogens, from hand-operated RO pumps that water 2500km from the Kimberley solids and nutrients3. However, can be bought over the counter to or tapping the deep South West secondary-treated wastewater huge seawater desalination plants for Yarragadee aquifer. still represents an major cities – it’s all the same One is consequently led to believe environmental risk technology, just a matter that that if we cannot live within because of its high of size and the amount our means, it is then OK to go and nutrient content. of power available. RO plunder, in a prohibitively expensive For Perth, at is used to purify tap manner, the resources of others. The least, expensive water for the beverage 580km Kalgoorlie Pipeline, built from environmental industry, is used aboard Perth to the goldfields in the 19th impact ships at sea to provide century, is often cited as an example of assessments have a constant supply the forward thinking and courageous been undertaken of potable water and engineering that should now ignite the and monitoring can be applied to either courage needed to build the proposed programs are in place4 seawater or wastewater to Kimberley canal. What is missing to protect the near-shore provide very pure potable water from the discussion is that the WA environment in gigalitre quantities. Goldfields have never had any other where wastewater With utter predictabili- But the prospect of option for water supply. The goldfields is discharged. “ any state government receive less than 270mm annual Perth has three ty, anti RO campaigns will or local authority average rainfall and have groundwater major wastewater be fear-based without contemplating with salinity akin to seawater. treatment plants any reference to scientific the option of RO Regardless of the fact that reverse that together wastewater recycling osmosis seawater desalination is discharge about data (“RO recovered now coming to the rescue of the 114 gigalitres ” water” for the metro water supply, we face and per annum (GL/pa) of secondary purposes of this article) for potable will continue to face an increasing treated wastewater via the Ocean Reef, consumption is nothing less than water supply shortfall1. One of the Swanbourne and Sepia Depression ‘courageous’; ie political suicide. clear benefits of using wastewater as outfalls4. The WA Water Corporation It’s all about the ‘yuck factor’. 48 The Skeptic September 11

Recall the row that erupted when PERCEPTION PROBLEMS Toowoomba City Council in SE Why is RO recovered water such a Queensland6 proposed that RO problem? recovered water was the best possible The yuck factor is one. As a social- option to help secure the town’s water commentator who writes occasional WasteNot supply. A community action group columns for The West Australian put it: played heavily on the yuck factor, “I would rather have pins stuck in my promoting the idea that they would eye than drink recycled waste water!” be forced to drink sewage. Claims That is, for no real reason other than that “yet unknown chemicals” in I just don’t like the idea, it’s all too RO-derived drinking water could yucky to think about. She probably have an unforseen outcome such as didn’t go to school the day that they for asbestos, thalidomide and Teflon taught science. (Teflon?7). The campaign spread like Unfounded fear is another. a virus into the rest of the country Scientific ignorance will fuel alarmists where extended drought was having its claiming that there are unknown risks impact, killing any rational discussion in using RO for potable water supply. that was underway with leading Newspapers and radio stations politicians publicly backing off. Other make money from creating or anti-RO arguments used elsewhere are reporting controversy. The West that RO water is too pure or ultra pure Australian consistently refers - all the healthy minerals (dissolved to RO recovered water as solids) are lacking in RO water that “recycled sewage”, which are necessary for good health. You can’t is to put the worst possible win, it’s either too pure or it’s full of slant on the matter and is in opposition - a free kick. unknown chemicals or it’s just yucky. which is clearly illogical. It Who cares about the security An article published in Wikipedia is not sewage that is recycled, of our water supply, so long as voices some of the less fantastic it is water. Who wants sewage I can score points against the concerns about potable use for RO delivered back to their home? government of the day? recovery water – unfortunately these No doubt, the rantings of claims are unreferenced8. However, every nutter, shock jock and WATER SUPPLIES TODAY other websites promote the use of RO scientific dill would be given At the moment in Perth, there is to remove these same contaminants full voice. No political career absolutely no escaping the fact that have made their way into US can withstand this sort of stuff. that the WA Water Corporation water supply via wastewater infiltration Unfortunately, scientific nous is deeply concerned about the into rivers and groundwater. is either absent or thin on the ongoing security of supply for With utter predictability, anti- ground amongst those who work the WA Integrated Water Supply RO campaigns will arise as a matter for newspapers or commercial System9 (IWSS). Full page of certainty should any authority radio stations. advertisements have appeared in the propose RO recycling to supplement Even worse, the prospect of RO press together with a TV and radio public water supply, and with equal recovered water for potable use advertising “Save 60” blitz10 - the certainty these will be fear-based would give the political opposition need to save 60 litres per household without any reference to scientific - it doesn’t matter which party per day to bridge the existing water data – any factual evidence that is raised in support will be shouted down and ignored. Such is the sad state of affairs where in this country the debate on the anthropogenic role for global warming seems to be led by shock jocks and opportunistic politicians. The fact of the matter is that the RO product (from seawater or wastewater) has to be constantly monitored for purity before it can be distributed either to industrial or potable use for which extremely high purity is demanded. 49 ARTICLE Ecoscience

Waste Not looming closer every year as what you would expect from a is patently obvious from science-based organisation. Continued... the figures referenced This pandering to above. the Yuck Factor is Options either clearly expensive supply gap of 63GL over the next year. approved or and wasteful. Why Traditionally, Perth’s water supply canvassed include not just pump RO has primarily relied on superficial the following. product directly aquifers on the coastal plain that lie Commissioned back into the north and south of the city – these in 2004, the reticulated supply are the Gnangara and Jandakot Kwinana Water and take some superficial groundwater aquifers11. Recovery Plant pressure off the After groundwater, Perth has relied (KWRP) now aquifer and allow on surface-water storage in the coastal returns about 6GL/ it to recover on its hills for the second-most important pa of high quality Political timidness in own? source of water. The management (or RO recovery water “ Toowoomba rather mismanagement I should say) from secondary- the face of public also had a plan to of metro groundwater supply is a story treated waste water. ignorance will be used by pander to the yuck in itself, best left for another article. The official line is, factor by pumping Superficial groundwater that once of course, that this alarmist & opportunistic RO recovered dominated Perth’s metro water supply replaces the scheme politicians and water into the has now dropped to 35 to 55 per cent water that industry town water of total supply with groundwater now would have used. shamelessly exploited by reservoir - where a approaching exhaustion and with I suspect that RO the media. good proportion of other supply options coming on line12. recovered water was ” it would evaporate. The accumulated Water Corporation the most sensible But that didn’t help data, collected for metro supply dams, suggestion that WaterCorp could one bit as history tells us. Singapore tell the history of Perth’s dwindling come up with, given the amount of discharges its RO recovered water rainfall – it is a declining rainfall wastewater that gets thrown away into its drinking water reservoirs. regime, among other effects, that has every year. Given the yuck factor, Singapore also exports RO recovered impacted the capacity of groundwater it then became a question of which water to NSW as bottled water – to maintain a major supply for the sector in WA is science-educated and NEWater – not a bad idea. IWSS. would use it without a fuss? Heavy Commissioned in 2006, the Perth Figures available on the WaterCorp industry, of course! The KWRP, now Seawater Desalination Plant pumps and Dept of Water Websites13-16 having been operational for seven 45GL/pa into the IWSS. Planned provide a graphical representation of years, has provided ample opportunity for commissioning later this year, what has happened to Perth rainfall for WaterCorp to test for every known the Southern Seawater Desalination and the consequences for both surface contaminant that could be a concern Project, Perth’s second desal plant, storage and groundwater supplies. Of to the public should RO be proposed is planned to eventually produce course, we could be rescued by good for direct potable use. It is important 100GL/pa. Without these plants, we rains or perhaps catastrophic floods, that such information should be made would now most certainly be up the as experienced by our eastern states fully available. proverbial creek without a paddle – brethren, but then again we might There is WaterCorp’s proposal our groundwater is at its lowest level not. It is not worth going into the to replenish groundwater with RO yet and our dams are in a similar detail of the referenced figures, they waste recovery. Good on you, guys. situation. Regardless of RO seawater, are from government websites and But WaterCorp’s website is rather coy we are still facing a 63GL/pa shortage tell their own story. Of course, we do about how it will go about this. On that somehow has to be met this year have others who would tell us that we closer examination, it becomes clear if users don’t stop splurging tap water have never had it so good and that our that high quality RO recovered water on their lawns. water supply problems are caused by is proposed to be pumped into the Colin’s Canal was originally the naughty WA Water Corporation17. superficial aquifer which of course proposed by Ernie Bridge18, former will be available for groundwater Minister for Water in the WA State WHAT IS BEING DONE? abstraction. But with a disclaimer Parliament, as a 2500km canal from Nonetheless, governments of different of how the little beasties that live the water-rich Kimberley region. This colours have not been sitting on their in soil and in the aquifers will not idea was credited with the loss of the hands. We are, after all, staring at be harmed, because we promise Liberal Party’s election hopes when a brick wall in water supply that is to remove all the icky stuff. Not espoused by leader Colin Barnett as 50 The Skeptic September 11

an election promise for the 2005 state wastewater. They are justly fearful of 5. Based on the input output ratio for the election (maybe not, but I don’t think the yuck factor. Kwinana Water Reclamation Plant it helped much). The current Minister Our job, wherever we are in 6. abc.net.au/water/stories/s1699774. for Water in the WA state parliament Australia, is therefore multifaceted. htm recently raised the issue again as a We need to encourage politicians 7. abc.net.au/health/thepulse/ matter for discussion. on both sides of politics to agree to a stories/2006/02/23/1576391.htm A previous State Labor government position that they will not use water 8. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaimed_ proposed that the South West recycling as a scoring point wherever water Yarragadee be tapped to supplement they may find themselves on the 9. Water is supplied through the the IWSS. The SW Yarragadee benches. Integrated Water Supply System to Aquifer,19 is a vast and deep aquifer We will need to encourage water the Perth metro area, South West and storing an estimated 1000GL overall ministers and their public servants to eastern agricultural and goldfield of fresh water. The plan to extract engage in open public debate on the regions via the Kalgoorlie Pipeline. The up to 45GL/pa from the SW of the merits of RO water recycling. Perth metro is the major user of the aquifer was vehemently opposed by And we will need to encourage, IWSS water. south-west communities, among through our own efforts, a debate on 10. watercorporation.com.au/_files/ others, for other reasons, stating that water recycling. . Campaigns/Target60_plan_updated. the proposal could reduce natural pdf surface discharges that feed south-west 11. water.wa.gov.au/ river ecosystems20. The matter has now About the author: Understanding+our+water/ recently been raised in the press again, Dr Rob Holmes’ career Understanding+groundwater/ as a cheaper option to the Southern includes 15 years in Gnangara+Mound/default.aspx Seawater Desalination Project, which universities and 20 years in 12. At the time of writing I haven’t been is going to burn a lot of electricity environmental science. He able to access long-term abstraction over the years. is currently an independent data at short notice environmental consultant. 13. watercorp.com.au/D/dams _storage. WHAT CAN BE DONE? cfm Clearly, the problem is political 14. watercorporation.com.au/D/dams_ timidness in the face of public References streamflow.cfm scientific ignorance which will be 1. Water Corporation (2009). Water 15. watercorporation.com.au/D/dams_ used by alarmist and opportunistic Forever. Towards Climate Resilience streamflow.cfm politicians and shamelessly exploited – Summary. WA Water Corporation, 16. water.wa.gov.au/ by the media - who should know a lot Leederville, WA. Understanding+our+water/ better. 2. uow.edu.au/~sharonb/sewage/ Understanding+groundwater/ The job is to debunk ignorance elephants.html Gnangara+Mound/default.aspx and to educate and assist those who 3. watercorporation.com.au/W/wwtp_ 17. warwickhughes.com/water/rain.html are capable of making good policy beenyup.cfm 18. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Bridge decisions. I know from my contacts 4. Perth Long-term Ocean Outlet 19. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarragadee_ within the State water authorities that Monitoring Programme 2010. Summer Aquifer leading environmental scientists and Water Quality Survey Compliance 20. perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action political parties are all are aware of the Report. Water Corporation, Leederville, =newswire&parentview=58614 need to stop throwing away treated WA.

I’m Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com

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Total enclosed: $ …………………… www.skeptics.com.au Send to: The Skeptic Ph: (02) 8094 1894 PO Box 20 Fax: (02) 8088 4735 Beecroft NSW 2119 email: [email protected] REVIEWS Presenting science The Skeptic September 11 Science at the movies Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema true. The science was among the creative tools that Kubrick used to make a superb film. (So realistic By David A. Kirby were the visuals that many in the moon-landing- The MIT Press, A$42.95 was-a-hoax crowd think it was Kubrick who used the same techniques to fake the moon landing.) Kirby has talked extensively to scientists and cience fiction movies have come a long way filmmakers, and has had workshops with them Ssince The Deadly Mantisor Cat Women of the all together. The scientists don’t like to see bad Moon. Even in the fifties, of course, there were science on the screen, and want to know, “How movies that did as good a job as the times allowed can we make the science in entertainment to show science and scientists. With the help of products more accurate?” Kirby says this is the the superbly realistic visual effects we have had wrong question; it is better to ask, “How can over the past couple of decades, the capacity for accurate science make your film better?” accurate depictions of science has increased, and Consultants can make movies better by fact so, too, has the interest of filmmakers who want to checking, or by advising on the look of tools and do such depictions correctly. lab spaces. Consultants can increase the scientific Since film directors and producers are plausibility of the movie, and if the plausibility is not scientists themselves, they hire out up, suspension of disbelief is maintained, and the to get advice. Sometimes the results are audience is drawn in. It doesn’t hurt that scientists good for the movie and also good for in the audience of an accurate film won’t be science, and sometimes not. picking at it. Science consultation in the movies You’d think, for instance, that it wouldn’t is the wonderful subject of Lab Coats make a bit of difference if a cartoon which is set in Hollywood. David Kirby is nicely underwater got a bit of oceanic biology wrong, but positioned to write such a book; he it did make a difference to the makers of Finding was a practising evolutionary geneticist Nemo, who asked a marine biologist what would before becoming a lecturer in science be something they might show on the screen that communication studies. And he would really annoy him. He answered that seeing obviously loves movies. kelp, which grows only in cold waters, flowing Kirby starts on a high note, looking around a coral reef would do it. They should have at Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space asked him before they started drawing. One of Odyssey, which he says is “the most the lessons here is that getting a science consultant scientifically accurate film ever made for often happens late in production, when corrections its time”. He adds that the amount and are expensive, while getting one integrated from range of advice that 2001’s filmmakers received the beginning can, among other things, save lots during production is still unsurpassed. Kubrick of money. Every pixel of every kelp frond was was interested in advancing movies removed from every scene. There may be talking from juvenile adventures to intellectual journeys, clownfish in the movie, but there was no risk that and he knew he could not do so without getting scientists would be including its kelp within coral the science right. His primary science consultant in their lists of bad movie science. had been at NASA, and the person who visualised Next to 2001, the book pays the most the spacecrafts for the movie had done the same attention to the Jurassic Park series. The movies are for NASA. There was also a statistician who gave based on getting real, preserved dinosaur DNA advice about supercomputers. 2001 is, of course, and making dinosaurs from it, and although mostly about space flight and exploration in that requires many leaps of imagination, it isn’t the future, but don’t forget the ‘Dawn of Man’ all pure fantasy. Stephen Spielberg and his crew sequence; Kubrick got advice from the father- were interested in taking that premise and making and-son anthropological team Louis and Richard its results as scientifically keen as possible. Enter Leakey. paleontologist Jack Horner, who was involved 2001 was an artistic and popular success for in many aspects of the movie. He made sure many reasons, but some of them at least are due that the actors would pronounce words like to its firm grounding in science. People did not go Pachycephalosaurus right. Filming could not be to see science on display, but the science involved done on a genuine Montana fossil site, so Horner made the film visually stunning and intellectually was there to ensure the set looked like the sites 53 REVIEWS Presenting science + Climate change

anything wrong with supposing, for the movie’s Science at the Movies sake, that there had been a previous Martian Continued... civilisation, but giving cinematic credence to a silly folk legend was a scientific blunder. There are many movies cited here that have used with which he was so familiar. good science to promote public understanding What Horner got out of the deal was money, of and intelligent debate on contentious issues. course, and if you’d rather not think of a scientist The China Syndrome was well researched and its getting filthy Hollywood lucre, you can think of questions about the safety of nuclear power still the research grants and donations to his museum. linger. Armageddon and Deep Impact, both released The money isn’t the interesting part of the story, in 1998, made people think about what might be though. Horner was a strong advocate of the done if we see that asteroid or comet headed to concept that birds are the direct evolutionary wipe us out (although Armageddon showed deep descendants of dinosaurs. This idea has broader flaws in its science, as described here). The Day acceptance now than it did in 1993 when the first After Tomorrow had some realistic climate disasters, of the films came out, but it was contentious at the unscientifically squashed into a time frame of time (and still not all biologists accept it). Horner days, but surveys after it was shown showed that suggested visuals, animal behaviours, and more people did have more concern over the problem that would give cinematic confirmation for the of global warming. The Core was full of scientific bird-dinosaur connection. Horner’s own concepts howlers, and no one knows if, with fewer of them, of dinosaurs thus got a strong visual confirmation; it might have had people worrying about how the it’s not scientific data, but those dinosaurs looked supposed spinning nuclear ball in the centre of the natural on the screen, and their birdlike aspects Earth is someday maybe going to stop and cut our looked natural too. magnetic field. The ideas of the real-life geologist The movies helped spread his ideas, who advocates the “nuclear planet theory” didn’t and though they are paleontologically really get any extra traction from this movie. mainstream now, at the time they got Kirby’s book shows how products of the future scientists in other camps riled up and might be introduced in a movie; the interfacing writing rebuttals, though of course rival by gestures with the computer, as used by the scientists didn’t have blockbuster movies detective in Minority Report, was an imaginary to spread their views. One scientist prototype suggested by one scientific advisor who admitted that the movements of the T. has gone on to make physical prototypes of such rex looked natural, but doubted that a an interface. six-ton, two-legged animal could run Scientists are often thrilled to work on a at 45 miles an hour. Computer models picture with famous people from Hollywood, confirmed that it could not. Thus the and frequently do so without pay. This can be a film inspired research, and a correction big disadvantage: if the scientist needs to be on to an idea that was neither proved nor set or on call, it’s a good bet that this will be an disproved when the film was made. impossible schedule for an academic, field, or There are sometimes problems because a commercially-employed scientist, so maybe one scene that is scientifically accurate might be who just got a degree would be hired, for all the cinematically boring. Sometimes there are problems that might cause. problems because scientific accuracy clashes One of the important themes here is that with an audience’s view of the way things are scientists and filmmakers are increasingly supposed to be. The 2000 movie Mission to acknowledging the importance of their close Mars had plenty of scenes on the ‘Red Planet’, connection; the National Academy of Sciences’ but we know from the rovers that it is actually Science & Entertainment Exchange program, for a yellow-brown. In the movie, the geology has a instance, wants to increase the involvement of red tinge; scientific accuracy would have made scientists in the filmmaking process. Kirby knows things look less plausible. That inaccuracy didn’t plenty of the personalities involved here, and bother scientists too much. What did bother obviously has watched the movies carefully. He them (especially the guy who advised on science has given many detailed descriptions of scientific for the movie) was that the movie included a and cinematic work, and his brightly-written ‘Face on Mars’, inspired by the pseudoscientific book ought to be enjoyed by anyone interested in importance some devotees have given to a either subject natural geologic formation that happens, in the right light, to look like a face. There wasn’t - Reviewed by Rob Hardy 54 The Skeptic September 11 The Climate for debate Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand Add 0.006 W/m2 for each sunspot. Divide all this by four to account for spherical geometry By Haydn Washington and John Cook and multiply by 0.7 to account for albedo and Earthscan, A$34.95 you get 239 W/m2 to power the climate. One might mention that about 150 W/m2 of this is swishing around the troposphere where the aydn Washington is an weather manifests itself and where we live. Henvironmental scientist of 35 There! Nothing difficult about that and nobody years experience. John Cook is a disputes it and it needs stating and it is indeed youthful physicist working nearly found in the posts on skepticalscience.com. full-time on his skepticalscience.com The dispute comes when one calculates website and providing smart-phone how many watts have been added so far by the apps for those engaged in argument activities of man. The IPCC reckon it’s 1.6 W/ about climate. Together they have m2 and the opposition generally estimates less produced a book which deals with than 0.3 W/m2. The general reader now needs denial as exemplified by the climate to know how the energy of radiation can cause change debate. molecules to vibrate and liberate heat: once The book does a good job in the real mechanism of the greenhouse effect describing the scientific method, in is understood, the rest of the science falls into delineating scepticism and denial, place. The dot points on page 22 and the table in categorising the forms of denial on page 23 make little sense otherwise. and in discussing the sociology of Too much didacticism runs the risk of denial. Skeptics will approve of this producing a text-book. However, it wouldn’t subject matter. Unfortunately the hurt to provide descriptions of the techniques authors have allowed the outrageous antics used by climatologists to obtain their numbers. of the climate change deniers to cloud the How do oxygen isotopes act as a proxy for dispassionate and forensic scepticism they temperature? Why are beryllium isotopes a proxy undoubtedly possess. The book is a polemic for solar irradiance? What information can you and not a work of scholarship. This is a pity get out of an ice-core? All fascinating science, because an academic approach to analysing the but with flaws and the reader needs to know machinations of both sides in the debate would about them. show that the peccadilloes of the alarmists fade An appendix is provided listing the many into insignificance in the shade of the egregious organisations claimed by Greenpeace to be enormities of the deniers. “greenscam and denial groups”. Several of There are two questions posed in the climate these groups provide a rich seam of outrageous debate. Firstly, can mankind cause catastrophic nonsense but these risible sources are largely climate change? And secondly, is there evidence untapped: a shame, for we could do with a good this is happening now? These questions must be laugh. For example, there is no mention of Lord kept well separated for meaningful discussion. Monckton. David Bellamy’s faux pas in New Indeed, the deniers are careful to conflate them, Scientist does rate a few lines but the hilarity of for whereas the theory behind anthropogenic the occasion is not exploited. forcing of the climate is very compelling, the There is a six-page analysis of Ian Plimer’s existence of a small signal buried in a lot of noise book Heaven and Earth. This discussion acts can always be discredited. In a book, discussion as a case study of denial and is a good enough of the two arguments should be carefully exposition for the general reader. There is, separated into different chapters and the authors however, an omission. The use of data belonging have failed to do this. to a time when the Earth was effectively a I found the chapter on climate science different planet is a favourite device of the disappointing. The general reader does need a geological contrarian. The climate debate general understanding of the basic theory but is is about the next century which will follow unlikely to acquire it here. The essential figures on from ten thousand years of fairly stable which enable the reader to do the arithmetic interglacial warmth. Looking at the conditions are absent. Incoming from the sun are 1365 when the continents were in different positions watts per square metre of the Earth’s surface. fifty million years ago is to set up an argument 55 REVIEWS Climate change + Possession

The Climate for Debate criticism by McIntyre and McKitrick of the famous hockey stick temperature plot published Continued... by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in Nature in 1998 and in Geophysical Research Letters in 1999. There are things which consenting of the straw man variety. paleoclimatologists can do in the privacy of While the authors take the high moral ground their own seminar rooms which should not be of the scientific sceptic over the irrational done in a nice family journal like Nature. This denier, the tone of the book is decidedly includes taking a series of proxy temperature authoritarian and one can understand why many measurements, averaging and smoothing them climatologists are on the nose with the scientific with a function which removes evidence of the establishment. The discipline has too many Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age and variables for too few equations and deals with which has an intrinsic bias to curl upwards at data so imprecise that they have to be averaged the edges. It makes things worse to graft directly over thirty years. measured numbers onto the upwardly curling bit Fifty years ago, climatology was at the bottom and it doesn’t help to include some questionable of the pecking order along with non-sciences tree-ring data. such as economics, sociology and psychiatry. When attention was drawn to this litany of It is good that things are more egalitarian errors, the National Center for Atmospheric now. However, climatologists need to be very Research made an assessment which supported careful before they throw their weight around. the conclusions of Mann et al leaving them The testimony of James Hansen before the US with a little egg on their faces but with their congress in 1988 that “(anthropogenic) global integrity intact. The bottom line was that a more warming is already happening” is a case in point. robust climate theory was advanced. This is how Back then, the evidence for this statement only scientific scepticism works and we need more of had something like a 65 per cent confidence it in the climate change debate. Washington and limit. Today, as this book states, the confidence Cook are, for my tastes, too defensive in the face level is 90 per cent. Indeed, the figure is slightly of rational sceptical criticism. more than this and is slowly creeping towards Other examples of productive scepticism the scientific two-sigma yardstick of 95 per cent. are the Svensmark hypothesis which links the Calculation of probabilities can be salutary: sun’s magnetic field with cloud formation I reckon the chances that Lord Monckton’s and Lindzen’s idea of a radiative feedback estimates of anthropogenic climate forcing are mechanism. Both hypotheses have been shown correct are less than 1 per to be very unlikely but testing them has given cent! useful insights into the mechanics of cloud As in all disciplines, formation. I note that Lindzen gets a very bad climatology has its own way press at skepticalscience.com and no mention in of coping with its inherent this book. problems. All that noisy Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical data needs smoothing in Environmentalist does contain sufficient some way to make sense of fabricated data and trimmed results to be it. Unhappily, any smoothing operation takes called denialist literature. But is he a part of the information away from the original data set Machiavellian non-denier denier group? If so, I and climatologists tend to go one smoothing confess that I have been duped. operation too far. Thus on page 58 we have the I can find no errors of fact in this book and wiggly plot of yearly temperature from 1880 it will give heart to the climate foot soldiers but to 2010 and the wiggly plot of the yearly solar will be ignored by the contrarians. It has been irradiance. The divergence around 1950 provides distributed to all our federal parliamentarians; I evidence that the sun is not the cause of the wonder what they will make of it. temperature rise since then. Superimposed on these wiggles is the 11-year average, presumably - Reviewed by Nick Ware to flatten out the sun spot cycle, nominally 11 years long. To the scientific eye these additional Editor’s Note Nick Ware is a “retired scientific plots detract from the message and simply minion”. His annotated PowerPoint presentation confuse the non-scientist. on Skepticism and the climate change debate can be One of the examples where scientific found by scrolling back on Past Activities at www. scepticism has helped the climate debate is the canberraskeptics.org.au 56 The Skeptic September 11

led by Oliver Cromwell, who barely appears The dog of war in these pages. Stoyle’s account starts when Rupert’s mother, Charles’s sister Elizabeth, was left a widow after Frederick V, elector of the The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Rhineland Palatinate, died in 1632. As a child, Propaganda during the English Civil War Rupert got the nickname “Robert the Devil”. By Mark Stoyle There is little explanation why he got the name, but it may have been the first indicator to make University of Exeter Press, UK£42.75 people think of a connection between him and the occult. Even as a teenager, Rupert proved to be a competent soldier. He miraculously escaped ou may have read or seen the movie about death or wounding in the Battle of Vlotho in YMarley, “The World’s Worst Dog”. Marley, Westphalia in 1638 when he was nineteen, and at least, was just a dog, and those whom a rumour went around that Rupert was ‘shot- he troubled might have had to suffer torn free’, or unable to be hurt by bullets due to belongings and other messes. But Marley was some sort of enchantment. Nonetheless, he was a piker at ‘worstness’; he did not speak all the captured and imprisoned in Linz Castle, Austria. languages of Satan, for instance, and he could Sometime during his two and a half years there, not change his shape into that of a seductive he was given a dog. woman, and he could not render himself and his There is some confusion about what sort of master invisible. dog this was and its name, but best evidence These are the sorts of naughtiness ascribed supports that he was a white hunting poodle, to Boy, a dog who lived over three centuries and he went by the name of Boy. When Rupert ago and belonged to Prince Rupert, nephew of was released, he, with Boy, went to England to the British King Charles I. Whatever demonic serve in his uncle’s cavalry. He may have come things Boy could do, he did play a real role in to the service bearing a reputation as a witch the English Civil War, and he did affect how the or sorcerer, but any such stories would have British regarded witches, so if you are been forgotten if it were not for the Roundhead interested in reading a book about a pamphleteers. There may have been initial real dog with a real place in history, reports that Rupert had committed “divelish” here is The Black Legend of Prince outrages, but one pamphlet came out saying that Rupert’s Dog. Mark Stoyle is a history Rupert had disguised someone else to look like professor with special interest in him and that Roundhead soldiers had seen “the witchcraft and the English Civil War plundering Prince, or some fiery spirit mounted period, and says that he knew even as a on some airy apparition in the likeness of a child that Prince Rupert had possessed horse”. No reason was given why there should be an unusual dog. While Stoyle denies an assumption that if it wasn’t Rupert, it had to that he was “bewitched” by the story, be some incorporeal spirit, but the link between he started devoting serious academic Rupert and witchery was made. Another referred attention to the dog six years ago, to Rupert taking disguises in order to spy on mostly because although the occult the Roundheads, but said he had taken “severall connections of Boy were famous in the shapes” in such disguises, hinting at the witch’s dog’s own time, and have been storied capacity for shape-shifting. The Roundhead ever since, no one had investigated the propaganda also sparked the idea that there was origin of the rumours about the dog or a diabolic tribe around the king. how Prince Rupert’s diabolical image On their side, the Royalists were happy to developed over time. This is the book portray the Roundheads as dunderheads who to do just that, and the play of superstition and could believe the most foolish superstitions. its effect on reality is fascinating throughout. The poet John Cleveland got into the act with Here are some pointers, for those who don’t a poem that made fun of Roundhead credulity, make the English Civil War the object of their saying that the Roundheads were just as scared constant study. The first part of the war, the of Boy the dog as they were of Rupert, because one in which Rupert and Boy took part, was Boy ate human flesh, and before he lay down he fought from 1642 to 1646. Rupert was on the went around in circles, circles just like witches side of the Royalists, or Cavaliers, supporting made on the ground for their enchantments! The his uncle Charles I. They were opposed by the Cavaliers would have found this hilarious, and Parliamentarians, Roundheads, or Puritans, the Royalist leaders, including the king, thought 57 REVIEWS Possession + Religion

The dog of war freely in print than it had been for many years before”. The fanciful stories about Boy only Continued... supported the beliefs of the Roundheads that the king was really in league with genuine witches, and thus proved a propaganda masterstroke witchcraft fraudulent and silly (although other against the home team that had generated the levels might have believed in it as fervently as stories in the first place. It may be that they did any Roundheads). influence the first part of the war, increasing Cleveland may also have been the author of the vehemence and courage of the Roundheads; a famous pamphlet of 1643, Observations upon Rupert was not ultimately successful in his Prince Rupert’s White Dog Called Boy, the text of campaigns against them, and left England in which is included as an 1646. appendix in this book. More importantly, Stoyle shows that the Historians had first newly-revived public thinking about witches thought the pamphlet may have lead the Roundheads to massacre the was a Roundhead female Royalist camp-followers after the battle diatribe against Boy’s of Naseby. Even more significant, the increased witchery, but Stoyle attention paid to the familiars of witches because masterfully shows it to of Boy’s reputation of being himself a familiar have been a Royalist may have influenced the way the witch-finder satire on Puritan Matthew Hopkins proceeded in his persecutions. propaganda. Among No witches were executed in the king’s quarters other things, the during the years covered in this book, but scores pamphlet borrowed were executed after the Roundheads took over. on the stock belief that Boy himself was killed at the Battle of a witch would have Marston Moor in 1644, but stories about him a “familiar,” the devil continued to reinforce ideas that Rupert was in himself or one of his league with the devil, as were the king and the subordinate imps in rest of the Cavaliers. That the dog had absurd the form of a pet, to stories told about him proves to have been help the sorcery go far from a frivolous matter, and a case could along. be made that Boy, because of the reputation Observations may bestowed upon him, was one of the most have been satire, but influential dogs in history. it was also the first pamphlet about witchcraft Stoyle seems to have investigated this published in England in fifteen years. It would surprisingly important sliver of history as deeply have achieved its purpose of making Royalists as can be done. While many of the connections laugh at the foolish credulity of Roundheads, he draws are tentative (and he admits it), Stoyle’s but it had a serious unintended consequence. picture is a dark and convincing look at a few Stoyle shows that the pamphlet and others monstrosities resulting from the sleep of reason. created “an intellectual atmosphere in which the subject of witchcraft could be discussed more - Reviewed by Rob Hardy

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58 The Skeptic September 11 The postman knocks and ensure the introduction of the ‘Fairness Letter to Christian Leaders: Hollow be thy claims Doctrine’, where equal time for religious and By Jake Farr-Wharton liberal programs is required. Dangerous Little Books, US$8.99 (Amazon Kindle edition) Farr-Wharton also takes aim at Dinesh D’Souzan, an academic who has made a lifetime commitment to saying that atheists have killed more people in the name of atheism than religion n 2007, Sam Harris wrote an - just look at Stalin and Hitler. Again, Farr- Iinteresting little book called A Wharton demolishes his statements by, on one Letter to a Christian Nation, That hand, simply quoting Hitler’s Mein Kampf and book was a basic rebuttal to Christian looking at Vatican records in regards to Russian fundamentalist and blind belief. Orthodox Church acceptance of Stalin’s rule. Harris’s book succeeded in upsetting Other victims include Rick Warren, most Christians in the , former child-star Kirk Cameron, intelligent but gained a degree of notoriety that design specialist Dr Georgia Purdome and Bill it demolishes many of the arguments McGinnis, to name a few. Each of these leaders used by those who have faith, was selected for their outspokenness concerning couched as a personal letter to those their beliefs, but also the irrational arguments who believe in a god. While Harris’s they use to further those beliefs. book is addressed to all who believe, The forward was written by another Jake Farr-Wharton’s book is addressed atheist author CJ Werleman, (God Hates You to specific celebrities within the Hate Him Back, subject of a book review and fundamentalist Christian world. interview in The Skeptic, 30:4). No doubt Farr- The growth of books from the Wharton has been influenced by Werleman, cluster of ‘new atheists’ has inspired Harris and Dawkins, but his idea of writing a many of like mind to write their letter to destroy separate ideas from separate own. The original group of authors - Dawkins, people is original. By dissecting arguments Hitchens, Harris and Dennett - approach the rationally and logically, Farr-Wharton provides using rational argument and a background for further research and study by by being less accommodating to religion. The new the reader. crop of atheist authors has taken this doctrine A Brisbane-based writer, Farr-Wharton’s first and is starting to use this effectively in the written book is a response to the dogma put forward by word. With such technology as podcasting and various leaders in statements they release on the websites, some authors such as Farr-Wharton internet, meetings or to public forums. Many are are making in-roads into demonstrating the appropriately referenced for the reader to gain full irrationality of religion, but are taking point in text and context for their information. facing the religious leaders directly. The research in the book is impeccable, and As a reader, I like the concept. Atheists and his conclusions sound and effective. But if you skeptics tend to know which personalities are also like your conclusions delivered at times in a pushing a wheel-barrow. If you are interested in sarcastic tone, this is the book for you. vaccination, you look at Wakefield; if you are It is not a light read, but in saying that, it is interested in young earth , you look entertaining. Farr-Wharton strips the arguments at Ken Ham. Farr-Wharton goes one step further and statements of the leaders and puts together a and actually writes a letter to each of the ‘fundys’, logical response. It may not be the book for the his hit list including such as Roberta Coombs and first time atheist reader, but those who have been Pat Robertson. Eleven people are targeted, but Pat on the atheist wagon will enjoy it. Robertson is actually targeted with two letters. If there were a shortcoming, it would be the Roberta Coombs is the president of the lack of Australian leaders for Farr-Wharton to Christian Coalition of America (CCOA). Her write to. I suspect that a number of people could letter commences with the position of the have been used, but the leaders that were chosen CCOA and the aims of the organisation. Among are defiantly the best of breed for the case that Roberta’s desires is for all military chaplains to be Farr-Wharton makes. allowed to conduct prayers at military functions, the removal of funding to stem-cell research - Reviewed by Geoff Cowan 59 LETTERS To the Editor

in The Skeptic. What you think ... Ian Bryce, (The Skeptic, 30:4, p59), quotes an equation Eg = K – m/r. Dimensionally, energy is [ML2T-2], More degrees stop the trade in rhino horn and other so what are the quantities K, m and nonsensical aids to masculine vanity. r which will make the dimensions However, it appears that, as in religion, balance? Could Ian please explain? am pleased you are addressing rational arguments are sidestepped in Brian Marsh on p60 of the same I degrees of woo, as I am a bit bored favour of primitive beliefs. Why are we issue wishes to draw a distinction by the wristband (not in such a minority? between mass and matter. Mass is that such nonsense should be ignored) the way in which the quantity of a as three of the magazines that come Liz Runciman matter is measured. It is the amount into this house: New Scientist, Choice SA of matter in a body, measured in kg in and The Skeptic, have given it attention. the SI system. It’s hard to see in what Three years ago I went back way they could be considered ‘different to UTS to add to my teaching Don’t waste concepts’. Matter, simple or otherwise, qualifications and was horrified to will always have mass. It might be see acupuncture on a course list. your time that immediately after the Big Bang At the end of my course, in online there was no mass in the universe, only communication, there was a feedback energy, and Einstein’s equation tells section. I took the opportunity to correspondent in the last issue us how much energy can be extracted say that I believed the inclusion of A of The Skeptic suggested that from an amount of matter, and the acupuncture in a university course a repository of studies that failed other way around. degrades the value of all degrees from to find anything should be kept to Ian Foster, p57 of the same issue, that university. In general, publications help evaluate whether findings were ‘has trouble understanding how a true seem to tippy toe around the subject real effects or just the one time in skeptic can be an atheist’. Having read yet evidence for its efficacy seems pretty twenty that something is statistically a few blogs on the topic, particularly thin or non existent. significant by chance. His suggestion those that go along with the Jesus & Hope to see more along the lines of was a Journal of Negative Results. Mo strip, which I recommend, it all ‘degrees of woo’ Readers will be pleased to know that depends on what you mean by ‘atheist’. such a journal exists in psychology: Taking the Shorter OED for an Anita Carty the Journal of Articles in Support of authority, an atheist is “one who denies Balmain, NSW the Null Hypothesis (see: http://www. or disbelieves the existence of a God”, jasnh.com/). This journal has the stated and an agnostic as “one who holds that purpose of preventing researchers existence of anything beyond material am a subscriber to the magazine, from “wasting their time examining phenomena, eg of a First Cause, … I and was very interested in your empirical questions that have already cannot be known”. Bertrand Russell recent article about pseudo-science been examined”. Of course, researchers has said that in public he was an atheist being purveyed in Australian medical would not know these questions had and in the company of philosophers, schools at taxpayers’ expense. I am been examined if non-significant results an agnostic. Richard Dawkins wrote of particularly concerned about Chinese had not been published but this journal the idea of a tooth fairy agnostic, which ‘medicine’, because I suspect that provides an outlet for such research. I’m attracted too. I don’t see that it is because ‘multiculturalism’ is such an reasonable to infer that agnostics are untouchable subject it will not be Guy Curtis 50%ers. So to that extent, I’m with subjected to the rigorous scrutiny any Queens Park, WA Ian. Atheism on the above definition is unproved regimen deserves. However, dogmatism. it isn’t just the aspect that Ian goes on to say that “countless concerns me, it is also the unspeakable Matter scientists and lay persons” acknowledge cruelty visited upon animals in the something more in our universe. name of oriental ‘medicine’. For an that Matters Forgiving the hyperbole and noting example, see what they do to the Moon that “one scientist and countless lay bears of Vietnam - persons” satisfies the description, and http://www.animalsasia.org/ - for hope that you will indulge me. I accepting that what is meant is that lots absolutely no benefit whatever! I have several matters I’d like to of scientists acknowledge …etc, I have I remember my optimism on the comment on which have been the read that, and will find if pressed the release of Viagra as I thought it would subject of articles and correspondence authority for, the ratio of non-believing 60 The Skeptic September 11

to believing scientists is around seven elbows) are solid. Atomic theory tells Organics to one. More to the point, and us something very different. It isn’t recognising that a scientist requires possible to sit in a chair, thinking evidence, believing scientists are not no matter how deeply, and discover teve Roberts’ (The Skeptic, 31:2, adhering to the scientific method in something about the real world. Sp27) straw man take-down of formulating their views in this matter, Eventually, you have to go to have a the organic food movement (“noisy and their views therefore are no more look. You can’t say that everything that people who haven’t worked through to be regarded as worthy than anyone exists had a beginning unless you have the science”) would be offensive to else’s. looked at everything and found it to the quiet scientists who have worked Ian also wants to know where the have a beginning. through the science. It’s a field of respect and tolerance for others is. Well, In response to John Nash research called Agroecology, and it respect is not a God-given right (sorry!) (p62), mathematics and physics are involves looking at agriculture as and tolerance should only be accorded fundamentally different in kind. managed agro-ecosystems, using to a belief that deserves it. (Let’s not Mathematics follows by strict logic vast quantities of data to guide ‘best bring Hitler into it.) from a few premises or axioms, so practice’ farming for long-term “We happily accept that this 1+1=2 – always. Physics (and all sustainability. One of the better texts applies to all other areas of the primary science) depends on observation of the available is Agroecology: The Ecology of school curriculum” (My emphasis). world to tell us what the best theory Sustainable Food Systems by Stephen R. So all the capital cities and rivers of is, for the moment, and is always open Gliessman (2007, CRC Press). In an the world I committed to memory in to revision. Mathematics, of course, agro-ecological context, ‘organic’ food primary school, and all the mountain is a very helpful tool which allows you is food grown without the use of off- ranges and deserts too, I was misled on? to say that if such & such is true, then farm inputs (eg fertilisers, pesticides). It See, the trouble with being hyperbolic so & so is also true. I suggest that it incorporates various aspects of physics is that you make yourself a large target. isn’t necessary to imagine √-1. It is and chemistry (primarily in soils and “The facts, just give me the facts.” an operator which obeys certain rules plant nutrition), as well as biology I wonder how Ian would in its manipulations and allows us to (such as integrated pest management). distinguish between a “narrow and say (for instance) that the number I do not dispute the assertion that inadequately literal interpretation” of solutions of a polynomial equals many organic farmers indulge in and one that would satisfy his criteria its degree, sometimes some of the various forms of woo, and that the for interpretation? How does one solutions being complex. Without labelling of supermarket products as work out which if any bits should be complex numbers, fifth degree ‘organic’ is getting out of hand. But is taken literally and which allegorically polynomials might sometimes have five this really any worse than the ‘low- or metaphorically? And who decides solutions, sometimes three. Complex calorie energy drinks’ one can now what the allegorical or metaphorical numbers allow the generalising of purchase? Where is The Skeptic’s full- meanings are? Thinking about what I mathematics. By the way, i i=0.2079… page diatribe about them? have just written, perhaps that explains - a real number! Mr Roberts, I believe it is why there are so many sects in the And lastly (for the time being), my irresponsible to tar all organic farmers Christian (and other) religions. sincere thanks to Martin Bridgstock with the ‘woo’ brush. It is a practice It isn’t clear which evidence Ian for Decision Time. This is a valuable that, if done properly, will see humanity regards as incontrovertible (p58), road map, as they say, for working out survive beyond the next 100 years. It is whether the change brought about in what you’ve got good reason to believe not (or at least, did not start as) a profit him or the observations of his friends, and what you haven’t, and what lies building enterprise – the majority of but let me try to controvert it. The between. And for the last, keep quiet. organic producers do so because they change could have been wrought by his genuinely believe they are doing a better believing that he was communing with Bill Smalley job of farming than their ‘conventional’ God. That could do it. The value of his Maylands, WA counterparts, not because they saw a friends’ observations would depend on niche market of city-dwelling yuppies the circumstances of their making the [Editor’s note: Mr Smalley’s letter willing to pay double for sticker saying observations. Any polltaker will tell you arrived too late to be included in The “Certified Organic”. that the answer will depend on how the Skeptic 31:1, and shortage of space question is put. meant it could not be run in 31:2. I Simon Gallant In support of Julie Fitzpatrick hope Mr Smalley appreciates the editor’s Canberra, ACT (p60), and to add to her list of things dilemma, and accepts its publication in which look to be “intuitively obvious”, this issue. Some of the matters he refers PS Please don’t confuse, or lead it’s intuitively obvious that the table to were also responded to in those earlier readers to confuse, organics and my elbows are resting on (and my issues.] biodynamics. The former is a 61 LETTERS To the Editor

Organics When that matter got to where we in reverse and could reason that the see it now, we see it by means of light further back in time the smaller the Continued... that has taken 13 billion years to travel universe was and that it must have to us. So 26 billion years have elapsed been at a point at the beginning. Any legitimate, scientifically sound during the time of travel of that matter physicist, looking at the expansion enterprise, while the latter involves and the time of travel of that light. The of any matter, would calculate back shaking water under a full moon Big Bang universe must be 26 billion in time to when the matter would (or some such nonsense), and is the years old. How can all those ‘experts’ be have been at its maximum density. outdoor version of homeopathy. so uncritical and 100 per cent wrong? No reputable scientist could reason or Those same experts also enthuse accept anyone else’s reasoning that any about galaxies out there that are very expansion of any matter could begin at Big Bang young; we see them as they were, soon a point. But the Big Bang acceptors do! after they were formed, soon after the Skepticism Big Bang. So out there, 13 billion light Brian a’B Marsh years away in one direction we might St James WA see one such galaxy and in the opposite he Big Bang has become fairly direction there is another young galaxy T generally accepted. Most – two galaxies formed within a short cosmologists and physicists accept, and time of each other. How could they say, that the universe is 13 billion years have got some 26 billion light years old. They should, as scientists, be more apart in such a short time? How can sceptical. They can quite simply be people whom we expect to be critical shown to be wrong. and sceptical scientists accept things so The figure of 13 billion years uncritically? derives from the Big Bang ‘fact’ that Those same scientists accept that the matter out at our limit of visibility the Big Bang began at a point in space. has travelled 13 billion light years of When Edwin Hubble found that the distance at the speed of light. It has expansion of the universe is uniform, taken 13 billion years to ravel from the cosmologists of the time worked the Big Bang origin to where we see it out how long the expansion had been today. So, the universe is that old. going. They imagined the expansion

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD SOLUTION DR BOB’S TRIVIA SOLUTIONS

N A C I R F A U M A E R D O T

O I L U S N I

N 1. Judas Iscariot “had the bag” – John 13:29

I O R R E R U T C N U U C A

P 2. As Master of the Royal Mint he had saved Britain

T T L B S O O

L from a major financial crisis, and he became obsessed

P U N I P F A R T S R E W O

P with finding forged money and with catching forgers.

E A M N S A I P

C I T I R U T U F H I T E S S 3. It had to be Gouda cheese, and before its use-by date

N S W C O L A

T 4. The Japanese had never seen or used scaffolding

I M E D A S N O I C I P U S

S before, until they saw it in DW Griffiths’ epic movie

S T E I R A U

I Intolerance (1916). E U T A T S I T E X S E B I V

U N A E T S U

I 5. Six per cent - Most crimes were perpetrated by Noddy

S N A I L A R T S A E C I T

U himself.

N I B O Y S N

C You can see more like this, every month and going back E W G I E L E M S I M I N A 0 some years, at www.skeptics.com.au/features/dr-bobs-quiz/ 62 The Skeptic September 11

Local Skeptical Groups

VICTORIA Gippsland Skeptics – (formerly Sale Skeptics In The Pub) Batemans Bay Skeptics in the Pub Meets every second Friday in Sale and Morwell in Contact: Ken McLeod on 02 4473 6363 alternate months. [email protected]. [email protected] or 0424 376 153 Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gippsland- Skeptics/172376579482915 TASMANIA Launceston Skeptics Great Ocean Road Skeptics – (Geelong) Skeptics in the Pub Meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 6pm, City Contact: Jin-oh Choi, 0408 271 800 Quarter, Cunningham Pier East Geelong [email protected] Contact: Carolyn Coulson [email protected]

Melbourne Eastern Hills Skeptics in the Pub Meets second Monday of each month at The Knox Club, Wantirna South Vic. Contact: Lucas Randall 0423141453 [email protected] http://mehsitp.codenix.org

Melbourne Skeptics in the Pub Meets on the fourth Monday of every month from 6 pm at the Mt View Hotel in Richmond. http://www.melbourneskeptics.com.au/skeptics-in-the-pub/

Mordi Skeptics in The Pub Meets at 7.30pm on the first Tuesday of each month at the Mordi Sporting Club. ($2 to cover website costs) http://www.meetup.com/Mordi-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/

Peninsula Skeptics – (aka The Celestial Teapot) Contacts: Graeme Hanigan 0438 359 600 or Tina Hunt 0416 156 945 or [email protected] http://www.meetup.com/Teapot-Mornington-Peninsula/

NOTE: LISTINGS WELCOME We invite listings for any Skeptical groups based on local rather than regional areas. Email us at editor@ skeptics.com.au with details of your organisation’s name, contact details and any regular functions, eg Skeptics in the Pub, with time, day of the month, location etc. Because this is a quarterly journal and most local groups meet monthly, it is unlikely we will be able to include references to specific speakers or events. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE UP FREE TO $62.10! EVOLVE DVD SET

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