Skeptico

Andrew Wakefield Unethical so Age of Autism Stands By Him

The British General Medical Council (GMC) has just announced its verdict in their investigation into Andrew Wakefield, ruling that he had acted dishonestly and irresponsibly:

The verdict, read out by panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar, criticised Dr Wakefield for the invasive tests, such as spinal taps, that were carried out on children and which were found to be against their best clinical interests.

The panel said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London's Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.

[…]

Dr Kumar said he had acted with "callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer".

He also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.

[My bold.]

In 1998, Wakefield claimed to have found a link between the measles virus in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of children (following the MMR vaccine), and autism.  Wakefield’s small study, popularized by idiotic news media, led to an MMR-autism scare, a significant drop in vaccine rates and a resurgence of measles in the UK.  Wakefield may claim he didn’t say that MMR causes autism, but he certainly implied it strongly enough (and again, with the help of the press), that many people believed (and still believe) that the MMR vaccine causes GI problems which causes autism.  The evidence though, from a panel of 28 experts, clearly showed that this was not true.  The GMC have now, with this ruling, confirmed that in addition to Wakefield’s conclusions being false, he also acted unethically.  We still have to wait to see what sanctions they hand down.

Various vaccines-cause-autism groups immediately revised their positions, based on the conclusions of this independent expert body, and stated that they were wrong previously to claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

Ha – just kidding.  Of course they haven’t.  Nothing would ever convince these people that their previously determined conclusion could ever be wrong.  Just take a look at the flurry of activity from the Age of Autism blog in the last three days:

A Sad Day for the Future of Children – where they “unequivocally renounce the GMC’s findings” – no evidence, nothing they can say that is wrong with the GMC’s findings – they just renounce them because, well, because they do, so there.

Then from Mark Blaxill we have Naked Intimidation: The Wakefield Inquisition is Only the Tip of the Autism Censorship Iceberg - where he smears the witnesses in the case, oh and anecdotes, anecdotes I tell you (un-sourced) about anti-vaccination scientists being censored.  And “the only thing for the autism community to do now is stand by Andy Wakefield” – because clearly “the only thing” you can do when a discredited doctor is also found guilty of ethical violations, is to “stand by” him.  That’s “the only thing” you can do.  No other options, obviously.  Their hands are tied, you see.

And if that wasn’t clear enough, we have National Autism Association Supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield – the title says all you need to know.

Celebrity idiot Jenny McCarthy’s charity chimes in with Generation Rescue Supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield - (beginning to see a trend here).

Finally, we have fearless conversation advocate and fearless litigant to anyone who disagrees with her, Barbara Loe Fisher, who writes Vaccines: Doctor Judges & Juries Hanging Their Own – a touching story of the first time she met Wakefield.  (Why?  Who knows.)

And a couple more that I couldn’t be bothered to read.

Nothing could possibly ever convince these people that they might have been wrong.  Nothing.  Ever.  If you want to read some good sources on the GMC’s verdict, see below.

Further Reading

Steven Novella writes Andrew Wakefield “Acted Unethically”.

Investigative reporter Brian Deer (writing a year ago) MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism – on how Wakefield changed and misreported results in his research:

Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the [MMR shot], in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Ben Goldacre The Wakefield MMR verdict.

And finally, there is the GMC’s actual report.

Mike Adams – Pyromaniac in a Strawman Factory

(Unfortunately I didn’t invent that phrase.  I wish I had, but I didn’t.  It seems to fit Adams so well though.)

Mike Adams is going nuts.  (Possibly the word “going” is superfluous there – I’ll let you, gentle reader, decide.)  Following his meltdown after being disqualified from the “Shorty Awards” for cheating, he has just had another meltdown – this time about us evil skeptics - What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe.  This is a list he claims he pulled from various skeptic websites, although not one link is provided to show that any skeptic actually holds the positions he says we do.  It’s mostly a list of fairly obviously absurd straw man skeptic positions, plus a few actual skeptic positions that do actually make sense (eg we are opponents of homeopathy – well duh).

Here’s just one example of Adams’s idiocy:

Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

Well, I don’t think I ever said that all vaccines are necessarily safe if they haven’t been tested, and I’ve certainly never been in favor of forced vaccinations against anyone’s will.  But the puzzling thing is the “900 vaccines all at the same time…” bit.  Why 900?  Where did that come from?  Why not round it up to 1,000 and be done with it?  In a rant that makes no sense, “900 vaccines” isn’t even wrong.

I’d go through the whole thing line by line, but fortunately I don’t have to because Tom Foss already did.  Read Tom’s line by line take down of Mike Adam’s rant on skeptics.  It’s a classic.

Addendum January 25:

We’ve certainly riled Adams up.  Today he has yet another post up about skeptics.  More hilarity ensues, although you should probably shield your irony detectors before reading it.

This article succeeded wildly in infuriating the "skeptics" across the 'net by simply reminding them what they believe.

No, we weren’t infuriated at all.  Astonished by the stupidity and number of blatant straw men, to be sure.  But most of us found it hilarious.

They then resorted to their same old dirty tricks to attack me by doing things like joining our Facebook page then posting a message that says, "That article made me so mad, I'm quitting this forum!"

That’s pretty funny because, as you’ll read in a comment below, Tom Foss tried to leave a comment at Adams’s site, but Adams deleted it.  That’s how confident Adams is in what he’s writing – no one is allowed to criticize Mike Adams.  And if you do it's a dirty trick!

Here’s where you’ll need to shield your irony meter:

They also tend to jump to false conclusions about what people are really saying. In my previous article, for example, I never stated whether I believed in God, or whether I was an athiest (sic), or whether I followed organized religion and yet people read the article and they leaped to conclusions, assuming I was promoting organized religion, for example, or that I was condemning atheism.

Actually I never stated my position on those matters in the article at all, but the skeptics leaped to the conclusion that I did. This speaks to their tendency to warp all incoming information and restructure it to conform to the beliefs they already carry about the subject at hand.

Yes, Adams is annoyed because he thinks skeptics have misrepresented his positions.  Because, you see, misrepresenting an opponent’s position is something Mike Adams would never do.

Steven Novella also responded today: Mike Adams Takes On “Skeptics”

As did Orac: A pyromaniac in a field of straw man or a black hole of burning stupid incinerating every straw man in the universe? Mike Adams attacks skepticism

As Good As Dowsing

For once we have some news of rationality winning – although it took a while.  Jim McCormick (pictured right), maker of the useless ADE-651 “bomb detection” device, was arrested yesterday in the UK on suspicion of “fraud by misrepresentation.”  An export ban on the device will come into force next week.  To which I add – about time!

It’s not as if this is new information.  The ADE-651 is just the latest incarnation of a device that was previously called “The Mole,” and before that the “Quadro Tracker.”  They’re all the exact same device and they have all consistently failed tests designed to see if they work.  Back in October 2008 and again in November 2009, James Randi challenged the makers of the ADE-651 to apply for his million dollar prize to prove that it worked.  Of course, as with all the other charlatans and quacks Randi challenges, they didn’t apply.  Well, now we know why – the makers were selling these pieces of junk to the Iraqi government for $40,000 a pop or a total to date of $85 million!  By my count, that’s over 2,000 not bomb detectors not detecting bombs in Iraq alone.  Randi’s $ million must have seemed like small change. (I have to admit I am still a bit skeptical about this $85 million figure.  It is the figure that is consistently being reported by all media, although they are probably just repeating each other, so we can’t be sure.  Still, we have nothing else to go on right now.  If it is confirmed it is certainly a massive fraud for such a piece of junk.)

The BBC reports that there are concerns that the devices have failed to stop bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of people.  Actually, a little more than just “concerns.”  There have been several successful bomb attacks in Iraq recently in areas where they were apparently relying on this bogus device:

And an attack in December killed over 120 people, prompting Iraqis to ask how the bombs could have got through the city's security.

Attention is increasingly focusing on the ADE-651, the hand-held detector now used at most checkpoints in Baghdad.  [My bold.]

Get that?  This useless device is used at most checkpoints in Baghdad in place of physical inspections of vehicles.  Remember, this is a device that has no memory, no programming, no working electronics, no batteries and no known way it could possibly ever work.  It has consistently failed to work in all controlled tests.  And yet they go for $40,000 each!  Over 2,000 of them.

Strangely, I find I do agree with one thing McCormick has to say about his product:

"the theory behind dowsing and the theory behind how we actually detect explosives is very similar".

Yes, dowsing and the ADE-651 are similar in that they are both complete bullshit. 

Randi’s blog today has a post, Randi Responds to the Arrest of James McCormick, that includes a video of Randi explaining the history of this device and the JREF’s role in exposing it.  (Although I don’t often recommend long video clips, this one with Randi is worth the time.)  Astonishingly, the Quadro Tracker (which, to repeat, is the exact same product as the ADE-651) was tested back in 1995 and was described back then by the FBI as “a fraud.”  Fifteen years later, McCormick gets arrested.

The Iraqi officer who appeared at a press conference with McCormick recently, Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, apparently said he did not care about the failed tests of this device.  I join Randi in hoping the Iraqis investigate this Iraqi officer’s connection to the manufacturers of the device.  Apparently it has been sold for $16,500 (still a rip off for something that does nothing), although it was sold to the Iraqi military for up to $60,000.  Would the Major General’s bank accounts reveal kickbacks received from McCormick’s company?  There would have been enough spare cash from that $85 million to pay off any number of intermediaries.  Perhaps the threat of jail time (Iraqi jail – nice) would motivate the Major General finally to care if the damn thing works or not.  One can only hope.

Praise should go to the JREF for doggedly exposing this fraud for at least the past 15 years, according to Randi.  (Shame on the media and law enforcement for allowing it to continue, without criticism, for so long.)  Don’t forget all the other frauds and charlatans who also refuse to take Randi’s $ million test because they know they would fail.  (And ditto.)

Who Lies?

You’ll remember that Barbara Loe Fisher is suing Amy Wallace et al for (as I understand it, mostly) the following piece that Wallace wrote about Fisher:

Fisher, who has long been the media's go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call "parents rights," makes him particularly nuts, as in "You just want to scream." The reason? "She lies," he says flatly.

You’ll note the “she lies” part, which seems to have been what got Fisher’s goat.  Of course, accusing people of lying can be problematic – unless you can read minds, you don’t really know if the person is actually lying or if they just mistakenly but honesty believe something that is false.  Regardless, that seems to be what Fisher is suing Wallace for.

Well, want to know something funny?  I just spent all of five minutes Googling and I found this piece written only two months ago by anti-vaccine supremo J.B. Handley, in the same Age of Autism blog that Fisher writes in.  The post was about (guess who?) Amy Wallace, and is entitled How Wired Magazine’s Amy Wallace Endangers Our Kids.  Guess what he says:

I know I speak for many when I say that we, as a community, are irate (sic) by the one-sided lies that Wired Magazine allowed Ms. Wallace to put in print.

Amy Wallace’s one-sided lies.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Wired Magazine and Amy Wallace should sue J.B. Handley for calling them liars, oh no.  I never would.  Not at all.  Couldn’t recommend that at all.  No way.  Never.  Absolutely not.  Never crossed my mind.

Casey Luskin Wrong on Tiktaalik

Casey Luskin over at the Disco-Tute’s blog is getting all excited about the recent discovery of fossilized tetrapod (four footed vertebrate) footprints in Poland, dated 395 million years ago.  What?  The Disco-Tute is excited about new scientific discoveries?  Well, yes, but only because they think it disproves evolution, or something.  Luskin’s post is entitled Tiktaalik Blown "Out of the Water" by Earlier Tetrapod Fossil Footprints, which should give you an idea.  Briefly, the transitional (between fish and tetrapod) fossil Tiktaalik was found in rocks 375 million years old, but these new tetrapod fossils are 395 million years old, so this newly discovered tetrapod wasn’t a descendant of Tiktaalik.  Luskin claims this means Tiktaalik isn’t a transitional form, even though it clearly has features of both fish and tetrapods (more on that below).

Here’s Luskin:

The fossil tetrapod footprints indicate Tiktaalik came over 10 million years after the existence of the first known true tetrapod. Tiktaalik, of course, is not a tetrapod but a fish, and these footprints make it very difficult to presently argue that Tiktaalik is a transitional link between fish and tetrapods. It’s not a “snapshot of fish evolving into land animals,” because if this transition ever took place it seems to have occurred millions of years before Tiktaalik.  [My bold.]

Of course, Luskin’s reasoning is wrong – if Tiktaalik is an intermediate between fish and tetrapods, then the discovery that this evolution also occurred earlier doesn’t suddenly magically mean that Tiktaalik isn’t an intermediate between fish and tetrapods anymore.  The evidence that Tiktaalik is an intermediate is still evidence that Tiktaalik is an intermediate.  Luskin doesn’t understand what an “intermediate” is – he thinks it has to be something on a direct line from (in this case) fish to existing land animals; it’s actually just a fossil that shows evolutionary change within lineages.  (It has features of both a fish and a tetrapod, so it shows evolution happening.)  Luskin thinks evolutionary theory says this happened only once.  But evolutionary theory doesn’t say that.  Transitional forms don’t have to be direct descendants of living species, they just have to be transitional between species (“cousins” of our ancestors, if you like) – that is, they just need to demonstrate evolution occurring.

PZ has a good post up, Casey Luskin embarrasses himself again, where he explains that Tiktaalik's status as a transitional form does not depend on us slotting it in a specific chronological time period as a link between two stages in the evolution of a lineage.

Why ID Is Useless

An interesting thing about Tiktaalik, is how Neil Shubin (its discover) managed to find it using a prediction of evolutionary theory.  In his post, Luskin quotes Shubin.  I’ll repost what Luskin quoted, but I’ll add a piece that he missed, from Zimmer and Shubin on Tiktaalik:

What evolution enables us to do is to make specific predictions about what we should find in the fossil record. The prediction in this case is clear-cut. That is, if we go to rocks of the right age, and the rocks of the right type, we should find transitions between two great forms of life, between fish and amphibian.

[…]

What we see when we look at the fossil record, at rocks of just the right age, is a creature like Tiktaalik.  Just like a fish, it has scales on its back, and fins. You can see the fin webbing here. Yet when we look at the head, you see something very different. You see a very amphibian-like thing, with a flat head, with eyes on top. It gets even better when we take the fin apart. When we look inside the fin, as in this cast here, what you’ll see is bones that compare to our shoulder, elbow, even parts of the wrist—bone for bone. So you have a fish, at just the right time in the history of life, that has characteristics of amphibians and primitive fish. It’s a mix. 

[My bold to indicate the bit that Luskin didn’t quote.]

Tiktaalik is undoubtedly transitional.  With gills, scales and fins it is a fish, but its fins, instead of having the many tiny bones normally found in fish, had fewer but sturdier bones in its limbs – bones similar in number and position to those of every land creature that came later.  Also, it had a flat head with eyes on the top like a modern amphibian, and it had a neck (which fish don’t have).  It also had spiracles (breathing holes) on the top of its head, which suggests it had primitive lungs, and it had stronger ribs that allowed it to pump air into these lungs.  Normal fish don’t need these because they breathe through their gills.

Luskin misses the point of all this with his “Tiktaalik, of course, is not a tetrapod but a fish” comment.  Typical creationist – scientist finds a transitional form (fish to tetrapod) and creationist insists it’s not transitional because it’s still either a fish or a tetrapod.  (Fish, in this case.)  Nothing would satisfy Luskin – regardless of what new fossils are found, according to Luskin they’ll either be a fish or a tetrapod but never a transitional.

Also, it is beyond question that Shubin used evolutionary theory to predict where he would find Tiktaalik.  He reasoned that if there were lobe finned fish but no terrestrial vertebrates 390 million years ago, and terrestrial vertebrates 360 million years ago, evolutionary theory would predict that you would find fossils of the transitional form in rocks around 375 million old (ie in between the two).  And you would find them in a freshwater area, since both lobe finned fish and early amphibians lived in freshwater.  So that’s where he looked.  And guess what?  That’s exactly where he found it. So evolutionary theory predicted where the fossil would be found.  Again, this all flies right over Luskin’s head:

The New York Times presaged Shubin's argument, first reporting on Tiktaalik that "the scientists concluded that Tiktaalik was an intermediate between the fishes Eusthenopteron and Panderichthys, which lived 385 million years ago, and early tetrapods. The known early tetrapods are Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, about 365 million years ago." But would neo-Darwinism have predicted true tetrapods from 397 million years ago? Definitely not

No, but then neither would Intelligent Design (ID) have predicted this.  The same way that ID didn’t predict Tiktaalik.  These new fossils were discovered by real scientist doing real science, not by creationists using “Intelligent Design.”  What this demonstrates is that science expands our knowledge while ID is completely vacuous and useless.  ID didn’t predict anything (neither Tiktaalik nor these new fossils) since ID is nothing but a bunch of ignorant whining about evolution.

Where do we go from here?  Well, clearly the creationists at the Disco-Tute will continue to miss the point entirely and claim that this discovery by real scientists somehow invalidates discoveries made by other real scientists.  Meanwhile, actual real scientists will use this new information as a springboard to investigate and learn more.  Philippe Janvier from the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris (reviewer of the paper on the newly found fossil) told CNN:

"The divergence between the tetrapods and their closest fish relatives is much younger than previously thought and it obliges us to find actual evidence -- skeletons or complete fossils -- in much earlier strata that could enlighten us between this divergence."

Real scientists will now do actual research on these new fossils so we can learn more about our past.  The difference between this and creationist poseurs such as Luskin, couldn’t be clearer.

Additional Reading

Jerry Coyne’s excellent book Why Evolution Is True has more on Tiktaalik and on transitional forms in general.

Barbara Loe Fisher wants A Fearless Conversation About Vaccination

Damn!  That’s another irony meter blown.  And it was the industrial version too.

Readers of Orac’s blog will already know that anti vaccinationist and founder of the The National Vaccine Information (sic) Center Barbara Loe Fisher is suing Dr. Paul Offit, Amy Wallace, and Condé Nast for libel, for their very reasonable (and factually correct) article in Wired about the anti-vaccine militia: An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.  As Orac wrote, suing people who you disagree with, instead of presenting evidence to support your case “sums up the attitude of all too many anti-science activists. They can't win on the science; so they try to suppress criticism through legal action.”  And as Orac wrote, Fisher’s selection of Virginia as the state to file her suit, means that the suit will not be thrown out under a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) statute – one designed to prevent lawsuits designed solely to silence debate – because Virginia doesn’t have such a statute.  (Hum.  Funny how she chose Virginia to file the suit when the three defendants live in Pennsylvania, California and New York.)

So why did my industrial strength irony meter blow?  Well, Barbara Loe Fisher just wrote a piece on the Age of Autism blog, entitled 2010 Needs A Fearless Conversation About Vaccination.  Well, yeah, because we’d all love to have a conversation free of the fear of a freaking lawsuit from Barbara Loe Fisher and her anti-vaccination loon friends.  It takes some serious chutzpah to call for a fearless discussion on your pet subject in the same week that you took out a lawsuit to silence the opposition.

Fisher’s post is quite astonishing.  In it she lists all the things she says people were scared about in the last decade – basically it’s just terrorism, but she draws it out by listing weaponized smallpox scares and bioterrorism, but also manages to include her pet project – vaccines.  So does she mean the false scare stories about vaccines – the false claims that they cause autism, or other problems?  You know, all the anti-vaccine scaremongering that has been covered on this blog and elsewhere?  Well, no.  Of course not.  Get a load of this:

The Decade of Fear began on September 11, 2001, a day of indescribable loss that marked the ending of so much. Among the losses was the end of a civil and substantive conversation about vaccine safety that had taken shape during the previous two decades 4 but which - after September 11, 2001 - was hijacked by fear.  [My bold.]

Zing!  Vaccines linked to 9/11 in one step.  (I hope she paid Rudy Giuliani his royalty.)

She ends:

Hopefully, 2010 will be the beginning of a fearless and fierce search for the truth about health and vaccination that will enlighten us all.

Yeah, “hopefully” scientists reporting the facts will be able to do so without fear of intimidation.  Unfortunately the new decade hasn’t started out with that hope, thanks to Fisher and her lawyers.  Of course, what Fisher really means is that she should be free of fear to promote her anti-vaccine nonsense.  People who disagree with her though – that’s another matter.

As a final irony in the “and fierce search for the truth” arena, I tried to leave a comment on Fisher’s blog pointing out quite politely that the conversation about vaccines might be more fearless if people like Barbara Loe Fisher didn't sue people who publicly disagreed with her.  Guess what happened.  (No prizes.)  It never made it through moderation.  I guess Fisher has found a way to deal with her fear of contradictory views – she just ignores them.

It’s only January 7th and we already have our first nomination for a 2010 Golden Woo.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

 

The Golden Woos #2

It’s the first post of the new year, and so time for the second annual Golden Woo Awards for outstanding work in the promotion of Woo in the previous year. These awards have been compared to the Golden Globes, and to Randi’s Pigasus Awards.  Admittedly, I am the only one making this comparison but no matter – the comparison has been made and therefore my statement is true.  So with no further ado, I give you The Golden Woos of 2010.

The scientist or academic who said or did the silliest thing related to Woo

For the second year running the award goes to Michael Egnor.  His article last January, Materialism of the Gaps, would have been enough by itself to win this award outright.  As I explained in my post Egnor's Dualism Of The Gaps, his silly arguments for dualism included:

1. Misuse of the “god of the gaps” argument: for some reason he thinks it applies to people who see no reason to propose dualism.  (As I wrote, it is a fallacy to insist that your explanation must include some unproven entity that you just made up; it is not a fallacy to exclude made up entities)
2. Circular reasoning: the mind must be non-material, because materialism can’t explain the mind because the mind is non-material.  Seriously.
3. Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

As I said, enough to win the award by itself.  But then he wrote Climategate: a Word of Advice to the Scientists – in summary, some scientists (may have) lied about global warming, therefore evolution is false.  Just breathtaking in its stupidity.

If Egnor wins this award again next year I’ll have to rename it “The Egnor” in his honor.

The funding organization that supported the most useless Woo study

The award is given to the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council for their $400,000 study on emergency room acupuncture.  This study is useless because it is not randomized, it has no blinding, there is no sham acupuncture and standard medical procedures will be used in addition to acupuncture.  Plus, we also know from numerous studies that have already been done, that acupuncture is nothing more than a placebo.

The media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous Woo claim (aka the “Larry King” prize)

After some considerable thought, I’ve decided to award The Larry to the entire media for their reporting on Rom Houben, the Belgian man who allegedly was fully conscious during a 23-year long coma.  I realize “the entire media” is a bit of a cop out, but honestly I haven’t been able to find any mainstream media outlet (maybe you can find one) that reported on this rationally. 

The outrageous woo claim here was not that the man had been conscious throughout the 23 years (opinions differ about how conscious he actually was/is); the woo claim is the “facilitated communication” (FC) – where a “facilitator” moves Houben’s hands across a keyboard and types out messages supposedly from him.  See these videos of this on CNN and on MSNBC – clearly the “facilitator” is doing the typing. Her eyes are constantly on the keyboard as she moves his hand from letter to letter; Houben's eyes are staring into the distance.  The best reporting I saw on this story was by Campbell Brown of CNN, but even she just left it that there was “skepticism” or “a controversy” around the FC.  (And she really has no excuse since we know her staff had contacted Hank Schlinger of the JREF, and had the whole FC nonsense explained to her in detail.)  But there is no controversy over whether FC is genuine – it is not.  Big epic FAIL from the entire media.

The Woo responsible for the most drivel containing the most logical fallacies (aka “The Chopra”)

Named for Deepak Chopra, for his achievements supporting woo with nothing but logical fallacies, above and beyond what can reasonably be expected of any human being.  As I wrote last year, Chopra is excluded from winning this award, otherwise no one else would ever stand a chance.  (Although that didn’t stop him from trying.)

The Chopra this year goes to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Dinesh D’Souza for their reliance on pure assertion coupled with arguments by analogy (but zero actual evidence) in the debate on the conflict between science and religion, “La Ciudad de las Ideas 2009 Re-Evolution” Festival debate.

Now, you can click that link and watch the actual debate if you want, but it is two hours long (and loads slowly) so probably most people won’t want to bother.  It does have some good arguments put forward by Sam Harris and Chris Hitchens, so take a look if you have the time.  But for those who don’t, I’ve highlighted just one of the poor arguments (from many made) from each of these clowns.

First, we have Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (1 hour 4min in) on why morality does too come from religion:

I know that Daniel Dennett is a very moral man, I know Sam Harris is a very moral man, and I know Christopher Hitchens is a very moral man, but their morality COMES FROM RELIGION.  It comes from the ten commandments” “do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery”…

Stunning!  Boteach’s entire argument to support his contention that morality comes from religion, is to state in a loud voice that morality COMES FROM RELIGION.  And it must be so because Boteach says it is.  Case closed then.  Wow, I never knew that debate could be so simple – just assert what you say is true and it’s true and the other person is wrong.  Period.  If only I’d known that when I started this blog, I could have saved myself a lot of effort in constructing valid arguments, reading papers, citing studies, etc.  I could have just asserted that I was right and be done. Wow – is my face red now.

Even better (and by that, I mean even more lame) is Dinesh D’Souza (28 min in), on why agnosticism is the “dumbest position of all” to take.  Get a load of this:

[Agnosticism] is actually the dumbest position of all.  And here’s why.  Imagine if you are dating a woman and trying to consider the question of, should you ask her to marry you.  Now the fact is you could use all the reasonable knowledge at your disposal but if you say “what is life with this woman going to be like for the next 50 years,” you can never know. So you say, “OK, since I cannot know I’ll be an agnostic – I’ll wait for the data to come in.”  But the data will never be in.  If you keep waiting, she will marry someone else or you’ll both be dead.

To start with, this is just argument by analogy (the weakest form of argument), with absolutely no evidence presented (as Sam Harris pointed out at least twice).  But even by argument by analogy standards, it’s weak.  In fact, it’s not even a valid analogy because D’Souza is making a category error – comparing two things that are actually not comparable because they are in different categories.  The question “does God exist” is a truth claim – either God exists or he doesn’t.  The question “should you ask a woman to marry you” is a plan of action – you’re trying to decide what to do in the future, what plan of action to take.  D’Souza’s muddled mind is comparing a truth claim to a plan - two things that are not comparable and so obviously can’t be analogs.  What D’Souza probably meant was to compare belief in God with whether I believe the woman will say yes if I ask her to marry me.  (I could be wrong – but I’m trying my hardest to construct a coherent argument from what D’Souza actually said.)  This is so obviously a false analogy, because if I want to know if the woman will marry me, I just have to ask her and presumably she’ll tell me and then I’ll know.  But if I want to know if God exists, there is no one I can ask – well, plenty of people I can ask, but no one who actually knows the answer.  (OK, D’Souza and Boteach think they know the answer, but they don’t, any more than I do.)  So even by D’Souza’s usual standards, this is a really bad argument.  And that’s saying something.

For these and the numerous other “arguments” put forward in that debate, Shmuley Boteach and Dinesh D’Souza are worthy recipients of this year’s Chopra.

Irony Award, for being completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of their own actions or words in defense of Woo

To Bill Maher for his piece in the woo journal of choice, The Huffingtom Post, entitled Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having.  Some snippets:

…its just that mainstream media rarely interviews doctors and scientists who present an alternative point of view. There is a movement to stop people from asking any questions about vaccines…

He’s complaining that the “alternative point of view” is not considered.

I feel its unnecessary and counterproductive to try and silence people with condescension.

Silencing with condescension is bad.

It may be the case that the vaccine should have been used anyway to finish polio off, but there are some interesting facts on the other side.

Should report “the other side.”  More in a similar vein, at the link.

So why is all this hypocritical?  Well, read what Bill had to say about the teaching of intelligent design, in his New Rules segment in August 2005:

And finally New Rule: You don't have to teach both sides of a debate, if one side is a load of crap.

[…]

…There aren't necessarily two sides to every issue. If there were, the Republicans would have an opposition party.

And an opposition party would point out that even though there's a debate, in schools, and government, about this, there is no debate among scientists.

[My Bold.]

Hey Bill Maher from 2005, go and tell that to Bill Maher in 2009 because that dude doesn’t have a clue!

Note, the award isn’t given to Maher because he doubts the value of vaccines.  It’s given because his argument is that we should consider the anti-vaccine point of view just because “the other side” should be heard.  If he gave real arguments against vaccines, his position wouldn't necessarily be hypocritical (it’d still be wrong, but not hypocritical).  But he doesn’t.  He just argues that both sides should be heard because, well, because they should. Except when they shouldn’t.

Maher shares his award with the Atheist Alliance International for awarding Maher the 2009 Richard Dawkins Award which is for (inter alia) increasing scientific knowledge.  Because what could be more ironic than presenting an award for increasing scientific knowledge to an anti-science kook like Maher?

Hitler Zombie Award (aka “The Godwin”) for appropriating Hitler to make the most outrageous Woo claim

The Godwin goes to The American “Tea Party” groups for their response to Obama’s (supposed) tax and health policies.  Examples are numerous, but I’ll choose the one below from the Huffington Post’s (yeah I know – they’re not necessarily wrong on everything) 10 Most Offensive Tea Party Signs:

Personally I don’t find it offensive, just stupid.

I’m not, in giving this award, commenting on whether I think they are right or wrong on these issues, and perhaps opposition to higher taxes / health reform isn’t technically woo.  But their repeated comparisons of Obama to Hitler in place of any valid arguments to support their case, means in my view that they are woos.  They are getting the award for their ridiculous and repeated arguing their case by making comparisons of Obama to Hitler. 

The most persistent refusal to face reality

The award goes to homeopath Thomas Sam, the who watched his daughter die of a curable disease while he repeatedly ignored what he was told by real doctors, to treat her only with magic water.

Of course, allowing his daughter to die that was was terrible, but understandable if you really believe in homeopathy, right?  We all make mistakes, yes?  Well maybe.  But Sam’s persistent refusal to face reality can be seen in his words, spoken just after he had been found guilty of his daughter’s manslaughter:

Conventional medicine would have prolonged her life ... with more misery. It's not going to cure her and that's what I strongly believe.

Yeah, because conventional medicine (you know, stuff that works) would have been even worse.  Sure.  Moron. 

The most ridiculous or bigoted act using religion as its justification

The award goes to Pope Ratzinger for arguing against condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS, as reported in Pope claims condoms could make African Aids crisis worse:

The pontiff said condoms were not the answer to the continent's fight against HIV and Aids and could make the problem worse.

[…]

The timing of his remarks outraged health agencies trying to halt the spread of HIV and Aids in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 22 million people are infected.

Rebecca Hodes, of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, sums up why Ratzinger deserves this award:

[Ratzinger’s] opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans."

… Or anything else.

Finally, a new category this year:

The Occam

For the woo responsible for the most egregious violation of Occam’s Razor.

An argument that violates Occam’s Razor is not necessarily wrong, since Occam’s Razor can’t prove something right or wrong.  But it is a principle that should not be violated without a very good reason.  If you do, it means you have invented some unnecessary entity or assumption that does not add anything to the explanation.  That is, your additional assumption does not explain anything any better, nor does it make any additional predictions, compared with the explanation that did not have the additional assumption. Consequently, your additional assumption is not useful in any way (so why make it?).

The inaugural Occam goes to (who else) Deepak Chopra, for his insistence that the brain does not create the mind.  Discussed here, also speaking at an Indian Astrology Conference Western science is frozen in the superstition of materialism: Deepak Chopra (the last link via PZ).  Chopra’s “everything that we call reality is in consciousness” (etc etc) does not add anything to our understanding of consciousness, and does not make one single additional testable prediction compared with the hypothesis that does not include a non-material mind.  We may not (yet) fully understand consciousness, but Chopra’s made up drivel doesn’t help us understand anything.

That’s it for this year.  Please link to any other woos you think deserve an honorable mention, in the comments.

January 2013 – Edited to add:

I just noticed that this post had been deleted somehow in 2012. I did have a copy saved that I was able to re-post, but unfortunately all the comments have been lost. My apologies – there is nothing I can do about that. If you want to read the comments, you can still see them via the Wayback Machine – click Golden Woos #2 with comments to see them.