Skeptico

Sniveling Cowardly Christians

From PZ I learned today that MySpace is run by religious bigots who have deleted atheist users, groups and content:

Early this month, MySpace again deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group (35,000 members). This deletion, due largely to complaints from people who find atheism offensive, marks the second time MySpace has cancelled the group since November 2007.

[…]

“MySpace refuses to undelete the group, although it never violated any terms of service,” said Bryan Pesta, Ph.D., the group’s moderator. “When the largest Christian group was hacked, MySpace’s Founder, Tom Anderson, personally restored the group, and promised to protect it from future deletions.”

What a bunch of sniveling cowards this Christian group must be. Rather than engage in debate with the atheists, rather than show some evidence to back up their beliefs, or even just ignore the atheists, they had to start an organized campaign to have the group deleted. Because Christians only feel safe when no one allowed to challenge their delusions. It’s a sad commentary on their pathetic excuse for a religion that their god is so frightened of a few atheists that even an atheists’ MySpace page can’t be allowed to exist. Remember this the next time you hear Bill Donohue’s professional victim act, or The Christian News Wire whining about some imagined insult. Remember this the next time someone tells the “New Atheists” that we need to be more accommodating to Christians, less aggressive, more understanding of the “moderate” Christians, or whatever. Where are the “moderate Christians” protesting the atheists’ group’s right to exist? This act shows the religious mindset as it really is – intolerant, authoritarian, cowardly and vindictive.

Other Sources

The Cleveland Plain Dealer: MySpace deletes hacked Web site for atheists and agnostics

Wikipedia page on The Atheist and Agnostic Group.

February 2, 2007 – Update

Podblack reports MySpace have restored the group.

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79th Skeptics’ Circle

The 79th Skeptics Circle has just been posted at Podlack Blog. Click the link. Something about “Teh LOLcats”.

Edited to add:

I just realized that if you click on the blog name you get taken to that blog’s LOLCat. This, apparently, is me. Although in real life I don’t have such long whiskers.

 

Quack Sues Quackometer

The Quackometer is being threatened again. This time by quack Joseph Chikelue Obi, according to pv’s No Nonsense blog. And as with the Society of Homeopaths case, the duck’s ISP immediately caved at this thuggish but baseless threat from this quack Joseph Chikelue Obi (pictured right). Will they never learn? Will the duck’s ISP ever grow up?  Will the duck now change his ISP? Regardless, below is the duck’s post that his ISP cravenly pulled. 

The Quackometer’s (Latest) Censored Post

Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery - Dublin
Thursday, September 28, 2006
I had to share this with you. Following on from my recent Quack Word ‘Doctor’ blog, I came across the Royal College of Alternative Medicine (RCAM) , a Dublin based - well, I’m not sure quite what it is…

What caught my eye was just the shameless aggrandisement of the site. It is quite hilarious, if not a little repetitive at times. Calling yourself ‘Doctor’ is somewhat pompous when all you have done is paid for some international postage. However, the man behind RCAM has absolutely no shame and titles himself as the:

Distinguished Provost of RCAM (Royal College of Alternative Medicine) Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK)

Wow! Probably, just Joe to his mates. Naturally, when you Google the qualification FRCAM(Dublin), there is only person who appears to revel in this achievement. I’ll leave the rest as an excercise for the reader.

The distinguished provost looks like he is just another pseudoscientific nutritionist, his spin being “Nutritional Immunomodulation”. This is obviously a lot more clever than Patrick Holfords mere ‘Optimum Nutrition’, but having only one ‘omnipill’ is probably a poorer commercial decision that Patrick’s vast range of supplements.

Obviously, Professor Obi has had a few problems with what probably amount to bewildering comments about his site as the legal threats and press releases concerning his ‘ethical’ responses to criticisms cover more space than anything else. ‘Ethical’ is a favourite word on the site.

The most recent press release states,

7th September 2006 : The Distinguished RCAM Provost, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK) has formally accepted appointment as Chief Professorial Examiner for the Doctor of Science (DSc) programme in Evidence Based, Alternative Medicine (EBAM) of a highly respected International University in one of the British Commonwealth Protectorates.

This new qualification is primarily aimed at Medical Graduates, Physicians, Surgeons, Pharmacists, Dentists, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Opticians, Wellness Consultants, Herbalists, Acupuncturists, Naturopaths , Healers, Podiatrists , Chiropodists , Scientists , Healers ,Therapists, Homeopaths, Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Nurses wishing to ethically upgrade their current Qualifications in Alternative Medicine over an exceedingly intensive 12 - 36 month period of study.

British Commonwealth Protectorates? Could that be Dublin?

I really have no idea what this organisation is all about. But it looks like it could be getting quite big soon…

RCAM currently has International Vacancies for One Million (1,000,000) ‘Foundation Fellows’ (’Movers and Shakers’) ; who will independently play a highly pivotal role in diligently mentoring (and regulating) it’s future Global Membership.

So if you really think that you seriously have what it takes to become a ‘Leader’ in Alternative Medicine , then (perhaps) RCAM may definitely be exactly what the Doctor ordered for you.

One million. That’s a lot of quacks! And they are just to mentor (and regulate) the wider quack membership! This man has ambition.

The Big J really hates real doctors. This is his most recent press release…

RCAM would like to warmly commend the various Chieftans of the National Health Service of the United Kingdom for ethically and appropriately ignoring utterly misguided calls (from a rather amusing Group of thirteen Clinical Yestermen) to compel Hard-Working (and Tax-Paying) British Citizens to additionally pay for Life Enhancing Alternative Medicine Interventions out of their very own pockets - rather than get such treatments free via the NHS. RCAM would like to also categorically state that such exceedingly flawed ‘G-13′ demands that the National Health Service of the United Kingdom expediently abandon Alternative Medicine altogether (in total favour of Conventional Medicine) be diplomatically treated with the very utmost contempt which such unguarded verbal flippance duly deserves ; as none of these 13 ‘Eminent UK Scientists’ behind such calls has professionally attained Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications in Alternative Medicine and as such cannot be deemed competent enough to make such sweeping ‘Shilly-Shally’ statements about the noble independent specialty of Alternative Medicine.

RCAM therefore publicly advises the General Public to lawfully go about their normal Wellness-Seeking Behaviour as usual - without any unwarranted prejudice or fear resulting from such highly self-serving, morally unethical , abjectly crude , totally unprofessional, utterly unstatesmanly, morbidly barbaric, wantonly uncivilized, profanely undemocratic and unspeakably sacrilegious perpetual affronts on the therapeutically formidable institution of Alternative Medicine.

Now, I do not have ‘Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications’ in Santa Clause Studies to know he does not exist. But hey. I must be a morbidly barbaric and profanely undemocratic, unethical duck.

So, struggling around the acres of pomposity I find one place where Prof Joe might be making some money. You can call him to seek his wisdom, after pre-booking an hour’s slot (and handing over your credit card) for a mere 300 Euros. Alternatively, you can pay by the minute on the contact line for a trifling $10 per minute.

Its going to cost you $20 just for Joe to say Hello and to read out his numerous titles, qualifications and names. Not bad ‘ethical’ work.

Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss
Thursday, October 12, 2006
No, this is not about our Defender of Quackery, our Quack-in-Chief His Royal Quackiness, Prince Charles, but about the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. And yes, it is just a rather lame story written solely to get a picture of Kate on my blog.

I’ve written a rather lazy blog on the distinguished professor before that was just a bit of a gawp at his quacktastic website and what looks like a health phone-line scam.

Well, I’ve done a little more digging with Google and it has revealed a few quack gems. It has been pretty hard work, since Google returns some 6,000 pages, the vast majority just appears to be Prof Obi’s self-promotion. However, if you persist in digging a few interesting facts turn up.

So, what has the little black duck found out about the “most Controversial Retired Physician and ‘A-List’ Medical Celebrity, Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi”?

Here we go…

1. The Irish Independent reports that his college does not exist at the Dublin address given on the web site. There’s a surprise! It’s just a front.

2. The Independent goes on. “In January 2003, he was suspended by for serious professional misconduct at South Tyneside District Hospital. Among the allegations made were that he failed to attend to patients, wrote strange notes about colleagues and at one point gave a dating agency phone number to a psychiatric patient.”

3. He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

4. The GMC strike Dr Obi off their register for “serious professional misconduct”. So much for him being retired.

5. On another tack, Dr Obi has been involved in a little cyber-squatting. This looks as if it took place while he was a doctor - always after a few quid!

6. Since then, now self-titled Prof Obi, a few new avenues have been opened, including trying to entice Kate Moss away to one of his ’safe-houses’ in Ireland. Hat’s off!

He is quoted as saying:

“Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Miss Moss still has fundamental rights, just like anyone else out there, and as far as I am concerned, she is not guilty of anything until an Ethical Jury says so.”

(I mentioned before that ‘ethical’ was one of his favourite words.)

7. Prof Obi has been developing a Penis Enlarger (watch out Kate) that his own Royal College has now endorsed.

8. At least one person (out of the targeted million) has paid Prof Obi the fees for his college to accredit them. Dr Michael Keet (8 Canards) of the Central London College of Reflexology handed over ‘hundreds’. Do we feel sorry for out-quacked quacks? I guess we ought to.

9. For those of you wanting to see behind the grand titles and see the real human being, Joseph lists his interests as Comedy in London, Whole Food Nutrition and Christian Music. On this ‘Meetup’ site, he describes himself as “Just a very ordinary guy . . .”. That’s nice.

10. His name appears very often on the blog Abolish The General Medical Council (GMC), often reporting something he has got up to. The blog describes itself as:

An ethical blog for those who publicly feel that the General Medical Council (GMC) should be Statutorily Abolished in favour of a Medical Licensing Commission (MLC) to solely register and revalidate Doctors who practise Conventional Medicine in the UK. The Blog also recommends that the GMC/MLC hands all disciplinary functions over to an Independent Clinical Tribunal (ICT) in keeping with the EU Convention on Human Rights ; to avoid (both) Institutional Bias and Multiple Jeopardy.

Oooh. There is that word ‘ethical’ again. And ‘European Human Rights’. No name is given for the blog author but the avatar is a portrait of the queen. Another apparent obsession of Prof Obi - royalty. Could the author be none other than the Professor himself, a little agrieved for his ticking off? I hope you all click through to the blog. Maybe we will show up in his stats and whoever the writer is can get in contact and confirm one way or another.

I rather hope it is, as the final thing I turned up would just be fantastic…

11. Is the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Obi now selling ethical ring-tones? I do hope so.

Watch out Crazy Frog! Here comes the Crazy Provost…

For completeness I am posting here an extract from the North East News, Evening Chronicle article linked to above.
In the article dated 21st April 2004 it states:

Long list of titles
Dr Obi uses a number of medical and professional titles online and claims membership of a long list of organisations.
These include FRCAM (Dublin), FRIPH (UK) FACAM (USA) and provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine (RCAM Dublin).
The Royal College of Alternative Medicine appears to be little more than a website. It is listed as a company at Companies Registration Office in Dublin but the phone number given is not in use. Fellowship of the RCA is available to buy from the site.
Dr Obi, originally from Nigeria, does not say where he did his doctorate in science (DSc) or when he joined the Royal Institute of Public Health (RIPH). No one was able to confirm whether or not Dr Obi was a member of the RIPH when the Chronicle contacted it.
Dr Obi says he is a member of the Institute of Clinical Research (ICR), a training body based in Maidenhead that sells membership online for £50.
He also says he is a member of the International Stress Management Association, which also sells membership online from as little as £30.
Dr Obi also claims to be a member of the World Medical Association (WMA), which sells annual membership via its website for 37 euros.
Events that led to failed career
August 2000 - Starts work as a senior house officer in the department of psychiatry at South Tyneside District Hospital.
January 2001 - Leaves following a complaint.
September 2002 - Registration suspended by the GMC for 18 months for reasons
surrounding his “fitness to practise” and “for the protection of the public”.
January 2003 - Dr Obi is found guilty of serious professional misconduct by a GMC hearing which he does not attend.
Obi is said to have made offensive and insensitive comments to psychiatric patients and failed to respond to his pager.
In a previous job in Harrogate it was alleged he failed to conduct an outpatient clinic and failed to properly treat a patient with a heart attack.
And in Pontefract he is said to have described a colleague as a “stupid cow”, spent an excessive time on a computer, and called a surgeon a liar.
August 2003 -Dr Obi launches a campaign to get elected to the North East Assembly, even though no referendum has been held. He describes himself as “North East Assembly Aspirant - Independent (non-aligned)”.
August 2004 -Dr Obi refused to speak to the Chronicle. His campaign website is closed down after he posted defamatory statements there.

A subsequent article entitled Shamed doctor quizzed was published on 15th September 2004.

It’s a pity the Quackometer’s web host, Netcetera, can’t be bothered to read about Mr Obi’s disreputable past.

On 24th August 2004, the Evening Chronicle had this to say about Mr Obi:

Avoid at all costs

Sacked for serious professional misconduct and his registration suspended by the GMC, Joseph Chikelue Obi is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the best man to be trusted with your health.

Yet the disgraced former health employee is free to peddle his dubious services on the internet.

Despite being booted out of his job at South Tyneside General Hospital, the shamed health worker is currently touting for business on the worldwide web.

And he’s doing very well out of it, thank you very much.

One desperate woman, unaware of his past, has handed over £3,500… and, not surprisingly, is now feeling even worse than ever.

Operating under the grand title of Professor Obi, it appears he is breaking no law and is free to sell health advice to anyone willing to part with their hard-earned cash.

He may be untouchable in the eyes of the law but morally he is surely operating on shaky ground. Is a disgraced hospital worker really the best person to be dishing out health advice?

If you’re thinking of taking up Mr Obi’s advice, we would advise you to read our story first. It may save you some money.

Carnival of the Godless

A Peer Reviewed Journal of The Carnival of the Godless has just been posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy. Worth clicking the link.

Extraordinarily Mangled

After I had finished writing Monday’s Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence post, I Googled extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to see what else had been written about it: had I missed anything or got something wrong? Surprisingly, the first hit was the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) – with a critique of the way atheists supposedly apply the extraordinary claims doctrine when examining claims of Jesus’ resurrection. Unsurprisingly, they managed to mangle the atheists’ position. Equally unsurprisingly it’s choc full of logical fallacies. It starts with a possibly unintentional statement that the Christian has already made his mind up about the resurrection, whether he has any evidence or not:

In Jesus' resurrection, for example, Christians presuppose that God exists and that He could easily have raised Jesus from the dead. The evidence of fulfilled prophecy, eyewitness records, and changed lives of the disciples is enough to convince many people who believe in God that Jesus rose from the dead. This is a logical conclusion based on the presupposition and the evidence.

The CARM’s position that “Christians presuppose that God exists and that He could easily have raised Jesus from the dead” is circular reasoning: they’re using the resurrection as evidence that Jesus was resurrected (and was therefore the son of God, etc), but their admitted presupposition is that God exists and would have resurrected his son. Of course, if you start from the position that Jesus was the son of God then your “logical conclusion” pretty much has to be that Jesus was resurrected. Who needs evidence?

They then misstate the atheists’ position to accuse atheists of doing what they just admitted to doing themselves:

Atheists, on the other hand, would negate the resurrection by default since their presupposition that there is no God would require that God involvement cannot occur. Therefore, for an atheist the extraordinary evidence would have to be "exceptionally" extraordinary in order to overcome his atheistic presuppositions.

No. It has nothing to do with “atheistic presuppositions”. It is because of the “presupposition” (actually, the extraordinary evidence that exists), that show DEAD PEOPLE DO NOT COME BACK TO LIFE. I’m not talking about people who were technically “dead” for a short while but who were brought back by heroic modern medicine. I’m talking about someone who was really dead, for nearly two days, without modern machinery to keep the organs working, who was resurrected by magic.

I find it telling that the CARM accuse atheists of presupposing their conclusion (they don’t), when that is exactly what the CARM just did. (Projection?) And remember, I used their own actual statement of what their presuppositions are, from their own article – not a straw man version of their presuppositions as they did with the atheists' supposed presupposition.

This is why the skeptic must require "extraordinary evidence." It enables him to retain his presupposition should the extraordinary level of the evidence not be met. Therefore, requiring extraordinary evidence effectively stacks the deck against the claim.

No. The absurdity of the claim – a dead person coming back to life - stacks the deck against the claim.

When debating skeptics, I often ask them to tell me what would qualify as extraordinary evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Generally, nothing sensible is offered. Normal evidence would be written accounts. Extraordinary evidence would be a film, but we know that this extraordinary evidence is not reasonable since there was no film in Jesus' time. Therefore, can the requirement that extraordinary claims (Christ's resurrection) require extraordinary evidence apply to Jesus' resurrection?

It can and it should. It is not the fault of the atheist that Christians have nothing but lame second-hand anecdotes for this patently absurd claim. The burden of proof is upon the claimant, not upon those who doubt the absurd claim.

It would seem not. Since Jesus' resurrection is alleged to be a historical event, then it seems logical that normal historical evidence and normal historical examination of that evidence would be all we could offer. The resurrection is supposed to be an event of history and since it claims historical validity, then typical criteria for examining historical claims should be applied.

No. Unless the historical claims they refer to also involve raising the dead. Which they rarely do.

They go on to equivocate about how historic claims are judged differently because of the difficulty in testing events that happened a long time ago. But historians are generally evaluating claims such as who won a war, why they won (better tactics, better weapons?), who was involved in implementing legislation, etc. These things can often be inferred from a variety of sources. But they are not, in the main, extraordinary claims. One historian might say a war was won because of a better general; another might say it was bad weather than got the troops of one side bogged down in the mud. One or both of these explanations might be wrong. But neither requires you to accept some new and extraordinary claim such as (for example) that if you accept Jesus you will live in heaven forever. The CARM equivocate about this difference:

Furthermore, we cannot ascertain all things with absolute certainty. We cannot, for example, prove that Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) ever lived by observing him. But, we have ancient writings from eyewitnesses concerning his existence. Skeptics readily believe in Alexander the Great without involving the scientific method and without requiring "extraordinary evidence" yet they will require it of Jesus' existence.

No. They have created a false analogy. When expressed properly, it applies to the atheist position, not the Christian one, as I will demonstrate. As with Alexander the Great, we cannot prove that a historic Jesus actually existed. However, we have ancient writings (not from eyewitnesses, but I’ll let that slide for the sake of argument), concerning his existence. I am prepared to accept that a historic Jesus could have lived, without involving the scientific method and without requiring "extraordinary evidence". What I will not accept is that he died, was resurrected, and now lives in the sky. That, is the extraordinary claim. It is absurd. And there is no rational reason for anyone to believe it.

Huckabee: Evidence Please

From PZ I learn that Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wants to amend the US constitution so it agrees with his version of God’s standards:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Well OK, Mike. Just one thing – show us the evidence that the old book of myths you are relying on is actually the word of God. And remember, Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence, so extraordinary evidence only please, no references to The Bible itself to prove The Bible is the word of God. No appeals to popularity or ancient knowledge. I’m sure you must have the evidence if you’re willing to change the constitution to take account of it. Surely you wouldn’t just say it’s true without having the evidence to back it up? Didn’t you study theology? Well then – you must have found some pretty extraordinary evidence for such an extraordinary claim, otherwise you would have been wasting your time all those years, wouldn’t you?

So the comments are open for Mike, or any of his followers, to post their  extraordinary evidence to justify why we should change the US constitution so it agrees with their holy book. Or to withdraw the idiotic idea. (Although we know they’ll never do that.)

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

So said Carl Sagan. But why? And what is an extraordinary claim?

The origins of the saying can perhaps be found in Hume’s Maxim:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish…

Replace “miracle” with “extraordinary claim”, and you have the basis of the quote that Carl Sagan popularized. And intuitively, most people would agree with it in principle. For example, if I told you I had cereal for breakfast, you would probably believe me. You know cereal exists and that people eat it for breakfast. Of course, I could be lying, but even if I were, I have not asked you to accept some new and extraordinary idea. (The fact that I lied wouldn’t mean that cereal somehow doesn’t exist any more.) However, if I told you that the cereal I eat every day will guarantee that I will never get sick and will live to be 100, you would probably want some evidence of that, and some pretty good evidence too.

Strictly speaking, all claims require exactly the same amount of evidence, it’s just that most "ordinary" claims are already backed by extraordinary evidence that you don’t think about. When we say “extraordinary claims”, what we actually mean are claims that do not already have evidence supporting them, or sometimes claims that have extraordinary evidence against them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence because they usually contradict claims that are backed by extraordinary evidence.  The evidence for the extraordinary claim must support the new claim as well as explain why the old claims that are now being abandoned, previously appeared to be correct. The extraordinary evidence must account for the abandoned claim, while also explaining the new one.

Most people are probably unaware of the amount of extraordinary evidence required for most scientific claims. Not only must the experiments be written up in such a way that others can challenge the assumptions and be able to spot errors, but they must also be independently replicated. In addition, most scientific discoveries have provenance – that is, we know how and why we decided to test this claim in the first place. For example, a new drug may have a theoretical rationally as well as positive in vitro and animal testing before it is even tested on humans. Consequently, we already have reasons to suppose it might work. Compare that with much of alternative medicine, where we have no basis to suppose it works, and whose tenants tenets we are pretty sure were just made up. In this case by “extraordinary evidence,” all we really mean is the same level of evidence that supports real medicine.

You can see than my claim I had cereal for breakfast is not extraordinary. We know cereal exists and people eat it. There are no other accepted or “proven” claims that you have to abandon to accept that I ate cereal for breakfast. The claim that my cereal will guarantee I will live to be 100 is an extraordinary claim. It is counter to all the other evidence we have that there is no one simple thing you can eat that will guarantee no illness and such a long life.

Examples of Extraordinary Claims

Part of the difficulty in defining what makes an extraordinary claim is this: claims that skeptics consider extraordinary, woos consider quite normal. Woos often consider that (for example) it is already a given that psychics exist, therefore anecdotal evidence is good enough for them. But psychics are scientifically implausible and have not been shown to be real. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real; it does mean we need extraordinary evidence to suppose they are. Woos start from the place that these things are already supported by evidence, and that’s where they go wrong. I’ve tried below to explain what is extraordinary about the following claims – what other claims, and what other implicit evidence, they contradict.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is the definition of an extraordinary claim, It is initially extraordinary because it does not have provenance – that is, we know that Hahnemann didn’t derive the laws of homeopathy by experiment, he just made them up ad-hoc. Hahnemann made up the Law of Similars based on an observation of one thing (quinine / malaria symptoms), and this “Law” has not been replicated or confirmed. In fact, we now know the Law of Similars is false. We also know from every other piece of evidence we have, that when you dilute something it gets weaker, not stronger. Because of these two basic flaws, homeopathy requires stronger evidence than we would ask from other therapies. And yet with homeopathy we are expected to accept weaker evidence – anecdotes and non-blinded studies written by homeopaths. All well run double-blind tests show homeopathy is no more than placebo.

Incidentally, most alternative medical therapies suffer the same lack of provenance flaw – ie they were mostly just made up by ancient peoples with no knowledge of how the body actually works or of what makes us sick. Similarly, we are mostly offered anecdotes in place of evidence.

Astrology

Astrology is similar to homeopathy in that we know it was not derived by experiment, but was most likely just made up by people who saw pictures in the sky. (At least, no one has ever been able to show this explanation is wrong.) In addition, there is no plausible explanation for how astrology might work – ie what forces could alter a newborn’s personality in the precise ways claimed. Despite this lack of provenance and plausibility, we are still offered only anecdotes and appeals to science doesn’t know everything.

Jesus’ resurrection after 2 days

This goes against all the evidence that people do not come back to life, spontaneously, after two days. Modern medicine can bring people back from what would have been considered in earlier years to be “dead”, but not after 2 days of being dead with no modern life support to keep the vital organs working. In fact, it is probably reasonably safe to say it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that people cannot come back to life after being dead for two days. The evidence we are offered are accounts written decades after the event, by people who were not there when the events described were purported to have occurred. We are offered nothing but hearsay anecdotes from superstitious people with a clear reason for wanting others to think the story true. This is hardly acceptable evidence to counteract the fact that this never happens. Christians might ask, what evidence would a skeptic accept for such an extraordinary claim. The fact that even in principle you are unlikely to find extraordinary evidence 2000 years later, is hardly the non-believer’s fault.

Psychics

Psychic powers are extraordinary initially because of lack of scientific plausibility: that is, we have no known way for psychic signals to be sent and received. Lack of plausibility doesn’t mean something isn’t true, but it does make it extraordinary. The continued lack of good evidence for psychic powers, despite 125 years of looking, means that even more extraordinary evidence is now required to explain why the previous 125 years of looking were unsuccessful. For example, attempts to prove psychic powers with Zener cards were abandoned when the few positive results that were obtained were shown to have been achieved by cheating. Subsequent tests of psychics have resorted to tests that are easier to fudge – tests requiring judging to determine if the psychic got it right or not. The wiggle room this introduced results in less extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim that has been strangely shy to appear when properly tested (in a way that would truly be extraordinary evidence, if it worked). Instead we are left with lame guesses by the likes of Sylvia Browne and Allison Dubois, that are anything but extraordinary except in the sense that they are extraordinary bad.

Alien Visitation

Strictly speaking, alien visitation does not contradict other claims that are known to be true. It is theoretically possible that aliens exist and may hold advanced technology that enables them to travel across the galaxy. But the claim is extraordinary in that there is zero evidence alien visitation has actually occurred, despite at least sixty years of looking. In addition, there are rational explanations for many claims of alien visitation. There is no hard evidence of alien visitation, such as a crashed spacecraft with technology far advanced of our own.

Study: No Mercury – Autism Link

You may have read about the new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry that (yet again) failed to find a link between mercury in vaccines and autism – a study that would have been expected to find some link if one existed. It’s been discussed in detail by Orac:

Another very bad day for antivaccinationists: Yet another study fails to find a link between thimerosal and autism.

Also Steven Novella:

One More Nail in the Mercury-Autism Coffin

And in Science Based Medicine

Mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): A failed hypothesis.

Click the links – I really don’t have much to add.

I think we’re now at the stage when we can safely say that the people who still insist that the debate on this subject is not over, are in the same league as creationists, HIV-AIDS deniers and global warming deniers – ie they’re cranks.

77th Skeptics’ Circle

The 77th Skeptics Circle has just been posted at White Coat Underground. Click the link.