Talking the talk? Time to walk the walk

As a skeptic one of the things I would like to see from other people is an open mind. But sometimes it's easy forget you can be equally close-minded in your own beliefs.

It's not an easy thing to do, especially when you think you're being skeptical. Or in this case perhaps a tad cynical.

To say I'm not a fan of the social media phenomenon of changing your avatar or updating your status to support a particular cause is somewhat understating it.

It started with women posting the colour of their bra to support breast cancer awarness and it's been near constant since then.

The latest, changing your avatar to a cartoon character to show your support in the battle against violence on children, seems equally fatuous to me.

I mean who supports doesn't want to see breast cancer eradicated? Would not changing my avatar mean I was somehow advocating violence against children? Of course not.

In fact I made the point vociferously on Facebook and twitter and followed it up in the best way I thought possible - donating some money to the Starship Foundation.

I did this because I strongly believed that one million people changing their avatar will change nothing while actually giving some cash might do some good...

And there I sat, smug because I'd actually did something other than piss around with my picture on Facebook. Until someone sent me a direct message on Twitter.

"Quick question: had the Facebook campaign not been out there, would you still have made a donation today to Starship?"

And that's when it struck - that moment of realising you talk the talk but not always walk the walk.

The truth is I do donate to charity. I've raised thousands over the year. But the chances of me looking for a charity which can help children who have been abused and donating in the next few months was low.

So while I believed I was being open minded and skeptical I wasn't really.

I then had an ongoing conversation with that person who had changed their avatar, researched charities in New Zealand and then donated. And, as she rightfully pointed out, if she had done that then she's likely not to be the only one.

And by my donating I had proved her point. Although I didn't agree in the slightest with the campaign as a direct result I ponyed up cash. In her words 'Surely it's a good thing?"

That was an eye-opening conversation. We started off in polar opposite positions and ended up broadly agreeing. And it felt good.

Now I'm not arguing I was completely wrong. I still wish those who jump to show their support online would actually end up doing something more.

And the only discussion I've seen coming out of the issue has been about the cartoon character, not the problem.

But more importantly for a skeptic it's a gentle reminder that when you hope for people to open their mind you can't afford to close yours.

The healthcare irony

First I'd like to apologise for being away from nzskeptic and sciblogs for so long. This tends to be a pattern with my blogging, but it's not random.

For over a decade now I've struggled with bipolar disorder, particularly the depression aspect which leaves me barely functioning. All my effort goes into my job hence everything else tends to get ignored.

I tell you this not because I want sympathy or because I want to excuse my shoddy blogging schedule, but because I believe it plays a large part in me being the skeptic I am.

It certainly made me face my own failures and question my beliefs which I think led to my skepticism.

But back on to the main topic of this post - the healthcare irony.

I use the word irony (hopefully in the proper, non-Alanis Morrisette way) because the further we develop as a society the more backwards our attitude to healthcare seems to become.

Of course this is a generalisation, but it saddens me greatly people seem to be more inclined to believe something natural is inherently better than a drug that originates in the pharmaceutical industry.

After all the active ingredient in anything, natural or not, is a chemical and at it's fundamental a natural chemical is no different to a manufactured chemical.

In fact a number of the drugs I used to work with were generated using some natural plant material as a starting point (there's that damn irony again!).

But I don't honestly know what it says about us as a society or species that we seem to be intent on believing vast conspiracies are out to harm us or keep us from living a full and healthly life.

The latest to make me question our collective sanity is the so-called miracle cure for AIDS, herpes, hepatitis A, B and C and a plethora of other deadly illnesses, Miracle Mineral Solution.

I first read about this in the NZ Herald on Friday and again at Yahoo!Xtra today.

This product is being sold in New Zealand and around the world and consists of what effectively is an industrial bleaching compound.

(Of course, just because it's a bleaching compound doesn't mean it may not provide some kind of healthcare effect, but that's not the point of this blog.)

What is clear is this product is being marketed as a potential miracle cure and it can't possibly back that up with double-blinded studies.

And so faced with no clear evidence of efficacy the distributor relies on what should be a warning to anyone reading this kind of article - impugning our healthcare system and relying on anecdotal data.

This quote says it all for me: 

"Read Medsafe's list of symptoms and just ask: what would chemo do to you?"

The sheer stupidity in that comment from one of the New Zealand distributors is breathtaking and the fact that such a statement won't convince any believer drives me mental (pun intended).

I could write a 1,000 word post on that quote along, but I honestly don't think it needs further explanation.

And, just for good measure, the Yahoo!Xtra story I mentioned earlier has comments on it.

Can you guess how many are in support of warning people about the medicine and how many are conspiracy theories or anecdotal stories about it doing what it says?

You don't need me to answer that, do you?

How much do you tell the kids?

With a couple of young kids I've found myself becoming increasingly conflicted about just how 'truthy' I am with regards to those little white lies most parents see as normal.

I'm thinking of things like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and, yes, even God.

Every parent likes to think of their progeny as being intelligent and I'm no different. And with that comes the respect I have and my desire to be always honest with them and let them make their own decisions.

But it's hard. Hard because my innocent babies think the idea of Santa Claus giving them presents for being good is wonderous. And the pain of losing a teeth is overcome by the satisfaction and excitement of knowing that a coin awaits the next morning.

So what exactly should we tell our kids and what shouldn't we?

The most common way I've found of not dealing with this is deflecting the question back to the child in question.

"Does Santa exist, daddy?"

"Hmm. What do you think?"

But I can tell this is only going to get me so far. My eldest is just too inquisitive to let it stand. And they're both able to use my iMac to use the internet and I suspect it's only a matter of time before they try and find a cool Santa website and stumble on the truth.

(For what it's worth all proper parental controls are on to ensure they can't get to dodgy websites but I suspect belief in a jolly fat man with a white beard and sack of presents isn't filtered by this.)

So what do I say when my "Hmm. What do you think" is finally batted back to me with "It's a yes or no question, daddy. Does Santa exist?"

I suspect my skepticism will win through and I'll just confess. Probably out of earshot of the younger one so he can find out the truth for himself.

But is the right way to deal with it? Should I have told them the truth as soon as they understood the concept of the Tooth Fairy?

Or is little while lies to our kids acceptable? I'd be interested to hear from others what they would do, or have done, in similar circumstances.

Atheist bus campaign

I've written in the past how my particular brand of skepticism includes atheism.

I see religion as no different to any other topic - provide me with the evidence and I'll reconsider my stance.

And so on to the news. You may have already read about the decision by NZ Bus to deny the Atheist Bus Campaign advertising space on their buses.

Now to some extent I believe they are entitle to accept and reject adverts as they see fit. But frankly I just wish NZ Bus would grow a spine.

Company spokesperson Siobhan O'Donovan said a number of people found the potential advert ("There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life") 'distasteful or distressing'.

This just winds me up no end.

I see, read and hear things every single day of my life I find distasteful and distressing (I listen to Newstalk ZB so it's not hard). But I have the option to ignore it if I so choose.

The thing I don't understand is why that simple message is so controversial. It's not like the giant billboard of the planes flying into the Twin Towers with John Lennon's famed 'Imagine no religion' lyric which was designed to be deliberately provocative.

The only conclusion I can draw is these people's faith is on such shoddy grounds that even suggesting to them there might be no god is enough to turn them to the dark side.

Frankly I feel sorry for people who found this distressing. If someone was to put up a sign on a bus saying "Atheists are probably going to hell" then I wouldn't be distressed. I'd probably laugh.

In the meantime those things which I (and many people I know) find truly distasteful and distressing - poverty, child abuse, racism, sexism - go unaddressed.

Hey, here's a thought. Maybe NZ Bus could have taken the multiple thousands the atheists were offering to pay and given their bus drivers a raise. Might have helped with the whole poverty thing.

Pyschic schmychic

What do you do when friends pay money to see a 'psychic'? Do you spend time trying to convince them otherwise or do you just accept it and try and explain some of the hits afterwards?

I had often thought about this in the past and had always come down on the side of the former. Then I actually got some friends who paid money to see one and now I'm in the latter.

In fact, I'm now almost past the latter to the stage where I'm not even going to try and explain it because it turns out it doesn't actually matter what anyone else thinks.

And it's not like these people are unintelligent - they're not. These are clever people with good jobs, but seem willing to believe that someone who can make some educated guesses about them is able to see the future or talk to dead people.

The thing that got me (and led to a fair proportion of time speaking about it) was the disclaimer the 'psychic' gave up front - to paraphrase, 'this reading is accurate for today but you may make decisions in the future which will alter this and threfore you cannot come back to me and say this didn't come true'.

To an open-minded person I would have thought this would have raised a massive warning flag - and I like to think my friends are pretty open-minded. But no, this was accepted without question.

This so-called psychic just gave themselves the biggest out in the world and yet neither of my friends even considered this as a bad thing.

And then we got onto the hits - those things which were apparently so accurate that only someone who had special abilities would be able to know them. And yes, some good guesses were apparently made - but nothing beyond the bounds of some decent cold reading and a little research.

So I moved on and asked about things that didn't make sense. One of my friends said the 'psychic' had mentioned a name which didn't mean anything. I thought this would surely raise the alarm bells.

Nope, how wrong could I be. This just meant the person might not have come into their lives at this point, or maybe it was a reference to a family member they weren't aware of. Just great.

So, with tail firmly between my legs, I gave it one last shot. Both still have tapes of their visit to the 'psychic'.

I asked them to listen to the tape with a piece of paper in their hands and to mark all the things that were accurate and could apply only to them, things which were accurate which could apply to lots of other people and things which were inaccurate.

I'm figuring it's never going to be done.

So what do you do if a friend tells you they're going to see a 'psychic'? As much as it grates and goes against everything I stand for, in the future (at least with these friends) I might just bite my tongue.

Skepticism can be fun

Skepticism can sometimes be a bit of a dry topic.

Good skeptical blog posts about efficacy of natural products may necessarily be hundreds (or thousands) of words long and include multiple references.

Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

But it doesn't always have to be that way. Sometimes less can say more.

And just recently I discovered a blog which does that brilliantly.

The guy's name is Crispian Jago and his blog has given me a huge number of laughs over the last few weeks.

His satire of South Park (called 'Skeptic Park' of course) is just perfect (part one, part two) and the time and effort he must have put into his Simpsons Skeptic video makes me feel way too lazy.

And I've already linked to his video showing how nonsensical homeopathy is by using his own urine as an example.

But the one which gave me the biggest laugh was his video 'The Benny Hinn Show':

Isn't it amazing how a 79 second video can entertain but also make a serious point at the same time?

I don't want to give you the wrong impression about Science, Reason and Critical Thinking because it also has some interesting, well written posts which aren't focussed on humour and there are some great videos from The Amazing Meeting in London.

So the best thing to do it head over there and subscribe to his RSS feed. I promise you won't be disappointed.

TVNZ's psychic step too far

I'll wait with baited breath for the accusation of being 'closed-minded' and the pearl of wisdom that 'science can't explain everything' because those are the two things I read and hear most when I write or speak about psychics.

But sometimes it's worth hearing that rhetoric because the story is much more important, and that's the case today.

I imagine many of you are familiar with the disappearance of west Auckland todder Aisling Symes and the police search to find the two year old.

Stories like this really tug on my heart strings, particularly with two young-ish kids of my own.

I can only imagine the pain the parents are going through at the present time, particularly their desperation to hear anything which could help re-unite them with their baby.

But even knowing that the decision of TVNZ to put self-proclaimed 'metaphysical researcher' (ie psychic, medium) Deb Webber in contact with her parents is beyond the pale, in my opinion.

Media columnist John Drinnan wrote about the story eloquently in the NZ Herald this morning, so I recommend jumping over there and reading his words.

But the only thing I don't agree with Drinnan on is his characterisation of TVNZ's role as unsettling. I'd go way beyond that. It's utterly disgraceful.

Psychics, in my opinion, fall into two categories - those who know they aren't psychic and are deliberately using hot and cold reading techniques and those who seriously believe they have the ability to talk with dead people but are just good cold readers and intuitive.

I have no reason to doubt Webber doesn't seriously believe she has the gift of talking to the spirits.

But that doesn't mean she is and it certainly doesn't mean TVNZ should be facilitating any kind of meeting with parents who will be struggling to deal with the situation they find themselves in.

What makes it worse is TVNZ have a relationship with Webber because of her part in Sensing Murder, a show which to my knowledge - and of course I'll amend this should someone provide evidence to the contrary - has never resulted in the solving of an unsolved case.

The state broadcaster then used the knowledge they had filmed Webber and she had 'some information' on the case to ask "how seriously are police likely to take that information" at a media conference.

Unfortunately Drinnan's piece doesn't say what the police response to that inappropriate question was.

Is it too much to hope the police aren't going to waste precious resources on what is likely to be nothing more than an educated guess based on the history of these types of disappearances?

The last thing this devastated family need to hear is the words of a person who has been caught talking with the spirits of dead people who didn't exist.

Unfortunately I can't bring you Eating Media Lunch's deliciously satirical take on Webber and her ability to speak with non-existant spirits because the Sensing Bullshit segment has been removed from YouTube due to "use violation".

In my opinion the search for young Aisling should be left to the professionals and not because the spirits are telling me so.

Common decency is.

Here are some links if you want to read some more about psychics and the Sensing Murder television show:

Skepdic on psychics
CSI's story on 'psychic' John Edward
Skeptico's psychic debunking
Sensing Bullshit
Sensing Murder

Auckland Skeptics in the Pub

Ever since I became aware I was a 'skeptic' I had struggled to find any kind of skeptical community to feel a part of.

That changed when I discovered podcasts like The Skeptics Guide to the Universe and even more so when I started using twitter regularly.

In fact, I conversed more with skeptics in Australia than I did with any in Auckland or even New Zealand.

But then I 'met' unifex on twitter. He is the organiser of Christchurch Skeptics in the Pub (SitP), webmaster of skepticsinthepub.net.nz and he offered some of his meetup.com credits to allow us to start Auckland SitP.

I set up the first meeting expecting 20 or so skeptics to crawl out of the Auckland woodwork but on the 10th September around 50 turned up at the Horse and Trap for the inaugral meeting.

Our numbers were definitely boosted by the attendance of special guest Kylie Sturgess, an Australian skeptic and a member of the Skeptic Zone podcast team.

She shared some of her experiences, recorded a conversation with a group of us to form part of the podcast (which you can download in mp3 format here) and even had time for some video shooting:



The meeting was a little disorganised, partly because no-one had any idea what was expected from the meeting, but despite that it was successful and plenty of ideas were shared for the next meeting.

And so this Thursday at 7.00pm another group of skeptics will gather at the Horse and Trap to listen to Matthew Dentith give a talk about conspiracy theories, have a beer and some snacks and do some networking.

If you're in the area feel free to drop in and check it out, and ideally join the group online so you can keep in touch with what's happening and help us build up our Auckland group.

Of course, if you're in Wellington or Christchurch then feel free to join their groups and head along to their meetings instead.

I promise you won't regret it.

Where's the harm?

It's a question that's often asked about natural alternatives to pharmaceutical medicines and often there is no harm. (That doesn't mean there's any benefit either, but that's for another day.)

But that's not true in this heartbreaking case from Australia.

If the death of a child isn't hard enough, living with the knowledge you could have done something to save them must be a burden which can never be shaken off.

Unfortunately for Thomas and Manju Sam that is the reality. They've both been jailed for the manslaughter of their daughter Gloria because they didn't care for her as they should have.

Essentially they treated a very treatable condition - eczema - with homeopathy and ignored advice to get her seen by a real doctor.

This ended with the death of the nine-month-old in May 2002.

Now I have very little sympathy for the Sams. They obviously didn't set out to have their daughter die a slow and painful death so it may be that I appear heartless.

But when you read that Thomas Sam had "an arrogant approach to what he perceived to be the superior benefits of homeopathy compared with conventional medicine" then I find it hard to feel sorry they're spending time in prison for this.

And the reason I feel like that is because in the wide spectrum from conventional treatment to full-on woo, homeopathy is as psuedoscientific as they come.

My own (anecdotal) surveys have found people don't tend to know exactly what homeopathy is. They appear to know it's natural and have some vague idea it might be something to do with herbs.

But it's way worse than that.

At it's heart homeopathy uses the idea "similia similibus curentur" or let likes be cured by likes.

This premise came after the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, developed symptoms of malaria after swallowing some quinine-containing cinchona bark (quinine is a drug used to cure malaria).

This may sound vaguely plausible, and is often confused for the effect that allows vaccinations to work, but that is different.

In vaccinations a foreign antigen is used to provoke a response from the immune system meaning the body is prepared should the disease be encountered.

But that antigen isn't just any old thing which causes the same symptoms of the disease - often it's simply a weakened or inactive form of the actual pathogen.

And it gets worse. Homeopathy also works on the premise that the more dilute the sample the stronger its effect, something which is counter to all logical thinking.

Here's the excellent Science-based Medicine's take on the so-called law of infinitesimal doses.

The law of infinitesimal doses also runs contrary to chemistry, pharmacology, and thermodynamics. Homeopaths today use dilutions of substances which essentially remove all traces of the substance from the final dilution.

There is not likely to be even a single molecule of the original drug in the final remedy which is given to the patient.

Homeopaths conclude from this fact that the substance is transferring its essence to the water into which it is diluted. The more it is diluted, the more potent is the water.

They offer, however, no possible explanation for how simple water molecules can contain the essence of far more complex substances.

Modern homeopaths have also tried to rescue the notion of infinitessimals by invoking the concept of water memory. They claim that water molecules can form a structure that contains the information of the homeopathic remedy.

However, such claims are fanciful to the point of invoking magic and are devoid of any evidence. Water structure is very transient and ephemeral.

They last moments and could not survive repeated dilution, let alone ingestion, absorption into the body, and transport to whatever their alleged site of action is.

Essentially this means in all likelihood the solution you buy from the health shop or pharamacy is simply a sugar pill or a solution of diluant - most likely water.

It's no surprise, then, that I would never recommend homeopathy as a means of curing anything - bar thirst.

And I would certainly never allow anyone who recommends homeopathy to treat any of my friends and family if they were ill.

Anyway, humour is often an effective means of getting the message across and this clip from That Mitchell and Webb Look sums it up pretty well:



Unfortunately any examination of homeopathy and its place in treatment of 21st century diseases is too late for poor wee Gloria Sam.

Should you want to read more in-depth information about homeopathy then here are some excellent resource:

Science-based Medicine
Science, Reason and Critical Thinking
Skepdic
Homeowatch

Skeptical, not cynical

First up, I'm incredibly excited about the launch of Sciblogs. My experience of New Zealand as an immigrant leads me to believe we often punch above our weight and it's great to see the Science Media Centre continuing that in an area close to my heart.

There are many great Kiwi bloggers writing about science and how it impacts on our lives and to have so many aggregated in the one place is a great achievement.

I was honoured to be asked to contribute to Sciblogs and delighted to be able to accept. For one thing in such esteemed company it's a nudge for me to write many more posts and keep a high standard.

We have our own scientific challenges in Aotearoa (just listen to talkback radio for a week and hear how many pseudoscientific adverts, advertorials and comments there are) and I look forward to writing about many of them in the future.

So welcome to a fantastic new phase for nz skeptic!

I hope many of you will be reading this blog for the first time so feel free to browse some of the (small) archive to get a better idea on what I write about.

But today I want to deal with one of the things skeptics are often accused of - and that's being overtly cynical rather than skeptical.

Of course there are many cynical skeptics - but this is a good time to point out one of the basic tenets of science, that correlation does not mean causation.

I could spend three hours writing and re-writing exactly why I think a cynic and skeptic aren't interchangeable but this passage from the Skeptic website's A Brief Introduction section says it far more eloquently than I could:

Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo.

This is wrong.

Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas — no sacred cows allowed.

In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true.

When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.

Of course requiring evidence brings skeptics into direct conflict with anyone or anything that has or requires faith, but let's not jump too far ahead just yet.

I'll be writing about many things which will undoubtedly annoy people and provoke a strong reaction. This isn't my intention. I'm merely sharing the opinion I've formed based on my reading and research.

But the greatest thing about the internet is that people can disagree with me and we can debate the issues.

So when we get into the substantive posts about homeopathy, psychics and other woo areas then feel free to comment and tell me why you disagree with me.

And, being a skeptic rather than cynic, it means if someone points me to new information then I may even be forced to change my mind.

Now there's a challenge!