Showing posts with label pseudoscience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pseudoscience. Show all posts
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Anyone
Posted by YouTube user: bigthink
Last week, a website called Big Think, released the above video, in which Bill Nye shares some of his thoughts on why creationism is not an appropriate thing to teach children to believe. Not surprisingly, this prompted a predictable response from both sides of the..issue? Debate? No... Ummm.... AH: Prompting a predictable response from both sides of the ongoing commentary on the meaningless and distracting waste of time that is the non-theory of creationism and intelligent design, and the non existent scientific controversy over evolution. Which the creators of said non-theory have deliberately manufactured, in order to try and keep their nonsensical, simpleminded little fantasy about the nature of reality alive just a WEEeee-bit longer. Ya, that seems right. Unwieldy, yes. But right.
Whatever your feelings on people's rights to their personal beliefs and interpretations of reality; and on a personal level, I'm fine with people believing whatever nutty thing they like, provided it doesn't impact my existence in any way shape or form; determining the value of creationism is simple. Your proposed model of reality is either, A: a personal philosophical view without need of outside verification. Or B: it's a scientific theory. You don't get to have it both ways. If it's a personal choice, then you are free to shield both it and yourself, from the facts which contradict it. But, if you choose to label what you believe a science, then it must stand up to critical scrutiny and the trials of the scientific method. If it cannot, and intelligent design (creationism, ETC.), can't, then it is not science.
-CAINE-
Friday, April 8, 2011
Tim Minchin's "Storm" The Animated Movie
First, it's been a long time coming and there are undoubtedly plenty more geeks like myself who are happy to see it finally arrive. Second, it looks and sounds amazing! Third, Tim is AWESOME, and any excuse one may get to share his work is well worth taking. And finally, if Storm isn't already the official theme song of skeptics and freethinkers everywhere, it damn well should be.
I mean really, haven't we all been Tim, confronting our own personal "Storms" in various social situations throughout our lives? I know I have been, EVERYWHERE I GO, EVERY FRIGGIN' DAY!
Which is probably why I don't get invited out much anymore... Oh well. At least I still have you Internets!
Enjoy!
-CAINE-
Be sure to check out the official site, stormmovie.net, for more info on the video, and if you liked it, then why not e-mail Tracy and DC at: @keershoot.com, to tell them how much you appreciate their work (I have a feeling that they might like that). As for those of you currently suffering from the great misfortune and cruel indignity of never having heard of Tim Minchin before, be sure to check out Tim's website, timminchin.com, for more!
Oh, and BTW, this makes two posts in ONE DAY! Told ya I was gonna do something about it.
Oh, and BTW, this makes two posts in ONE DAY! Told ya I was gonna do something about it.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Homeopathy and Water's Selective Memory
Born of the imagination of German Doctor Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700's, the practice of homeopathy is based on Hahnemann's set of three "natural laws". The first, "The Law of Similars" is the belief that like cures like. This means that practitioners are meant to treat a patient's ailment using a substance which causes the same symptoms in a healthy person. In other words, if a patient has a headache, then giving them something that causes headaches will naturally cure them. Like all of his laws Hahnemann gave no specific explanation as to why this would be the case and based his belief in this concept on elements of sympathetic magic and a personal experience he had with a common malaria treatment for the time which caused him to develop fever-like symptoms similar to malaria.The second law of Homeopathy, you don't talk about..oh wait..that's Fight Club, sorry, "The Law of Infinitesimals" proposes that diluting the active ingredient in a remedy actually makes them stronger. This dilution process begins with the creation of a "mother tincture".
A mother tincture is created by diluting the prescribed "remedy", which can be derived from either, plant, animal, mineral or even synthetic sources, into either pure alcohol or an alcohol water mixture and then allowing that mixture to sit in a dark place for 30 days or more. This mother tincture is then diluted to various degrees to create either "X" (1:10) or "C"(1:100) dilutions of homeopathic "medicine". In creating C or centesimal dilutions for example, one part of the mother tincture is added to 99 parts of water, creating a "1c" dilution. Take one part of this diluted solution, add it to another 99 parts water and you have a "2c" dose of homeopathic medicine. This process is repeated until the desired "potency" is achieved and the final product is then dripped onto sugar pills or infused into ointments and sold as medicine.
For those you keeping score at home, at a dilution of just 12c (one of the most common doses I found when I made my trip to the local pharmacy to research these products) there is only a 60% chance that you're water has left within it even a single molecule of the prescribed cure. And at any dilution beyond 13c, one can safely assume that not a single molecule of the original solution remains.Yet homeopathic remedies can easily be found in dilutions of 200c and even higher, such as the popular flu and cold remedy Oscillococcinum, available at Wal-mart and Walgreens as well as CVS stores.
The third and final law of homeopathy "The law of Succussion", states that shaking a homeopathic preperation also adds to the potency of the mixture. Modern practitioners have decided that this process, which they have dubbed "potenization", allows water to "remember" the "vibrations" of the active ingredient it once contained. This attempted explanation is obviously problematic for a number reasons, probably the least of which being that if water has a memory, which it doesn't, it seems unlikely that one could randomly shake it into remembering the (also non-existent but presumably unique) vibrations of specific substances which it no longer contains. After all, as many before me have pointed out, if water can remember it once had a single drop of caffeine in it, how does it manage to forget all the other potentially harmful chemical it has no doubt contained over the course of it's existence.
Supporters and practitioners of homeopathy are quick to point out that critics of the practice like myself fail to emphasize that homeopathy is a holistic practice meant to treat "the whole person" not just the body. Therefore, practitioners maintain, in order for the treatment to work it must by tailored to the individual needs of the patient on every level of their being. This is of course little more than a method of muddying the waters when it comes to defending the inability of homeopathy to stand up to scientific testing and does nothing to explain the illogical and physics defying beliefs upon which the practice is based.
-CAINE-
When attempting to explain a belief system like homeopathy, it's important to go directly to the source to ensure you are examining what it's followers actually believe and the practices they truly follow. So some of the pages sighted in today's source links lead to new age, alt-med, and pro homeopathy websites, this is NOT an endorsement of views included on those pages.
Source: The Skeptics Dictionary, UK Skeptics, ten23.com, Wikipedia, Herbs 2000, Healthy New Age.com
For an entertaining example of a homeopathic preparation, Michael Marshall and Mike Hall from 10:23 and The Merseyside Skeptics create their own homeopathic vodka.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The 10:23 Campaign, Raising Awareness About Homeopathy
I would have greatly preferred to have mentioned the 10:23 event as well as the QED conference long before they had taken place, rather than after the fact as I am now. But since I've barley even logged on to the net over the past few months ( I realize that sounds terrifying to many of you, it's been strange for me as well), I missed the opportunity to do so. But regardless of my timing, both events were well worth your time and attention and certainly worth talking about here. So while I wait for more info about the events at QED to make it's way to the web, let's talk about homeopathy and the 10:23 challenge.The Merseyside Skeptics Society's 10:23 challenge began last year in the UK on January 10th, at 10:23 am (a time chosen in reference to Avogadro's constant), with hundreds of the campaigns supporters taking to the streets to participate in a mass overdose of homeopathic "medication". The demonstration was designed to raise public awareness of homeopathy's ineffectiveness and to bring more attention to the issue of UK pharmacies selling homeopathic remedies along side legitimate medicines, as well as the NHS's (National Health Service) continued funding of Homeopathy. This past weekend, February 5th and 6th, the second set of 10:23 "overdoses" took place Saturday in cities around the world, as well as Sunday at the first ever QED (Question Explore and Discover ) conference in Manchester.
Supporters of homeopathy and critics of the campaign argue that homeopathy is a viable alternative to "traditional" medicines, and maintain that calls by groups like 10:23 for the NHS to withdraw public funding for the practice and for UK pharmacies to stop selling homeopathic products, is a violation of their right to choose.
But the 10:23 campaign and other demonstrations like it, are not about denying anyone the right to choose anything. They are in truth about educating people about the true nature of homeopathy as most people generally believe the term to be just another name for herbal or "natural" medicine. In reality however, homeopathy is it's very own special brand of pseudoscience and superstition, one utterly devoid of any reliable scientific evidence with which to support even it's most basic beliefs.
At this point you may be thinking, this all seems very interesting but given that I don't live in the UK, why should I care? At a glance it does seem that the practice of homeopathy is far less prevalent here in the us, it certainly isn't being openly funded by any government agencies that I'm personally aware of. But a quick search of the Walgreens, CVS, and Wal-mart websites for the word homeopathic yields results for everything from homeopathic arthritis remedies, to children's cough medicine, muscle relaxing ointments, acne treatments and more, all of which are also of course readily available in store. And with many homeopathic practitioners claiming the ability to treat cancer, malaria, and even AIDS, homeopathy is a potentially dangerous pseudo-science well worth educating yourself and others about regardless of it's prevalence in your particular corner of the world.
As always, be sure to follow the links throughout this entry and in the notes below for more information about homeopathy, 10:23, The Merseyside Skeptics, and the rest of the organizations and information contained in today's post. As for those of you completely unfamiliar with the practices and beliefs assosiated with homeopathy, I have already written most of my own entry on the subject which I will be posting later this weekend. But for now, check out the video below from James Randi and the JREF, which includes a nice summation of what homeopathy really is, along with inviting manufacturers and practitioners of homeopathy to participate in the JREF's million dollar challenge.
-CAINE-
Source: 1023.org.uk, merseysideskeptics.org.uk, randi.org
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