It didn’t save us from "Battlefield Earth"

John Travolta thinks Anna Nicole Smith would have been saved if she had converted to Scientology, according to MSNBC:

Travolta says that if Anna Nicole Smith had followed the teachings of Scientology she’d be alive today.

The “Pulp Fiction” star says that if the late pin-up could have been saved if she had undergone treatment of Narconon, a controversial drug and detox treatment inspired by the writings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Let’s be clear what he is talking about. Narconon is based on L. Ron Hubbard’s strange idea that drugs, chemicals and other toxins lodge in the fatty tissues of the body. Scientology’s solution to this is a regimen of massive vitamin dosages (especially niacin), coupled with sweating in Saunas for four hours a day for up to a month.

It’s ironic that Scientologists like Tom Cruise criticize psychiatry for allegedly being pseudoscience. Scientology and its beliefs are the definition of pseudoscience. All Scientology’s rules and tenets were made up by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard was the only “scientist” who was allowed to do this – so there was no peer review and no replication of results. (Assuming Hubbard ever obtained “results” from testing in the first place, which he almost certainly didn’t.) Hubbard is now dead, and so nothing can ever change: no one is allowed to test Scientology beliefs or practices to see what works and to abandon what does not. The result is nonsense like Narconon.

According to the anti-Scientology website Xenu.net, the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse does not know of a single peer reviewed piece scientific literature to support the claims made for Narconon:

The Narconon drug treatment modality treats all drug addictions the same. No scientific evidence was produced to show that all drug addictions are properly treated in the same manner ...

The Narconon [detoxification] program requires its patients to sweat up to five hours per day, seven days a week, for approximately thirty days. The rationale, according to Narconon for the sweat-out is to rid the body of fat-stored drugs and chemicals through sweat. However, there is no scientific basis for the technique. Most drugs of abuse are removed from the body by detoxification and excretion through the liver, kidneys and (in some instances) through the lungs. […]

The vast majority of time spent in the Narconon treatment plan and course work does not in any way relate to or involve education about drug and alcohol abuse treatment, issues, and/or addiction. […]

There is no credible scientific evidence that the Narconon program is effective in the treatment of chemical dependency.

Many things might have helped Anna Nicole. Narconon is a dangerous pseudoscientific treatment with little or no chance of helping anyone.

Additional references:

Narconon is Bad News for Customers

Is Narconon Safe? Dangerous detoxification

Is Narconon Valid?

Comments

[Tom Foss]

Huh. I always assumed that Narconon was based on Alcoholics Anonymous, and was therefore a Christian-based cult. Nice to see that, though the religious backgrounds for the two organizations are wildly different, both rely on uniform treatments for addictions that affect all people in different ways.

[pv]

Another celebrity with his mouth in gear and brain in neutral. And yet another example of celebrity and intelligence being inversely proportional.

[Tyler]

More from the gallery of assorted nuts who don't believe calculus works...

/snerk

[Rev. BigDumbChimp]

Same here Tom, I assumed it was all part of the same family.... and I guess in a way it is, just a different branch of nuttyness.

Skeptico, Tom Cruise is so going to call you glib.

[Rockstar Ryan]

In other news, Anna Nicole Smith was a stupid gold-digging whore. She's dead now. We can move on with our lives...and John Travolta is a moron.

[Chaosium]

Folks, folks, just as people confuse Scientology for Christian Science, the soundalike nature is completely intentional.

Alanon - The Alcoholics Anonymous support group for families affected by addiction.

Narcotics Anonymous - The AA-lite twelve step focusing more on other drug abuse and with less of a religious slant.

Narconon - Scientology trash.

[Oracep]

So how do you rate the thinking in this post? Coning algorithms are the answer. This post rates at 71%. Coning technology measures background, analysis and judgement.
Other posts:
Prayer Still Useless 45%
Genetically mod. Cassava 71%
Drivel from Chopra 76%

Average: 65.75

Coning Index
Less then 49% high level background/minimal analysis
50-59% mid level background and low level analysis/judgement
60-69% mid level background/mid level analysis/low level judgement
70-79% low level background/high level analysis/mid level judgement
80-100% low level background/high level analysis/high level judgement

Perhaps more importantly, we can compare thinking across text. Here's how some eminent bloggers Coned on average over 4 substantial posts each.
Michelle Malkin 65.5%
Arianna Huffington 82%
Marcos Moulitsas 70.75%
John Battelle 74.25%

Now, there's food for a thinking skeptic's feast!

[Tom Foss]

Yeabuhwha?

[Rockstar Ryan]

Yeah, I feel like I just watched Neo meet the Architect for the first time again...

ORACEP: Vis a vis the answer you are looking for and the question you are asking Rockstar concordently will be the most insignificant.

ROCKSTAR: WTF??

ORACEP: TF because mid level background and low level analysis/judgement in other posts coned using technology measuring background, analysis and judgement.

ROCKSTAR: You still haven't answered my question.

ORACEP: Quite right...fascinating...that was much quicker than your predecessors...

ROCKSTAR: Ok dude. Gibber away somewhere else before I go all "The One" on your ass.

[Oracep]

Hey Rockstar! Tom, John, Piltdown Man and L. Ron all say you need them for life's greater insights.

[Tom Foss]

What are you talking about?

[HCN]

The Oracep bit is spam. S/h/it posted the same bizarre message elsewhere, it is to get you to a website pushing something called "Coning Technology". It makes as much sense at the stupid website as it does here: None.

Ignore the troll.

[Tom Foss]

I went to the site, it looks like it's promoting the woo version of the "inverted pyramid" style of writing that they teach you in journalism.

It's very personalized spam, though, which is why it struck me as odd.

[Oracep]

You're right on the money Tom. That's part of our measuring system. We call that Paraconing. But it's the fundamental thinking links between Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain and how folks write thoughts down that are the core of our system.
It means we can extract degrees of thinking from paragraphs and rate the document for its thinking efficiency.
This is the result of 6 years research, and before we post our XML demo, we are happy for you to see some results. Contact us.

[Skeptico]

Oracep:

Please limit your comments to the actual subject of this post and not your own personal projects. Thanks.

[Rev. BigDumbChimp]

This is the result of 6 years research

Um humm. Fascinating.

[Parallel Divergence]

Battlefield Earth... 'nuff said.

[Jeremy Henderson]

In my younger days, I was once so desperate for a job that I applied with a local Scientology office for an advertised office assistant position.

Of course, there was no actual job, and it was all an attempt to lure people in for one of their "personality tests." It was pretty clear within minutes what was actually going on, but I decided to stick around and see what happened. What followed was a three hour journey through Scientology, culminating in them telling me that according to my personality test it seemed like I was missing something in my life, and that I longed to belong to something greater than myself. Surprise, surprise.

But the most ridiculous moment of the "interview" was the tour given to me by Amber, a conspicuously sexy young woman who's selling methods would be obvious to anyone who's ever eaten in a Hooters. She was blatantly flirtatious, constantly touching my arm or chest, and when she explained to me that all "employees" of the office needed to spend at least half an hour a day in the sauna she coyly advised me that for safety reasons no one was allowed in the sauna alone, so it was a good idea to choose a "sauna partner," which sounds like a phrase you'd read in a Playboy article from the early 70's.

Sadly, my burgeoning relationship with Amber fell apart when I laughed at the office they kept reserved for L. Ron Hubbard (fully furnished, with a working phone and computer, but blocked off with velvet ropes) and refused to sign the contract stating that I would not say or write anything disparaging about the Church of Scientology.

[HCN]

Sorry, dear spammers... I do not have a Y chromosome, and I hate any chance of seeing money disappear with any kind of gambling (except the stock market).

[Eric]

Let's not forget that Scientology can be more than just useless, there is good evidence to suggest that it can be actively dangerous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_McPherson

[Todd Goninon]

Scientology is strange but a lot of its practitioners are quite brilliant. Much of the behaviors it recommends are sensible and practical and promote healthy living.

I would consider what they have to say before rejecting it out of hand.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Todd.

I hate to be the one to bring up the Hitler Zombie, but many of the Nazis were 'quite brilliant'. That doesn't however give National Socialism any special dispensation or validity.

We know what scientology has to say. It's batshit crazy. So we reject it out of hand.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Here's a good and funny summation of scientology's beliefs Todd.

Boston Legal

[AaronBurr]

Ironically, converting to Scientology probably would've saved Anna Nicole Smith. But then so would've a lobotomy or any number of more reasonable options.